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Only Words? Not this ‘UNIVERSAL LANGUAGE’ Sam Green uses visual poetry and other universal languages—music, gesture, and movement—to tell the story of Esperanto. To call Sam Green’s Esperanto documentary The Universal Language a film about a “failed experiment” would itself be en epic fail. It’s a film about hope, dreams, and a visionary in search of a better world. It’s a paean to a 19th- and 20th-century mass movement that may seem as odd and foolish in retrospect as it was vital and necessary in its time. It’s a love-letter to optimists, written in the strangely pragmatic language of Esperantists. It was developed in conjunction with a few other chapters of Sam Green’s vivid and engaging live-cinema performance Utopia in Four Movements, which premiered at Sundance in 2010 and has now played all over the world. Green has added a new chapter to his work on utopian thinkers, with the debut of the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art-commissioned Yo La Tengo-accompanied The Love Song of R. Buckminster Fuller May 1 during the San Francisco International Film Festival. We spoke with Green, whose Universal Language film is still traveling the festival circuit, last week. (Join us April 26 as we celebrate Sam Green and other Fandor filmmakers in the San Francisco International Film Festival with a cocktail party at Public Works, SF.) Keyframe: It’s really been a pleasure to watch your filmmaking, thinking, art and presentation evolve and grow over the years, and to see you emerge from the pack of documentary filmmakers to become such a stylized (I hate to use this word) ‘auteur.’ Was there an ‘aha’ moment for you in shifting to live presentation? With live music? (And I ask, because I saw elements of The Universal Language first as a live performance, in Utopia in Four Movements, workshopped at the Exploratorium in SF before debuting at Sundance, where I saw it again…!) Sam Green: An aha moment? Actually there were a couple. One came when a guy named David Dorfman got in touch with me a couple of years ago. I didn’t know it at the time, but he’s a pretty well-known choreographer. He said that he wanted to do a dance piece on the Weather Underground and wanted to talk about my film. I was a bit dismissive in my thoughts: ‘A dance piece on the Weather Underground? What a crazy idea!’ I had really struggled w/ that film to get all of the facts straight and to make it as clear as humanly possible. I felt a real historical responsibility. How could you do any of that with dance??? What about all the complex ideas that would need to be communicated? So needless to say, I didn’t have much hope for the piece. But when I saw it later at Yerba Buena Center for the Arts in San Francisco, I was actually blown away (no pun intended). It was fantastic! There weren’t any facts or figures, but it was still very powerful and deeply moving. Through light and movement and gesture and mood, David had been able to say a helluva lot. And it got me thinking about how different forms create different expectations with audiences. So when you see a documentary film on TV or go to see a doc in a theater, you expect a certain amount of linearity and clarity. That’s what we’ve come to associate with a documentary film. When you go to see a dance piece, you have a very different set of expectations. You expect a dance piece to speak to you in a much more abstract and poetic language. So seeing David Dorfman’s Underground was a pivotal moment for me. I became curious about different forms and the broader ways one can communicate with an audience. Another aha moment was seeing the live version of Guy Maddin’s Brand Upon the Brain. I loved that film and the ‘liveness’ was a huge part of the movie’s magic. Keyframe: The music and soundtrack—between the Quavers and Dave Cerf’s sounds—really convey an ‘elegiac’ tone, as I know others have commented. Can you talk about your musical collaborators and how you come up with sound ideas to contrast and support your visual and narrative ideas? When you see a documentary film on TV or go to see a doc in a theater, you expect a certain amount of linearity and clarity. That’s what we’ve come to associate with a documentary film. When you go to see a dance piece, you have a very different set of expectations. You expect a dance piece to speak to you in a much more abstract and poetic language. Green: I’m a huge fan of the Quavers and Todd Griffin’s music. With Esperanto, there’s something wonderful and inspiring about the language and the movement around it. There’s also something that strikes me as quite melancholy. It might be that because I’m Jewish I’m predestined to respond to certain emotional chords like this one. In any event, I worked with Todd and Dave Cerf for the score to The Universal Language. Todd ended up doing most of the tracks. By now we know each other well and have developed a very good and satisfying collaboration; we go back and forth a bunch of times on each track. Sometimes I drive him a little crazy. But Todd is very good at understanding what I mean when I say something nutty sounding like ‘Can you make that track a little bit more ‘smiley’?’ Keyframe: Esperanto, as a subject, offers you so many opportunities to reflect on the century past’s idealists and where the urge to transform large swaths of the public to a notion/religion/ideology came from. Can you offer a short primer for readers of this Q&A on Zamenhof’s original impulse and where it came from? And please remind us of the forces who literally killed human beings over their desire to speak Esperanto together. Those were startling facts. Ludwig Zamenhof grew up in the town of Bialystok, Poland, where there were four major ethnicities: Jews, Russians, Germans, and Poles. They all spoke different languages, and they all hated each other. There were even terrible pogroms. As a young man, Zamenhof had this inspiration that if people could speak a common language, they would see each other more as people—that this would help us to overcome war and racism. It was a wonderful vision. Green: So Ludwig Zamenhof grew up in the town of Bialystok, Poland (incidentally, that’s where Dziga Vertov was from, and Alan Berliner‘s family as well, but that’s a different story). During Zamenhof’s time, there were four major ethnicities in Bialystok: Jews, Russians, Germans and Poles. They all spoke different languages, and they all hated each other. There were even terrible pogroms where lots of people were killed. So it was a very bad climate. And as a young man, Zamenhof had this inspiration that if people could speak a common language, they would see each other more as people—that this would help us to overcome war and racism. It was a wonderful vision. He spent many years putting together the language and actually published a book laying out the grammar and vocabulary in 1887. The word Esperanto fittingly means ‘one who hopes.’ With Espernato it was kind of a ‘right place, right time’ scenario. The early 20th century was a time when people believed in the power of grand social experiments to transform the world. Many of these blossomed during that time: communism, mass production, the League of Nations. So Esperanto fit into that. And during the early part of the 20th century, there was a thriving world-wide movement of people who spoke the language and believed that it would become a ‘second language’ for the world. There still is a world-wide movement of people who speak the language today. But their hopes and expectations for Esperanto are more nuanced and perhaps tempered. Keyframe: It truly is moving to see such a wide variety of human faces—Japanese, Swedish, a New Caledonian, Israeli, Finn (the list goes on)—seeking true understanding through a shared language. The way your camera pauses on those faces pre-interview lets us fall in love with them a bit. Do you do your own camerawork? And, secondly: gestures, facial expressions, human movement (we can tell when someone is tired and shuffling, wearied, in any language): Are these our true Universal language? In a sense, the way your film looks at people tells us this. I ask, also, because I believe your partner works in dance, so am curious if that’s had an influence on you. Green: This is a good question. I actually love that non-verbal kind of communication in documentary. The gestures and facial expressions that people make can often be far more revealing and communicative than what a person is saying. So there’s a motif throughout the film of portraits of Esperanto speakers that Andy Black and I shot at a World Esperanto Congress in Yokohama Japan. I’ve always been struck by how profoundly diverse the Esperanto movement today is. And also the fact that Esperanto speakers are across the board nice people. No matter where they are from, they are nice. So I wanted these portraits to evoke some of that. And just showing the people in some ways is a much more compelling portrait of the language than what they might say about it—how they might sell the language themselves. Keyframe: Though we may want to believe we are the sole operators of our destinies, we live in another highly socially engineered era, the digital age. What do you predict will be the backlash against this one? Green: Hmmmm. A complicated question. The digital age is amazing and in many ways really is a utopia. Look at Wikipedia, or even Google images. I love Google images and feel like it’s now become a fantastic cultural treasure on the level of the Royal Library of Alexandria. But this is all a double-edged sword. People interact different with digital media than they do with traditional (tactile?) media. I know I do. In many ways, the digital media is throwaway stuff. There’s so much of it. I find myself approaching a song or movie on my computer with much less patience and sustained attention than I would a film in a theater or an album on a record player. Digital media is also far less social in the how it’s consumed. And this is something I definitely think people are reacting against. People seem hungry for live events still and the kind of human interaction and in-the-moment-ness that comes with that. Look at Pop-Up Magazine in SF. It’s phenomenally popular. This is the inspiration for the ‘live documentaries’ I’ve been doing. I love the magic of cinema—the feeling when the lights go down and you are in a room full of strangers and you give yourself completely to the movie. You are subsumed by this odd collective experience. By doing live cinema events, a filmmaker can keep his or her work in that context. Todd [Griffin] is very good at understanding what I mean when I say something nutty sounding like ‘Can you make that track a little bit more ‘smiley’?’ Keyframe: Are the linguists weighing in on your film? Where’s Noam Chomsky on all this? Green: Lingusts are often very dismissive of Esperanto. Many think that Esperanto can’t possibly be a ‘real’ language—hell, some eye doctor in Poland just made the whole thing up! There are other lingusts though that are interested in Esperanto and appreciate that it raises interesting questions about the nature of language and culture. And it also says much about language inequality in the world today—the way language is shaped by power and politics. Keyframe: Please remind me of what the Esperanto word for ‘female scoundrel’ is. Do you yourself have favorite Esperanto swear words? Green: The word for female scoundrel is Inacxo. There are lots of Esperanto words in general that I like. They often have a cool, sci-fi-ish sound to em. The word for the United States is Usono. ‘Hello’ is Saluton. Those are cool words! Keyframe: How can viewers find the hip-hop tune created by the native Esperanto speaker that closes your film? Green: Oh man, love that song. Who knew that a hip-hop song in Esperanto could be so catchy! And the lyrics are good too! That song is called ‘Nova Kanto’ and it’s by a Brazilian rapper named Tone. We have an interview with Tone (in both English and Esperanto) as well as lots of links to his stuff on the film’s website: esperantodocumentary.com. Susan Gerhard is the editor of Keyframe.
\|No.3 May 2007\| \|Crop Prospects and Food Situation\| Low-Income Food-Deficit Countries1/ food situation overview Prospects for the 2007 cereal crops deteriorate in North and Southern Africa FAO’s early forecast for the 2007 cereal production of the LIFDCs as a group points to a crop of about 883 million tonnes, marginally above the good level of 2006. However, when excluding China and India, accounting for some two-thirds of the LIFDCs’ aggregate cereal output, production of the remaining countries is seen to decline slightly, following two consecutive years of substantial increases, but would remain above average. Table 6. Cereal Production1 of LIFDCs ( million tonnes) 1 Includes rice in milled terms. Note: Totals computed from unrounded data. In Southern Africa, where the harvest of the 2007 main season coarse grains crops is well advanced, prolonged dry spells in parts, coupled with floods in others, have lowered outputs in all countries, except in Angola and Malawi, where a bumper crop is being gathered and an ample exportable maize surplus is anticipated. Sharp output reductions are expected in Zimbabwe, Lesotho and Swaziland, affected by severe dry weather, while in other countries the cereal output will still remain at normal or above-normal levels. In North Africa, rains in April arrived too late to benefit the winter wheat crop in Morocco, adversely affected by below-normal precipitation since the beginning of the season; the output is anticipate to decline by 50 percent from last year’s good level. In Egypt, the irrigated wheat crop is forecast to decrease but to remain at an average level. In Asia, prospects for winter crops, to be harvested from July, are overall favourable in CIS countries and in the Near East, where an increase in production is anticipated following good weather since the beginning of the season. In particular, in Afghanistan, despite localized losses due to flash floods, cereal output is anticipated to recover from last year’s drought-affected level. In the Far East, prospects for the 2007 wheat crops, about to be harvested, remain overall favourable. The subregion’s aggregate output of LIFDCs is forecast slightly above last year’s good level with larger crops in India, Pakistan and Nepal, more than offsetting lower outputs in China and Bangladesh. Elsewhere in the group of LIFDCs, planting of the 2007/08 main season cereal crops is underway or about to start in Eastern, Western and Central Africa, as well as in Central America. For countries of Africa, FAO’s early and tentative production forecast assumes a return to average growing conditions and a drop of cereal yields from last year’s record levels. Improvement in 2006/07 food aid allocations The aggregate cereal import requirements of the 82 LIFDC’s in marketing years 2006/07 or 2007 (calendar basis) are estimated by FAO at 89 million tonnes, some 1.5 million tonnes above the previous year’s actual imports. This reflects an increase of about 6 million tonnes of wheat imports in India, which more than offset lower volumes in most of the other LIFDCs, notably in North, Eastern, Southern and Western Africa, where record or bumper crops were gathered in 2006. As a result of this good performance, the LIFDCs’ total food aid requirements in marketing years 2006/07 declined by one-third from the previous season’s level, to some 4.5 million tonnes or about 5 percent of their total cereal import requirements. Based on information received in GIEWS by mid-April, 68 percent of the food aid requirements have been covered by donors’ deliveries of pledges. In Southern Africa, where countries have just entered their new marketing year, about 80 percent of the food aid needs were covered, while total imports reached 93 percent of FAO’s initial forecast level. In countries of North Africa and in the four countries of Latin America, food aid deliveries/pledges have more than covered the requirements in 2006/07. Good progress has also been made in countries of CIS Asia, where the new marketing year will start next July, as well in Western and Eastern Africa where the seasons only started in November last year and in January 2007, respectively. Table 7. Cereal import position of LIFDCs ( thousand tonnes) 1 The import requirement is the difference between utilization (food, feed, other uses, exports plus closing stocks) and domestic availability (production plus opening stocks). Utilization is based on historical values, adjusted upon assessment of the country’s current economic situation. 2 Estimates based on information available as of mid-April 2007. Note: Totals computed from unrounded data. 1. The Low-Income Food-Deficit (LIFDC) group of countries includes food deficit countries with per caput annual income below the level used by the World Bank to determine eligibility for IDA assistance (i.e. US$1 465 in 2003), which is in accordance with the guidelines and criteria agreed to by the CFA should be given priority in the allocation of food aid. \|GIEWS\|\|global information and early warning system on food and agriculture\|
The office of Jeff Hammerbacher at Mount Sinai's Icahn School of Medicine sits in the middle of one of the most stark economic divides in the nation. To Hammerbacher’s south are New York City’s posh Upper East Side townhouses. To the north, the barrios of East Harlem. What's below in the basement may be what's most interesting: Minerva, a humming supercomputer installed last year that's named after the Roman goddess of wisdom and medicine. It’s rare to find a supercomputer in a hospital, even a major research center and medical school like Mount Sinai. But it’s also rare to find people like Hammerbacher, a sort of human supercomputer who is best known for launching Facebook’s data science team and, later, co-founding Cloudera, a top Silicon Valley “big data” software company where he is chief scientist today. After moving to New York this year to dive into a new role as a researcher at Sinai’s medical school, he is setting up a second powerful computing cluster based on Cloudera’s software (it’s called Demeter) and building tools to better store, process, mine, and build data models. “They generate a pretty good amount of data,” he says of the hospital’s existing electronic medical record system and its data warehouse that stored 300 million new “events” last year. “But I would say they are only scratching the surface.” Combined, the circumstances make for one of the most interesting experiments happening in hospitals right now--one that gives a peek into the future of health care in a world where the amount of data about our own health, from our genomes to our Jawbone tracking devices, is exploding. “What we’re trying to build is a learning health care system,” says Joel Dudley, director of biomedical informatics for the medical school. “We first need to collect the data on a large population of people and connect that to outcomes.” To imagine what the hospital of the future could look like at Mount Sinai, picture how companies like Netflix and Amazon and even Facebook work today. These companies gather data about their users, and then run that data through predictive models and recommendation systems they’ve developed--usually taking into account a person’s past history, maybe his or her history in other places on the web, and the history of “similar” users--to make a best guess about the future--to suggest what a person wants to buy or see, or what advertisement might entice them. Through real-time data mining on a large scale--on massive computers like Minerva--hospitals could eventually operate in similar ways, both to improve health outcomes for individual patients who enter Mount Sinai’s doors as well as to make new discoveries about how to diagnose, treat, and prevent diseases at a broader, public health scale. “It’s almost like the Hadron Collider approach,” Dudley says. “Let’s throw in everything we think we know about biology and let’s just look at the raw measurements of how these things are moving within a large population. Eventually the data will tell us how biology is wired up.” Dudley glances at his screen to show the very early inklings of this vision of what “big data” brought to the world of health care and medical research could mean. On it (see the figure above) is a visualization of the health data of 30,000 Sinai patients who have volunteered to share their information with researchers. He points out, in color, three separate clusters of the people who have Type 2 diabetes. What we're looking at could be an entirely new notion of a highly scrutinized disease. “Why this is interesting is we could really be looking at Type 2, Type 3, and Type 4 diabetes,” says Dudley. “Right now, we have very coarse definitions of disease which are not very data-driven.” (Patients on the map are grouped by how closely related their health data is, based on clinical readings like blood sugar and cholesterol.) From this map and others like it, Dudley might be able to pinpoint genes that are unique to diabetes patients in the different clusters, giving new ways to understand how our genes and environments are linked to disease, symptoms, and treatments. In another configuration of the map, Dudley shows how racial and ethnic genetic differences may define different patterns of a disease like diabetes--and ultimately, require different treatments. These are just a handful of small examples of what could be done with more data on patients in one location, combined with the power to process it. In the same way Facebook shows the social network, this data set is the clinical network. (The eventual goal is to enroll 100,000 patients in what’s called the BioMe platform to explore the possibilities in having access to massive amounts of data.) “There’s nothing like that right now--where we have a sort of predictive modeling engine that’s built into a health care system,” Dudley says. “Those methods exist. The technology exists, and why we’re not using that for health care right now is kind of crazy.” While Sinai’s goal is to use these methods to bring about more personalized diagnoses and treatments for a wide variety of diseases, such as cancer or diabetes, and improve patient care in the hospital, there are basic challenges that need to be overcome in order to making this vision achievable. Almost every web company was born swimming in easily harvested and mined data about users, but in health care, the struggle has for a long time been more simple: get health records digitized and keep them private, but make them available to individual doctors, insurers, billing departments, and patients when they need them. There’s not even a hospital’s version of a search engine for all its data yet, says Hammerbacher, and in the state the slow-moving world of health care is in today, making predictions that would prevent disease could be just the icing on the cake. “Simply centralizing the data and making it easily available to a broad base of researchers and clinicians will be a powerful tool for developing new models that help us understand and treat disease,” he says. Sinai is starting to put some of these ideas into clinical practice at the hospital. For example, in a hint of more personalized medicine that could come one day, the FDA is beginning to issue labels for some medicines that dictate different doses for patients who have a specific genetic variant (or perhaps explain that they should avoid the medicine altogether). The “Clipmerge” software that the hospital is beginning to now use makes it easier for doctors to quickly search and be notified of these kinds of potential interactions on an electronic medical record form. On the prediction side, the hospital has already implemented a predictive model called PACT into its electronic medical record system. It is used to predict the likelihood that a discharged patient will come back to the hospital within 90 days (the new health care law creates financial incentives for hospitals to reduce their 90-day readmission rate). Based on the prediction, a high-risk patient at the medical center now might actually receive different care, such as being assigned post-care coordinator. Eventually, there will be new kinds of data that can be put in mineable formats and linked to electronic patient records, from patient satisfaction surveys and doctors’ clinical notes to imaging data from MRI scans, Dudley says. Right now, for example, the growing volumes of data generated from people’s fitness and health trackers is interesting on the surface, but it’s hard to glean anything meaningful for individuals. But when the data from thousands of people are mined for signals and links to health outcomes, Dudley says, it’s likely to prove valuable in understanding new ways to prevent disease or detect it at the earliest signs. A major limitation to this vision is the hospital’s access to all of these new kinds of data. There are strict federal laws that govern patient privacy, which can make doctors loathe to experiment with ways to gather it or unleash it. And there are many hoops today to transferring patient data from one hospital or doctor to another, let alone from all the fitness trackers floating around. If patients start demanding more control over their own health data and voluntarily provide it to doctors, as Dudley believes patients will start to do, privacy could become a concern in ways people don’t expect or foresee today--just as it has on the Internet. One thing is clear: As the health care system comes under pressure to cut costs and implement more preventative care, these ideas will become more relevant. Says Dudley: “A lot of people do research on computers, but I think what we’re hoping for is that we’re going to build a health care system where complex models ... are firing on an almost day-to-day basis. As patients are getting information about them put in the electronic medical record system there will be this engine in the background." [Image via Shutterstock]
Private aviation often plays victim to bad weather and hefty storage and maintenance fees. If light aircraft could double as road vehicles, pilots would have a more practical, safer way to fly. The Transition has wings that extend and retract electronically, allowing it to take to the air and then drive home from the airstrip on city streets (where it can hit 65 mph and gets 35 mpg). Says Terrafugia CEO and CTO Carl Dietrich: "People like to call it a flying car, but it's really a street-legal airplane." FAA standards require the Transition to weigh under 1,000 pounds when unoccupied. Carbon fiber and titanium, used for the fuselage and frame, have a higher strength-to-weight ratio than steel or aluminum. Despite its shortcomings, the Transition does solve one of the biggest barriers to personal aviation: high storage costs. It fits neatly into a standard home garage, saving owners up to $1,500 a month on the cost of a hanger. It also puts to good use the U.S.'s 5,200 public-access airports, most of which see too little traffic to justify car-rental kiosks or cab lines. 1. Pass future flight and drive tests. "We have to do things during testing that no pilot in their right mind would do," Dietrich says. The Transition is designed for casual cruising, but upcoming tests include aggressive acrobatics. 2. Ensure its street and sky legality. Federal motor-vehicle standards never imagined something that could drive and fly. "It either complies with multipurpose vehicle standards," Dietrich says, "or we've gotten exemptions." Terrafugia is working with insurance providers to design plans for the Transition. An initial run of 10 Transitions will roll out to customers once compliance testing is completed. After that, Terrafugia can ramp up production into the hundreds.
Contractor Sentenced in Espionage Case A Dangerous Betrayal The Case of the Cash Hungry Contractor \|East Tennessee Technology Park\| Two hundred thousand dollars—not a huge sum of money in return for betraying one’s country. But that’s exactly how much money Roy Lynn Oakley asked for when he attempted to sell stolen parts of uranium enrichment equipment to someone he thought was an agent of a foreign government. Oakley’s contact was an “agent” all right, but not from a foreign country—it was an undercover agent from the FBI. How it all began. In January 2007, our Knoxville office learned that Oakley—an employee of the East Tennessee Technology Park in Oak Ridge—was trying to sell restricted U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) materials. The East Tennessee Technology Park was formerly known as the K-25 building, a DOE facility that opened during the 1940s and produced highly enriched uranium used in the manufacture of atomic weapons. DOE later shut down the facility and contracted with a company—Bechtel Jacobs—to dismantle and demolish the plant. Oakley was an employee of Bechtel Jacobs. Working with DOE’s Office of Counterintelligence, we used sophisticated investigative techniques, interviews, and analysis of records to further pinpoint Oakley as a suspect. The next phase. To catch Oakley in the act, we began an undercover operation. Our agent contacted Oakley and told him he was representing a foreign government and had heard that Oakley was offering to sell some classified materials. During recorded phone calls, Oakley said he had stolen parts of the uranium enrichment fuel rods and other related hardware items from his place of employment that he was willing to sell for $200,000. Our undercover agent eventually agreed to the deal, and a face-to-face meeting was set up for January 26, 2007. Both parties showed up at the meeting place, money and classified components were exchanged, and Oakley was ultimately arrested and charged with violating the Atomic Energy Act of 1954. Oakley’s confession. So why did he do it? Not because of any anti-U.S. ideology. Not because he was angry at his employer. No, he did it purely for the money. Oakley wanted to retire from Bechtel during 2007 but was deep in debt and needed cash. He told us he took the materials home with him and kept them in a metal box…until he could find a buyer. In January 2009, Oakley pled guilty to trying to sell these materials. He admitted that he knew the items were “restricted” and that they play a crucial role in the production of highly enriched uranium which is used for atomic weapons (through what’s called the gaseous diffusion process). In June, he was sentenced in U.S. District Court in Knoxville to six years in prison. Upon Oakley’s sentencing, Knoxville Special Agent in Charge Rick Lambert said, “Bringing to justice the trusted insider who would betray America for private gain remains the FBI’s highest priority.” - FBI Counterintelligence
Comments on the Mattes Study - Mattes claimed to be using a "high dose" of coloring. However, the cookie provided by the Nutrition Foundation (and remember, this is an organization composed of additive and snack food producers and distributors) contained 13 mg of food dyes each. And they were identical to the placebo cookie. This means that there was TOO LITTLE color to change the color of the cookie!! If THAT is a high dose, how much coloring is actually in those colorful cookies and candies you buy in the store? Is it surprising that if you call the company and ask, they won't tell you? - Letter written to the Feingold Association from a mom whose child was in the Mattes study My daughter, Christine, was one of the children in the study. Points I remember: - Took a long time to do the study, because each time Chrissy got a "toxic" cookie she not only got hyper, but also got severe ear infections and sick. Her school work regressed, as much as it can in kindergarten. After school she was in a dance class the school sponsored, and after her "after school snack cookie" got so bad they called me to pick her up early. - I also remember getting a phone call after it was completed, telling me that 5 out of 6 of the children reacted to the "toxic" cookies and that Chrissy was definitely one of those children. The next day he published in Newsday that there was no significant proof. Even her teachers laughed. - In the report he states some of the children did not eat all six cookies. That is correct! After 2 cookies, Chrissy was nuts; after 4 my family was ready to drive me off a ships plank for agreeing to this mess; also Chrissy was ready to kill me. - As far as getting a cookie 1.5 hr before seeing him, only once did that ocur. I couldn't control her and drive the Long Island Expressway for 1.5 hours with her in a reaction.
Substantial evidence supports the BIA’s decision. While Zhang contends that she was persecuted when the village chief attempted to coerce her into marrying his son, and that she suffered this persecution on account of her membership in a particular social group, the alleged wrongs here do not rise to the level of persecution. Li Rong Zhang v. Attorney General of U.S., 2012 WL 3715337 (3rd Cir. 2012). As someone who is not anything close to an expert in asylum law, I can’t say that I agree with the Third Circuit’s conclusion. In Zhang, Li Rong Zhang petitioned for review of an order of the Board of Immigration Appeals affirming an Immigration Judge’s order removing her to the People’s Republic of China. Zhang claimed that the head of her village had threatened to put her in jail if she did not marry his son. The Immigration Judge, however, found that [B]ased on the testimony of the respondent[,] [e]ven if one were to find her testimony credible, the Court would find that she has not suffered past persecution. She was not forced into a marriage. She was not detained. [A] [m]arriage proposal, even by someone you detest, does not rise to the level of persecution. Respondent’s family was not involved in this threat….This was strictly, if you were to believe the respondent, the village head making proposals to her on behalf of his son. And even though he was a powerful individual, according to the respondent, the Court finds the proposals do not rise to the level of persecution. Respondent’s testimony regarding being taken away from her home and being threatened with detention is unsupported by any credible evidence and again, the respondent was able to escape and live with a relative undetected. With respect to future persecution, the respondent has been away from China for more than two years. It is inconceivable that the village head is still looking for her to marry his son. The respondent certainly could not have been the only single woman in the village. There is no evidence that the village head remains interested in having the respondent as a daughter-in-law. Th[e] statement that she would be forced to marry the son of the village head, were she to return to China, is purely speculative. The Board of Immigration Appeals thereafter dismissed Zhang’s appeal, finding that “[f]or all the reasons noted by the [IJ], we agree that [Zhang] failed to carry her burden of establishing that she has suffered past persecution or has a well-founded fear of future persecution on account of her race, religion, nationality, membership in a particular social group, or political opinion.” As noted in the block quote that led this post, the Third Circuit subsequently denied Zhang’s petition for review. So, why did the Third Circuit find that what Zhang faced and would face was not persecution? According to the court, Persecution is defined as “threats to life, confinement, torture, and economic restrictions so severe that they constitute a threat to life or freedom.” Fatin v. INS, 12 F.3d 1233, 1240 (3d Cir.1993). Persecution “does not encompass all treatment our society regards as unfair, unjust or even unlawful or unconstitutional.” Id. Here, Zhang was not forced into marriage. She received two allegedly coercive marriage proposals and was threatened with detention. But she was not forced to marry Li’s son against her will, she was not detained, and she was able to escape the perceived threat and reside with her aunt in another part of China without being detected. As for Zhang’s claimed fear of future persecution, we agree with the IJ that, without substantial further evidence, “[i]t is inconceivable that the village head is still looking for her to marry his son” several years later. Without evidence showing a reasonable likelihood that Zhang experienced past persecution or has a well-founded fear of future persecution,…we agree with the IJ and BIA that she has failed to demonstrate that she qualifies for asylum. Meanwhile, Judge Aldisert dissented, finding that a remand was appropriate so that a number of legal questions of first impression, including: (1) whether the experience of forced marriage is “immutable”; (2) whether the ability to choose one’s spouse is so fundamental to human conscience and dignity that one should not be deprived of that experience by a forced marriage; and (3) whether Zhang may even maintain a past persecution claim on this ground as someone who has never actually been “forced into marriage” at—all indeed, she fled before she wed. Again, I’m no expert in asylum law, so I have no answers to these questions, but I sure wish that the case would have been remanded to the BIA so that they could provide some answers. I will say, though, that I’m quite confused by the majority’s contention that Zhang could not have feared future persecution because “‘[i]t is inconceivable that the village head is still looking for her to marry his son’ several years later.” I have no idea whether this conclusion is factually accurate, but what I do know is that, if Zhang is to be believed, the head of her village threatened to jail her if she did not marry his son. Yes, Zhang escaped from this coerced marriage by fleeing her village, but what type of reception should she expect when she returns home? I would think that the man that threatened her with incarceration if he didn’t marry his son might make good on that promise. I’m reminded of the statement of Secretary State Madeleine Albright in the wake of embassy bombings in Kenya and Tanzania: “Our memory is long, our reach is far.”
\|Accelerating Infrastructure Innovations\| \|Federal Highway Administration > Publications > Focus > July 2007 > ProVAL Produces a Smoother Ride in Ohio\| \|July 2007\|\|Publication Number: FHWA-HRT-07-015\| ProVAL Produces a Smoother Ride in Ohio The Ohio Department of Transportation (ODOT) optimized its diamond grinding strategy and achieved a smoother ride on a highway construction project recently by using the Federal Highway Administration's (FHWA) Pavement Profile Viewing and Analysis (ProVAL) software. ProVAL allows users to view and analyze pavement profiles collected by inertial pavement profile measurement equipment. It is currently the only software application that can read data from numerous inertial pavement profilers and standardize the data using a common format (see November 2006 Focus). ProVAL's data format was recently adopted as an ASTM International standard, "E 2560-07: Standard Specification for Data Format for Pavement Profile." The new standard will be included in the 2008 Annual Book of ASTM Standards. ODOT had resurfaced the asphalt pavement on U.S. 23 in southern Ohio and put a new deck on a bridge but the ride was found by its area engineer to exceed the State's acceptable levels. "We decided to diamond grind to correct the problem. We used the diamond grinding simulator in ProVAL to optimize our grinding strategy and help us determine where to grind. It made us smarter about what we were doing," says Brian Schleppi of ODOT. ProVAL's simulation was right on target with the independent calculations performed by ODOT's contractor, Safety Grooving and Grinding, and the actual grinding that was ultimately done for the project. "I had been introduced to the program but we had never used it before," says Duff Parker of Safety Grooving and Grinding. "It could definitely help you pinpoint areas that needed corrective action. We will be using it in the future." Diamond grinding for ODOT's U.S. 23 project was performed on June 13, 2007. "Everyone was very pleased with the result," says Schleppi. "We were able to remedy the rideability issues." For the section of the bridge that had the worst ride problem, the International Roughness Index (IRI) calculation was 152. A lower IRI means a smoother ride. The ProVAL simulation predicted an IRI of 108 after grinding, with the actual result being 70. Similarly, the bridge's left wheel path had an IRI of 324, with a predicted result of 208 after grinding. The final result was 128. ODOT is requiring all of its contractors this year to use ProVAL to calculate pavement smoothness indices. ProVAL, which traces its origins to FHWA's Long-Term Pavement Performance Program, was first introduced in 2001 as a tool for processing and analyzing pavement profile data. Road profilers use lasers and other technology to measure pavement smoothness, as calculated using indexes such as IRI. ProVAL's new 2.72 version, developed by the Transtec Group, Inc., in Austin, Texas, reflects user requests for new features. Features first introduced in version 2.7 include the ability to customize the software to reflect user preferences. Users can change the main screen, for example, so that it displays the features they use and removes those not needed. Users can also customize the data input and automate the setup selections, as well as define and save specific settings that comply with agency specifications. Another new feature is the Profile Editor. Using this tool, users can edit and filter data sets instantly and export the results to other software programs such as spreadsheets. Version 2.72 has further improved the reporting and table exporting features and enhanced the ability to customize ride statistics. "ProVAL has gone a long way in optimizing diamond grinding," says John Roberts of the International Grooving and Grinding Association. "Whether it be a bridge deck or pavement, it removes the guesswork and produces a far better product at a far more inexpensive cost. It is a very innovative piece of software." To download a free copy of ProVAL or to learn more about the software, visit www.roadprofile.com. The Web site also features a list of frequently asked questions on using ProVAL, resource documents, links to more information on pavement profiling and pavement smoothness, and a user forum. To learn more about ODOT's use of ProVAL, contact Brian Schleppi at ODOT, 614-752-5745 (email: [email protected]). For more information on ProVAL, contact George Chang at Transtec, 512-451-6233, ext. 227 (email: [email protected]); Mark Swanlund at FHWA, 202-366-1323 (email: [email protected]); or Bob Orthmeyer at FHWA, 708-283-3533 (email: [email protected]). United States Department of Transportation - Federal Highway Administration
The short stories in Feathers in the Wind are like feathers blown about helter-skelter in, at times, a gentle breeze and sometimes in a powerful gale. The Nightingale Revisited tells of love found, then lost, and found again. In American Tolstoy, a struggling writer learns that life itself is the most intriguing story of all. In the light-hearted story For Mozart Lover's Only, we meet Mr. Klein, who loves Mozart's music more than anything else in the world, and it is through this love that he meets the beautiful Natalie Brown. Will they find their bliss humming Mozart tunes together? We read about a knight, who delights in threatening the lives of others, only to learn through a young boy that it is his own life that could have been ended by one stroke of a sharp razor In Vaya Con Dios, two elderly widows meet on a cruise ship and learn that this beautiful song played a deeply emotional role in both of their lives. These, and the other stories, take you from Chicago to the Mexican Riviera, from Vienna to Russia, and to many places in between. And in each story, Helmut Stefan makes it seem as if he is talking directly to you, just to you, inviting you to share the joys and sorrows of his characters who all, in some way, have touched his life, too.
Calories In Vs Calories Out: The Basic Formula Explained Written By: Suzanne Hiscock In a world run rampant with fad diets, quick fixes and bogus claims, the most basic formula for weight loss has become lost in all the noise. Cries of “Why am I gaining weight?” are being answered with complicated eating habits: - Eat this. - Don’t eat that. - Eat this with that. - Don’t eat this with that. It gets so confusing, don’t you think? But when you understand the basic formula for weight loss, you’ll never be at the mercy of the diet companies again. Let me take you back to the basics: What is a Calorie, Anyway? When it comes to weight loss, a calorie is simply a measurement of energy. You usually hear the word calories used in two ways: 1) You hear it used in relation to food, as in, “That apple has 100 calories.” 2) You also hear the word calories in relation to calories burned, as in, “Walking burns 100 calories.” When it comes to the food you eat, I want you to think of those calories as calories IN. You’re taking IN those calories; you’re taking in that “energy.” When you eat a large apple, you’re taking IN 100 calories. When you eat 3 ounces of chicken you’re taking IN about 140 calories. So, I want you to think of the food you eat as CALORIES IN. When it comes to your body and the energy it uses, I want you think of that as calories OUT. You’re burning and using up that energy just like a car burns gasoline or like wood burning in a fireplace. Your body is constantly burning calories for energy – even when you’re sleeping. Everything that your body does to stay alive burns energy. So, that’s your calories OUT. Calories In Vs. Calories Out Which brings us to a very basic weight loss concept: When healthy, non-pregnant adults eat more calories than their body can use, their body will store those extra calories as fat. Here’s the basic equation: Calories In MINUS Calories Out = Energy Balance When it comes to fat loss, you want to create a negative energy balance — also known as a calorie deficit. When you create a negative calorie balance/calorie deficit, your body will burn your stored fat for energy. For example, if you eat 2300 calories (calories in) but burn only 2000 calories (calories out), you create a positive energy balance of 300 calories. Do that every day and you’ll gain around 1lb every 12 days. 2300 – 2000 = +300 (positive energy balance/weight gain) But, if you eat 1700 calories a day and burn 2000 calories a day, you create a negative calorie balance (-300). Do that every day and you’ll lose 1lb in about 12 days. 1700 – 2000 = -300 (negative energy balance/weight loss) Your body is complex, no doubt about it. And there’s a lot going on as you move, sleep, digest and exercise throughout the day. Your body is busy repairing cells, building muscle and, well, just keeping you alive. Your body will do different things with the different types of calories you eat, too. But I don’t want you to lose sight of this very basic fact: if you eat more calories than your body can use, it will store the extra calories as fat. You can eat the healthiest foods, but if you take in more calories than your body needs, you will gain weight. Create a Calorie Deficit (Negative Energy Balance) What you want to do to lose weight is to choose a daily calorie goal that will create a safe and healthy calorie deficit for you. This is done using a formula that calculates the amount of calories your body burns in a day and then subtracting a certain amount of calories. But don’t worry! I have a calorie deficit calculator you can use, so you won’t be doing any math. This daily calorie goal is different for everybody and it’s a goal that will change over time. But you need start somewhere and then adjust as time goes on. Never Go Too Low Before we get to the calorie deficit calculator there’s an important point I want to make. When it comes to creating a calorie deficit and setting a daily calorie goal, don’t go too low. This is critical. Your body needs a certain amount of calories to function properly. Women should eat at least 1200 calories or more a day; men should eat at least 1800 calories or more a day. Use the FitWatch Calorie Deficit Calculator You can use the the FitWatch Calorie Deficit Calculator to create your own daily calorie goal. If you have a FitWatch Calorie Tracker account, you can set your daily calorie goal in the tracker. What you’ll do is select your gender and then type in your weight, height, age and your activity level. When you click the “Calculate” button, the calculator will give you a few different calorie deficit goals. For the average person, I recommend a calorie deficit of 15% to 20%. That’s a moderate calorie deficit. You can round the number up or down, if you’d like. So, if you see something like 1785, you can round it up to 1800 or down to 1750. Here’s a quick example. For a woman who is 200lbs, five feet five inches tall, 35 years old and lightly active, the estimated amount of calories her body burns in a day is almost 2300 calories. In order for her to create a moderate calorie deficit to lose weight, she could eat anywhere from 1800 to 1900 calories a day. Now you know the basics of calories in vs. calories out. Create a daily calorie deficit goal that’s right for you to lose weight at a steady — and safe — pace and never be at the mercy of a fad diet again. Just a quick side note: With this article, I wanted to explain the basic concept of creating a calorie deficit. There’s more to calories than just in/out. Quality of food and other factors come into play. But knowing the basic concept can go a long way to helping you understand weight loss. \|« Previous Post\|\|Next Post »\|
day 339 is December 5, non leap year. this is the day the visitation from God started in 1997. one of the major core concepts to come out of the years that followed was the role Jared the patriarch (Enoch's father) plays in the last days study. His name means Descend. the first appearance of the Strong's 339h word Isles is found in: "By these were the isles of the Gentiles divided in their lands; every one after his tongue, after their families, in their nations." years ago I read a book by John Walvoord where he speculates that these "Isles" are the United States. I think when the Descending of the Lord begins (1 Thess 4:16), there's a division coming. this division may be of many things, one of which is countries. I know that Jared numbers are associated with dividing things into two parts. like maybe countries. like maybe the USA. before I read the Genesis 10:5 verse, and looked at it's word by word break down as found here: ... I thought to myself, "If there is a real division of countries coming when the Lord Descends then one of these three numbers should appear in this verse, Genesis 10:5" 214, the hebrew gematria of Jared 527, the age Jared is when Enoch his on is 'taken'. 416, the greek gematria of Jared, which matches 1 Thessalonians 4:16, the Lord Himself shall 'descend' .... this proved correct. word six has an in-text gematria of 416
The South Florida Water Management District (SFWMD) has embarked on a process to potentially declare some conservation lands as surplus, and subsequently sell or trade them, or dedicate lands to uses other than the conservation purposes for which they were purchased. Unlike the Land Assessments recently conducted by the St. Johns River Water Management District and Southwest Florida Water Management District, the staff at SFWMD is not releasing a information that reveals which parcels may be proposed to be declared surplus. Instead, SFWMD is starting by asking for public comments on ALL of its conservation land holdings. This presents a certain danger, in that it is possible the district could interpret “no response” from the public in regard to a particular parcel as “disinterest”, or an indication that the public, environmental and conservation organizations, do not care enough about that parcel to comment. Such parcels where “people don’t seem to care” could be at a greater risk for surplus disposal. SFWMD is dividing the district up into several “Land Assessment Regions”, and is starting the evaluation in the northern reaches of the district, in the “Northern Lakes” district which consists of the Kissimmee Chain of Lakes area in Orange, Osceola, and Polk Counties. We at Audubon Florida believe all of the listed properties should be retained in public ownership as conservation land; they constitute the true “Headwaters of the Everglades”. Properties being studied for possible surplus declaration include the Lake Tibet-Butler Preserve, the Shingle Creek floodplain properties in Orange County and Osceola County, the Lake Marion Creek and Reedy Creek floodplain tracts in Osceola and Polk Counties, and the SUMICA conservation area in Polk County. Comments on these properties are being solicited until the end of business on February 11th, 2013. It is essential that the SFWMD receive substantial comments from numerous organizations and individuals evaluating these properties and recommending their retention as Conservation Lands. Comments should expressly recommend that properties not be declared surplus, and should state in particular why retention of these properties serves the “core missions” of the SFWMD: Flood Control, Water Quality protection/improvements, Water Supply, Natural Resource protection and restoration. Comments MUST be submitted through the electronic forms on the District’s Web Page. You can access the web page, review detailed descriptions and many photographs of each of the properties, and submit comments at:
See Also: Ancient Maya & Turkey; Let’s Talk Turkey; 2 Hour Turkey Recipe; Turkey Tips; Turkey Recipes; Stuffing Recipes; Turducken; Turkey Trivia; Turkey Quotes; Thanksgiving Trivia; Thanksgiving Quotes; Stuffing Article; etc. The flightless, huge, ugly-looking, domesticated turkey is more popular in North America than anywhere else in the world. Indigenous to the Americas, wild turkey is a majestic, fast running bird more of interest to hunters than butchers. It was domesticated around 10 B C – 10 A D by Aztecs who ate its meat, and used its feathers for ornamentals purposes. According to accounts, they staged a turkey festival every 200 days and traded approximately 900 – 1000 birds daily in their markets. Mayan royal feasts included turkey wrapped in corn tortillas. By the time conquistadors arrive in the Americas, turkey had become the staple meat of Mayans, Aztecs, Incas and other indigenous peoples. Both H. Cortes and C. Columbus tasted turkey and found the meat tasty enough to take a few specimens to Spain. Soon turkey was popular amongst the European aristocracy due to its less stringy texture. Up to that time, nobility ate peacock and pheasant both of which have stringy flesh. From Spain, turkey spread to France and Italy, but today Europeans eat much less turkey than North Americans do. Further east in the Middle East, turkey never really gained popularity although there are flocks that are paraded in residential streets. When a customer buys a bird, it is slaughtered right on the sidewalk and plucked. Not a pretty sight! By the 16th century, British referred to the bird as turkeycock, but the origin of the word unclear. In India, turkey is called tuka by the Tamils (a south Indian people who were brought to Sri Lanka for tea picking). Today there are Indian and Sri Lankan Tamils), some claim the name comes from the guttural sound turkeys make, others call it hindi for Indian believing the bird came from there. The French call it dinde (also meaning from India = d’Inde which was eventually abbreviated) and a small specimen dindon, whereas South Americans refer to it as peru. When the Pilgrims sailed to North America in 1620, they actually took a few domesticated turkeys with them in the Mayflower. There is however, a huge difference between the wild and domesticated turkey. In the wild the bird is fast (up to 40 kilometres), its eyesight and hearing are sharp. Although unattractive looking, the male has an iridescent plumage. During the day wild turkeys forage for seeds, berries, buds and grubs (even a little snake, frog or lizard may be a meal on occasion), and at night they fly into trees to roost. Benjamin Franklin so admired turkeys that he proposed it as the national bird and when the eagle was chosen he was reportedly extremely disappointed. Thousands of hunters pursued the wild turkey so persistently that by 1930 there were fewer than 30,000 specimens in the U S A. The wild bird was hunted to extinction in 1902 in Ontario. Conservationists introduced turkey in the wild successfully and today every province has a sizeable flock. In the USA all states boast large inventories except Alaska. Pelee Island, the most southerly landmass in Canada, has sizeable wild turkey population attracting hundreds of turkey hunters. Commercially available turkey is completely different. It is specifically bred for its huge breast and tender meat. (Broad Breasted White was bred in the 1950’s for commercial use and today constitutes the majority available). It cannot fly at all, it cannot even run as it is too heavy and cannot mate due to the size of its breasts. Turkeys must be artificially inseminated in huge farms that resemble manufacturing plants. Although the natural colour of the turkey is black, commercial species are white-feathered. Most birds reach 10 Kg live weight in 15 weeks due to the constant availability of formulated feed and ample water. The food is designed to retain water in the body. Consequently roasting loss is significant. Turkey meat is naturally dry; because the bird does not have a chance to create a fate layer that actually provides taste. For this reason carcasses are injected with vegetable oil solutions, water and salt to render it “self basting” an insult to the wild turkey. Many people are now trying to revive breeds like Narragansetts, Bombon reds and Bronzes that resemble the original turkey. In restaurant kitchens whole turkeys are used for Thanksgiving-, Christmas- and special dinners. Many chefs buy turkey rolls, which are available in various shades, white, dark or blended. Then you can buy sausages, breast or legs. Needless to say the natural taste and texture has been completely altered in an attempt to increase production and reduce market-ready weight growth time to I crease profits. Fortunately, a small fraction of food enthusiasts can differentiate between taste and texture and facsimiles thereof. They have started fighting to reverse the trend. Article contributed by Hrayr Berberoglu, a Professor Emeritus of Hospitality and Tourism Management specializing in Food and Beverage. Books by H. Berberoglu Please feel free to link to any pages of FoodReference.com from your website. For permission to use any of this content please E-mail: [email protected] All contents are copyright © 1990 - 2014 James T. Ehler and www.FoodReference.com unless otherwise noted. All rights reserved. You may copy and use portions of this website for non-commercial, personal use only. Any other use of these materials without prior written authorization is not very nice and violates the copyright. Please take the time to request permission.
Alaska schools highlight local menu items Local program funded by state grant. Dec. 17—Salmon and halibut on a school lunch menu has been happening in Juneau, Ala., as the school district looks for healthier and more local foods for kids. Juneau schools in August received a state grant to help fund Alaska Grown lunches. The school district plans to expand the program, but for now students, staff and suppliers are still getting used to the new meals. Students flood the hallways as lunch starts at Thunder Mountain High School. They congregate at the lunch line, speeding through so they can sit and socialize. Most choose pizza, or a cheeseburger, but 18-year-old Alora Pilgrim picks up halibut with broccoli and red potatoes.
Back on the 'menu'? Company starts polystyrene recycling program at Penn State. For those of you who, like me, believed that polystyrene recycling was virtually dead in non-commercial foodservice, apparently it still has a pulse. I received a press release late Wednesday afternoon from Dart Container Corp. announcing that the campus dining program at Penn State University is working with Dart to recycle polystyrene. The effort, the newest part of Penn State’s sustainability initiative, will take place in the university’s dining commons as well as several retail outlets. Bins into which students and other customers can dump their polystyrene will be installed in foodservice facilities, The polystyrene will be collected and sent to the university’s Office of Physical Plant, which has a recycling center. OPP employees will condense the polystyrene, which will then be picked up at Dart and taken to its headquarters, in nearby Lancaster, Pa., to be melted down and made into other useful articles. I’ve not yet had a chance to talk with Penn State officials about this, so I’ll have more in the days to come. Back in the late 1980s, polystyrene recycling was hailed as the next “big thing” in the environmental movement. The petroleum-based material was going to collected in great quantities and remade into thousands of useful articles such as park benches. The reality, as it turned out, was that it apparently cost more to collect and process the polystyrene than was profitable. So the initiative slowly seemed to die away. I know in New York City, where dozens of items are listed as “must recycles,” polystyrene is no longer in favor. Does this move by Penn State signal a swinging of the pendulum back in a positive direction? We’ll see.
latest boardroom guests v St Mirren Dundee Survival Group are the latest visitors to Dens Park under the Community Initiative. For over 30 years, DSG provide a service to homeless people living in and around Dundee, not just providing a place to stay, but also vital support services. Dundee FC Supporters’ Society spoke with Morag Maich about the work of DSG, and the services they provide.‘From its’ inception in 1982 our aim at Dundee Survival Group has been to aid the rehabilitation and resettlement of the single homeless in Dundee and its environs. We are committed to helping all single homeless people regardless of age, ethnicity, gender, race, religion or of any other opinion.’ ‘Although our clientele has changed since 1982 it is still often the most vulnerable in society who we house at DSG. Oftentimes the provision of accommodation is not enough to make sure people can conquer homelessness. Homelessness is often a symptom of complex needs including addictions, mental health, and relationship breakdown. Many of our service users present with significant issues and often particularly challenging behaviours. Many have problems with subsance misuse, mental health, social problems and physical disabilities although not all do. Many homeless people carry with them the distressing experiences they have suffered which led to their homelessness in the first place. Often homelessness is combined with high levels of poverty and poor health.’‘At DSG we help by providing temporary supported accommodationThe accommodation is self-contained, fully furnished flats and furnished single bedrooms. Service users who reside in our bedroom accommodation are provided with 3 meals a day, a residents’ TV lounge, tea and coffee and laundry facilities. Some of these service users require a high level of assistance from our support workers but not all. Service users housed in flats are usually more independent and as such are expected to budget, shop and cook for themselves and maintain the flat in a tenable condition. These service users can and do come from all walks of life. We provide support to all residents by trained and qualified support workers. All service users are allocated a key worker when they arrive and they will receive practical and emotional aid and assistance from that person throughout their stay.’ ‘DSG works alongside many other services, both statutory and voluntary including social work, local drug and alcohol projects, training projects, voluntary projects and local council projects. Service users who are not in employment or studying have the opportunity to and are encouraged to attend various training and voluntary schemes. We have a private medical room which is used by the “Health and Homeless Outreach Team” which visits us every month. We regularly run AA and NA meetings and invite a variety of agencies along to offer help and support to our service users.’ ‘There are many negative consequences as a result of homelessness. Poor physical and emotional health is often at the top of the list. Homeless people often encounter a lot of health issues in their lives. Their health gets worse from time to time because they lack attention from doctors, friends and family members. People who are living “rough” encounter further problems such as cold injury, abuse, assault and nutritional deficiencies. The general public usually have misconceptions about homeless people. These misconceptions are oftentimes based on inaccurate information presented by the media or anecdotal evidence. However the homeless population in Dundee is as varied as the reasons why people become homeless. According to recent Scottish Government statistics the main reason for homelessness is the result of a relationship breakdown. This may mean the paternal relationship, a marriage or life partner or a friendship. The largest group of people who are homeless are single adults without resident children, aged between 25 -35. Some may have been living rough for a while; others may have been recently released from prison or hospital; they may have recently left the armed forces; some become homeless because they are escaping violence in their homes and others due to relocation for employment reasons. Not all homeless people have issues with substance misuse and they are not all in receipt of benefits. They do not live with us for free and are expected to pay rent and a service charge.’ ‘People who use our service usually have very little or no belongings beyond clothing and some personal items. We can provide all they need whilst they are residing with us (in both bedroom and flat accommodation) such as beds, bedding, sofa, cooker, fridge, carpets and kitchen utensils. We receive no government funding for this. All these items are either purchased through funds raised or are donated by companies or members of the public. We keep costs down through buying reconditioned items or by trawling recycling sites which offer items free. Despite this the cost o f replacing items is increasing. We are always in need of good quality furnishings and working white goods as well as toiletries and warm clothing.’ If you feel you could donate any of the above goods please feel free to contact me at [email protected]. If you are an internet shopper you can donate to us just by doing your regular shopping online. It won’t cost you any money and you’ll be helping us raise much needed funds. To find out more go to:www.easyfundraising.org.uk/causes/dundeesurvival Dundee FC Supporters’ Society would like to welcome Dundee Survival Group to Dens Park, and would once again urgeour supporters to take some time to catch up with another local charity doing fantastic work to help the homeless in the Dundee area. Source: Dundee Mad Related Dundee News
The university was founded in 1908 when a local YMCA in Youngstown, OH, started offering college courses on law, business and engineering. The university adopted its current name in 1955. It offers more than 115 undergraduate majors as well as more than 30 graduate programs. Youngstown State has six fraternities and seven sororities. The 145-acre campus is home to five university residence halls and a $12 million fitness center. The Ward Beecher Planetarium at Youngstown State is free and open to the public and features a new state-of-the-art dome video system called the Spitz SciDome. The number of female faculty in the YSU College of Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics has increased more than 40% in the last seven years, part of a concerted effort to boost the presence of women in the college's student and faculty ranks. The university competes in NCAA Division I athletics.
There are often questions about how to identify the 1932, 1933, and 1934 Model B, BB, and Model 46 Pickup cabs. The cabs were similar but different each year. The major differences relate primarily to firewalls, back panels, and fuel tanks. Pictured above is the 1932 Model B and BB truck cab. The most distinguishing feature of this cab is that it uses the same separate firewall as the Model B cars. The separate firewall design is used only on 1932 cabs. Pictured above is the 1933 and 1934 style Model BB and Model 46 cab with the integral welded firewall. This firewall is not removable, and is unique to truck cabs. The pic above shows the back panel of a 1932 cab, which was also similar to 1933. Contrast this with the next pic of a 1934 back panel. The last pic above shows the 1934 cab backpanel. For 1934, Ford added another wide reveal molding shape above the previous moldings in the back panel stamping. This was done to stiffen the back panel and reduce noise and drumming.
- New Issue - Books & Reviews - About Us Poverty From the Ground Level Why are some countries rich and others poor? Differing accounts put more or less weight on the role of policies, geography, culture, history, and international interventions. Only by answering this question can one decide how best to reduce poverty in low-income countries. Yet few debates about public policy are more contentious. More than half a century of intensive efforts to improve the lot of the poor in the developing world has had mixed success. Although some countries, such as China, have made enormous progress in reducing poverty, many others have languished. Today, most estimates suggest that more than one billion people live on less than $1.25 per day. Poverty presents both a moral and an intellectual challenge. No one can fail to be moved by seeing the slums that plague so many parts of the developing world. And the fact that one can travel a few hours by plane and find extremes of wealth and deprivation at either end of the journey is an insult to economists' notions of rationality, efficiency, and equity. There is no greater challenge to the discipline. Yet traditional economics alone is not enough to grasp the problem fully. I learned this at a pivotal moment early in my career when a senior colleague asked me about my research interests. I proudly listed development economics among them -- and was promptly deflated when he told me that he, too, had once been interested in development, until it dawned on him that most of the problems of the developing world were political and so he did not have the necessary expertise to study the issue. Thankfully, the field of economics has changed a lot in the years since, and issues of politics and economics are routinely interwoven when trying to understand persistent poverty.
By D.R. Bartlette Fayetteville Free Weekly As holidays go, Valentine’s Day just doesn’t fit in. Sure, we have secular holidays to honor mothers, fathers, veterans and even administrative professionals. And although these holidays generally require the purchase of flowers or a dinner out, they are tame, family-friendly affairs. Valentine’s Day doesn’t fit in with any religious holidays, either. Most of these can be observed in a church or with your family over a big dinner. But, Valentine’s Day is the one holiday devoted to love, romance and, yes, sex — not exactly the kinds of things associated with the church. Despite cutesy classroom parties with pink cupcakes and chalky conversation hearts, Valentine’s Day is a decidedly adult holiday. The background on Valentine’s Day is sketchy at best. Officially, Pope Gelasius declared St. Valentine’s Day as a church holiday in 498 C.E. The problem is, there were at least three St. Valentines that it could have been named for. The most popular choice was a priest who lived in the 3rd century C.E. The Roman Emperor Claudius, seeing how lovesick his soldiers were when separated from their wives on long campaigns, declared marriage illegal. St. Valentine, defying the emperor, married young couples in secret. St. Valentine was captured and ordered to be executed. While he was in jail, many of the couples he had married would visit him, leaving gifts and flowers. Legend has it that during his imprisonment, St. Valentine fell in love with his jailer’s daughter. As he was being led to his execution on Feb. 14, he passed a note to the woman he loved and signed it, “Your Valentine.” Some think the holiday has much older origins — going back to the Roman Lupercalia, usually celebrated around Feb. 13-15. The holiday was a purification and fertility ritual involving a goat sacrifice and some light lashing — a far cry from today’s tender rites. There was rumored to be a sex lottery associated with this holiday as well — all the single women put their names into a large urn for the local bachelors to draw — but scholars say there is no real evidence for this. It turns out that Valentine’s Day may be the creation of — who else? — a poet. Not just any poet, mind you, but Geoffrey Chaucer. Before Chaucer’s time in the High Middle Ages, there was no connection between St. Valentine’s Day and romantic love. In fact, the first recorded association between the two was in Chaucer’s 1382 “Parlement of Foules”: “For this was on St. Valentine’s Day/When every bird cometh there to chase his mate.” In Great Britain, Valentine’s Day didn’t really get popular until the 17th century. Back then, there was a custom of drawing lots; when you drew someone’s name, you had to give them a gift and a title, such as: “Most Courteous and Most Faire.” One superstition held that the first single person of the opposite sex that you met on St. Valentine’s Day morning was destined to become your spouse. By the mid-18th century, it was common for friends and lovers to exchange tokens of affection, and by the end of that century, printed valentines had replaced handwritten notes. It was around 1847 that Esther Howland of Worcester, Mass., made the first mass-produced valentines of embossed paper and lace. Now, according to the American Greeting Card Association, Valentine’s Day is second only to Christmas in greeting-card sales. The heart symbol found on most valentines became popular in Victorian times. As a symbol for love, and the human heart, it is enigmatic. It looks nothing like a human heart, so why is it called a “heart” and associated with love? There are at least two theories on its origins. One theory states that it comes from Africa — the shape strongly resembles the shape of the seed pod of the plant silphium. Silphium was used as a contraceptive and was so popular that it was harvested into extinction. Another theory states that the heart shape isn’t meant to represent a heart, but rather the vulva. Either way, it seems as though this symbol was originally associated with a very different organ than the one it is now. Like Christmas has Santa Claus, Valentine’s Day has Cupid, the Roman god of erotic love and beauty. Said to be the son of Venus, Roman goddess of love, and Mars, Roman god of war, he is usually portrayed as a baby or child. Sometimes he’s shown blindfolded, as a metaphor for the idea that “love is blind.” He is said to be fickle and playful, and he delights in playing pranks on unsuspecting humans and gods. He carries two sets of arrows: one gold-tipped set, which inspires love, and one lead-tipped set, which inspires hatred. The Greeks and Romans also associated red roses with their goddesses of love and sex, and since ancient times, the rose has been a symbol of love and beauty — a fitting gift for a romantic occasion. Chocolate came to us from the Aztecs of central Mexico. It was called xocolatl (pronounced shock-o-LOT-el) and was associated with Xochiquetzal (pronounced sho-chee-KET-zel), the Aztec goddess of fertility. The Spaniards brought chocolate back to Europe in the 16th century, and it quickly became a favorite in the royal palaces and courts. It has long been thought to be an aphrodisiac — the emperor Montezuma was said to eat copious amounts of cocoa beans to fuel his romantic exploits. According to the New York Times, chocolate contains two chemicals that may contribute to its spicy reputation. One, tryptophan, is a building block of serotonin, a brain chemical involved in sexual arousal. The other, phenylethylamine, a stimulant related to amphetamine, is released in the brain when people fall in love. Its aphrodisiac effects, however, have not been verified. According to the New York Times, most researchers believe that those chemicals are present in amounts too small to have any measurable effect on arousal. Perhaps, researchers believe, chocolate’s arousing qualities are more psychological than physical. Or, perhaps it’s simply due to the sensual pleasure of eating it. As for the heart-shaped box they come in, Richard Cadbury, son of the founder of Cadbury’s, is credited with its invention in 1868. Today, Valentine’s Day is celebrated in the U.S., Canada, Mexico, the U.K., France and Australia. It is a $14 billion industry, with some 180 million red roses, 36 million heart-shaped boxes of candy and 1 billion cards purchased each year. What do you plan to do for your sweetie? What do you think about Valentine’s Day in general? Respond at www.freeweekly.com
Picture Book Manuscript? Check. Targeted Agent List? Check. Query Letter? Heck no! We all know that writing for very young children is different than penning novels for older kids and adults. Make no mistake, writing a query letter for picture books is an equally unique process. It is also highly nuanced, making it necessary for writers to really research potential agents and their guidelines. In my experience, more agents are open to receiving a full manuscript for picture books than for any other age group. In part, this is due to short word counts. After all, it is easier to enjoy a book by reading the book rather than by reading a summary of it. With picture books topping out at 500 words, manuscripts can be shorter than the query letters representing them. Thus, e-querying agents for picture books falls into two distinct categories. - Agents who accept manuscripts along with a query letter. - Agents who do not accept manuscripts with a query letter. You can figure out your targeted agents' preferences by visiting AgentQuery, Query Tracker, agent websites/blogs and market resources such as those found at and by Writer's Digest. Verla Kay's Blue Boards is another great resource, as is the Society of Children's Book Writers and Illustrators. For the sake of space, I will address only the first instance (with manuscript), as a cold query letter without a manuscript or sample pages is the same for picture books as it is for older novels. Additionally, the example provided below is not a MUST DO, but rather a guideline that I used when searching for my agent. My method is a conglomeration of info gathered on websites, via magazine articles, at writing conferences and my own personality. Subject Line: Query: TITLE, picture book, 475 words (Capitalize your title.) Method to My Madness: all my pertinent information is available at a glance. Agents immediately know I'm sending a query letter for a picture book within the acceptable word count. They should also get a feel for my manuscript based on my title. In this way, I'm not wasting anybody's time. It also serves a secondary purpose. If an agent were to provide feedback and request a revision, a simple change to my subject line would keep Said Agent up to date on what is coming in, while remaining consistent and keeping my title in the agent's mind. My new subject line would look like this: Requested revision for TITLE. Dear Mr. Agent Awesome: (Don't forget to double check spellings for names and end with a colon.) (Very brief bio and/or a relevant blurb on why you chose this agent.) As a library board member, a child advocate in the court system and a past preschool teacher, I recognized a need for stories about XYZ. I am a member of the SCBWI and a moderator on AgentQuery Connect. I have also presented at Young Writer's Conference across Southwestern Minnesota. I follow your blog/met you at a conference/etc ... and feel TITLE may address your interest in XYZ (a tie into your bio would be nice). Per your guidelines, I have included the full manuscript for my picture book. Method to My Madness: The agent will get to read my manuscript. It's pasted into the body of the text, and therefore does not require a blurb. In this instance, I feel it is a good idea to let the agent know who we are and what we're doing. This is our time to connect with the agent and let our personalities shine through. But be brief. Agents have little time to wade through our backgrounds from infancy to old age. We should provide only those details that lend credence to our ability to write this particular story. Case in point, I said nothing about my pubbed works in the adult arena or that I have four children. Avoid telling the agent about the story. Again, Agent Awesome will have the opportunity to read our text as long as we don't bore him with our life histories first. I appreciate your time and look forward to hearing from you. Method to My Madness: I'm a people person. A warm thanks is my style. Some people may argue it lacks professionalism or that it sounds needy. I tend to believe it's a whole lot better than a sterile and abrupt end such as "Thank you" or a rude "Call me". The choice is yours, but know that agents don't reject a manuscript based on this line. And if they do, they're likely not the kind of agent you want. Words From The Woods Method to My Madness: with luck an agent will need to contact us. If we fail to provide this information, we may inadvertently slow down the process or fail to make a viable contact with an interested agent altogether. I do add my blog address to my writing correspondence, as an interested agent may google me. If you don't have one, don't fret. Blogs are not necessary to secure an agent. Next, paste your manuscript into the remainder of the email—never, ever send agents to your website or blog to read it or send it as an attachment unless expressly requested by the agent—and check for the following things: - formatting: spaces, line breaks, etc. You want a clean copy for easy reading. - white space: you may need to adjust how your manuscript looks to make it easier on the agent's eyes. - italics should be capped or underlined, as some email servers don't support fancy schmancy text. - likewise, centered titles can be brought to the left margin for a clean look. Writing a query letter is not as difficult as it sounds, particularly when we can submit our manuscripts at the same time. When sending writing samples is not an option, my picture book query letters have two extra paragraphs: one for my hook and the second for my mini-synopsis. I also combine my bio and agent search info to make one small paragraph. How about you? What tips do you have for writing picture book queries? What do you put in your subject lines and how do you close? Do you include a hook and mini-synopsis when sending your manuscript? If so, why? Do you tailor your manuscripts based on the agents you send to? If so, how? Lastly, where's your go-to resource for agent information? Curious minds want to know!
Rocky Mountain Research Station Publications RMRS Online Publication RMRS-RP-49: Sound recordings of road maintenance equipment on the Lincoln National Forest, New Mexico Delaney, D. K.; Grubb, T. G. 2004. Sound recordings of road maintenance equipment on the Lincoln National Forest, New Mexico. Res. Pap. RMRS-RP-49. Fort Collins, CO: USDA Forest Service, Rocky Mountain Research Station. 56 p. The purpose of this pilot study was to record, characterize, and quantify road maintenance activity in Mexican spotted owl (Strix occidentalis lucida) habitat to gauge potential sound level exposure for owls during road maintenance activities. We measured sound levels from three different types of road maintenance equipment (rock crusherlloader, dozerlroller, and grader), from seven distances (30,60, 120, 180,240,320, and 400 m), in two different habitat types (forested and meadow sites) on the Lincoln National Forest, New Mexico, on 22-23 October 2002 to determine how sound varied over distance, habitat type, topography, and stimulus type. Sound levels increased as the distance between road maintenance activity and microphone locations decreased, regardless of stimulus type or habitat type. Concomitantly, the amount of sound energy within the middle frequency range decreased substantially with increasing stimulus distance from microphone locations. The frequency range over which owls can potentially hear road maintenance events decreased with increasing stimulus distance. Sound recordings of road maintenance equipment were louder at tree microphones than at base microphones, regardless of stimulus distance, stimulus type, and site location. The difference in sound levels between tree and base microphones at each distance was consistently louder at meadow sites (tree microphones were located in trees along the edge of the meadow during testing at the meadow site) compared with forested sites, regardless of stimulus type or stimulus distance. Tree microphones registered a greater proportion of sound energy from road maintenance activities in the middle frequency range than at base microphones, regardless of stimulus type, stimulus distance or site location. Sound level and frequency spectra varied by stimulus type. Rock crushing equipment registered the highest sound levels of any of the road maintenance equipment tested, regardless of stimulus distance or habitat type. Rock crushing equipment had the greatest amount of sound energy in the middle frequency range of all the road maintenance equipment tested, followed by the dozerlroller and the grader, regardless of stimulus distance or habitat type. Road maintenance equipment was consistently louder than background ambient forest and meadow sound levels over a range of distances from 30 to 400 m. The extended duration of both rock crusher sound and the multiple passes required of the grader and dozerlroller are additional, potentially negative considerations. Based on our previous sound research with this species, it appears that spotted owls are capable of hearing all the sound sources tested during this pilot study out to distances of at least 400 m. Keywords: sound recordings, tree microphones, road maintenance, Lincoln National Forest, Mexican spotted owl, Strix occidentalis lucida About PDFs: For best results, do not open the PDF in your Web browser. Right-click on the PDF link to download the PDF file directly to your computer. Click here for more PDF help or order a printed copy of this publication. The PDF below have been scanned and converted to text. Some errors may occur. PDF File Size: 4.1 MB Sound recordings of road maintenance equipment on the Lincoln National Forest, New Mexico Electronic Publish Date: April 14, 2006 Last Update: Juanuary 15, 2010 RMRS Publications \| Order a publication \| Contact Us
\|Funny Pictures\|\|Funny Videos\| \|Funny GIFs\|\|YouTube Videos\| ken ham on historical science Sorry for horrible picture, I have never used picture editing softwares before. I don't even know how to effectively work with paint. The debate was hilarious. A few points I can recall immediately are: 1. He says he believes in modern science. Radiometric dating methods are part of modern science. But then he says he doesn't trust these methods regarding estimates of the past since you weren't there to observe it. What else is there to radiometric dating methods besides using them to date things? Since Ken ham doesn't believe in that. 2. A little bit later he does use dating methods in his argument of a little bit of wood trapped in 45 million year old basalt. Convenient usage of radiometric dating methods. Not to mention the basalt is 45 million years old which he even mentions. But the earth is still 6000 years old amiright? I guess God must have placed it there. 3. At one moment he is showing pictures of million years old fossiles showing fish eating other fish and death and suffering etc. But then he goes on about how all animals were supposed to be vegetarians before the corruption. I understand he was refuting the viewpoint of non-creationist christians but how can he use those fossils in an attempt to show the christians that they're wrong? 4. Then he goes on about how there's no new functions in nature, that no new functions arise in nature. If you just take a look at viruses for one second or mutations in proteins, you'd see that they acquire new functions constantly and everyone knows proteins can deliver macrofunctions to organisms (easy example, fluorescence). Another point he made, was that no "new" genetic material comes into existence. How about simple gene duplications or even the enzyme telomerase? 5. His argument for no life can result from dead matter was the following: "I can shine all the sunlight or energy I want onto this little stick I have here, it's not coming to life." (something along those lines) 6. He goes on and on about how the bible explains the origins about things. All the bible says, is; And then god created man, stars, plants, light,... and he acts as if it gives us any sort of explanation about how consciousness arose or works. 7. The guy dodges questions constantly and fails to even interpret audience's questions. h, If I wasn' t THEE! It h, If I wasn' t THEE! It Top Rated Controversial Best Lowest Rated Newest Per page:Order:
Service Responds to Mississippi River Spill Midwest Region personnel mobilized over the Thanksgiving holiday and weekend to keep large numbers of migrating diving ducks from encountering oil from a spill on the Upper Mississippi River. A sinking, northbound tow, the Stephen L Colby, ran ashore to save the crew after it struck a submerged object and began taking on water. The vessel, carrying 91,000 gallons of fuel, began to discharge diesel fuel into the river. The City of LeClaire, Iowa, was able to deploy booms out and around the sunken tow within 50 minutes of the incident, greatly reducing the size of the emergency response. But it wasn't over yet. Following the spill, contaminants biologist Mike Coffey met with the U.S. Coast Guard, which led the incident command team. Use of the incident command system is standard practice for emergency oil spill responses. As fuel continued to leak from the tow, Coffey organized the command’s wildlife branch and began to address the diesel fuel accumulating behind the existing booms. The wildlife branch also set up wildlife deterrents and made plans to capture and rehabilitate oiled wildlife if necessary. It was quickly determined that the oiled river habitat was not within the National Wildlife Refuge System, and federally listed species were not at the site. This reach of the river in late November and early December is a popular stopover location for tens of thousands of diving ducks during fall migration. There were also a number of mallards from the local area. The wildlife deterrent plans were designed to keep the mallards out of the diesel fuel and keep diving ducks out of the area. Additional plans were made to haze rafts of diving ducks while the responders removed oil from behind the booms and from the vessel before lifting it out of the water with large cranes. We dubbed these contingencies as Operation Canvasback. The plan was to use a flotilla of boats to keep pushing the waterfowl to safe areas along the river. The only oiled birds found during the spill response were two mallards and one Canada goose. All of these birds were found dead or died shortly afterwards. There was evidence of previous debilitating conditions in the birds based on their behavior, wounds, or emaciation. Ed Britton from the Savanna District supervised the wildlife reconnaissance and relieved Coffey as the Wildlife Branch director the response. Click here for more. Their primary tasks were to monitor the movement of diving ducks into the area and be prepared to haze them away to prevent exposure to the diesel fuel while the responders removed the oil from the river and salvaged the vessel. Other offices near the spill site were the Savanna District of the Upper Mississippi River National Wildlife Refuge and Port Louisa National Wildlife Refuge. Biologists from the refuge offices and additional staff from the Ecological Services field conducted shoreline searches for oiled wildlife. Service participants included Drew Becker, Eric Tomasovic, Russ Engelke, Bob Clevenstine and Ron Knopic. In addition, volunteers from the river cleanup group known as Living Lands and Waters supported the responsible party in patrolling areas in boats with high city duck use. The Iowa Department of Natural Resources and the U.S. Coast Guard also provided personnel for the wildlife branch. -- Mike Coffey Rock Island Field Office
There's an old saying in rock and roll circles that says: "if it's too loud, you're too old, man!" But maybe that should be changed to: "If it's too loud, you haven't been the victim of hearing loss yet!" A study from the Scientific Committee on Emerging and Newly Identified Health Risks says that listening to a portable music player too loud could cause hearing loss later in life. In fact, if you turn up your headphones loud, you could be subjecting yourself to louder sounds than would be legal if you worked in a factory. “Regularly listening to personal music players at high-volume settings when young,” the report said, “often has no immediate effect on hearing but is likely to result in hearing loss later in life.” So we'd like to change that old saying to: "If it's too loud, turn it down, man!"
Islands of Galapagos are just small province that belongs to Ecuador at the eastern part of Pacific Ocean. Galapagos Islands are dubbed as a place that is born of fire due to several volcanic eruptions. Within the past two centuries, a notable more than 50 volcanic eruptions have cropped up in the islands. It has been said that the most prevailing attribute of Galapagos Islands is its abrasive and dynamic volcanic backcloth. A few of those eruptions threatened distinctive flora and fauna and a few of such created new land just like the lava flow in the island of Santiago which wasn’t discovered during the visit of famous Charles Darwin. Charles Darwin was the first renowned person to visit and stayed in Galapagos Islands. Because of the island’s exquisiteness, Darwin stayed up to five weeks which give the impulsion to the well-known Evolution Theory. Diving in the islands of Galapagos is not really recommended for novice divers because it has been noted recently that Galapagos Islands is among the top 10 most difficult diving spots in the world. Despite that, tourism in Galapagos Islands is thriving eventually. Diving in Galapagos is often undemanding but the low visibility and the strong currents, outpours and cold waters they beget go towards a few demanding alterations within the waters. Galapagos features a few exquisite dive sites hence tourists to the islands anticipate to catch a glimpse of incredible critters stretching out, flying and swarming within the islands. But what amazes several people is the plethora of life just off the coast, just one or two feet beneath the waters. There can be discovered a world teeming swarming with groups of angelfish, passive white-tipped reef sharks, soaring manta rays, and feeding underwater iguanas. Best Time to Dive Galapagos has a good weather for stopping over and visiting all year round. Even if it is on the equator, the weather conditions aren’t tropical. Galapagos has a couple of seasons and the warmest is from December to May. The coldest months are between June and November. It is the most recommended season for diving in all astounding dive sites all over Galapagos Islands. Getting in Galapagos Islands is very simple. It is reachable in either plane or boat. For international flights, a flight to Ecuador, the mainland either to Guayaquil or Quito is the first step since there are no direct flights going to Galapagos Islands. From there, check an available flight from Quito or Guayaquil going to Galapagos Islands. It’s always best to check with travel agency regarding the ways and tips to get there. If coming with private vessel, there are five ports in Galapagos Islands where boats can dock. Along the islands, there are buses, taxis and other public transportations are available to tourists and visitors. But it’s always best to hike around the islands while seeing the best features of Galapagos Islands. Check before you go - Passport expiry date (most countries require at least six months prior to the expiry date) - Visa requirements - Travel Insurance (make sure coverage for Scuba Diving is included) - Medical status (Visit your doctor if you are unsure)
In the Garden: For visual impact, I love to mix and match flower and container colors. Containing Your Garden's Exuberance Nearly everyone I know collects something. Coins, Mason jars, campaign buttons, cookbooks, you name it and they've got lots of it. I fall into this category, too. I'm a plant collector. Trouble is, by midsummer every single bed and border in my garden is literally spilling over with spectacular plants and there just is no place to put even the smallest new cutting. I've solved the problem by planting my newest acquisitions in containers. I actually prefer gardening in containers. In a container you can control the soil, vary the watering regime, adjust the amount of sun or shade, group plants for impact -- and ungroup them if the idea doesn't work. Containers filled with vibrant colors can define the space where you live, transform landscaped areas into private garden rooms, or temporarily decorate a space for an outdoor party. If you'd like to try gardening in containers, I'll share a few of my secrets for success. Select the Right Container A good container should be large enough to provide adequate space for soil and roots, have sufficient head room for proper watering, have lots of drainage holes, and be attractive without competing with the plants it will hold. Size and appearance of the container should be in visual proportion to the plants it will hold. A good rule of thumb is to use a container that is at least one-third as high as the plants are tall. Good drainage is extremely important. Roots require air, and if they sit for extended periods of time in wet soil, they'll suffocate. If you find a container you really like but it doesn't have drainage holes, you can plant in plastic pots and place them in the decorative container. Use the Proper Soil Experiment with different potting soils until you find one you like, and then use it in all of your containers. Different potting soils can retain different amounts of moisture. I've found that it's easier to water containers filled with the same potting soil, versus containers with a variety of different soils. In fact, I can almost predict when plants need water by knowing how moisture-retentive my potting soil is. Putting a layer of gravel in the bottom of the container before adding potting soil might seem like a good way to keep soil from washing out of the bottom of the pot, but it can actually hinder drainage by causing water to collect in the bottom of the pot. To keep soil from escaping, place a broken clay piece over each drainage hole before filling the containers. Select the Right Plant Be creative when designing your containers. Plants of varying heights and textures will help give your containers character. If you use tall spiking plants, they should be at least as tall as the container itself. For a real dramatic effect, use complementary colors. Purple and yellow are two complementary colors that make a striking combination. Blue and orange are two other complementary colors that work well together. To keep competition to a minimum, try to avoid mixing slow-growing and vigorous plants in the same container. Growing plants together that have the same light and moisture requirements will simplify their care and ensure good health. After all, growing a plant in a container does not change its basic light or moisture requirements. Sun-loving plants still need to be in full sun, and shade-lovers will still need shade. Use Simple Maintenance Procedures The most common problem with container gardens is too little or too much water. Because the volume of soil is relatively small, containers can dry out very quickly, especially on a concrete patio in full sun. Check each pot daily for water. If the pot feels light when lifted, or the soil is dry 1 to 2 inches down, it's time to water. When you do water, water thoroughly by flooding the soil until excess moisture runs out of the drainage holes. Because containerized plants are watered often, nutrients are leached out of the soil as water drains out of pots, making regular fertilizer applications necessary. I fertilize biweekly with a water-soluble fertilizer. A granular slow-release fertilizer can also be used, which will last anywhere from one to several months, depending on the formula. Check your containers weekly for signs of disease and insect damage. As flowers fade and die on individual plants, cut them off. Removing spent blooms will encourage more flower production, and will make your container look more attractive. Rotate the containers from place to place and you'll have a fresh new look no matter where you group them. For even more interest in the garden, swap containers with a gardening buddy and you'll have a whole new garden to enjoy -- for a few weeks, at least! I love it when I round a corner and encounter a harmonious mix of plants tucked into (and perhaps overflowing) an attractive container. Sometimes it's a quiet and subtle hello; other times it can be a loud and exuberant HELLO! Oftentimes it's the container, itself a piece of art, that catches my eye; and then again it's the plants, as they playfully spill over the sides or dance high above, that lift my heart and make me go WOW! But mostly container gardening excites my sense of possibility, reminding me how with just a few plants, a container and some mixing and matching of color and texture, one can easily create a bountiful -- and beautiful -- miniature garden. Care to share your gardening thoughts, insights, triumphs, or disappointments with your fellow gardening enthusiasts? Join the lively discussions on our FaceBook page and receive free daily tips!
Middle Eastern Studies Master’s student, Ian Vander Meulen, recently authored an article entitled, “Beyond the Melting Pot,” in the winter 2012 issue of online magazine Symphony [americanorchestra.org]. The article features composers of Middle Eastern descent who work elements of Eastern musical traditions into their compositions for Western-based orchestras. The article highlights the technique with which Middle Eastern composers and musicians in the United States use their orchestral programming to build cultural bridges within wider communities. Anna Taylor will present her research paper, “Web 2.0: Iran’s Response to the 2009 Elections,” at the 16th Near and Middle Eastern Civilizations Graduate Student Association Symposium Annual Symposium at the University of Toronto. March 5-6, 2012. The symposium provides graduate students an opportunity to share original research with the scholarly community in a conference-like forum, the proceedings of which are periodically published. All the submissions were initially reviewed by a blind panel of nine reviewers and after each proposal was ranked in accordance with various criteria, the organizing committee drafted a preliminary programme that will be solidified upon the verification of each acceptance letter. Raymond Pun (former student) developed this article (see link below) originally in a MA-MES course on Social Theory and Islam. Bravo! We are also thrilled that Ray is moving to Shanghai, China, to set up New York University's new university library. Raymond Pun, "Digital Images and Visions of Jihad: Virtual Orientalism and the Distorted Lens of Technology," CyberOrient, Vol. 7, Iss. 1, 2013. http://www.cyberorient.net/article.do?articleId=8391
Jewelers, both professional and amateur, have used just about every type of metal in existence in their creations. As new alloys and metals are adapted to jewelry making, such as titanium and stainless steel, they are also eagerly embraced and worked into beautiful creations for men and women. While fashion trends using unique and trendy metals come and go, three jewelry metals have stood the test of time and continue to have a strong presence in modern jewelry. These metals, referred to as the Noble Metals, have several properties in common. First, they are precious metals and are also used as currency because of their value. Second, they are found worldwide, but not in large enough quantities to render them less valuable. Third, these Noble Metals have properties that lend themselves to jewelry making, including malleability and corrosion resistance. Lastly, these metals are considered beautiful, sensuous, and glamorous, which increases their appeal. Because of all of these properties, the Noble Metals – gold, silver, and platinum – are frequently used in jewelry making. Coveted for its beauty, gold has long captivated the human psyche and is considered the most sensuous metal. Jewelry designers and makers find gold easy to work with and prefer it to other metals because it never tarnishes. Gold is perhaps the most workable metal, which is another reason designers enjoy working with it. A single ounce of gold can be stretched into a thread more than 50 miles long or rolled flat into a sheet that covers 100 square feet in area! Another reason gold is coveted by both consumers and designers is that it lasts indefinitely, especially if properly cared for. Recent studies show that gold originated in the far reaches of the universe billions of years ago and arrived on earth in its infancy. It does not oxidize or corrode and only a handful of rare acids or hot chlorine bleach can damage gold. Gold can also be reused by melting down old gold objects and reforming the gold into new pieces. For example, old coins and broken pieces of jewelry can be melted down and reused to make a brand new piece of gold jewelry. Despite gold’s desirable properties, it does have one significant drawback. It is soft, which means it wears easily. By mixing gold with other metals, or alloying it, gold is made stronger, which makes it durable enough to wear more often without experiencing wear. A variety of metals are commonly used to alloy gold, including silver, copper, nickel, iron, zinc, tin, manganese, cadmium, and titanium. Along with enhancing gold’s strength, alloying gold with other metals changes some of gold’s other properties as well. This is why some gold alloys stain people’s skin or cause an allergic reaction. The reaction is not caused by the gold itself, but by the other metals it is mixed with. While pure gold is also used in jewelry making, it dents and shows wear easily, which is why most people choose not to wear 100% gold jewelry on a regular basis. When discussing gold and its alloys, the term karat is used to indicate the purity of the gold (Not to be confused with carat, which is a unit of measurement used to describe gemstone weight). Pure gold, which contains no other metals, is termed 24 karat gold. A gold alloy that is 50% gold and 50% other metals is 12 karat gold because it is only half pure gold. Alloys used in jewelry making range from 9 karat gold, which is approximately 37% gold, to 24 karat gold. A newer alloy becoming popular on the jewelry scene is made of 99% gold and 1% titanium, allowing the alloy to retain nearly all of its gold color while providing improved durability. Mixing gold with different metals changes the color of the gold. For example, mixing copper with gold makes the gold darker yellow, while adding nickel plus zinc or other silver metals produces white gold. Contrary to popular belief, white gold contains no silver, which softens gold and gives it a green tint. Gold alloys also come in colors, including green, red, and blue. When discussing gold’s purity, or what percentage is pure gold, the laws are fairly strict in the U.S. To be labeled as a specific karat, a gold item must be within three parts per thousand of the karat marking for solid pieces and seven parts per thousand for pieces containing solder. Pieces that fail to meet this criterion must be labeled with a lower karat designation. When labeling jewelry and other gold items for sale, you cannot call an item solid gold unless it truly is 24 karat and if you refer to an item as gold, you must designate what karat the gold is. The term “new gold” does not mean that the gold was recently mined. It means that the gold has been carefully refined to current gold standards. “Old gold,” on the other hand, comes from melting down old jewelry, coins, and other gold items. This old gold may be a slightly lower karat weight than the original gold depending on how much solder was used in the original jewelry pieces. Impurities in old gold pieces cause a variety of headaches during casting, including bubbles, so old gold is often sent for refinement rather than being melted down by your local jeweler and recast into a new item. Gold solder, which is used to join pieces together, is actually sold based on its color not its gold content. Because the solder needs to have a lower melting point than the pieces it is joining, it is mixed with metals that have lower melting points than gold. The solder is matched to the gold pieces for an attractive look. Though this poses no problems for the owner of the current jewelry item, melting down this piece with its solder in the future will reduce the karat of the gold. Less Than Solid Gold With solid gold selling for more than $1,000 per ounce, many jewelry makers look for alternative ways of giving their customers the look and feel of gold without the hefty price of solid gold. This is often done by coating pieces made from less expensive metals with thin coats of gold. Items that are made this way are referred to as gold overlay pieces. When shopping for these pieces there are two distinct methods of overlaying the gold that you need to be aware of. The first is gold filled. Pieces that are gold filled have a minimum of 5% gold applied to the base metal. They are classified based on how much gold is overlayed and the karat of the gold. For example, if a piece is marked 1/20 14K G.F., it means that the piece has a 14 karat gold layer that comprises 1/20 of the weight of the piece. The second type of gold overlay, rolled gold plate, is similar, but the gold can be as thin as 1/40 of the weight. It is also stamped by fineness and content, 1/40 14K RGP. Gold platings are the thinner and less expensive of the two types of gold overlays. The gold is a few thousandths of an inch thick, at best, and wear off easily. The care of gold overlay pieces is quite different from the care of solid gold pieces because of the fact that the gold is layered on top of another metal. As previously mentioned, the gold on these pieces wears off over time and you cannot use a polishing wheel on these items because it will remove the overlay and potentially ruin the item. With its illustrious history, silver has been more highly valued than gold at various times throughout the years. Long used as a medium of exchange, its name is synonymous with money. Today, silver has found many new uses including photography, batteries, auto glass defogger, and magnetic strips, just to name a few. Silver’s most outstanding feature is its luster. This Noble Metal is not without its drawbacks though. The main drawback for silver is that it tarnishes. The term tarnish is used to denote a layer of corrosion that forms over some metals, including silver, when they undergo chemical reactions. The chemical reaction that causes silver to tarnish requires a compound called hydrogen sulfide. Silver jewelry encounters hydrogen sulfide in the air you breathe every day, which is why silver tends to tarnish if left out where it is exposed to this compound on a regular basis. Storing these items in protective pouches or containers where they are exposed to less hydrogen sulfide reduces the amount of tarnish on silver, which means less you can spend less time removing tarnish from your silver jewelry. There are a number of ways to remove tarnish from silver pieces, including silver polish and do-it-yourself methods using common household items, so you do not have to shy away from silver pieces because of the tarnish. Silver jewelry does require more care than some other precious metals, because of the fact that it tarnishes. Silver is more abundant and much less expensive than gold or platinum, which are additional reasons why it is a popular metal for jewelry; however, it is more difficult to work than gold, because it conducts heat so well. This is why beginning jewelry makers often learn how to solder on silver. Once they gain control of soldering on this highly conductive metal, they find it much easier to control the heat when moving up to gold. Silver is also commonly alloyed with other metals because, like gold, pure silver is soft and easily damaged. Adding harder metals improves the durability of silver, allowing jewelry designers to design pieces that are beautiful and strong enough to wear every day. The most common silver alloy is sterling silver. Sterling silver is 92.5% silver. The remaining 7.5% is comprised of one or more other metals. A substantial portion of this 7.5% is often copper because it increases the hardness of the sterling silver. The term Mexican silver applies to silver that is used as currency in Mexico and is typically comprised of 95% silver and 5% copper. While the copper increases its durability, it is used more for currency than jewelry. Typically even the silver jewelry made in Mexico is crafted from sterling silver. In the U.S., coin silver contains 90% silver and 10% copper. You do not usually see coin silver used in jewelry. Britiannia silver contains a minimum of 95.84% silver, making it a more valuable alloy than sterling. While this may be used in jewelry, it is not common. There are a variety of additional silver alloys used worldwide, including a South American alloy made of 80% silver that does not tarnish. Jewelry makers stamp silver pieces with the code that denotes which alloy of silver it is. For example, 925 is used to designate sterling silver and 958 is used for Britannia silver. When shopping for silver jewelry inspect the piece carefully to determine which alloy was used. Other Types of Silver Jewelry While sterling silver is the most common type of silver used in jewelry making, there are some additional alloys that should be mentioned. Electrum, for example, is a naturally occurring alloy of silver and gold that was popular with the ancient Egyptians. Because electrum occurs naturally in nature, the ration of silver to gold varies with each piece. Niello is a black mixture of silver, copper, and lead. It is used more like an enamel, so you do not typically see jewelry made entirely of niello. It is used as an inlay on etched or engraved metal or to fill in designs. Like electrum, niello was popular with the Egyptians, who used the mixture during the Iron Age. While all of these silver alloys actually contain at least some silver, some metal names can mislead you into thinking the metal contains silver. Nickel silver or German silver, for example, are alloys of nickel, zinc, and other metals. These metals look like silver, hence the name, but they do not actually contain any silver. The same is true of quicksilver, which is the ancient term given to mercury due to its appearance. While mercury does resemble liquid silver, it does not contain silver and is not seen in jewelry because it is harmful to your health. Platinum is the rarest and most expensive of the Noble Metals. Its unsurpassed holding power and durability make it a highly coveted, premium jewelry metal. Platinum is incredibly durable and does not tarnish, which is why it is often used for engagement and wedding rings. Though platinum has been found in various objects as far back as 700 BC, its use in jewelry is relatively modern. The main reason for this is that refining platinum proved difficult for a number of centuries because the metal has an extremely high melting point and is highly resistant to corrosion. The oldest recorded use of platinum is as an inlay in ancient Egypt. However, the Egyptians though it was a variation of electrum. Native Americans used platinum in small decorative objects for centuries. Platinum was unknown to Europeans until the Spanish settlers discovered it in Columbia. The Spanish called it platina, meaning little silver, and believed it was unripe gold and, therefore, unusable. It was not until the eighteenth century that platinum was identified as a new metal and a researcher from Sweden figured out how to melt platinum with arsenic. Once individuals learned how to refine platinum they began to use it to decorate porcelain and to make laboratory equipment. The use of arsenic to refine platinum was extremely dangerous, which is why platinum did not gain popularity until the oxyhydrogen torch was invented in the mid 1800s. Discoveries of platinum ore in several countries in the nineteenth century brought platinum to the attention of jewelry makers and platinum quickly became a symbol of wealth and celebrity status in the early 1900s. Stars like Greta Garbo and Cole Porter frequently appeared on film with platinum jewelry and accessories. It also became popular for setting exceptional gems. For example, the 530-carat “Star of Africa” diamond in the British royal scepter is set in platinum. While platinum is still highly coveted in the jewelry industry, it is also used for a variety of industrial purposes. Today, platinum is commonly found in catalytic converters because of its ability to cause chemical reactions while remaining unchanged. In fact, half of the platinum mined in the U.S. and a quarter of the platinum mined worldwide is used for this purpose. The U.S. Bureau of Standards also uses platinum for weights because it never oxidizes and, therefore, remains the same weight forever. Though most people believe that the term platinum refers to one single type of metal, the truth is it is used to refer to a group of metals that share similar properties. The platinum group includes platinum, iridium, palladium, ruthenium, rhodium, and osmium. Platinum is the most abundant; however, it is not the only one of the group that is used for making jewelry. Rhodium is popular as a non-tarnishing plating for white gold, silver, and other platinum metals. Others from this group, including palladium and iridium, are alloyed with other metals or used alone to make jewelry. In fact, all but osmium are used for jewelry. The most common platinum alloys include 90% platinum and 10% iridium, or 95% platinum and 5% ruthenium. Ruthenium makes for the harder and stronger alloy. \|Common Metallurgy Terms\|
Trying to verify involvement of Obediah, and Larkin in the revolutionary war. Understand they were with the 2nd regiment, Amherst county militia, under Samuel Cabell. I haven't been able to find documentation. Any ideas? Notify Administrator about this message? \|Home \| Help \| About Us \| Site Index \| Jobs \| PRIVACY \| Affiliate\| \|© 2007 The Generations Network\|
Sinterklaas festival in the church in 2007. Sinterklaas, the patron Saint of the church, visits the museum annually. This lively event attracts a crowd of children and their parents. Climate data canal room (XLS, 1.2 MB) Climate data sael (XLS, 1.2MB) Climate data in church (XLS, 2.0MB) Outdoor climate data (XLS, 1.1 MB) As the church in the museum is still in active use, there are times when the church may be filled to its maximum capacity, as set by the fire brigade. In addition, the museum participates in several events that bring much higher number of visitors through the building in one day than normal. It is interesting to analyze the effect that visitors have on the indoor climate during these events, which attract large numbers of visitors for both shorter and slightly longer durations. The following table represents the rate at which a human gives off moisture in different states of activity (after ASHRAE 2001). \|Degree of Activity\|\|Moisture Generation (g hr-1)\| \|Seated in the theater\|\|30\| \|Seated in the theater, night\|\|35\| \|Seated, very light work\|\|45\| \|Moderately active office work\|\|55\| \|Standing, light work\|\|55\| \|Light bench work\|\|140\| \|Walking 4.8 km/h; Light machine work\|\|185\| T, RH and AH plots in the church (God lamp low), sael, canal room and reception on Open Monument Day, September 9, 2005: Open Monumentendag (Open Monument Day) is designed to bring people into contact with the historic environment, and to encourage interest in and understanding of historical monuments and the need for their preservation. During the Open Monumentendag - every second weekend of September - thousands of historical buildings and sites (about 4,000) are open to the public free of charge. Besides opening their doors, many locations also organize on-site activities like exhibitions, music and guided tours. Each year around 80 to 85 percent of Dutch municipalities participate in the Open Monumentendag, organized by local committees. In recent years around 900,000 visitors have participated annually, making the Open Monumentendag one of the Netherlands' premier cultural events. An extraordinarily high number of visitors (1,064) was recorded at museum ‘Our Lord in the Attic’ on Open Monument Day on September 9, 2005. Visitors entered the museum over a four-hour period, between 13:00 and 17:00. The impact of visitors on the indoor climate was easily recognizable in temperature (T), relative humidity (RH) and absolute humidity/humidity ratio (AH) plots. Except in the reception area (the antechamber), temperature increases were observed starting at 13:00 in all parts of the building, with the largest increase (approximately 2.5°C) in the church and the least (0.5°C) in sael. The reception’s temperature drop during this period is probably due to the front door being opened continuously and the cooler outside air entering the room. Temperatures in the building returned to normal before midnight. Both relative humidity and the humidity ratio increased significantly over the four-hour period in all rooms, including the reception. Surprisingly, the largest increase of relative humidity (from 60 to 77%) was observed in the space behind the altar. The smallest increase was observed in the sael. Relative humidity values throughout the building returned to normal by midnight. T and RH plot in the church on Museum Night, November5/6, 2005 AH plot in the church, sael, and outside on Museum Night, November5/6, 2005. Museum Night is an initiative with which many museums in Amsterdam try to attract a different and younger audience - one November night per year they open to visitors from 19.00 to 2.00. In 2005, 2,300 visitors entered museum ‘Our Lord in the Attic’ over a seven-hour period from 19:00 on November 5 to 2:00 on November 6. In 2006, the event was more controlled and 1500-1600 people visited the museum, with a maximum of 90 people in the church at any given time. The temperature was approximately 20.2 °C when the event started and increased 3 °C to 23.2 °C by midnight, remaining at that temperature until the end of the event the next day. A large temperature decrease began after 3:00, and returned to the original value by 6:00. The relative humidity was approximately 50% at the beginning of the event, then quickly increased and produced three peaks: 54% at 23:00, 58% at 1:00, and 56% at 2:00, the end of the event. Then, it reduced to 53% by 4:00, but rose to 54% where it remained until 09:00, the regular opening hour. The increase in the early morning hours may have been due to the fact that it was rainy outside, expressed by the relative humidity increase outside from 55 to 95% during the same period. 24-Hour variations of the humidity ratios in the church, sael, and outside during Museum Night were plotted. Three large peaks identified in the relative humidity plot were reduced to small saw tooth-like peaks in the plot of the humidity ratio. This indicates that the rate of visitation was steady throughout the event. The increase of humidity ratio was approximately 3.5 g of water per kg of air during the specified period. This was smaller than the increase recorded during Open Monument Day when the museum had about 1,100 visitors over a 4-hour period. This could probably be due to the infiltration of outside air of lower humidity ratio into the church. The humidity ratio in sael was very similar to that of the church during the event. This high level of humidity ratio is due to low infiltration of dry outside air into sael. On May 21st, 2005, the church was used for a wedding. At 13:00 the museum closed briefly for normal visitation to accommodate the wedding, which started at 14:30 and finished by 15:30. A total of 110 persons gathered in the Church, according to records kept by museum staff. 24-Hour variations of humidity ratios in the church, canal room, sael and outside air on May 21st, 2005 were plotted. Between midnight and 09:00, the museum’s opening hour, the humidity ratio was constant at 8 g/kg throughout the building. At 09:00, visitors began to enter the museum. Evidence of the visitors’ presence can be noted as the humidity ratios in various locations in the building increase. When the wedding attendees started to enter the church soon after 13:00, the church’s humidity ratio was at 8 g/kg, which was the same as outside. Initially the humidity ratio in the church exponentially increased; however, the increase soon reduced to linear, then plateaued at 10 g/kg by 15:30, indicating that the attendees started to leave. While the church air had a significant increase in humidity ratio, both the canal room and sael were only slightly affected, mainly by the attendee traffic near these spaces - the guests did not physically enter these rooms during the event. After all the wedding attendees left the building, museum visitors were allowed back into the building at 15:30. Museum visitors gradually exited the museum around 17:00 and the humidity ratios of all spaces dissipated towards that of outside. All spaces equilibrated at 8.2 g/kg in 5 hours by 22:00. During the wedding, the temperature and relative humidity increased from 20.9 °C to 22.6 °C and 54% to 60%, respectively. Relative humidity returned to 54%, a normal value without visitors, within two hours after the event. According to museum records, a group of 151 artists attended a special mass on December 4th, 2005. The mass started at noon and lasted for one hour. 24-Hour variations of relative humidity and temperature recorded on December 4th, 2005. The temperature was stable at 19°C until the museum opened at 9:00 and had a low increase at the rate of 0.3 °C/hour to 20 °C by noon. Then during the mass, the rate increased to 3.0 °C/hour during the first 30 minutes, and 2.0 °C/hour to 22.8 °C in the second 30 minutes. Relative humidity showed a similar trend, with a 3.3% increase from morning visitors. Attendance at the mass produced an approximate 3.5% increase to a peak of 52% at 12:30. However, the value dropped slightly during the next half hour due to heat produced by the attendees. Both the temperature and relative humidity peaks quickly dissipated after the mass ended. And by 17:00, both values returned to normal. During the event, the humidity ratio increased approximately 4 g/kg. This increase quickly dissipated after mass had ended. Within three hours the humidity ratio returned to its pre-mass level. The values in the church, located at the highest point in the building, were approximately 0.7g/kg higher than that of the sael, the lowest situated room, during non-visiting hours. Museum visitors increased the humidity ratio in the church more than in other parts of the building. And by noon, the difference was nearly 1.8 g/kg. Although a peak relative humidity was recorded at 12:30, the peak value of humidity ratio in church was at 13:00, the same time as the peak temperature measurement. Morning visitors produced a humidity ratio rate of 1 g/kg/hr until 12:00. During the mass, the rate increased to approximately 1.5 g/kg/hr during the first 30 minutes, then dropped to 0.3 g/kg/hr during the second 30 minutes. This reduction may be due to the automatic operation of humidifiers/dehumidifiers, the infiltration of outside dry air, or a combination of the two.
About the Charity GIRL – India was established in February 2007 by Wynne Clift from Tynemouth, England. The first project was GIRL (Girls Institute for Rehabilitation and Learning) in Vijayawada which is run by the co-ordinator Radhika Premramasaran, an experienced social worker. Having previously worked in other NGOs in the state of Andhra Pradesh it was felt there was a need for a home for young girls. They decided to set up a charity to provide a safe and secure environment for destitute girls between the ages of 5 and 10 years. There are 2 projects that GIRL - India runs: GIRL in Vijayawada, and Girl Himalaya. Thousands of girls live on the streets and the number is increasing. Some live with their homeless mothers while others have to fend for themselves. Many are escaping physical, mental or sexual abuse while others have been abandoned by their parents because of family problems such as poverty, alcoholism or HIV/Aids. The threat of violence is ever present and girls as young as six years old can be forced into child labour or even prostitution. At GIRL we provide food, shelter, healthcare and on-going counselling. The girls also receive a basic education as well as vocational training such as tailoring or embroidery.
Some people choose to flaunt their natural hair in its natural state, whereas others wish to straighten their hair to flaunt long stick-straight hair. Before setting off to straighten your naturally curly or wavy hair, recognize the fact that straight hair is just another hairdo. Straightening Natural Hair With Flat Iron Or Hot Comb For making naturally curly hair straightened or relaxed, you need to invest in some important styling tools for instance a blow dryer, straightening comb, or flat iron. Wash your hair properly to remove oil and grim. Use a thick hair-straightening conditioner, which will help in removing frizz. Towel dry your hair without rubbing it forcefully. Apply a good quality leave- in conditioner and heat protectant on clean and freshly deep conditioned hair. Silicone serum heat protectant, coconut oil, Shea butter, or any other natural oil can be used as heat protectant to protect your hair from any damage caused by heat. With a good salon-quality blow dryer, dry your hair by keeping 10 inch distance. Brush your hair to detangle it completely and divide hair in different sections to make the straightening process easy and simple. Adjust heat of the straightening irons and do not keep it at high temperature. Comb-chase method should be followed to get the desired sleek effect. Take hold of a section of hair with comb and run the straightening tool or iron from root to the end of hair. You should be proficient to use comb in one hand brushing down the hair with the other hand carrying flat iron. Do not hold the iron on one section of hair too long as that will fry your hair. Spray some water or hair spray on the straightened sections to see whether it is reverting back to the previous state. In the modern world, hair-straighteners have become girls’ essential companion. But one should be aware of the risk associated with them. Flat irons or hot combs can dehydrate your hair, if good quality serums are not used on hair to protect it. If you are not skilled enough to do straightening on your own, take the help of expert professionals. Excess heat may cause damage to hair follicles and excessive hair fall. There are some natural methods to straighten your natural hair which do not involve heat, harsh chemicals or any other harmful tools. 4 Tips To Straighten Natural Hair Naturally Natural hair straightening methods are safe and inexpensive. The products involved in them are easily accessible. The natural methods may take longer time to give results and continuous application is needed. Coconut Milk And Lime Juice Method Grind coconut and squeeze out the meat to get one glass of coconut milk. Add two tablespoon of lemon juice to it. Combine the two properly till you get a creamy substance. You can keep this mixture in refrigerator so that the mixture is thickened. You can even leave it overnight without keeping in fridge. Massage the thick concoction on hair and scalp properly. Comb your hair with a wide-toothed comb to detangle and wrap your head in a hot towel. After one hour, rinse off your hair with shampoo and conditioner. This is an easy method to straighten your hair naturally if you repeat the process three times a week. The mixture will not only make tour hair sleek and shiny but will also nourish and moisturize it. Using Milk To Straighten Hair Take equal portions of milk and water in a spray bottle. Spray the content all over your hair and leave it there for 30 minutes. Wash your hair using shampoo and conditioner. You can even add a few drops of honey to the liquid for more effectiveness. Olive Oil And Egg Method Take two eggs and beat them well. Add two spoons of olive oil to eggs and blend the mix properly. Apply it on hair and brush your hair to detangle and to increase blood circulation. After 1-2 hours, wash off to discover well-nourished straight hair. Heat any natural oils such as coconut oil, olive oil or castor oil and massage into your scalp and rub your hair. Wrap your head with hot towel. After 30 minutes, wash off with shampoo and conditioner to discover naturally straight hair. Regular and constant application is needed in the case of natural methods. Natural process will not only straighten hair, but will also nourish and moisturize your hair well.
How Do I Eliminate Stress with Color? The Calming Effects of Color Color is more than just decoration. In nature, insects, fish, birds, flowers and more have color that camouflage them, facilitate mating, and guide them to what they need for survival. For humans, we decorate with colors and dress with colors that we express ourselves with. How many of us consider also that when we choose colors, we're also concerned with how we feel, especially when we're at home? Probably many of us do without even thinking about it. You know how when you're picture shopping for a den and a play room, well when you pick a nature scene and a hot air balloon, the color scheme is as important as the subject. That's because colors affect your mood instinctively. Research has shown that different colors have different effects upon us psychologically, emotionally and even physically. So if you are suffering from stress and its effects, you might consider changing the colors in your environment. You can select colors to surround yourself with and to wear as a stress management tool. The Colors and How They Affect Your Mood We respond to color on a non-conscious level. And that is part of the reason that they are a great tool to manipulate the way that we feel. This form of addressing health issues is recorded as far back as ancient times. Variations of it exist in various cultures around the world. Today, people who practice Feng Shui, acupuncture and other types of adjustments for better living will introduce colors. These practitioners will employ tools like gemstones, colored fabric, candles and prisms. There are many color charts that you can find on the internet and in libraries. Generally, you will find that they share similar evaluations about the effects of specific colors. Below we have included a color chart. See if you can recognize some of the feelings that they describe for each color. A good idea is to just try it out if you haven't already. Think about it: If you ever went to your closet and dressed for the day and chose colors based on how you felt or what was ahead of you, then you practiced a bit of "colorolgy." Colorology is another name for chromotherapy. This is considered to be an alternative medicine. It uses color and light to balance energy wherever a person's body is lacking, whether it's mental, emotional, physical or spiritual. If you are feeling overly stressed, you can use color as a stress management tool. As we have seen, the calming effect of color can help you relax and let your worries go for a while. In the information below, notice the colors that have positive stress management qualities. Colors can be great tools in your efforts to manage your stress and feel better and more in control. How to Eliminate Stress with Color Dr. Group states that "Dark blue has a calming effect on the body." Consider wearing dark blue to lift you out of a stressful mood, or if you anticipate a stressful situation in your day ahead. Review the color chart below and consider your own reaction to certain colors. To use them to relieve stress, wear them and decorate with them to relax and revitalize yourself. - Red: This color is not one to use for stress management. It is an exciting and stimulating color, usually associated with passion and vigor. You might want to use this color when you want to lift yourself out of an emotional slump. - Pink: This color is seen as soft, tranquil color. It's peacefulness promotes balance of your energies. - Orange: Like red, orange does not exhibit the calming effect of color. Instead, orange is a stimulating and intense color. It can work to invigorate you when you are feeling low. - Yellow: Yellow is softer than red or orange and is seen as sunny and cheerful. It's a great color to lift your spirits and when you live in a positive state you are well-equipped to combat stress - Green: Green restful and quiet color. It's a soothing color that invites harmonious feelings that can diffuse anxiety - Blue: Blue is tranquil, peaceful, and calm. This color has a tremendous stress management quality to it, making us feel cool and calm. - Violet: Violet represents strength, peace and wisdom. It can give you feelings of inner peace when you wear it. Decorating with it can give your space a peaceful feeling, relieving stress internally and externally. - White: White is symbolic of clarity and freshness. It really needs to be a clean, bright white because once it gets dingy and dull, your emotions can mirror the dullness. - Black: This color can be overpowering at times, as it exudes a feeling of power and elegance. And it can also represent submission. It's one that can impact your world either way so you need to be careful when decorating with or wearing black.
Search the 1997-1998 Catalog: New Century College 300 Introduction to Social Work (3:3:0). Prerequisite: Sophomore standing. This course introduces students to the historical roots of the social work profession and social welfare. The social systems perpective is discussed as the framework for social work knowledge, values, and skills, and an understanding of professional values, ethics, the fields of practice, and settings of social work. The profession's commitment to the disadvantaged, social justice, diversity, and discriminated and oppressed groups is included as course content. Presentations by social work professionals, including alumni, from different fields of practice will supplement classroom discussion. s 301 Laboratory in Interpersonal Communication (3:3:0). Prerequisites: SOCI 101, SOCW 300 (or corequisite), PSYC 100, and sophomore standing; or permission of instructor. Emphasis on experiential learning of the biological, psychological, social, and cultural influences on the behavior of those who need and those who give help. Students examine their own behavioral and learning patterns, values, and attitudes to increase their ability to understand and help clients. Field service of at least 60 hours required. f,s 323 Human Behavior in the Social Environment I (3:3:0). Prerequisites: SOCI 101, SOCW 300 (or corequisite), BIOL 104, and PSYC 100; or permission of instructor. A social systems approach unifying and integrating concepts and knowledge from biology, anthropology, sociology, and psychology about human behavior. Applications to professional practice, from the social work literature, and to the field experience. f 324 Human Behavior in the Social Environment II (3:3:0). Prerequisite: SOCW 323 with a minimum grade of C or permission of instructor. Examination of social systems theories as they pertain to the study of macro systems. Focus of study involves families, the social group, the formal organization, and the community. Student will apply theoretical concepts to contemporary social problems. s 351 Social Welfare Policy and Services I (3:3:0). Prerequisites: SOCI 101, SOCW 300 (or corequisite), PSYC 100, and GOVT 204; or permission of instructor. Introduction to social welfare, including its historical development, central concepts, institutional nature, and the functions of social work as a profession. Analyses of human service delivery systems, settings, and roles of social work. f 352 Social Welfare Policy and Service II (3:3:0). Prerequisite: SOCW 351 with a minimum grade of C or permission of instructor. Analysis of various social welfare policies; components of policy in our society. Examines the political, economic, and cultural influences on the policymaking process. s 357 Methods of Social Work Intervention I (3:3:0). Open to majors only. Prerequisites: SOCI 101, SOCW 300 (or corequisite), and PSYC 100; or permission of instructor. Social work practice from a systems perspective. Particular emphasis on problem-solving activities with microsystems. The common core of knowledge, values, and skills essential to social work practice is analyzed to gain insight into social work functions and the role of the social worker as a change agent. f 358 Methods of Social Work Intervention II (3:3:0). Open to majors only. Prerequisites: SOCW 301 and 357, with a minimum grade of C in both courses, or permission of instructor; corequisite: SOCW 359. Continues a generic problem-solving model, focusing on group and macrointervention systems, settings, and skills. Emphasis on working with groups from treatment to task purposes. Group processes such as goal formulation, contract setting, composition, and termination necessary for effective worker intervention are part of the knowledge base of the course. Field service of 40 hours required. s 359 Methods of Social Work Intervention Seminar (1:1:0). Prerequisite: Must be taken simultaneously with SOCW 358. Weekly seminar to process learning related to 40 hours of field service in the community. Working with groups and communities, provides an experiential opportunity to practice group skills and analyze community intervention strategies. 400 Legal and Ethical Issues in Human Services (3:3:0). Prerequisite: 60 hours or permission of instructor. An overview of ethical and legal issues related to the human services professions. Some topics include responsibility, competence, duty to warn, confidentiality, professional relationships, and research. Clinical strategies relevant to legal and ethical issues are emphasized. 410 Alcohol and Substance Abuse: Policies and Programs (3:3:0). Prerequisite: 60 hours or permission of instructor. Primary issues related to alcoholism and drug abuse including key concepts, theories, policies, and research regarding the use and abuse of alcohol and other drugs. Emphasis on the impact of the policies and programs on the well-being of ethnic minority and disadvantaged service populations. sum 423 Social Work with Adolescents (3:3:0). Prerequisites: 60 hours and concurrent field experience or permission of instructor. Major needs of adolescents with their implications for social work practice. Problems of family and peer group relationships; occupational choice; sexual and scholastic adjustment; and special problems of racial and cultural alienation; alcohol and drug abuse; and delinquency. Studies various theoretical orientations and evidence from research. Analyzes both individual and group approaches to counseling and treatment. 425 Planning and Organizing for Community Change (3:3:0). Prerequisite: 60 hours or permission of instructor. Designed for senior social work students with an interest in pursuing community organization as a professional career specialty. Students are provided with a basic understanding of community organization and planning, with special emphasis on conducting a needs assessment in the community. Student examine the environmental context in which administrative and community practice occurs. The role of social workers as planners and agents of social change is explored. 430 Social Work and the Law (3:3:0). Prerequisite: 60 hours or permission of the instructor. Introduces students to the social worker's role in the legal system, familiarizes students with legal processes and their application to issues of interest to social workers and their clients, including child abuse, foster care, reproductive rights, juvenile justice, and legal rights of the poor/women. 435 Social Work with the Aged (3:3:0). Prerequisite: 60 hours or permission of instructor. A survey of the issues related to working with the aged population. A study of biological, psychological, and sociocultural aspects of aging, as well as the unique problems that are intricately involved with service delivery to aged persons. Students examine the forces that impinge upon the aged person and explore critical issues related to extended life span, family changes, institutionalization, and the role of the aged persons in society. Students are challenged to increase their sensitivity and knowledge of aged citizens. 453 Senior Practicum I (5:0:0). Prerequisites: SOCW 301, 323, 324, 351, 352, 357, and 358, with a grade of at least C and recommendation of faculty. Open only to social work majors. Under supervisory instruction provided by field agencies, students are involved two days per week in learning through participation in the provision of service to individual clients, families, groups and/or communities, and in activities sponsored by or involving professional social workers. Weekly seminar and periodic faculty-agency consultations. f 454 Senior Practicum II (5:0:0). Prerequisites: SOCW 453, with a grade of at least C and recommendation of faculty. Field experience and weekly seminar. s 455 Senior Practicum/Block Placement (10:0:0). Prerequisites: SOCW 301, 323, 324, 351, 352, 357, 358, and 471; completion of all required social work courses except electives; social work major with 90 hours; GPA of 3.50 (in social work); and recommendation of the faculty and director of field instruction. Under supervisory instruction provided by field agencies, students are involved four days per week in learning through participation in the provision of service to individual clients, families, groups, and/or communities, and in activities sponsored by or involving professional social workers. Weekly seminar or individual meetings with faculty liaison, and periodic faculty-agency visits. s 471 Research in Social Work (3:3:0). Prerequisite: SOCI 221 or PSYC 300, six credits of social work courses, senior standing, or permission of instructor. Must be completed with a minimum grade of C. Principles and the theory underlying scientific inquiry. Emphasis on the use of research in social work practice, steps in conducting research, and utility of research efforts in developing and evaluating social work knowledge and skills. f 475 Selected Topics in Social Work Policy (3:3:0). Prerequisite: 60 hours or permission of instructor. In-depth study of special areas of social work that are of interest to students, faculty, and the social work community. Topics vary. 483 Selected Approaches to Social Work Intervention (3:3:0). Prerequisite: 60 hours or permission of instructor. Taken simultaneously with SOCW 453 or 454 (Senior Practicum). Opportunity to examine critically personal use of different approaches to social work intervention currently employed in practice settings. Students have an opportunity to use with clients the technical skills these approaches require. May be taken more than once for credit. Topics vary. 499 Independent Study in Social Work (1-3:0:0). Prerequisites: 90 hours and a research proposal approved by instructor before enrollment. Investigation of a research problem in the field of social work. 510 Interdisciplinary Seminar in Child and Family Welfare (3:3:0). Prerequisite: Upper-division undergraduate or graduate standing. Provides student with an in-depth understanding of the child and family welfare systems in the United States and other countries by examining factors that contribute to child and family dysfunction and by assessing family support programs. Particular emphasis will be placed on vulnerable and at-risk populations. 511 Health Status of Vulnerable and At-Risk Women, Children, and Families (3:3:0). Prerequisite: Upper-division undergraduate or graduate standing. Provides students with an in-depth understanding of the physical, social, and psychological factors that influence the health status, behaviors, and outcome of vulnerable populations in the United States and Latin American countries. Race, ethnicity, gender, and institutional arrangements are critical areas of focus in understanding the health trajectory of these groups. 598 Special Topics in Social Work (3:3:0). Prerequisite: Upper-division undergraduate or graduate standing.
Just around the corner from Simon’s Town lies Boulders Beach, a sheltered cove of soft white sand, massive granite boulders and – being on the Indian Ocean side of the peninsula – water that’s a little warmer than the icy temperatures of Cape Town's Atlantic Ocean beaches. Yet it’s not the squeaky-clean sand or crystal clear water that makes visitors to flock to Boulders but its local residents – penguins. Boulders Beach and neighbouring Foxy Beach are home to a colony of thousands of African penguins and it's great fun to watch them go about their daily business: preening and sunning themselves, guarding a nest, waddling along the sand like an old married couple and then transforming into sleek black-and-white torpedoes as soon as they enter the water. To get really close to the penguins stroll along the wooden boardwalks that thread through the dense vegetation, over the dunes and round Foxy Beach - with such a beautiful setting and ever-obliging birds you’re sure to get some great photos. In fact the penguins almost seem to pose for pictures, though a word of warning: don’t hassle the penguins or try to touch them - they may look cute but they can be grouchy and those beaks are razor sharp. Afterward wandering the boardwalks, head down to Boulders Beach itself and find a spot to soak up some sunshine and enjoy the unique experience of sharing a stretch of sand with these birds in their butler-style tailcoats. If you’re travelling with kids, be prepared to stay a while: the water’s safe for swimming, there are rock pools to explore and boulders to clamber about on – it really is the perfect spot for a family beach picnic. A final word of advice for those who have driven to Boulders Beach: before you leave, check to see whether any stray birds have chosen to rest in the shade of, or underneath, your car. At 40 km from the city centre, Boulders is the furthest of our Cape Town beaches but its position makes it the perfect stop on your drive either to or from Cape Point, and if you book a scheduled peninsula tour it’s sure to be included. Who will enjoy it: Everyone! And kids are sure to love Boulders as much – if not more – than adults. Entry Fee: Adults R45 Children age 2-11 R20 (valid until 31 October 2012) The Boulders Beach penguin colony has grown rapidly over the years and it is now possible to see a few birds for free on neighbouring beaches, but the overwhelming majority of birds are still found within the reserve so we’d highly recommend paying the small entrance fee charged by the Table Mountain National Parks. Opening times: Refer to the South African National Parks for the latest entry and exit times. Our Luxury Cape Town City Experience makes the most of a stay in Cape Town with 4 nights in a charming boutique hotel and all manner of activities including a visit to Boulders Beach and Cape Point, trip to the top of Table Mountain and time spent in the Cape Winelands. Our favourite beach lodges near Boulders: Tintswalo Atlantic (Hout Bay): a top choice for those looking for a romantic retreat away from the city centre with just 10 individually decorated suites, plenty of privacy and Atlantic Ocean views. The Last Word Long Beach (Noordhoek): spectacular sea and mountain views plus an on-your-doorstep beach are what to expect at this boutique hotel, just 40 min from Cape Town. View more Cape Town coastal accommodation. Written by Sandra Mallinson. Connect with her on Google+. At a Glance This tiny and seemingly insignificant beach along the False Bay seaboard is actually one of Cape Town's biggest tourist attractions, namely due to the thousand-strong African penguin colony living in and around the dunes and boulders.
Say goodbye to Patches. The Erie Zoo's female polar bear will be relocated, most likely permanently, to the North Carolina Zoo sometime this month, Executive Director Scott Mitchell said Thursday. The zoo's planned $1 million renovation of two moated exhibits, including the one Patches is in, is driving the decision, Mitchell said. The zoo was concerned that the noise and disruption caused by the construction project would be too stressful for her. Patches most likely will remain in Asheboro, N.C., ending the Erie Zoo's long-standing connection to the marquee species at least for the foreseeable future, Mitchell said. The zoo has no immediate plans to acquire another polar bear. "She's almost 26 and ... she's going to be down there at least a year and then she's 27," he said. "By that point it would make more sense for her to stay there. They have a big bear exhibit with no bears so it makes sense in that regard as well." Patches' moving date has not been set, but this weekend is the last that the zoo can guarantee visitors will be able to see her, Mitchell said. Visitors and staff members alike will miss her, he said. "It's a family member moving away," Mitchell said. The zoo is in the final design phase of the construction project, which includes Patches' exhibit and its lion exhibit. Plans include renovating holding spaces and sculpting the concrete walls; filling the moats that separate the outdoor open-air spaces from the outer exhibit rail, and installing glass partitions. "It'll be somewhat similar to the tiger (exhibit)," Mitchell said. "There will be glass so people can get nose to nose with things. ... It's larger, it's a better fit all around for the animals." Netting at the top of the exhibits will allow the zoo to house a wide variety of large cats in the exhibits, including the Amur leopards and possibly a new species, the Canadian lynx, Mitchell said. Still, Mitchell said he's concerned about losing one of the zoo's popular attractions. "They're an iconic species here at the zoo," Mitchell said of polar bears. "They have been a part of the community and the fabric and our family forever, as far as anybody can remember. But there's a lot of things at play in this and one is the difficulty in acquiring bears." Few polar bears are being born at zoos, Mitchell said. Cost and space requirements of a new exhibit are also considerations. The combined space of the current adjacent lion and polar bear exhibits would not be enough to house polar bears under current requirements, Mitchell said. "Every kid can identify with a polar bear and bears in general. It's not easy to replace a polar bear in any way, shape or form. It's even more difficult because they've been with us back to the 'Koehler polars,'" Mitchell said, referring to the first pair of polar bears to live at the zoo. The pair was sponsored by the Koehler Brewery. "I think the community understands what we're doing is best for the polar bear and polar bears in general, and that has to be our first priority," he said. ERICA ERWIN can be reached at 870-1846 or by e-mail. Follow her on Twitter at twitter.com/ETNerwin.
Rhodes eResearch Repository – The mineralogy and geochemistry of the Voëlwater banded iron-formation, Northern Cape Province – Rhodes eResearch Repository Banded iron-formations (BIFs) are chemically precipitated sedimentary rocks in which Fe-rich bands or laminae alternate with Fe-poor ones. Text TSIKOS-MSc-TR95-63.pdf 6Mb. Astrobiology Magazine – Rock Bands Spin an Oxygen Record Banded iron formation. To help sort out the geologic plotline, Papineau is studying banded iron formations (BIFs), sedimentary rocks that formed at the bottom of ancient seas. The iron minerals within BIFs make up the world's largest source of iron ore. Iron – Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia Large deposits of iron are found in banded iron formations. These geological formations are a type of rock consisting of repeated thin layers of iron oxides, either magnetite (Fe3O4) or hematite (Fe2O3), alternating with bands of iron-poor shale and chert. Origin of life critique To everyone's surprise they reported the spiral algal fossil Grypania within banded iron formations (BIFs) in Michigan, USA. Algae require oxygen, so their existence at this juncture shows banded iron formations do not necessarily indicate global anoxic conditions. Origin of Life – A. G. Cairns-Smith Precambrian solution photochemistry, inverse segregation, and banded iron formations, A. Genetic takeover – and the mineral origins of life, A. G Cairns-Smith, Origins of Life, 6, 265-7, 1975. Mineral theories of the origin of life and an iron sulfide example, A. J Russell, 1992 Origins Life Evol. www.docstoc.com docs 6018066 Precambrian PDF Wells doesn't even mention the evidence that banded iron formations (incompletely oxidized iron indicative of ultralow-oxygen conditions) are very common prior to 2.3 bya and very rare afterwards. Alaska Volcano Observatory – Novarupta – Bibliography Origins of large-volume, compositionally zoned volcanic eruptions: new constraints from U-series isotopes and numerical thermal modeling for the 1912 Katmai-Novarupta eruption, 2010 Turner, Simon, Sandiford, Mike, Reagan, Mark, Hawkesworth, Chris, and Hildreth, Wes, 2010, Origins of large-volume, compositionally zoned … BioMedCentral – BMC Evolutionary Biology – Full text – A genomic timescale for the origin of eukaryotes Although the existence of banded iron formations prior to 3 Ga sometimes has been used as evidence for the early evolution of oxygenic photosynthesis, oxygen-independent mechanisms of iron deposition are known. Working model of gene relationships used in this study. UTas ePrints – Setting of the Palaeoproterozoic Koongie Park Formation and carbonate-associated base metal mineralisation, at … Requires a PDF viewer 71Mb. Requires a PDF viewer 486Kb. Requires a PDF viewer 876Kb. Requires a PDF viewer 5Mb. Requires a PDF viewer 6Mb.
Radon gas poses serious health risks. Next to smoking, it is the second leading cause of lung cancer. The Environmental Protection Agency estimates that close to 20,000 lung cancer deaths in the US yearly are attributed to residential radon exposure. Non-smokers beware: The US Surgeon General announced that 20,000 Americans die of radon-related lung cancer each year. Radon gas trapped in homes is the second leading cause of lung cancer. Worldwide radon causes over 15% of all lung cancer diagnosed yearly. Isn't Radon Testing a Scam? Despite the serious, and fatal health risks of exposure to radon, few home owners get this checked. One possible reason is that radon testing was, for a short time, plagued by fraudulent testing businesses. However, because of the serious health risks of radon gas, the US Environmental Protection Agency and the individual statewide Departments of Environmental Protection have regulated the testing of homes for radon. Now, only homeowners and certified specialists are legally allowed to check for radon. Furthermore, there was a time when homes were not air-tight and radon gas was easily dissipated into the air. So, the threat was not as prevelant. However, since the early 1980s, when home energy efficiency measure gained steam, the problem of residential radon gas has increased exponentially. What is Radon? Radon is radioactive gas that is completely undetectable by the five human senses. It is invisible, odorless, and tasteless. It comes from the breakdown of uranium in the soil (which first breaks down into radium and then into radon). Uranium is naturally occurring in all soil. Hence, radon is continually traveling through the soil and into the atmosphere. It becomes a problem when it gets trapped in homes and is allowed to accumulate. What Are the Health Risks of Radon Exposure? It has long been known that breathing radioactive material causes abnormal cell growth when exposed to internal bodily tissue, such as bronchial tissue. However, two recent scientific studies show definitive evidence between radon and lung cancer. "These findings effectively end any doubts about the risks to Americans of having radon in their homes," said Tom Kelly, Director of EPA’s Indoor Environments Division. "We know that radon is a carcinogen. This research confirms that breathing low levels of radon can lead to lung cancer." Why Would Radon Be in My House? Because uranium is present in all soil, radon is also present in the soil. Since radon is a gas, it naturally travels through the soil and enters homes through basement floors and walls. Particularly susceptible are homes with unfinished, rock or dirt floored basements built on loose soil. However, radon also leeches through concrete and has been found in homes without any visible cracks or fissures. Additionally, it can travel through drains. Once in the home, it breaks down into small particles that concentrate in the air throughout the home. Unfortunately, radon can not be dissipated by just opening a window or plugging in a fan. Should I Worry About Radon? People are spending more and more money making their homes fuel efficient. If you've done this, you know that it means your home is sealed as tightly as possible. What this means for radon is that it has no escape route. Add to that the time spent in the house - working from home, staying in to enjoy home entertainment systems, working-out with home gym equipment, and saving a buck by eating in. On average, we spend more time at home than ever before. If this sounds like you, then you should probably worry. How Do I Know If I Have Radon? OK, so radon's Dangerous. But, you don't know if it presents a danger to you and your family unless you get tested. There is a simple piece of equipment that tests for radon in a few days to a week. There is also more sophisticated equipment that can gather radon data over a loger period of time, up to a year. You can test for radon with a testing device from the hardware store, home center, or even the American Lung Association. Or you can have a professionally certified radon removal specialist test your home. Any of these options are viable, however, a professional radon specialist is a safe bet. They are all state certified and adhere to strict government guidelines. If you buy a test kit and do it yourself, it will cost about a third less than it would cost to have a professionally administered test. Place the test kit on the lowest level of your home, usually the basement. Home tests usually gather data over a 3 to 7 day period and give hourly readings of radon levels. When is Radon Toxic? Radon gas does exist in the air at safe levels (at 0.4pCi/L). The trouble exists when radon is trapped. Radon levels over 4 pico curies per liter (4pCi/L) are considered dangerous. If you or a radon specialist find levels higher than that, consider reducing the levels of radon in your home immediately. How Do I Reduce the Radon Level? The "subslab depressurization system" is the most common and effective way to reduce radon in the home. This system’s name is trickier than the technology. It’s basically PVC piping and a small fan. The piping is installed below the basement floor and run to the roof. The pipe in the basement is submerged below the basement slab and sealed. The end of the pipe that is above the eaves of the house is fitted with a small exhaust fan. This fan causes a suction that removes the gas and vents it into the atmosphere. Should I Do It Myself or Call a Professional? It is possible to install a radon reduction unit yourself. And, again, it will be considerably less expensive than if a professional does the job. Professional jobs can cost in the high 100s to the low 1000s. (Because some jobs are complicated, there is a wide range in the basic pricing.) If you do it yourself, it is advisable that your have experience with PVC piping and wiring. When Should I Test Again? If your radon levels were below 4 pCu/l the first time, it’s a good idea to test for radon levels every 2 or 3 years based on your soil and previous readings. Loose soil allows gas to travel more quickly than clay. Furthermore, if you have recently weatherized your home, if you’ve installed a central heating and air conditioning unit, if you’ve built additions in the basement or done any construction, have your radon levels checked.
STILLPOINT Archive: last updated 05/05/2011 by Mark Sargent This mural (detail), by Marshall Deckert and Chad Carlberg ’95, was painted on the courtyard wall of the Latin American Studies Program in San Jose, Costa Rica. Our written directions, in Spanish, alluded often to former landmarks rather than to the names of avenues, as if the real map of San José was the local memory. So when our cab driver got lost, retracing the same steep roads in the outskirts of the Costa Rican capital, we tried our luck at a corner fruit market, full of papayas, mangoes and bananas under a corrugated eave and another of the ubiquitous Coca Cola signs. The merchant, with slight amusement, promptly pointed to the iron fence and white house right across the street, the site of the Consejo Universidades Cristianas—or, the Latin American Studies Program of the Council for Christian Colleges & Universities (CCCU). It didn’t take long to encounter footprints from Gordon College. After all, Jud Carlberg had been one of the architects of the program during the years when the CCCU first decided to create study-abroad opportunities for U.S. students. On the wall overlooking a small courtyard, a bright mural by Marshall Deckert and Chad Carlberg ’95, Jud’s son, offers a vision of North American unity. Two large arms encircle a geographic panorama, which climbs from the barrio of San José toward the continental expanse of the United States. In the foreground the Pulperia, or the neighborhood fruit store, is surrounded by images of Costa Ricans at work and play—reading, harvesting coffee beans, or collecting flowers beneath a Spanish fountain. In the hazier distance one can see the faint silhouette of San Francisco’s Golden Gate Bridge and the twin towers of New York. Our family’s visit occurred in the summer of 2002, just 10 months after those twin towers disintegrated over Manhattan streets. On that September 11 the sanctuary was already full when Jud Carlberg calmly pulled us together in a side aisle to design, rather hastily, a noontime service. We chose hymns. I read a psalm. And Jud had prepared remarks about how the moment was as likely to define this generation as Pearl Harbor had once done for his own parents. What I remember most was his call for patience and empathy rather than recrimination and revenge. He would take some heat for that: notes and emails from those eager for more righteous indignation. Since the tragedy of September 11, international study has expanded among American students. The number of Gordon students traveling off campus for a semester has more than doubled in the decade. Increasingly our students now find their way around the world, joining service trips in Sri Lanka and Bolivia, or completing academic semesters in Orvieto and Beijing. Going forward we will inevitably stress that such international ventures prepare students to flourish in the “global economy” and the “global village.” We do trust that our graduates will know the idioms of the world’s parliaments and the digital language of the world’s marketplace. But I hope that, in the midst of all the spin about power and expediency, we never lose the conviction that international study is a means to developing patience and empathy. It is about discovering those neighborhoods that shape individual lives and values. The map of the human heart relies on local memory. During my time as provost I have appreciated Jud’s encouragement to link educational ventures to the local setting rather than envisioning education primarily as a global commodity. There is no digital equivalent for the hum of insects in Kenyan grasslands or the long conversation over coffee at Aix-en-Provence. Or the evening we spent with Jud and Jan walking by viola players on Budapest corners, part of a culture where opera spills into the streets. Last spring my son Daniel spent a semester in the Triana neighborhood of Seville, Spain. During our visit Daniel and I found our way through the old dungeon of the Inquisition, exiting through an indoor market, packed with grapes, cantaloupes and ham legs, and decorated with scores of religious posters from Semana Santa, the extravagant and solemn Holy Week procession. I had come to see something of the famous venue of religious intolerance, the place where the novelist Dostoyevsky set the confrontation between the Grand Inquisitor and Christ. But in the vegetable stands, festival streamers, and saints’ figurines beside the prison rubble, I was reminded just how much the great legacy of faith—its traditions, exuberance, and tragic excess—takes on a local hue, never far from the simplest cadences of common lives. Globalization both reveals and obscures those cadences. I now read the international press online and watch cricket on cable. But this broad access to the world’s media can also build false confidence that one knows other peoples and places. Just over a year ago, as I prepared for a trip to Tamil Nadu in southern India, I read Aravind Adiga’s The White Tiger, a dark comedy on the rise of modern India. Fiercely satirical, the book captured the Man Booker Prize, the elite literary award announced in London. But in talking with faculty in Tamil Nadu I heard cautions about viewing an Asian nation through Western prizes, presumably because those award-winners are attuned to the Western ear for irony. Faculty spoke instead of poems and novels that caught the rhythms on the land they loved: a lyric about the white-washed banyan trunks alongside the dusty roads, a story about lepers in the Nilgiri Hills, or a novella about love and loneliness on the Gulf of Mannar. Other professors recalled, with melancholy, how many of the best Tamil-language films were redubbed in Hindi to catch the Bollywood market, a gateway to the commercial attention of Europe and North America. Social workers stressed the tug-of-war between Western ideals of personal rights and the Gandhian vision for the collaborative rural village. Justice requires an eye for the neighborhood as well as the global trend. My hope is that at Gordon we will always remember the local in the liberal arts. Many who champion the liberal arts cite their universality—if not a singular canon of knowledge, a common array of intellectual skills. At their best, the liberal arts help us transcend borders. But one can also use a liberal arts pedigree, with its claims to wisdom and breadth, merely to sanction one’s provincial ways and values. Just as likely, we can easily lose the regional shades of human experience within the broad strokes by which we paint the history of people and ideas. After all, most of the matters that fill a liberal arts curriculum—books, theories, artwork, and methods of discovery—are imports from some specific place. As with any commodity that succeeds on the global market, whether it is cuisine, sport, software, novels or ideas, there are many other variations back home that are equally, or even more fervently, cherished. I am grateful that Jud encouraged us to discover them. Mark Sargent has been the provost of Gordon College since 1996.
Maintaining Political Balance Through Redistricting Bringing truth, light and perhaps even fairness to redistricting. It’s the decennial exercise in political shenanigans that for eons has vexed reformers: state and federal legislative redistricting. Ever since former Massachusetts Gov. Elbridge Gerry invented his now-infamous “Gerrymander” on Boston’s North Shore, state legislators and governors have, with new census data, exhibited a sort of free-form artistic creativity that would be the envy of the most talented avant-garde abstract painters. And so the question remains: How can redistricting be handled in a way that at least blunts the worst of that creativity? That is, can district lines be drawn so that they are not stretched across implausible geographical boundaries in order to tilt the political balance of power in a particular district in favor of Democrats or Republicans? Two interesting experiments in reform are pending, although neither carries any guarantee of success. The first -- California’s Proposition 11 -- is garnering the most initial attention. Passed in 2008, the proposition creates a 14-member citizen commission overseen by the state auditor’s office that will handle the job of drawing up state legislative districts, taking the whole process out of the hands of politicians. The way the commission is chosen is diabolically clever and convoluted. The method was designed with the assistance of the citizens’ lobby organization, California Common Cause, and complexity was built into it to defy politicization. At the same time, there’s been plenty of citizen enthusiasm about joining the commission’s ranks. “We thought we might get 500 or 1,000 applicants,” says Kathay Feng, executive director of Common Cause California. “We got 30,000.” Whether Proposition 11 is allowed to work its prospective apolitical magic, however, depends on what happens this Election Day. Two ballot initiatives will be voted on -- they will either expand Proposition 11’s reach or kill the idea altogether. Proposition 20 will extend the commission’s jurisdiction beyond just state legislative districts to congressional districts. Proposition 27 -- which is backed by the California Congressional Delegation -- will rescind Proposition 11 altogether. But if citizen commissions can’t play in the fields of redistricting, there will at least be more opportunity for a hot stove-style approach. The second reform idea involves the simple application of a little sunlight. That is, it would allow regular people to use Web-based tools and their computers to come up with their own plan for a state’s legislative and congressional electoral boundaries. That means for the first time in any redistricting cycle, citizens will be able to weigh in with their ideas on what maps should look like. There will be no weight of law behind it, but through websites like Dave’s Redistricting App, posted on Gardow.com, anyone with a computer can play governor. Players choose their state and get to use speculative U.S. Census Bureau data to make their moves. Meanwhile, the Brookings Institution and American Enterprise Institute are pushing states to put their own redistricting plans online and allow citizens to participate in the process. States haven’t proved to be overly excited about the prospect, citing costs. Proponents of these citizen-participation efforts hope that they will at least get citizens tuned into the importance of what’s now considered an opaque and arcane practice. Maybe, given more citizen awareness, the efforts could spur politicians to be less brazen in their political artistry. Join the Discussion After you comment, click Post. You can enter an anonymous Display Name or connect to a social profile.
Underwater Vac Inhales Alien Algae "We're getting to the point now where we feel like we have a good suite of tools to remove alien algae." - Eric Conklin, Honolulu Nature Conservancy marine-science advisor Honololu, Hawaii, USA - Alien algae are infesting and killing some of Hawaii's coral reefs at an unprecedented rate ... But a new underwater vacuum cleaner is helping curb the growth. Dubbed the 'Super Sucker,' the machine can hoover up to 800 pounds of the thicket-like algae in an hour, which should give reefs a fighting chance of recovery.
The JOBS act was signed into law by President Obama on Thursday 5 April, supported by overwhelming bypartisan support. Grow VC has been active in pioneering the new market and since last year supporting the bills passage through Congress. A lot of work has been done much earlier with our global operations in building awareness and best practices in this emerging field. The movement of democratizing startup funding has been escalating in momentum since the past few years, but the impact is still only a fraction of it’s full potential for the economy. The support from US Congress is positive in seeing the fundamental changes that are impacting startups and investing in startups, but also the impact on the economy such a movement will have. We’ve also discussed this topic with the father of the bill, Congressman McHenry on our podcast. President Obama stated: Overall, new businesses account for almost every new job created in America. For startups and small businesses, this bill is a game changer. Because of this bill, startups and small businesses will have access to a bigger pool of investors. What comes to the future beyond the signing of the JOBS act, however important, it is only a mere start of the future of startup funding. Grow VC continues its work to hone a sustainable and efficient framework for crowdfunding, but also tools and models to leverage crowdfunding for other types of investors and organizations. Therefore Grow VC works with hundreds of partners in it’s Networks Program, in order to include more information, support and infrastructure to early stage entrepreneurship. With the right framework and infrastructure, the JOBS act can truly kickstart the economy for new competitive advantages. We at Grow VC applaud policy makers for their strong support and leadership to support the US economy and job growth. This is surely the start of many new success cases, both from the sides of entrepreneurs, as well as their investors. Learn More About Grow VC Group Companies We are always looking for talented, entrepreneurial and driven doers to join our growing global group of companies in various positions and locations around the world. If you think you have what it takes, apply now!
Toll Free: 1-800-247-7122 TTY: (262) 741-8492 Burlington Campus: (262) 767-5200 Elkhorn Campus: (262) 741-8200 Kenosha Campus: (262) 564-2200 Racine Campus: (262) 619-6200 Campus Closings: 1-800-353-3152 By Gena Checki Fab Lab program coordinator Greg Herker, right, shows the milling machine to student Randy Quilling. Are you interested in changing the world with an idea or invention? If you are, you might consider attending a Fab Lab program or getting a Fab Lab membership. Fab Lab originated at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, where professor Neil Gershenfeld wanted to provide widespread access to modern means for invention. There are now more than 100 Fab Lab locations worldwide, including Gateway’s Industrial Design Fab Lab at the S. C. Johnson iMET Center in Sturtevant. Gateway’s lab, which opened last spring, is open to all Gateway students. All interested individuals must first take a $25 orientation and safety class. In addition to Gateway students, small business and industry employees can use the Fab Lab for various purposes. Fab Lab can be used for projects such as design, prototyping and model making. Art students can use it as a creative medium. The lab also can be used to demonstrate parts or even for fun, to make items that aren’t destined to change the world. “The Fab Lab is a place to bring your ideas to life - whether something small that you take pride in or an invention that changes the world,” said Greg Herker, Fab Lab program coordinator. For example, Gateway students recently designed their own characters on the computer and used a 3-D printer to bring their characters to life. The 3-D printer uses a liquid and ultraviolet light to “print” as a complete, workable object. The Fab Lab also is equipped with a 3-D scanner, a milling machine and an Epilog Helix Laser/Engraver. In addition to encouraging ingenuity, Fab Lab technology will soon be in most workplaces. And, Herker added, employers want students who are creative and innovative. “The Fab Lab is a place to bring your ideas to life - whether something small that you take pride in or an invention that changes the world,” said Greg Herker, Fab Lab program coordinator
[Haskell-cafe] Named function fields vs. type classes k.schupke at imperial.ac.uk Wed Dec 29 13:34:11 EST 2004 There are two ways to do the list of class members, existentials is one data MyBox = forall a . MyClass a => MyBox a type MyClassList = [MyBox] f :: MyClassList -> MyClassList An alternative is to use a heterogeneous list (see the HList library): This allows heterogeneous lists with static typing, which can be constrained by a class as follows: class MyClassList x instance MyClassList HNil instance (MyClassList l,MyClass v) => MyClassList (HCons v l) The constraint "MyClassList" now implies a heterogeneous list of members f :: (MyClassList l,MyClassList l') => l -> l' This represents a filter function on a heterogeneous list of class members - The drawback is that the list must be statically typecheckable... If you list construction from IO actions, then you want to use existentials. Sebastian Sylvan wrote: >On Tue, 14 Dec 2004 15:40:13 +0000, Keith Wansbrough ><Keith.Wansbrough at cl.cam.ac.uk> wrote: >>>On the other hand, it's difficult or impossible to make a list of a >>>bunch of different types of things that have nothing in common save >>>being members of the class. >>I've recently been playing with making, for each class C, a >>"interface" datatype IC (appropriately universally and existentially >>qualified so as to include a dictionary for class C), and then making >>this IC an instance of class C. Then I can wrap any instance of C up >>in an IC, and make a list of those. >I think there should be standard syntax for this... >Some sort of operator for turning one or several type classes into an >So you could write something like something like... >f :: <Show,Num> -> [<Show,Eq>] -> <Eq,Num> >f a xs = ... >So the first parameter is just a value of the interface datatype >data ShowNum = forall a . (Show a, Num a) => ShowNum a >And it's all automatically up and downcasted. >This is one of the more powerful idioms in languages such as Java >(collections of objects which satisfy some interface, for instance) >and should, IMO, be supported by some special syntax to facilitate >it's use in Haskell. More information about the Haskell-Cafe
Literature: From Paradise to the Postcolonial English 356, Fall 1997 Dr. Juniper Ellis Loyola College in Maryland Baltimore MD 21210 Office Hours: MWF 9-11, and by appointment Cristina Garcia, Dreaming in Cuban Vilsoni Hereniko, Last Virgin in Paradise Keri Hulme, The Bone People Earl Lovelace, The Dragon Can't Dance Herman Melville, Typee V. S. Naipaul, Miguel Street Derek Walcott, Dream on Monkey Mountain and Other Plays Albert Wendt, Sons for the Return Home Library Reserve Readings, indicated by ** This course pursues the perennial inquiry into the poetics and politics of literature, focusing on the island literatures of the Caribbean and the South Pacific. Our readings include a brief examination of island narratives written by British and U.S. explorers, traders, and missionaries from the early modern period to the present. Accounts by nineteenth-century Pacific Islands and Caribbean missionaries further establish the historical and cultural bases of the twentieth-century literature that will be our primary focus. We will examine these writers' use of both oral and written forms, by way of considering island aesthetics and the island as a cultural cross-roads. I will expect you to develop, over the course of the semester, analyses of the ways writers' formal techniques relate to larger cultural and critical issues. As a result, you will be expected to read and think about the material before each class, and present your ideas in short papers, class discussions, weekly e-mail discussions, one ten-minute oral presentation, and two seven-page papers (standard fonts and one-inch margins on all papers, please). You are required to meet with me during the week prior to your presentation. Additionally, I encourage you to meet with me for individual writing conferences (do not wait until the day before the paper is due). In-class writing workshops will allow you to benefit from others' suggestions as well, when you go over papers or working drafts in a small group. Unannounced quizzes on the readings, as well as a mid-semester exam and a final exam, will help ensure that you keep up and allow you to make connections between the readings. I am happy to talk with you at any point about the readings or about your writing. If you cannot make my office hours I would be glad to arrange another appointment. Attendance and participation are essential and will affect your grade, which will be figured as follows: Oral presentation 10% Weekly contributions to e-mail discussion 10% Class discussion, attendance, unannounced reading quizzes 20% Mid-sem and Final 20% You are allowed three excused absences and you are responsible for any material covered or assigned during your absence. Your final grade will be dropped as much as a whole letter grade for each absence over three. Please do not be late to class. Papers are due on or before the date indicated, and must be turned in at the beginning of the class. Late papers will be penalized (one-third of a grade for each day late, for example, from a B to a B-). To avoid plagiarism, all quotations and paraphrased ideas from other sources must be cited, in accordance with the Honor Code. Any violation of the Honor Code will result in a failing grade. If you have any questions, please see me. © 2005, UHM, Center for Pacific Island Studies. \| Site Credits
The Rise of the Modern Firm This authoritative volume focuses on the rise of modern firms, from their early history to the present day. It considers the role of laws and contracts in shaping the growth and influence of business enterprises. It presents entrepreneurs, executives and the firms they controlled as driving actors in national economies and international growth. Alongside an original introduction, Professors Jones and Friedman have selected work by scholars who have used corporate archives to explore the fine details of how firms actually operated. It also includes work by those who have been influenced by evolutionary, transaction costand resource-based theories of the firm. The book will be an essential source of reference for industrial economists, management scholars and business historians. Keywords: Business Ventures;
What do Kansas Republicans believe? Published on -5/18/2014, 2:54 PM I have been called many things for my commentary on Kansas politics during the past four years, but rarely have I been labelled a Republican. I now publicly confess I am indeed a life-long, card-carrying Republican, born and raised in Republican territory, rural Harper County, in the small farming community of Bluff City. My affiliation with the Republican Party led to my work with Republican officeholders in Kansas, as a cabinet officer for Govs. Bob Bennett and Mike Hayden, and as a legislative aide to U.S. Sen. Jim Pearson. I have admired the leadership of Republicans at the national level, such as Dwight Eisenhower and Ronald Reagan and Kansas' own Alf Landon and Bob Dole. Given this background, I have watched the current crop of Republican lawmakers in Kansas radically depart from what have been core principles of Republicans. Their actions prompt me to ask: What exactly do Kansas Republicans believe? For example, I thought Republicans believed in balancing the budget. Eisenhower showed the national budget could be balanced, an action rarely repeated since his time. Bennett and Hayden exercised fiscal discipline and carefully kept state spending in line with revenues while maintaining healthy balances. In contrast, current state lawmakers proudly enacted reckless tax cuts, reducing revenues while allowing spending to grow. Before leaving town a few weeks ago, they approved a budget that by their own account spends $320 million more than is taken in during the budget cycle. Their action ignored news that revenues already are $93 million short of projections for the year April and likely will drop even further. Their financial mismanagement triggered a downgrade in the state's credit and might see fund balances plunge near zero within the year. I also thought Republicans believed in fair and balanced taxation. Republican presidents, as well as Kansas governors, supported progressive income taxes throughout the 20th century. Landon campaigned for a state income tax in 1932 "not just as another tax" but as a way to reduce reliance on the property tax. As governor, he initiated a tax policy that moderated tax rates and balanced the tax burden among taxpayers and has been embraced by a long line of Republican governors and legislative leaders. That all changed in 2011 when ALEC tax-cut guru Arthur Laffer came to Kansas. Republican lawmakers, led by the governor, now want to eliminate the income tax and shift the tax burden onto sales and property taxpayers. These lawmakers have adopted a tax policy that places more of the tax burden onto lower-income Kansans while dramatically reducing taxes for the wealthy. Finally, I thought Republicans believed in Reagan's ideal of a "big tent" political party, one with room for a diversity of views, attractive to independent-minded voters, and with leaders who embrace Reagan's 11th Commandment: "Thou shall not speak ill of any Republican." The Kansas Republican Party has abandoned the big-tent philosophy and largely relinquished its soul to a few ideological groups. The views of the State Chamber, Americans for Prosperity, Kansans for Life, and the State Rifle Association have more say in what state officeholders believe today than long-standing party principles. These groups control the party's agenda by targeting dissenters in primary elections and then disciplining those elected with single-issue scorecards and litmus tests. And Gov. Sam Brownback has led Republicans in violating Reagan's 11th Commandment by joining with political allies and campaigning against legislators of his own party. These Republican officeholders have turned their back on their party's history and on those who have shaped that history. This year's elections promise to be a watershed opportunity for Kansas voters to embrace or reject this radical "red-state" experiment with their future. H. Edward Flentje is a professor at Wichita State University.
Posted by Karen on June 22, 2000 at 11:12:14: In Reply to: Re: Allergic to alcohol? posted by Harry on December 15, 1999 at 02:19:07: I have exactly the same kinds of symptoms when I drink alcohol and like you they are intermittent and inconsistent. Sometimes I will be fine, other times I'm not. Some drinks are worse than others e.g. wine, I nearly always end up red, blotchy and hot and generally look like a panda or as though someone has slapped my face. Other drinks will cause the reaction one day and not another. Unfortunately because of the allergy I have gone off most alcohol and can't enjoy drinking it, however, this can cause problems when out as most people just don't understand and think that you are boring. I'm interested to find out through this web site that there are so many fellow sufferers as I have never come across anyone with the same problem before. : : About 70% of the times that I consume alcohol I experience an intense heat on my face as well as tightness of skin and a blotchiness. What's strange is the inconsistency. Am I allergic to alcohol? The other day I drank three sips of beer and my face became so hot that my eyes literally burned as if close to a fire. I'm afraid of a severe allergic reaction. I'm not a frequent user and wonder if I need just to completely abstain. I don't see how I can drink the same brand of beer or wine and sometimes have this experience and other times not. : Hi Deanna, You could have a yeast problem.All alcohol is produced by a fermentation process. This makes alcohol an aggravating substance and you can't be diagnosed for candidiasis except by the symptomes. If you have had antibiotics recently-- you may have developed a yeast infection. Good Luck---Harry
The first step in diagnosing the disease is to determine which joints are affected. A physical examination and medical history can help confirm or rule out gout. For example, gout is more likely if arthritis first appears in the big toe. The speed of the onset of pain and swelling is also important. Symptoms that take days or weeks (rather than hours) to develop probably indicate a disorder other than gout. Abnormal enlargements in joints that had been affected by previous injury or...Read more Gout is a form of rheumatic arthritis that attacks the joints, tendons, and other tissues. Most gout patients, about 90% are men over the... Read more » In short, rheumatoid arthritis is an inflammatory disease which attacks joints in the body. It can affect the alignment and positioning... Read more » You’ve developed a strange little numbness and tingling in the fingers of your left hand. It doesn’t really hurt, but it’s just....... Read more » Even with all of today's technology, doctors still rely on their feelings -- literally -- to diagnose some problems. For example, there are 20... Read more »
Vein removal has become one of the most popular cosmetic procedures available today. There are many options in vein removal, allowing doctors to customize treatment to a patient's specific needs. However, no clinical treatment is without risk, and vein removal procedures are no exception. It is important to evaluate potential risks and side effects of vein removal before going ahead with treatment, to ensure you are comfortable with the procedure you choose. Sclerotherapy Risks & Side Effects Sclerotherapy involves injecting a solution directly into the varicose vein so that the vein collapses and becomes less visible. This procedure is done in a doctor's office without the need for sedation or anesthesia. Depending on the number of veins treated, a session of sclerotherapy can last anywhere from five minutes to one hour. The procedure is relatively painless, and most patients are back to their daily activities within a day or two. There are some potential side effects of sclerotherapy, which include: Like any non-invasive clinical treatment, sclerotherapy is a relatively safe procedure and side effects are rare. To reduce the risks associated with the procedure even further, choose a doctor who is experienced in sclerotherapy and follow all pre- and post-procedural guidelines carefully. Laser Vein Treatment Side Effects & Risks Lasers have become the new gold standard for many types of cosmetic procedures today, including vein removal. A laser vein treatment uses an intense beam of laser light, focused directly on the varicose vein, to damage the vein so that it eventually disappears completely. Laser treatments are also considered non-invasive procedures that can be done in a doctor's office with little discomfort or downtime. Risks involved with laser vein removal are few, and may include: To reduce the risks associated with laser treatments, choose a doctor experienced in laser procedures. This professional will know how to tailor the laser and the procedure to the patient's unique needs, so side effects are less likely to occur. Ambulatory Phlebectomy Risks and Side Effects Ambulatory phlebectomy is usually reserved for larger veins that will not respond well to sclerotherapy or laser treatment. This procedure involves tiny incisions in the legs that are used to remove varicose veins using a special hook. The procedure is typically done in a doctor's office under a local anesthetic and requires minimal downtime afterward. The biggest advantage to ambulatory phlebectomy, aside from the fact that it is more effective on larger veins, is that treatment is complete in a single session. Sclerotherapy and laser treatments can take anywhere from three to six sessions to achieve the desired results. Because ambulatory phlebectomy is slightly more invasive than the two procedures described above, there are additional risks and possible side effects to consider as well. These might include: Ambulatory phlebectomy is much less invasive, and therefore carries fewer risks than procedures like vein stripping that was commonly used in the past. This procedure is often preferable to patients who want to get rid of varicose veins in a single procedure without major risks or downtime. While there are always risks involved with any medical procedure, these methods of vein removal are relatively non-invasive and low risk. If you are tired of dealing with those unsightly blue lines, contact us today and we can arrange your free consultation with a vein removal specialist in your neck of the woods! If you're looking for hair removal clinics in Chicago, you're in luck. Learn more about the popularity of laser hair removal in Chicago here. The elements can be cruel in Colorado Springs, making the city's excellent cosmetic clinics all the more important for people hoping to keep their skin smooth and rejuvenated. Everything you need to know about laser hair removal, how lasers for hair removal work, pricing, and finding a hair removal specialist in Manhattan. For Seattle residents serious about anti-aging treatments and long term skin rejuvenation, there are a number of excellent Seattle Photofacial providers offering impressive results for a fair price.
Hearing tests provide valuable information for your hearing healthcare professional If you think you have a hearing loss, your first step should be to set up an appointment to get your hearing tested. While at your appointment, your hearing healthcare professional will complete a series of tests to help identify the type and degree of hearing loss you are experiencing. It is important to know that you cannot “fail” a hearing test. These tests are given to provide your hearing healthcare professional with the information they need to recommend a treatment option for you. Keep in mind that a hearing test is an important first step in improving your hearing and your life. Find a Hearing Specialist in your area to determine the type of hearing loss you may be experiencing and what treatment options are available. Hearing and understanding are two different things Most people experiencing hearing loss report difficulty understanding speech or have been told by family members that they have difficulty understanding speech. In other words, they can hear people talking, but can’t quite understand all of what is being said. That is why an important part of your hearing evaluation will be a speech recognition test. A speech recognition test will give your hearing healthcare professional important information about your ability to understand words and sentences spoken at an everyday listening level. Even with the help of hearing aids, some people may have difficulty understanding speech. If this is the case and you have a severe to profound hearing loss, cochlear implants may be the solution. Cochlear implants are indicated only for those individuals who get minimal/limited benefit from hearing aids, so testing your speech understanding with hearing aids is a necessary step to help your hearing healthcare professional determine if you’re a candidate for cochlear implants. If you don’t have hearing aids, your hearing healthcare professional may be able to loan you hearing aids for these tests or require a hearing aid trial. An audiogram is an important tool in understanding your personal hearing loss The results of your hearing tests will be recorded onto a chart called an audiogram, which shows the lowest level (in decibels) that you can detect a variety of sounds, ranging from low to high frequencies (commonly referred to as pitch). On average, normal conversation takes place within the 20 to 60 decibel range, commonly referred to as the "speech banana." As you can see from the audiogram below, the speech banana got its name because of the shape it makes on an audiogram. Hearing loss that falls within or above the speech banana (within 60 decibels) is particularly important because this degree of hearing loss affects your speech understanding. The audiogram contains some examples of everyday sounds plotted on it, and you can see where these everyday sounds fall in relation to the speech banana. For example, the sound of a bird chirping is softer and higher-pitched than most normal conversations, while the sound of a dog barking is louder and lower-pitched. The results of your hearing tests will be plotted as two lines (right ear and left ear) on the audiogram. The sounds that occur above the lines are what you have difficulty hearing, whereas the sounds that occur below the lines are what you can hear. Some people may have trouble hearing high pitched tones in the higher frequencies (2,000 – 8,000 Hz) whereas other people may have trouble hearing low pitched tones in the lower frequencies (125 – 1,000 Hz). The audiogram will also be able to tell you the severity of your hearing loss―mild, moderate, moderately severe, severe, or profound. Your hearing healthcare professional will help you understand your personal audiogram. The degree of hearing loss a person is experiencing is measured by the softest sound the person can hear (measured in decibels, dB) and described by one of the following categories: mild, moderate, moderately severe, severe, or profound. The chart below defines each degree of hearing loss.1 \|Degree of hearing loss\|\|Softest sound able to be heard (in decibels)\|\|Frame of reference\| \|Mild\|\|26 to 40 dB\|\|Able to hear the loud or more intense vowel sounds, but may miss some of the softer consonant sounds.People with a mild hearing loss may have difficulty hearing soft spoken people and young children. Also, they may have to ask people to speak up or repeat themselves on occasion.\| \|Moderate\|\|41 to 55 dB\|\|In addition to missing consonant sounds, vowel sounds then become more difficult to hear. People with a moderate hearing loss often comment that without hearing aids they hear, but can't always understand.\| \|Moderately Severe\|\|56 to 70 dB\|\|Without hearing aids, speech becomes inaudible, whereas with hearing aids, speech may still be difficult to understand.\| \|Severe\|\|71 to 90 dB\|\|Without hearing aids, speech is inaudible, but loud sounds like a baby crying or a dog barking are audible. Hearing aids may no longer be enough for people with severe hearing loss.\| \|Profound\|\|91+ dB\|\|Without hearing aids, speech is inaudible, but very loud sounds like a lawn mower or jet airplane are audible. Hearing aids may no longer be enough for people with profound hearing loss.\| Reference: 1. American Speech-Language Hearing Association. Degree of Hearing Loss. Available from http://www.asha.org/public/hearing/Degree-of-Hearing-Loss/. Accessed February 2012.
Join BiogasSIG Intro, aims, resources. Human faecal matter to Biogas Another Ugandan school in Fort Portal to have biogas from Poop. Green Heat has embarked on yet another project. Please, find out more on our past projects on http://greenheatug.wordpress.com/ Director - Green Heat (U) Ltd image: Picture P.O. Box 10235 256 (0) 71 237 9889 "The more people are self sufficient in cooking fuel, the more personal and financial freedom they have." - Emma Casson - ICCG Competition: Best Climate Practices for Energy Poverty A... - New GSI and IISD Report: Power, Gender and Fossil-fuel Subsid... - First African Waste-to-Ethanol Company recognized by Mentor C... - 2014 Ashden Award Winners - Power for All – The Energy Access Imperative - Deutsche Bank supports The Global Alliance for Clean Cookstoves - Practical Action launches the Poor People’s Energy Outlook (P... - IISD Reporting Services releases a summary of the 13th sessio...
The Henry Miller Memorial Library is an arts center championing the late writer, artist, and Big Sur resident Henry Miller. Come on in for a visit, make yourself a cup of coffee, browse our books, and hang out with Theo the cat on our deck. After all, youʼre stumbled upon the Henry Miller Memorial Library, the place “where nothing happens.” Lucky you! A Very Brief History of the Library Miller’s best friend Emil White lived in the house that is now the Library beginning in mid-1960s. White ofﬁcially named it the Henry Miller Memorial Library when Henry died in 1980. When Emil passed away in 1989, he dedicated the property to become a non-proﬁt organization. Our Mission Statement “The Henry Miller Library is a public beneﬁt, non-proﬁt 501 (c) 3 organization championing the literary, artistic and cultural contributions of the late writer, artist, and Big Sur resident Henry Miller. The Library also serves as a cultural resource center, functioning as a public gallery/performance/workshop space for artists, writers, musicians and students. In addition, the Library supports education in the arts and the local environment. Finally, the Library serves as a social center for the community.” For a more robust history of the Library, check out this great piece by Laura Bliss. The “Beating Cultural Heart of Big Sur” (according to CNN) The Library hosts events throughout the summer months (May-October), including fashion shows, theater, open mics, lectures, book signings, art shows, our acclaimed Big Sur Short Film Screening Series, and more. With a capacity of 300 and nestled in a towering redwood grove, it is also one of the most unique live music venues in the world. Past performers include Philip Glass, Marianne Faithful, Arcade Fire, Red Hot Chili Peppers, Fleet Foxes, Band of Horses, Frank Black, Thurston Moore, Animal Collective, Al Jardine, Gillian Welch, Blonde Redhead, Laurie Anderson, and countless of local and touring bands. Perhaps this is why the CNN called the Library the “beating cultural heart of Big Sur.” Correct. Memorials, he said, “defeated the purpose of a man’s life. Only by living your own life to the full can you honor the memory of someone.” So, is this place a memorial trying not to be a memorial? Maybe. The best way to find out is to come here, browse, look at what’s on the walls, listen to the music, have a cup of coffee or tea, sit down by the fire, read for a while, do nothing…” Check out our schedule to see what’s in store for this summer and sign up for our newsletter. We look forward to seeing you soon!
Mark Bowen was born in Duluth, Minn, on the North Coast of the United States. He obtained a B.A. degree in chemistry from the University of Minnesota. After graduation, Bowen worked in the chemical industry and in home health care. He obtained a Ph.D. degree in biochemistry from the University of Illinois under the mentorship of Dr. Peter G. W. Gettins. After receiving his doctorate in 1998, Bowen took a Howard Hughes Medical Institute postdoctoral position at Yale University at the Department of Molecular Biophysics and Biochemistry with Dr. Axel Brunger working on membrane protein structure and function. Bowen next moved with the Brunger Lab to Stanford University and joined the Department of Molecular and Cellular Physiology. At Stanford, he worked with Dr. Steven Chu on single-molecule approaches to understanding the molecular mechanism of synaptic transmission. Bowen is currently an Assistant Professor at the Department of Physiology and Biophysics at Stony Brook University Medical Center. The Bowen Lab investigates the molecular underpinnings of synaptic transmission and aims to understand how nature harnesses the flexibility of protein disorder to achieve the nuanced regulation of neuronal signaling. Bowen’s areas of expertise include single-molecule fluorescence, FRET, protein structural biology, membrane fusion, scaffold proteins, intrinsic disorder, and excitatory neurotransmitter signaling. Biography Updated on 5 September 2011
The Dental Connection in Cardiac Pain and Arrhytmia by David L Lerner, DDS, P.C., F.I.N.D., C.A.C. In her work on the study of trigger points, Janet Travel, MD 1 spoke of her observations that trigger points in the Pectoralis Major seemed to generate reflexive reaction in the heart resulting in irregular heart beats. Sometimes the pain originating in the tight tender areas of this muscle were perceived by the patient as coming from their heart. Pectoralis Major Muscle and the Cardiac Trigger Point Phenomena A) overlapping referred pain patterns of two parasternal trigger points (x’s), located in the medial sternal section of the muscle B) location of the “cardiac arrhytmia” trigger point (x) below the lower border of the fifth rib in the vertical line that lies midway between the sternal margin and the nipple line. On this line the sixth rib is found at the level of the tip of the xiphoid process (arrow) This vertical line corresponds to the pathway of the Kidney Meridian and the trigger points are found at K21, 22 Other authors have spoken of the relationships between dysfunction of the Pectoralis Major and associations with cardiac dysfunction. Schwartz and Bourassa 2 state that in the Coronary Artery Surgery Study Registry of the 1970s, normal angiograms were found in 19% of patients, and suggest that the statistics today are not much different. They raise the question; “ is there a non-cardiac cause of chest pain? ”, and list numerous possible causes including chest pain of musculo-skeletal origin. In an article entitled Cardiac Pain Syndrome 3, Andrei Pikalov, MD, PhD writes about three variations of anterior chest wall syndrome (ACWS) that are associated with cervical, thoracic and cervical-and-thoracic pathology. All three variations involve muscular pain, dystonia, dystrophy and neurovascular changes in the Pectoris Major and other tissues of the anterior chest wall. In an article entitled Chest Wall Syndrome: a common cause of unexplained cardiac pain, Epstein, et al 4 describe 12 cases with severe, often incapacitating chest pain initially believed to be cardiac in origin. All 12 were shown on subsequent evaluation to have chest wall syndrome. Diagnosis was confirmed by chest wall tenderness simulating the spontaneously occurring pain in all. Seven patients had chest wall syndrome in conjunction with other associated cardiac conditions. Five patients had isolated chest wall syndrome with no cardiac disease. Further associations have been written about in the acupuncture literature. Mark Seem, Ph.D. writes about what he calls the state of Cardiac alarm as final stage in a progression of chronic stress and fatigue through 4 stages that he describes in his book Acupuncture Physical Medicine 5. He describes patients suffering from tightness and constriction in the chest with shallow breathing and a tendency to hyperventilate. Often these patients were “experiencing anxiety, sometimes feelings of impending doom.” He described these patient’s as often having symptoms of “pelvic collapse” with tightness in the muscles on the side or front of the lower abdomen. He further describes a band of tightness in the Pectoralis Major muscle involving tightness at acupuncture points K22, St18, and Per19. He describes this condition as capable of mimicking a heart attack, leading patients to the cardiologist or emergency room. So what is the Dental Connection here? Well it is rather interesting, as we shall explain, dysfunction of the Pectoralis Major muscle seems to always be associated with a primary dental problem. The bite of the teeth plays a very important and central role in maintaining symmetry and balance throughout the muscular system of the body as we shall describe below. When the bite is off balance it will result in changes throughout the body, weakening pathways through the muscular system that follow the course of the Acupuncture Myofascial Meridians. There will also be disruption to the Autonomic Nervous System that controls the automatic functions of the body including our breath, heart rate variability and digestive function. The jaw muscles, directly supported and influenced by the bite are in intimate association to the rest of the muscles of the head, neck, and shoulder girdle. Changes in the bite will directly affect these muscles, sometimes increasing the tension of a muscle, sometimes interfering with the muscles ability to do its job. The ability of muscles to function normally can readily be evaluated using the methods of Applied Kinesiology, developed by chiropractor George Goodheart. His work drew heavily on the work of Kendall and Kendall, physical therapists who wrote a description of methods to evaluate the strength and competency of most of the major muscles of the body. Goodheart found that when weak muscles were present they could often be strengthened by specific improvements in nutrition, correction of specific cranial or vertebral misalignments, and stimulation of appropriate acupuncture points. By applying his methods in the evaluation of disorders of the bite we are able to demonstrate the relationship between different aspects of the patient’s anatomy and physiology. As we examine patient’s for systemic influence of their bite imbalance we have seen numerous patterns of dysfunction. For now we shall focus on the patterns we see associated with dysfunction of the Pectoralis Major muscle and the Heart Meridian. As a result of deficiencies in the height of the bite and misalignment of the jaws, the muscles on the side of the jaw, the Masseters and Temporals will not work properly. There will be a tendency for these muscles to over-contract. When this happens the next muscle in the postural chain, namely the Sternocleidomastoid will be disrupted and there will be a loss of normal muscle tonus. This results in instability of the collar bone and in turn affects the Pectoralis Major. This will be evident when the strength of the Pectoralis Muscle is evaluated using basic muscle testing as described by Kendall and Kendall, as shown below. Further evaluation using Applied Kinesiology may be performed utilizing the phenomenon of therapy localization as developed by Goodheart and described by Walther. When this is done, a strong muscle, such as the middle Deltoid is challenged and then with a free hand the clinician can contact a point or region of the body. If there is a disruption of physiology in the underlying tissue the muscle that was previously strong may be observed to lose its capacity to maintain a sustained contraction and immobilization of the associated limb. In other words it will appear to weaken. When this is done in patients with bite imbalances, and contact is made with the Masseter muscle as the patient clenches their teeth, the strong muscle will appear to weaken in most instances. If the Sternocleidomastoid muscle is contacted a similar phenomenon may be observed. If the Pectoralis is contacted along its border with the sternum, again the strong muscle will weaken. In all cases where we have seen this pattern ( forty cases over the past 6 months) we will also find that there is a disruption to the Kidney meridian on the patient’s opposite side. This is most evident if contact is made with Acupuncture point K3 on the medial aspect of the foot above the arch. Now if we find the Pectoralis Muscle to be weak in the chest and touch the Kidney 3 point on the opposite side which we therapy localized as above, we will find that the weak Pectoralis muscle will strengthen. The same will occur if an acupuncture needle is placed in this Kidney 3 point; that is the previously weak Pectoralis muscle will get strong. However in most cases observed this phenomenon is short lived, for once the patient bites down the pattern of muscle dysfunction is generated again and the Pectoralis muscle is weak. The only way to permanently correct the dysfunction of the Pectoralis Muscle is to restore balance to the involved jaw muscles using first an orthotic (appliance) for temporary support and then permanent correction of the patient’s bite. When this has been done symptoms of anxiety and heart rhythm irregularity have resolved. In summary, many patients experience symptoms for which there is no apparent cause. This is true with some patients who report symptoms of anxiety and cardiac arrhythmia. To better understand the causal chain involved, we need to be able to see the patient as a whole through the perspective gained through interdisciplinary study and exchange of ideas. - Myofascial Pain and Dysfunction; The Trigger Point Manual J.G. Travell and D .G.Simmons, Williams and Wilkins, 1983 - Evaluation of Patients With Chest Pain and Normal Coronary Angiograms Leonard Schwartz, MD; Martial G. Bourassa, MD Arch Intern Med. 2001;161:1825-1833. - Cardiac Pain Syndrome, Andrei Pikalov, MD, PhD Dynamic Chiropractic 11/4, 1996, Volume 14, Issue 23 - Chest wall syndrome. A common cause of unexplained cardiac pain S. E. Epstein, L. H. Gerber and J. S. Borer JAMA, Vol. 241 No. 26, June 29, 1979 - Acupuncture Physical Medicine; an Acupuncture Touchpoint Approach to Chronic Fatigue, Pain, and Stress Disorders, Mark D. Seem, Ph.D ., Blue Poppy Press 2000 - Nutrition and Degenerative Dental Disease - Why We do not use Mercury- Silver Fillings - Choosing a Bio-Compatible Dental Restoration - Diagnosis and Treatment of Orofacial Pain & Temporomandibular Disorders - The Cranial Mechanism and Dentistry - Dental Somatic Dysfunction & Dental Somatic Integration™ - Straight teeth and a beautiful smile are accessible to all at The Center for Holistic Dentistry - Neuromuscular Dentistry and Beyond at the Center for Holistic Dentistry - Tomographic Imaging For Precise TMJ & Orthodontic Diagnosis - Root Canal Therapy - a Holistic view - Applied Kinesiology; an indispensable tool in Holistic Dentistry - The Dental Connection in Cardiac Pain and Arrhythmia - Acupuncture Energetics in the Treatment of Temporomandibular Disorders - Dental Distress Syndrome by Dr. Aelred Fonder - General Guidelines for the Patient Undergoing Removal of Mercury-Amalgam Fillings - The Dental Treatment of Snoring and Sleep Apnea
Housekeeping communication gets more efficient, high-tech6 Oct, 2008 By: Chris Crowell Hotel and Motel Management Trays at The Umstead in Cary, N.C., have a sensor in a silver triangle that alerts staff when it's ready for pickup. On the old cartoon show "The Jetsons," the future is a world filled with top-notch technology that provides immediate, convenient service—especially when it comes to cleaning and maintenance. These fictional housekeeping amenities might never see the light of day, but in our current world there are several devices that can significantly streamline the maintenance of a hotel, making the lives of guests, owners and housekeepers easier. The Umstead Hotel and Spa in Cary, N.C., a 150-room, five-diamond luxury property, is largely outfitted with the latest in housekeeping technology. In particular, The Umstead has implemented tray detection technology from Axxess Industries. When a guest puts a tray outside of the door, housekeeping is alerted from a triangle sensor on the tray that triggers another sensor in the doorway. This immediately alerts the staff to the waiting tray by way of a blinking light. "We have a 30-minute response time. ... That's our personal goal," managing director Bob Schofield said. "From a productivity standpoint, [it saves] from staff walking up and down [the hallway]. It streamlines the process." Schofield said The Umstead especially benefits because its doors are inset into the wall, making it more difficult to see if a tray is outside a door. The Umstead housecleaning staff also is alerted when a room is available for cleaning. Guests click a button, which sets off another sensor, to indicate they are gone and the room can be cleaned. "You have the same number of staff, but you can manage them on their daily assignments on a more efficient basis," Schofield said. The Marriott Shadow Ridge Resort in Palm Desert, Calif., has improved its overall hotel maintenance with GuestWare 3.0 from GuestWare. This system uses interactive voice response to link the housekeeping staff with the property engineers. A housekeeper will go through a typical routine in a guestroom, and if he or she notices a problem, like a broken toilet or a malfunctioned thermostat, the housekeeper will pick up the room phone and follow through a protocol to identify that specific problem. The report immediately alerts the proper engineer via the engineer's wireless phone. "[The whole process] works within minutes," said Kirby O'Gara, chief engineer at Shadow Ridge. "If [the engineer] can't get there within 10 minutes, he should call for some help." If an engineer takes too long to address the reported problem, an alarm will sound and send the request to other engineers. Systems such as this speed up and clear up communication with the back of the house that makes each worker more efficient. "[Before] there was no tracking and no accountability," O'Gara said. "The work orders would get lost and there was no accountability. You're supposed to have [documents] for three to five years, so it's automatically saving the file, and you can save it forever." Chuck Marratt is the director of information technology for MTM Luxury Lodging. He has seen a dramatic change in housekeeping because of technology, especially at the Bardessono Inn and Spa in Napa Valley, Calif., which is scheduled to open in February 2009. The approach there may be one of the most advanced yet. Thanks to MTech's REX system working in conjunction with the hotel's property-management system, housekeeping staff will use iPod Touch technology to keep up to speed with the hotel's housekeeping needs at all times. The iPod will show each housekeeper his or her list of rooms for that day, and once a guest checks out—or even leaves the room unoccupied—the housekeeper is notified a room is ready to be refreshed or turned over. This keeps the housekeeper from knocking on doors or making unnecessary trips. "It leverages the fact we have a converged network," Marratt said. "The housekeeper has no way of knowing if you are in the room or not. So that's where you're really starting to talk efficiency with the routine cleaning of guestrooms. "Before [cell] phones, you contacted everyone via pager. When I started in '81, you paged someone and then they had to find the nearest house phone. It allows [the hotel] to give guests the service they want without disturbing them." Maybe these aren't robot maids, but it's a start. Reproduction in whole or part is prohibited.
I never programmed before in no languages, but I would like to learn C, and I'm undecided on what book to read to learn from. I have no possible experience at all. May someone tell me as a beginner should I read either C Primer Plus by Prata? Or should I read C Programming: A Modern Approach by King? I believe C Primer Plus teaches the basics, so would I be better off reading that one first, and after reading all 17 chapters of that book, what book would I be ready to read next? Thank you very much for any advice/info provided!
Many low-level tweaks can normally only be performed on Android by flashing custom ROMs. The Xposed Framework allows you to modify your ROM without installing a new custom ROM. All it requires is root access. Sure, you may want to flash a custom ROM like CyanogenMod to get the latest version of Android or use a wide variety of tweaks, but the Xposed Framework makes it possible to perform small tweaks without replacing your Android operating system. How It Works To perform various low-level tweaks, developers have to modify system APK (app package) files. They generally release these changes as a custom ROM, which users have to flash onto their device. The Xposed Framework requires root access to install, but should be able to work without root afterwards. It extends the /system/bin/app_process executable to load a specific JAR file on startup. This file’s classes will be part of every app process on the system — even system service processes. It’s then possible to modify an app’s behavior at runtime — no ROM flashing or modifying app APK files required. It works with most Android 4.0 and later devices, assuming they’re ARM devices. If you have a Gingerbread device or one of the rare Android devices using an Intel chip, it won’t work for you. The Xposed Framework isn’t available in Google Play, so you’ll need to sideload it. You can download its APK file as an attachment on the XDA Developers forum. Once it’s installed, open the Xposed Installer app and tap the Install/Update button to install the Xposed Framework. This part requires root access. Reboot your device after installing it and the Xposed Framework will become active. You can return to the Xposed Installer app to uninstall the Xposed Framework later, reversing the changes to the app_process executable. Be sure to perform an uninstall in the Xposed Installer app before removing the Xposed Installer app from your device. Xposed Framework Tweaks The Xposed Framework is just a base that allows other tweaking apps to do the work. Once you have the Xposed Framework installed, you’ll need to use another app to actually perform tweaks. There are a variety of tweaks that depend on the Xposed Framework, but we’ll cover a few popular ones here. Tweakbox is a collection of no-flashing tweaks from the creator of the Xposed Framework. As with the Xposed Framework, you’ll need to download it from its thread on the XDA Developers forums and sideload it. After installing a module, enable it in the Xposed Installer app. Open the Tweakbox app after restarting your phone or tablet and choose the tweaks you want to make. You can enable a variety of tweaks — for example, you can change the level where you’ll receive a critical battery warning, prevent the screen from turning on when you unplug your phone, control what happens when you long-press the home button, and enable skipping songs by pressing the volume keys when your phone is off. These are the sort of tweaks you’d normally have to flash a custom ROM for. You’ll have to restart for most changes to take effect. The MoDaCo Toolkit is another package of tweaks, which must also be downloaded from outside Google Play and sideloaded. After installing it, enable it in the Xposed Installer app as above. The toolkit allows you to perform a variety of other tweaks, from enabling multi-user support on phones like the Nexus 4 (normally available only on tablets), disabling region-checks so you can install apps like Wallet and Sound Search outside the USA, hiding the battery meter if you’re using a third-party battery status icon, and more. The Xposed Framework may just be a tool for Android geeks to tweak their phones, but it’s a faster, easier, and less invasive tool than a custom ROM is. This could also be used to install themes and perform other invasive customizations that would normally require a custom ROM. The Xposed Framework’s method doesn’t involve changing your device’s operating system and can be easily reversed.
We have all been stunned and horrified by the human devastation of September 11. I believe we are also deeply moved by the way our country has come together. I am heartened by William Faulkner's words in his Nobel speech "we will not only endure, we will prevail." As I write this column today, we are in a "post-modernist" era at the Ransom Center, that is to say we are in the middle of "deconstruction." In my annual talk to the staff last week, I made reference to Jane Austen. She writes in Pride and Prejudice that a library is a place of leisure and tranquility. Fortunately, she passed this life before she could see our plight during these recent weeks. It has been dusty, messy, and loud, but we are excited by the changes we are making. This is a dynamic time for us. Our major initiatives include increasing our public role through integration of our public programs and affairs, enhancing our national position, building our public programs with the magnificent new building as background, and strengthening vital areas of research in all departments. The Ransom Center has maintained its competitive position among research institutions worldwide of course because of its great collections, but also because of the quality of its great staff. I find inspiration from this famous photograph of the London library, Holland House, after a bombing during World War II. The values of civilization prevail. Keep reading. - Thomas F. Staley
Countries throughout the world are recognizing the need to reduce severe injury and fatalities on their roads, and improve highway safety. There are a number of factors that contribute to a severe or fatal injury in a crash — anywhere from seatbelt use to excessive speed. Over 40,000 crash-related fatalities occur on U.S. roads each year — a statistic that is soaring in comparison to many other countries with similar economic and social climates as the U.S. As the University of North Carolina Highway Safety Research Center (HSRC) continues efforts to find the most effective methods in reducing the number of crash-related fatalities and injuries, HSRC and the Stichting Wetenschappelijk Onderzoek Verkeersveiligheid (SWOV), Institute for Road Safety Research, based in Leidschendam, Netherlands, entered an agreement to collaborate on highway safety research, as well as participate in an employee exchange program between the two institutions. "We are very excited to work in conjunction with SWOV and learn more about the type of research they conduct. Through the employee exchange program, we'll be able to have more of a first-hand account of their research methods, as well as the knowledge and insights of one of their researchers," said David Harkey, director of HSRC. Through the exchange program, Martine Reuerings, Ph.D., began her six-week turn with HSRC in mid-April as a visiting researcher from SWOV. Dr. Reurings was able to experience and work within HSRC through the end of May. Within the next few months, HSRC will begin making preparations to send a representative to the Netherlands. In addition to general research and the employee exchange, the two Centers will explore opportunities for collaborative projects to improve road safety in developing countries throughout the world. HSRC and SWOV officially signed the agreement on March 7, 2007. Attendees of the University of North Carolina community signing the agreement included Tony Waldrop, vice chancellor for research and economic development, UNC-Chapel Hill; Peter Coclanis, associate provost for international affairs, UNC-Chapel Hill; David Harkey, director, UNC Highway Safety Research Center; and Fred Wegman, managing director, SWOV Institute for Road Safety Research. The University of North Carolina Highway Safety Research Center 730 Martin Luther King Jr. Blvd, Suite 300 \| Campus Box 3430 \| Chapel Hill, NC 27599-3430 Phone: 919.962.2203 \| Fax: 919.962.8710
It's hard to be totally elated at the lifting up of one group (African Americans) when another group (gays) is stripped of the most fundamental of human rights. Prop 8 in California passed; a constitutional amendment to define marriage as being between a man and a woman (or however many men and women men and women want to marry, one at a time). The "sanctity" of marriage is now safe. Sanc⋅ti⋅ty [holiness, saintliness, or godliness]. (So now where is that separation of church and state we're so fond of imagining?) It should chill everyone's blood that anyone's choice of whom to marry can be left up to a vote by strangers. Does Barak Obama remember when it would have been illegal for his black/white parents to marry? Who's next? Prop 8 now faces lawsuits, petitions, and daily demonstrations. If you're gay you take it personally, but aside from the religious nuts who can never be reasoned with, the way to win is to understand that it isn't personal. It's life as usual; "what's in it for me?" Again, the banality of evil. The chickens, and Obama, knew how to sell it, while opponents of Prop 8 made a cardinal mistake; they relied on the kindness of strangers. Tennessee Williams, a national treasure who saved us from a lifetime of Cats and Grease, and who would not be allowed to marry in California, showed us the folly of that. And in California, owners of multi- million dollar properties also defeated a proposition to fund after school programs for at-risk youth because it would add fifty six dollars a year to their property taxes. Yes, even to the thousands of homes that cost from three million to forty million dollars here, just fifty six dollars a year, (the cost of one Medeco key). All you need to know about Californians, you can learn here at a four way stop sign. There is a noble earnestness in the hope that people will do the right thing, but that is not how Obama, or the chickens, won. They won because they made their cases that voting for them was going to be better for you. For every voter that wanted Obama to win because he was the best man AND African American, there was a voter who forced himself to ignore the fact that Obama was African American, because that voter's needs were going to be better served with Obama as president. Obama knew this, so he framed this election (as he said in his victory speech) as being about you. Not him. You. And what did McCain keep saying? "I'm a maverick. She's a maverick. We're mavericks." Hey, we're over here. The chickens won (slightly) more room because the commercials made it clear this was better for your health. Do you think if the HSUS framed the argument as "The chickens are suffering, and so are the other sentient animals who deserve to live their short lives free of pain and panic", do you think Prop 2 would have passed? I don't. It passed because the commercials made passing it about your health, and showed pictures of things you would never want to eat or have your food come from. There are lots of people who don't care about animals, or electing the first black president, or gay people also having the right to get married in their cars in Vegas if they're too drunk to walk, or kids who have nothing, getting to play ball after school. The chickens got it right. People saw those chickens wallowing in filth and thought "Shit!! I'm not putting anything from there in my mouth!" Done deal. If they had said instead, "Do the right thing", those chickens would be living like thirty clowns in a volkswagon. To win this fight, and it's criminal that any American taxpayer has to fight for fundamental human rights in 2008, show the opponents the advantages to them. All marriages strengthen a society. That's why the people who consider them sacred marry so many times. It's not a "Lifestyle", it's a life. Less teenage suicide, the message was "hope", right? More great homes become available when two become one. Millions of dollars will pour into the economy for weddings; hotels, travel, bands, musicians, photographers, videographers, florists, wedding planners, caterers, bakeries, bartenders, waiters, liquor industry, clothing, taxes, real estate, furnishings, painters, jewelers. etc. etc. All those business owners vote. Promise not to elope. More loving homes to welcome the shameful number of unwanted children languishing in orphanages. Religious people, they'll take care of you til the day you're born. ARGUMENTS FOR THE DUMB GUYS Less bad marriages for Liza Minnelli. For those who believe there is a "gay agenda", where gays actually want to turn your three hundred pound beer drinking husband gay, well, now he'll be safe. Take a page from "A Day Without a Mexican" and do the same, exaggerate the stereotypes: "A Day Without a Homosexual." 80% of Americans' hair will look like shit. The Desperate Housewives will be without makeup and great clothes, aagghhh how old are they?? Ballet companies will be missing lots of dancers, women forced to lift themselves. Small numbers in audience for Bette, Kathy, Equity Waver Theater. Half the women in America will have no one to talk to about what they're going through. Bronzer sales plummet. No one buying cashmere throws. Choirs reduced by half, harmony suffers. No one to sell shoes at Barney's. Retail sales down; no one to show buyers the possibilities. "Fabulous" dropped from dictionary. America loses ability to bounce back with grace. And as one commenter wrote last week, and I wish I could find his name again but I tried and couldn't, "If people are against gays having sex, let them get married. That will put a stop to it".
Posted on Thursday, November 14, 2013 The Elizabeth Blackwell Award for outstanding service to humanity was presented to the Most Reverend Doctor Katharine Jefferts Schori. The oceanographer, pilot, professor, pastor and bishop is the 39th woman to receive the honor. "Reverend Jefferts Schori brings honor to this award and to HWS by being present today," remarked President Mark D. Gearan at Sunday's ceremony in the Vandervort Room. "She has been an advocate for the poor, she has championed for the full inclusion of LGBT persons in the church and in the secular world, and she has worked on environmental issues." Breaking a 500-year gender barrier, Jefferts Schori is the first woman to serve as Presiding Bishop, and the first female Primate in the Anglican Communion. "Her inclusive and expansive world view, that honors the dignity of all things, defines her ministry," said Maureen Collins Zupan '72, P'09, who presented Schori with the medal. "I am humbled to be here," said Jefferts Schori, expressing her gratitude for the award, and for those who served as her mentors and role models. "I am reminded I stand here only because of the difficult work done by so many women and men before me. A lot of women have tried and failed to gain entry to many different vocations and opportunities. We remember the ones who prevailed in the face of prejudice and doubt, but none of those named trailblazers have made entries wholly on their own. At the same time, the remembered ones have continued to inspire others to try." Jefferts Schori celebrated her own inspirations - Amelia Earhart, Marie Currie, Harriet Tubman, Antoine de Saint-Exupéry, and the men and women rebuilding community in Rwanda and the Congo. "Life is about discovering new possibilities, the possibility that we can create a world that is more life-giving than the one we currently enjoy," she remarked. Following her brief talk, Jefferts Schori was joined by a panel of faculty and staff members including President Mark D. Gearan, William Smith Dean Suzanne McNally, Professor of Religious Studies Michael Dobkowski, Associate Professor of Geoscience Nan Crystal Arens and Chaplain Lesley Adams. Jefferts Schori addressed her work as a pastor and spiritual leader, speaking of her responsibility to comfort the afflicted and "afflict" the comfortable. "You have let go of the past to gain something new, and you have to discover the blessing of people who disagree. None of us can ever know the full truth, therefore a person who has a different view must hold answers." When asked about her thoughts on the church's position in terms of environmental leadership, Jefferts Schori showed optimism. "Traditionally, the ministry of the church has been to people. Now, there are theologians who challenge us to be good gardeners. The world is not ours to exploit, but to nurture for the benefit of all creation." In addition to her hope for the Episcopal Church, Jefferts Schori also expressed hope for the future of interfaith dialogue and for the prevalence of not tolerance, but a deep understanding among religions. Through local movements and even government coalitions, steps toward "engaging the other" to share beliefs and discover similarities - and differences - are evident and abundant. While the future is not clear, Jefferts Schori does not see religion disbanding, but rather shifting to new forms of community. "I am a hope-filled person; I think that's what it means to have faith," she remarked. "Religious traditions are important, but they are bound in time and space, they have to grow and adapt to a wide set of contexts and realities." She views religious and spiritual movements becoming far less hierarchical system with organic structures that able to move and adjust. "We are increasingly far more present in the world as people of faith, rather than retreated into sanctuaries that are ceasing to exist." Above all, Jefferts Schori can still find wonder, curiosity and gratitude in her work and in everyday. "Spirituality is about being able to share occasions of awe and wonder. It is acknowledging an experience that draws us outside of ourselves."
(From the publisher): Fast and deadly as the snake which gave him his name, Sidewinder, the limping Comanche war chief, rampaged across Texas and threatened the peace between his people and the white men. Only a man with a tremendous knowledge of the Comanche could hope to prevent Sidewinder from endangering the whole Comanche nation with his policy of burning, killing and looting, which would inevitably bring retaliation from infuriated Texans and U.S. Army personnel. The Ysabel Kid was such a man. He knew Sidewinder well, and it was his knife which had crippled the chief in a boyhood fight. So when the Kid took up Sidewinder's trail, he knew it could only end when one of them lay dead. Original title: Sidewinder Genre: Fiction→ Western→ Native Americans Fiction→ Western→ Bad Men and Good Fiction→ Western→ Texas And Mexico
Once the central hub of the Confederacy's economy and governance, Tarsonis is now a ruined world under strict quarantine by the Terran Dominion. \| PLANET DATA\| \| POPULATION:\|\|7,000 terrans, unknown zerg\| \| DIAMETER/GRAVITY:\|\|8,894 km; 0.96 standard\| \| AXIAL TILT/CLIMATE:\|\|5.6 degrees; +/- 24⁰ Centigrade, low humidity\| \| GEOGRAPHY/MAJOR SETTLEMENTS:\|\|2 oceans, 7 inland seas/major lakes, 1 major continent; 12 major conurbations (destroyed), 1,572 residential districts (destroyed), 875 industrial zones (destroyed)\| \| MOON:\|\|4 – Orson, Worthing, Treason, Ender, (various colors, all small sized, >1,250 km dia)\| \| DOMINATE TERRAIN CLASSIFICATION:\|\|Wasteland/ruins\| \| DOMINANT LIFE FORMS:\|\|Terran, zerg\| \| INDIGENOUS LIFE FORMS:\|\|(post–zerg invasion, it is unknown how many of these life-forms have survived): Urchin lizard, life bird, morcal, scantid\| \| IMPORTS:\|\|Personnel, food, water, scanning devices, salvage equipment\| \| EXPORTS:\|\|Scrap salvage, recovered technology, precious metals\| Tarsonis was the landfall planet of the giant supercarrier Nagglfar, one of four colony ships that first brought terrans to the Koprulu sector. The Nagglfar had led the flotilla and contained the ATLAS supercomputer that had controlled all four vessels on their twenty-eight-year voyage. Even though the ATLAS had suffered many critical failures, it was vital to giving the new inhabitants of Tarsonis a head start when it came to establishing themselves. The technological bases of the colonies that were founded after the other ships had crash-landed on Moria and Umoja were always a step behind that of Tarsonis. (The fourth ship was lost with all hands when it had attempted to land.) When the colonies made contact with one another sixty years later, Tarsonis was the most advanced and prosperous among them. All three colonies had spread to other worlds and developed their own self-supporting economies, and initially Tarsonis pushed for a conglomerated government. Faced with the likely pre-eminence of Tarsonis in such an arrangement, both Moria and Umoja steadfastly refused. The ruling families of Tarsonis responded by expanding their military and colonizing more aggressively, forming the Terran Confederacy and eventually clashing with the Morians in the Guild Wars. Following nearly four years of brutal warfare, the Confederates declared victory after “negotiating” peace with the Kel-Morian Combine. The outcome of these wars secured the Confederacy’s position as the major power in the sector – with Tarsonis as the central hub of its governance and economy. In theory each Confederate planet had its own senators, but in every meaningful way, the Confederacy was ruled from the bustling metropolis of Tarsonis City, the planetary capital of Tarsonis. Tarsonis was a temperate planet, and the Terrans had expanded quickly to establish cities and industry over much of its surface. At the height of the Confederacy’s power, huge quantities of money and materials were shipped in from the colonies daily. The economic boom on the planet dwarfed that of any other terran world in the Koprulu sector, and Tarsonis’s population grew exponentially. The dynastic ruling families of Tarsonis became more avaricious and corrupt as they built their personal fortunes and vied for more power. As the divide between rich and poor became ever wider, discontent and outright insurgency built up across the planets of the Confederacy. The ruling families responded with increasingly violent measures to keep the colonies in line, culminating in the nuclear decimation of Korhal IV when it attempted to secede from Confederate rule. Outcry at the destruction of Korhal laid the seeds for the final overthrow of the Confederacy. Arcturus Mengsk formed the Sons of Korhal and rose from leading a terrorist organization to heading a full-blown interplanetary rebellion. When the Zerg invasion began, the Confederacy was already struggling to survive; as the Swarm descended on Terran space, the Sons of Korhal seized the opportunity to deal the Confederacy a deathblow. Despite bitter fighting, Tarsonis was overrun and utterly devastated by the Zerg. It is estimated that upwards of two billion people were killed. Shortly afterward, the Zerg abandoned the planet for reasons unknown. In the aftermath of the Zerg invasion, the Sons of Korhal drew together the remnants of the Confederacy to form the Terran Dominion, ruled by Emperor Arcturus Mengsk. Refugees from Tarsonis have been absorbed into other colonies, and the planet itself has not been re-colonized. The Terran Dominion has placed Tarsonis under strict quarantine while the Dominion’s salvage teams sift through the rubble for any Confederate technologies and military secrets that may have survived the assault. Despite all of this, Emperor Mengsk has made a promise to the scattered refugees of this once-vibrant world: Tarsonis shall be restored, and the Dominion shall help guide it toward a brighter future. What Links HerePlanets \| Korhal \| Moria Top Wiki Contributors Need assistance with editing this wiki? Check out these resources:
Describes the preliminary findings of IMF staff at the conclusion of certain missions (official staff visits, in most cases to member countries). Missions are undertaken as part of regular (usually annual) consultations under Article IV of the IMF's Articles of Agreement, in the context of a request to use IMF resources (borrow from the IMF), as part of discussions of staff monitored programs, and as part of other staff reviews of economic developments. Concluding Statement of the 2012 Article IV Consultation Mission to IsraelIsrael, February 13, 2012 1. Israel's economy remains strong. Output fell for only two quarters during the "Great Recession", then grew almost 5 percent in 2010 and 2011 led by strong exports and consumption, with investment rising more recently. At 5½ percent, unemployment is at a historic low, while inflation and inflation expectations have both fallen back from slightly above to squarely inside the 1–3 percent target range—the latter reflecting in part the timely tightening of monetary policy in the upswing. The shekel is now broadly consistent with fundamentals and international reserves are appropriate by most measures. 2. In part, this reflects Israel's strong policy frameworks. The budget expenditure rule is set to keep public debt of some 75 percent of GDP on track to decline to 60 percent. And this is reflected in the innovative "two year" budget framework, which has significantly strengthened expenditure planning and implementation. A modern central bank law entrenching inflation targeting was adopted in 2010, building on past successes. The recent Financial Stability Assessment Program (FSAP) Update concludes that vulnerabilities in banks and other financial institutions are well contained. Israel joined the OECD in 2010, and retains the option to issue public debt under a longstanding U.S. government guarantee scheme if necessary. 3. But vulnerabilities remain. Public debt is high relative to stronger OECD and emerging market countries, and, reflecting regional tensions, security expenditures severely constrain room for fiscal maneuver. House prices have surged by over 50 percent in recent years, and notwithstanding welcome reform initiatives following the Hodek committee recommendations, structural fragilities in the corporate bond market remain. Despite strong growth, overall poverty is among the highest in the OECD, raising sharp social and sustainability concerns, notably in the Israeli-Arab and Haredi communities. And finally, a decade of stagnant real wages contributed to an eruption of social protests in 2011, with significant implications for spending and taxation policies over the medium term. 4. Furthermore, economic activity began to slow from early 2011. Consumer and business confidence have softened as has activity growth and the housing market—with construction slowing, house prices flattening, and house sales falling. And in this overall context, risk premia in the corporate bond market have risen significantly. 5. Policies have responded well to the immediate challenges. The Bank of Israel reversed its tightening cycle from September 2011, cutting its policy rate 75 bps to 2½ percent. In this context, earlier strong appreciation pressures on the shekel have abated. And with budget spending ceilings for 2012 already set under the two-year budget for 2011–12 which was adopted at end 2010, automatic stabilizers are operating fully. 6. So a severe downturn in 2012 is unlikely—absent an external crisis or contagion from within the corporate bond market—but the output gap will likely reopen a little. Assuming that the current supportive monetary stance is maintained alongside the unfettered execution in 2012 of the 2011–12 budget expenditure authorizations, GDP growth is projected to decline to a little below 3 percent before returning to trend at 3¾ percent in 2013, with both sides of this cycle led by exports. 7. Nevertheless, policies and policy frameworks should all be adjusted further in light of the risks. 8. On the fiscal side, the top priority is to keep public debt on a downward track over the medium-term. This will maintain confidence in Israel despite strained international markets, and so allow some flexibility in the deficit path in the short term. 9. This critical task has become considerably more difficult. Near term global and Israeli growth projections have been marked down. A surge in retirements in coming years will reduce the growth of Israeli productive capacity to below the norms of the past decade. Social concern with prices will constrain options to raise indirect taxation. Calls for added public spending—including for social needs and security—have mounted. Unfunded fiscal commitments of some ¾ of a percentage point of GDP for 2012 have to be resolved within the 2012 budget framework. And even if so, the shortfall in revenues in 2011 due to housing and asset market-related receipts will likely persist, setting the stage for a deficit of 3-3½ percent of GDP in 2012, compared with a 2 percent of GDP ceiling. 10. Accordingly, we warmly welcome the authorities' commitment to maintain the total spending limits in the 2012 budget. We also welcome that the Trajtenberg committee’s policy proposals in response to the social protests respect these and the medium-term spending limits. And we welcome the authorities’ decision to withdraw plans for phased reductions in direct tax rates. All these actions have helped to underpin continued investor confidence in the Israeli sovereign in a difficult global environment. 11. But more is needed—in particular, a decisive effort to approach the 2013 budget deficit ceiling should be made. This will require contributions from all sides—from expenditure restraint including defense, from initiatives to raise additional revenues, and from efforts to strengthen the productive potential of the economy. 12. Even so, unless the outlook for activity and revenues improves markedly in coming months, a full return to the headline target for 2013 would be unduly contractionary. Final determination of the appropriate 2013-14 targets for the fiscal balance should be made before mid -2012 reflecting domestic and global developments at that time. 13. This change in the 2013 deficit target will need to be accompanied by a further strengthening of the fiscal rules and frameworks. Given commitment to the expenditure rule, there will likely need to be a reset of the path of targets for the deficit ceiling. Options for that include clarification that the path will be adjusted for automatic stabilizers. Alongside, and in response to the mounting difficulty of securing medium-term debt reduction, the establishment of a permanent and independent Fiscal Council to assess whether overall fiscal policies are consistent with debt reduction may help to secure that goal. And following the success in strengthening the arrangements for the taxation of natural resources under the Sheshinski report, proceeds not assigned to debt reduction should be placed in a sovereign wealth fund operating according to best international practice, with general transfers to the budget based on the long term expected yields of the fund. 14. In this context, even with expenditure restraint fully playing its appropriate role, there is a good case for deficit-reducing discretionary fiscal policy actions to focus on taxation, over the near and medium terms. Key non-security spending items--such as health and education--are around levels of moderate-spending OECD peers. And in some areas, there is need for increases, notably in education and public investment, including in the Arab-Israeli communities. So scope for additional overall spending compression on a significant scale is not apparent. On the other hand, with the VAT rate at only 16 percent—albeit with few exemptions—and given the priority attached to strengthening environmental and housing taxation, revenue increases in these areas alongside curbs to tax expenditures could reinforce the credibility of plans to lower public debt. 15. The monetary stance is broadly appropriate under the baseline projections, but the recommended fiscal and financial stability policies would create scope for further relaxation. Inflation is on track to fall towards and even beyond the mid-point of the inflation target range—with commodity prices, domestic demand, and the housing market all softening. All this is reflected in falling inflation expectations since the Fall of 2011. Aggregate nominal wage growth has been strong as wage settlements caught up with the 2009-10 recovery, but has recently slowed in recognition of global risks. But phased increases in the required minima for core tier 1 bank capital, possibly compounded by strains in the corporate bond market, and the strong fiscal stance recommended would all slow credit growth and activity. Given lags, monetary policy should anticipate and offset these effects, once they are adopted. 16. Any remaining concerns with renewed housing inflation should be addressed with other tools. These include measures to smooth the supply of land and steps to increase the taxation of second properties, possibly backed up by additional macroprudential steps. 17. As on the fiscal side, the monetary framework should continue to be enhanced. The new Bank of Israel Law rightly establishes inflation as the primary target for the Bank, to be delivered by a new Monetary Policy Committee which is subject to increased public accountability. In building on this progress, further developments will need to secure a balance between confirming continuity and effecting change. In this light, in due course, options include lengthening the horizon of published inflation and GDP forecasts, and increased emphasis on the mid-point of the inflation target range as the goal for policy. In this connection, the arrangements for remuneration of Bank of Israel staff should be reviewed; current limits significantly impede recruitment and retention of appropriately qualified new staff, and the mechanisms raise concerns with effective independence of monetary and supervisory policy. If unaddressed, these issues will corrode the bank's core anti-inflationary and supervisory functions. 18. Alongside, the easing of upward pressure on the shekel paves the way for maintaining a de facto free floating exchange rate regime. Considerable intervention and the use of limited administrative controls on inflows were warranted by the exceptional circumstances of recent years. So while continued use of these instruments is appropriately not ruled out, continued signals that the clear preference is for their use to remain the exception rather than the rule will support the credibility of inflation as the prime target for monetary policy. Exit strategies from use of all of these instruments should be prepared. 19. In the event of a major external shock, further policy adjustments would be needed. Provided that market access by the Israeli sovereign is uninterrupted, automatic fiscal stabilizers should operate fully, accompanied by steps to reinforce the credibility of the commitment to medium-term debt reduction. Alongside, the monetary policy rate should be lowered. Were the external shock to induce safe haven capital inflows, compounding shekel appreciation and associated disinflationary pressures, monetary relaxation should be larger and nonconventional tools may be needed—possibly, a combination of quantitative easing, macroprudential policies aimed at deterring short-term inflows, and foreign exchange intervention. Such actions should be accompanied by clear exit strategies principally contingent on improved global conditions. 20. On the financial stability side, “normal” risks are contained. The FSAP Update stress tests indicate that banks and other financial institutions would likely be able to withstand even a severe downturn including a domestic housing crash, and heightened credit risk in the corporate sector. This reflects proactive supervision, and banks’ limited external exposures and wholesale funding. And steps underway to improve bond market infrastructure are welcome. 21. Nevertheless, various actions are needed to strengthen supervision and regulation—and several are already underway. Plans to raise bank capital ratios and to strengthen liquidity requirements in accord with Basle III are welcome. These follow the international schedule, raise the quality of bank capital, and address the role of groups and the systemic nature of the major banks. 22. A stronger financial crisis management framework and preparations for shocks outside of historical experience should be implemented. The use of the BoI’s emergency liquidity facilities and the legal framework for early intervention and resolution powers should both be reviewed urgently. Means should be available to fund an eventual bank resolution, and at the same time to protect less sophisticated savers. Given strains already evident in corporate bond markets, the impact on financial stability of the bankruptcy of one or more of Israel’s large corporate groups, combined with a severe and protracted economic downturn, should be studied. Plans for the strengthening of supervisory policies and the scheduling of reforms to corporate structures envisaged by the "Concentration Committee" should reflect lessons learned from this exercise. And contingency planning should include consideration of early activation of tools such as those that were established in 2009 to underpin the corporate bond market. 23. The establishment of a Financial Stability Committee (FSC)—comprising all the main supervisors—could help substantially in facilitating a more systemic approach to financial sector policy. The FSC would be charged with coordinating macro-prudential analysis and policy-making, and may help to implement full cooperation among financial supervisors, for example, in identifying cross-sectoral linkages and future sources of strain. But if the FSC does not succeed in that aim, the architectural layout of financial sector supervisors may need to be recast. 24. But even if all these fiscal, monetary, and financial stability steps are taken, stability in Israel in the long run will remain in question unless the low participation in labor markets of minority populations--notably the Arab-Israeli and Haredi communities—is addressed. In particular, employment rates of Arab-Israeli females and Haredi males are just 20 and 40 percent respectively. Their wage levels are also lower than other Israeli groups, even taking account of differences in qualifications. Accordingly severe poverty is concentrated in these groups. If, instead, the employment, wage, and productivity rates in their communities were on a par with others, every year Israeli output would be some 15 percent higher than it is, and annual fiscal revenues would also be higher than they are by some 5 percent of GDP. As these groups are set to grow to half of the entire population in 30 years, up from a quarter now, these participation issues are macroeconomic in scale. 25. Both communities want work, and the realization of that goal should be encouraged. Necessary steps include provision of basic child care and transportation in the Arab areas, arrangements for inclusion of Haredi males in the armed forces in ways that support their employment and productive potential, and action to remove impediments to business establishment in both communities. Both groups also need their particular education requirements to be addressed, notably equalization of education provision at all levels in Arab-Israeli communities with that elsewhere, and focused provision of adult education to address Haredi needs. And social benefits to both groups, including child care, should be increasingly tied to employment. 26. A number of official initiatives to address the needs of these "currently" minority populations are underway--alongside the many ongoing private initiatives. These include targets for participation, extension of the earned income tax credit, establishment of a proactive unit for Arab affairs in the Prime Minister's office, and expansion of Haredi units in the defense forces. But as well as upgraded enforcement of anti discrimination legislation, much more is needed. This has implications, as noted, for additional education and public investment spending. Early and substantive progress will require all sides to adjust and to work closely together—requiring great political dexterity. But further progress is essential to secure the long-term sustainability of the Israeli economy, and with it, the welfare of all of its citizens.
IMFSurvey Magazine: Policy ACTION AGAINST ILLICIT ACTIVITY IMF Works to Fight Money Laundering and Terrorism Financing IMF Survey online July 31, 2008 - Technical assistance bolsters countries' financial integrity - Strong, sustained demand for IMF's assistance to address problems - Increased collaboration with partners, donors, in assistance delivery Money laundering and terrorism financing continue to plague many countries, threatening the integrity and stability of financial institutions and systems. For the past seven years, the IMF has helped many countries strengthen their defenses in the battle against illicit activities. Numerous countries have drawn on IMF assistance in drafting laws and regulations, and in developing strategies and methodologies for their financial sector supervisors. More generally, the IMF has helped countries develop the capacity of their financial sector supervisory agencies, financial intelligence units, and judicial officials. The IMF assists its member countries by conducting assessments and providing technical assistance focused on legal, regulatory and supervisory frameworks. A multidisciplinary unit within the Fund's Legal Department—known as the Financial Integrity Group—is responsible for implementing the IMF's mandate on anti-money laundering and combating the financing of terrorism (often referred to by the acronym "AML/CFT"). Strong corporate governance, rule of law, and integrity are the key ingredients of well-functioning, modern financial markets. Underpinning these elements are effective AML/CFT regimes consistent with international standards. In many countries, AML/CFT regimes also support effective tax enforcement and thus fiscal administration. Typically, the IMF evaluates countries' compliance with international AML/CFT standards and develops programs to help them address the identified shortcomings. Demand for IMF assistance has increased steadily every year since the institution became fully involved in 2001. In the past two years alone the IMF has conducted 12 AML/CFT assessments and 160 technical assistance missions in over 150 countries. Different nations, different solutions Money laundering and terrorism financing vulnerabilities can impede much-needed remittance flows and access to international financial and payments systems. The work undertaken by the IMF's Financial Integrity Group in South America has resulted in several successful projects combining the Fund's cross-country expertise with local knowledge. The IMF has provided core technical assistance services (legislative drafting, training for financial sector supervisors, and capacity building for relevant government agencies) across a wide range of its membership. Some projects are also developed on a regional basis—including plans to develop AML/CFT supervisory practices in Central America and a risk assessment project in the Pacific. The IMF's regional training centers play a central role in these efforts because they provide the facilities for training large numbers of people from the regions served by the centers. The IMF takes a flexible approach to AML/CFT technical assistance, taking into account a country's stage of development, institutional capacity, overall level of commitment, and identified priorities. Also part of the picture are the broader implications of AML/CFT controls for the financial sector, as well as how these controls fit with other measures called for by international standards for regulating the financial sector. In countries with limited administrative resources, the Fund often focuses on legislative drafting and institution-building in a way that respects the countries' economic limitations and other priorities. Hands-on seminars and workshops are a key means of passing along knowledge. "The workshop, particularly the practical hands on case studies, really helped me to appreciate how [anti-money laundering] work fits into the big picture in my own economy," said a workshop participant at a recent event conducted by the Financial Integrity Group at the Joint Africa Institute in Tunis, Tunisia. Focus on emerging markets Engagement with emerging markets has expanded as officials and market participants realized that controls to counter money laundering and terrorism financing foster a favorable environment for cross-border financial flows and contribute to effective tax administration. Effective laws and sound institutions, together with good governance practices, are essential components of healthy financial systems. This is especially so in countries that may be more vulnerable to sudden shifts in international capital flows. The IMF hopes to establish a multi-donor trust fund in AML/CFT to galvanize support for its technical assistance programs in emerging market countries to meet the strong demand coming from these countries. Collaboration and coordination of Fund technical assistance with other strategic global, regional, and bilateral partners and donors is a priority. Wherever possible, and in order to avoid duplication, IMF staff leverage resources by cooperating with other agencies and donors. With the help of funding from Canada, the IMF recently completed a program of work on AML/CFT supervision with the Eastern Caribbean Central Bank. Work is ongoing on another Canadian-funded, multifaceted AML banking supervision project that will significantly benefit seven Central American countries. Restructuring for the future The IMF's institutional restructuring plan will ensure it is better able to meet the future needs of its members. However, it has also meant a significant reduction in Washington-based staff. Still, the head of the Financial Integrity Group, Jody Myers, notes that the restructuring "has forced us to take a close look at the reasons we're in business and to identify the areas where we can have the greatest impact." Moving forward, AML/CFT assistance will be more project based, drawing on a range of external experts supported by a core unit of expert IMF practitioners. Priority will be given to systemically important countries and those that present particularly significant money laundering or terrorism financing risks. Comments on this article should be sent to [email protected]
- Created on Friday, 24 February 2012 08:24 - Written by NAPSI Imperial, California (NAPSI) - The next time you visit the dentist, give yourself a pat on the back. Taking care of your mouth is vitally important to your overall well-being and may lower your risk for other health problems. For example, periodontal disease has been linked to endocarditis (an infection of the heart lining). Bacteria from plaque can make your gums red and swollen, and bleed when you brush. The bacteria can then enter your bloodstream and infect other parts of the body, including the inner lining of your heart—particularly if you’re already at high risk for a heart condition. Studies have also linked poor oral health to elevated levels of C-reactive protein that can lead to diabetes, stroke, heart disease, osteoporosis and other inflammatory diseases of aging. Keep your oral health on track by brushing twice daily, flossing, changing your toothbrush every three to four months and eating healthy. Plan visits to your dentist every six months. The experts at Smile Brands Inc. suggest asking your dentist three questions: What Should I Do About That Pain In My…? If you are having any pain, ask about it. Your dentist will be able to point out anything on the surface during a regular cleaning and checkup, but you’ll need to speak up if you’re feeling something not visible. Identifying a concern when it’s small can prevent a larger problem in the future, and also keep any potential infections from spreading to other parts of your body. How Is Everything Besides My Teeth? Ask about your gums. Plaque buildup on your teeth can lead to problems like gingivitis and periodontitis. You can also ask for an overall exam to look for issues like bone density, grinding your teeth or any lumps that are out of the ordinary. What’s My Homework? To keep that clean-teeth feeling after you leave the office, ask your dental professional for some take-home to-dos. This could be a new brushing technique or a sample you’ve seen advertised. Such “assignments” can help keep your mouth in the best possible shape. Smile Brands Inc. is the nation’s leading provider of business support services to dental groups in the United States with affiliated dental groups operating primarily under one of three brand names: Bright Now! Dental, Castle Dental and Monarch Dental.
At one time the deer population density averaged 8-12 deer per square mile. Currently there are areas in the United States that have a reported 200 deer per square mile. The over all estimate of deer in the US approaches 30 million. Compare this to the 500,000 of the early 1900's. No wonder deer problems are so prevalent! You might think that that the growth of suburbia and land development would keep the deer population in check. Just the opposite has happened. Deer are thriving and multiplying in these areas. As it turns out, reproduction in deer is directly related to food availability. When food source is plentiful, deer will readily produce twins, sometimes even three and as many as four fawns in a single pregnancy. When food is scarce, only one fawn is born. New housing developments invariably plant new landscaping. New landscaping requires attention to get well established. We water, we mulch, we fertilize. And we grow beautiful, lush plants and we continue to care for our plants. We're not the only one who rejoice in seeing our plants grow and thrive. Deer also love this tender new growth. Deer have a very strong sense of smell and they can smell your wonderfully fertilized plants. No wonder it can be such a challenge to get rid of deer! It makes sense that the deer don't go further into the woods to avoid people, especially since we're providing them good, if not better, nutrition than mother nature might. All too often, the most common sign of deer presence is the damage they leave behind in the garden. Torn, shredded and eaten down plants are some the disheartening signs. Other signs are hoof prints and tracks in the soil or snow. Deer droppings are also commonly found. Deer droppings are about 3/4 inch in size and slightly oval-shaped. This is in contrast to rabbit droppings which are about the size and shape of peas. Deer also average a higher number of droppings than rabbits, around 70. Deer bedding is another sign of deer. Bedding areas are oval sized depressions in the ground where a deer has been resting. They approximately measure 1 3/4 feet by 4 feet, depending on the size of the deer. Bedding areas may be more easily recognized in snow. Carefully observe the leaves and stalks that have been left behind. Unlike rabbits, deer do not have any upper front teeth and cannot cleanly cut leaves and stalks. Deer literally tear and twist leaves and twigs to collect food and then chew and grind them with their back teeth. The process of twisting and tearing often leaves a ragged and jagged appearance to plants and branches left behind. Deer also will rub their antlers along shrubs and tree branches and tree trunks to remove the velvet from their antlers as well as to mark their territory. This can be recognized by observing vertical scrape marks and shredded bark on trees along with broken branches. It's not uncommon for the underlying wood of the trunk to be exposed. Not only can the damage look particularly unsightly on our specimen trees, but it can be particularly devastating to saplings. There are many methods, suggestions and home remedies available to control deer in the garden. Some methods to keep deer from eating your plants are listed below. Preferred methods depend on your lifestyle, finances and personal preferences. If you have found a successful method and would like to share it, please let us know and we'd be glad to share it with our gardeners. Deer prefer to stay near the edge of woods and other areas that provide good cover. Many suburban gardens provide the much preferred wooded or sheltered areas surrounding a home with some very appealing plantings. Deer are quite comfortable coming out of the woods at twilight and the evening to feast on your plants. In theory, if you incorporate mostly plants that deer don't like, you should be able to discourage them from bothering your garden. (Of course, if hungry enough, deer will eat anything to stay alive.) Another problem with planting only deer resistant plants is that you may not enjoy some flowers or shrubs that you love. One way to handle this dilemma is to blend some deer resistant plants with plants that deer may eat and protect just those plants loved by you and the deer. Fencing can be used to keep deer out of your garden but bear in mind that deer can jump nine feet high. In order for a fence to work against deer it should be eight feet high. An effective fence is expensive and may not be a good choice for aesthetic reasons. In addition, fences have to be maintained on a regular basis. Just the presence of a dog in your yard may be enough to keep deer away. However, you may not want to deal with the expense and maintenance of a dog just to get rid of deer. Some of the scare tactics used to scare and get rid of deer are strobe lights, sirens, playing a radio, water scarecrows. Some of these devices may do more to alienate your neighbors than successfully repel deer. Unfortunately, scare devices can be a rather inconvenient and less reliable option. Eventually the deer do get used to them even when moved to different locations weekly. One of the homemade suggestions is to hang bars of soap or unwashed human hair (placed in mesh bags) from trees and shrubs. Each bar of soap or hair bags may cover a three foot area. This method may not be acceptable for aesthetic reasons. In a larger garden, it can also be a rather tedious choir. One of the easiest, economical and most reliable solutions to get rid of deer problems is to spray with I Must Garden Deer Repellent. It is environmentally safe for your family and pets and won't harm any animals. And since it doesn't smell awful, you won't scram from you own garden after you spray! We are so confident on the effectiveness of our repellent that we fully guarantee it! We want you to be satisfied with every purchase from I Must Garden, if you have any questions or concerns please contact us
Insomnia and Depression Is there a relationship with insomnia and depression? There is a link between depression and insomnia. Depression causes insomnia. In depression, people try to sleep but are not able to. Some Common Names For Insomnia There are some alternative names for insomnia. These are Definition of Insomnia Insomnia is a sleeping problem which means difficulty in sleeping when you first go to bed at night or waking up frequently in the night or waking up too much early in the morning. Connection Between Insomnia and DepressionYou know 80% of depressed people experience insomnia, which means they have to face sleeping problems. Another type of insomnia is waking up early in the morning. This is in15% depressed people. Insomnia is not just the depression symptoms, even disordered sleep may lead to depression. Delay in treating insomnia lead to first episode of depression. Insomnia depression is not just less sleep or waking up in the early morning. Actually sleep has well defined pattern. We cycle 4 to 5 times a night through a relaxed sleep marked by slow waves. People who are in depression fall in REM sleep, means that in sleep, people are in lot of pressures. People can get depressed in dream also. When people experience insomnia, they get frustrated and full of anxiety. To compensate with sleep, they take some behavioral step. They stay in bed after morning for a long time or go to the bed early in the next night. But this behavior changes the pattern of sleep. Effect of Depression and Insomnia Actually depression is second step of insomnia. It disturbs the brain functioning ability. Causes of Insomnia Depression Avoid alcohol or caffeine before sleeping. Set fixed time to sleep. Do not use bedroom for other activity. When you are in bed use relaxation techniques that feel better. But don't imagine some creative thing that disturbs your mind and thus your sleeping pattern will change. Don't stay in bed for a longer period of time. Your computer or TV should be out of your bedroom. Your mind will change to stimulate it. And thus it makes harder to sleep. Try to listen to music, take bath, read some storybooks before going to sleep. Exercise is helpful but if done 2 hours before sleeping. Aerobic exercise is best for depressed people. Avoid stressful situation before sleeping. Therapy And Oil Treatment For Insomnia Depression This therapy is most useful therapy. It gives good respond to stress related condition including insomnia. Oil For Insomnia Depression You can use any oil but sunflower oil and sweet almond oil are used as carrier oil. You can make combination of carrier oil and essential oil. Essential oil includes camomile and geranium. For adults, dose is 25ml carrier with 7 to 8 drops of essential oil. For children, dose is 3 to 4 drops of essential oil with 25ml carrier. Following Are Some Essential Oils That Are Useful For Sleep. Antidepressants Treatment For Insomnia Depression Sleep disturbance leads to insomnia depression. It is an integral part of depressive disorder. More than 90% depressed people complaint about insomnia. Thus insomnia depression requires antidepressants treatment. At initial state of insomnia, dose of serotonin reuptake inhibitors or serotonin-norepinephrine reuptake inhibitors are given. Where as antidepressant drugs with 5-HT2 blocking properties, such as mirtazapine or nefazodone improves sleep pattern. This treatment increases total sleep. What is Depression? Depression and Anxiety Depression Natural Remedy Omega 3 for Depression How to Deal With Depression Causes of Depression Warning Signs of Depression Acupuncture and Depression Antidepressants Side Effects Depression in Pregnancy Depression After Pregnancy Major Depressive Disorders Depression and Suicide Diabetes and Depression Cortisol and Depression Estrogen and Depression List of Antidepressants Provigil and Depression Types of Antidepressants Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder Depression in Women Depression in Men Diet and Depression Rapid Mood Cycling Copyright © Depression. All Rights Reserved. Sitemap
The Concert of Europe Treaty of Paris \| Congress of Vienna \| The Holy Alliance \| Quadruple Alliance \| Treaty of Paris After the long fall of Napoleon from the disastrous retreat from Russia to the Battle of the Nations, when all hope of victory had faded, Napoleon decided it was time to surrender to the allies. With the usurper finally out of the way, Great Britain, Austria, Prussia, and Russia gathered together in 1814 in the most convenient spot (Paris) to discuss what should happen to France. Talleyrand (who once had been called by Napoleon, "crap in a silk stocking") represented France and von Metternich represented Austria. The prevailing mood among the victors was that France itself must remain intact in order to maintain the balance of power in Europe. To this end, the terms of the peace were very generous. France returned to the borders of 1792; she regained most of her colonies; and was not forced to pay an indemnity. But, unfortunately for France, her old lover returned for one last fling. Napoleon returned on a ship from his exile in Elba and raised a new army. But he was quickly defeated after 100 days at the Battle of Waterloo. That France would again support Napoleon hardened the hearts of the negotiators somewhat. They met again and imposed harsher terms for France. The Congress of Vienna The Napoleonic Wars had taken a severe toll on the manhood of France and the countries of Europe. Hundreds of thousands of men died in battle or from disease during the campaigns. Many civilian people died from starvation and deprivation when their homes and countries were ravaged by war. The diplomats who met in Vienna were determined to avoid such a demographic calamity again. So they determined to work together to create a system to maintain peace and order. Yet the ministers and representatives of the Congress of Vienna were realists. They knew that the martial spirit of Europe had not been bled dry. The last return of Napoleon was ample evidence that a nation could still be whipped into a war frenzy. The fifteen years of Napoleon preceded by the ten years of the French Revolution had taught them much of the collective and individual motivations and actions of men. Thus they proceeded with their deliberations with certain ideas in mind. - To restrict wars of aggression by France: France had been an aggressive force in Europe since Louis XIV. - That a balance of power must be maintained: It was felt that an equality of force among disparate European powers would create enough uncertainty that rulers would not be inclined to risk the use of aggressive force. It would make it more difficult for one nation to dominate Europe. - A system of rewards and punishments for past deeds must be in place: This would discourage European powers from future aggrandizement. (Not to mention the fact that it would reward the current participants in the Congress.) - Countries must be ruled by legitimate governments. The InDepthInfo History of Modern Europe was designed as a homeschool history textbook. It covers an exciting time in modern Europe between the Renaissance and the End of World War I. It has report suggestions, chapter quizzes, and a final examination. Perfect for high school level study. These principles espoused mainly by Metternich were considered conservative. Some have said that the object of the Congress was to return Europe to status quo ante (or the way things were before the wars). But this was not true. The congress changed many borders. The Holy Roman Empire was left dismantled. Military and political organization was forever changed. The congress provided a new precedent for concerted action by nations and states to work to resolve issues peacefully. In fact, there would be no general European war again until the Great War of 1914 (WWI). The immediate result of the Congress of Vienna was the growth of the major states of Russia, Prussia, and Austria, at the expense of Poland, Saxony, and Italy. Legitimate rulers were restored in many states including France and Spain. The Holy Alliance Alexander I, Tsar of Russia, had become mystical about this time. He believed that he had been appointed by God to destroy Napoleon. After the Napoleonic Wars he felt that the best hope for peace in Europe was to create an alliance where the states participating would swear to abide by Christian principles. Prussia and Austria joined with Russia in this alliance. The Quadruple Alliance In the wake of the Napoleonic Wars there was a mania for alliance building. The Quadruple Alliance was an effort to keep together the force that had finally destroyed Napoleon. The Quadruple Alliance included Great Britain, Russia, Austria, and Prussia. They agreed to meet periodically to resolve the problems of Europe. (France joined in 1818, making it the Quintuple Alliance.) Thus, congresses of Europe met until about 1822 when there was a falling out about the right of the alliance members to interfere in the politics of other states. Britain left, and the alliance withered away. For many historians this period in European history serves as an aftermath of the Napoleonic Wars. Yet it was significant. It was the first time since the middle ages that Europeans had made any significant strides toward unity and continental peace. Yes, war and revolution would occur during the remainder of the century. But on the whole it was a peaceful period, and the people of Europe were generally grateful for the time of growth, stability, and prosperity which followed.
ICTC: Activities mark Career and Technical Education Month February is designated as Career and Technical Education Month. The Indiana County Technology Center celebrates CTE month with fun activities every Friday for the rest of February. Today is Walking Taco Day. Students can purchase a walking taco for $2.50. On Feb. 14, hot cocoa and sugar cookies which will be distributed to the students. Students can also decorate their own customized sugar cookie. Feb. 21 is “Duck Dynasty” Day. Students will be able to dress up as their favorite “Duck Dynasty” character and the best dressed will have their photographs taken. Career-related and camouflage ducks will be sold to students through Feb. 27. All proceeds collected will benefit Skills USA at the ICTC. On Feb. 28, the last Friday of CTE month, students can participate in a duck toss in the Lobby of the ICTC. The winner will be rewarded with a breakfast/lunch with a friend, compliments of the culinary restaurant. In addition to the activities, every Friday in February will provide the students with an opportunity to be awarded a prize. Students who have perfect attendance for the month of February will be selected to win weekly prizes. On the last Friday of the month, there will be three grand prizes available to all morning and afternoon students. Grand prize winners will also be selected on the last day of the month. On Jan. 20, the SkillsUSA District 8 competition was hosted by the Indiana County Technology Center. Students from 11 different career and technical centers participated in contests that were held at ICTC, Indiana Area Senior High School, the Kovalchick Convention and Athletic Complex, WyoTech and Consol Energy. The students competed in events including advertising design, carpentry, masonry, photography, nurse assisting. The winners of each event will be traveling to Hershey in April to compete at state level. The students from the career and technology centers demonstrated exceptional skill and knowledge of their events and competed vigorously to win. From the Indiana County Technology Center, 11 students were winners and 19 placed in their events. The students who earned third-place honors were Alexis McConnell for action skills, Mitchell Meager for basic health care, Amy Aimino for carpentry, Bo Anderson for CNC technician, Marcus Valenti for computer maintenance and Tom McDowell for masonry. Runners-up were Courtney Taylor for advertising design and Kim Wheatcroft for customer service. The winners who will be going to Hershey for the state competition in April are Shawn Naworol for auto service technology, Brandon Czerniec for automotive refinishing, Katilyn Smith for culinary arts, Waylon McGreary for electrical construction wiring, Ian McCleary for HVACR, Chelsea Yeomans for job skills demo, Kristin Glance for nail care, Christina Pizer as a nail care model, Caitlin Hauser for nurse assisting, Morgan Johnston for photography and Royce Bish for sheet metal. Congratulations to all of the competitors for showing exceptional skills and to all of the winners of the SkillsUSA District 8 competition.
Over the past few years, e-mail has become a popular channel for business communication. But, the growth of e-mail has created security and storage issues, resulting in companies finding themselves obligated to preserve records of all e-mails for a number of years. In the new era of Big Data, CIOs experience what it feels to be a gold digger, sans the smudges of dark caves. This is all to find some long lost data that is as obscure as big foot or recovering a crashed mailing client on a CXO's laptop. Couple this with the current snail-paced global economy and the evergreen need to be competitive in the marketplace; a company can waste a lot of time finding important data using legacy e-discovery methods. IT as a company function is a pretty new idea, particularly in India, considering that Tim Berners-Lee invented the Internet in 1989. Information Technology and its benefits have recently been seen in many European and American companies with the advent of ERP systems of the likes of SAP and PeopleSoft. These systems help optimize a company's functioning at all levels, all the while cutting on paper-printing expenses. Driving the corporate communications landscape is the e-mail -- purchase orders, company strategy presentations, marketing creatives all flow through e-mails in the modern organization. Even though modern, some organizations still prefer to backup e-mail and data using dated CDs and DVDs and mounting them when required. Such a method is often preferred because IT, in some corporate quarters, is still seen as a pure expense. Present maturity in Information Technology has gifted us solutions to discover any data in few seconds. The spearhead of this techno-swiss-knife are a special class of software that are used for e-mail discovery. Before laying down the ace and calling it a flush in favour of e-mail archiving; let's dive into some common scenarios that a CIO and his team faces in an e-mail driven modern organization.:- Law SuitesGlobal and national Indian laws have deemed e-mail as legit evidence in the Court of Law. Some acts that are worth mentioning are Sarbanes-Oxley Act, HIPPA, Indian IT Act 2000 and multitude of others. An e-mail archival system, essentially, keeps the mails in their original form, tamper-proof and encrypted. Any attempt to breach of any kind is of course recorded and reported to relevant members of the organization. But, the breacher won't get anything more than something like "ErNiNooc3BwTrGvGrvhPT4PKopYZKoNhCY62Lx0yAj", that's nothing but ASCII characters, which would require a millennia or more and several super-computers to decipher. The Email Archival Advantage: Secure, fast recovery while saving time and money. E-mail DiscoveryI recently visited a muti-national cargo company. The IT manager was struggling with a legacy PST backup system to manage the pile of DVDs/CDs on top of an unsatisfactory system. Discovering an old mail using PSTs can be a herculean task of finding a needle in a giant haystack. E-mail archival systems help in searching the unsearchable and that too to the level of case-sensitive phrases within a mail attachment of a mail long-archived in the archival system. The Email Archival Advantage: Fast e-mail discovery, again saving time and money. Personal Computers crash faster than the BSE, which might result in loss of precious data. This in turn can lead to indirect loss at times, for instance in a case where an e-mail with crucial pricing info is lost. In the age of BYOD and Big Data scenarios, a mail archival system helps users restore one's mails' data in few seconds. The task is simple: Login, Select Date Range, Search, hit on restore! Many e-mail archival systems offer controlling the access to the user archives as well. If the users are given normal access, it might not even be necessary to contact IT support by an employee to restore his/her mails, thus saving the time of IT support and freeing them of such monotonous tasks. The Email Archival Advantage: Saving time and resources. ISO, CMIE and several other compliance ruling bodies ordain an organization to comply in a certain way in which mails are treated. In short, e-mails ought to be archived properly, if a company is to get a compliance certificate. Especially outsourcing companies have to comply to such guidelines in order to bag the multi-million Euro deal. Compliance to legal acts also come in this purview. Yet again, an archival system serves this purpose. The Email Archival Advantage: Winning orders, increasing business E-mail archival helps in above ways and more. For those still in doubt about the ROI, consider e-mail archival as a long-term investment. The fast ROI would be the time saved in recovering a crashed laptop of a company director. Modern e-mail archival systems help the IT team gleam as heroic angels and the CIO as their archangel. This clever investment is light on the corporate pocket if the mail archival is on open source technologies vis-a-vis a closed source technology. Also, many mail archival solutions are also available on the cloud. The take-away here is to archive mails left right and center, using modern mail archival systems that help in sticky situations where fortunes might have been lost, if it weren't for the mail archiving. The author is COO, netCORE Solutions
If you are experiencing problems downloading PDF or HTML fulltext, our helpdesk recommend clearing your browser cache and trying again. If you need help in clearing your cache, please click here . Still need help? Email [email protected] Summary Increased sleep need following traumatic brain injury, referred to in this study as post‐traumatic pleiosomnia, is common, but so far its clinical impact and therapeutic implications have not been characterized. We present a case–control study of 36 patients with post‐traumatic pleiosomnia, defined by an increased sleep need of at least 2 h per 24 h after traumatic brain injury, compared to 36 controls. We assessed detailed history, sleep‐activity patterns with sleep logs and actigraphy, nocturnal sleep with polysomnography and daytime sleep propensity with multiple sleep latency tests. Actigraphy recordings revealed that traumatic brain injury (TBI) patients had longer estimated sleep durations than controls (10.8 h per 24 h, compared to 7.3 h). When using sleep logs, TBI patients underestimated their sleep need. During nocturnal sleep, patients had higher amounts of slow‐wave sleep than controls (20 versus 13.8%). Multiple sleep latency tests revealed excessive daytime sleepiness in 15 patients (42%), and 10 of them had signs of chronic sleep deprivation. We conclude that post‐traumatic pleiosomnia may be even more frequent than reported previously, because affected patients often underestimate their actual sleep need. Furthermore, these patients exhibit an increase in slow‐wave sleep which may reflect recovery mechanisms, intrinsic consequences of diffuse brain damage or relative sleep deprivation.
With Instructables you can share what you make with the world and tap into an ever-growing community of creative experts. share what you made with text, photos, video, and files gather your favorite instructables together Today , i'm going to show you how to make a tic tac blowgun in 2 easy steps! You can put your darts in the tic tac box Materials : A straw Needles Hot Glue Gun or super glue Scissors Q tips Tic Tac First, make 2 holes in the tic tac box ,one in the top and one in the bottom.Make sure they are aligned so the straw can fit in them To make the dart, take a q tip , cut it in half and glue the needle on top of it... To shoot it , put the dart in the straw and blow! Download our new apps for iOS, Android and Windows 8! © 2014 Autodesk, Inc. By clicking "Create Account" you are indicating that you have read and agree to the Terms of service. Already a member? Login » Enter the email associated with your account and we will send you your username and a temporary password. Not a member? Sign Up »
After my activity bag post ran recently over on The Natural Parents Network, I was inspired by others forming swaps to give it a go again, this time with my local Attachement Parenting group. This is my first time organizing, though I’ve participated in two other swaps with folks online. We had enough interest to break the group into two, a younger and a (just slightly) older group, and those who are able will meet at my house for the actual swap at the end of the month. I think I know what I am going to make — mini-log blocks like we made for the girls Christmas, with paint-stirrer sticks to help with construction, and plastic bugsto play with on them. My second backup choice, that I also love and want to make, is magnetic foam tangrams — Here’s a decription with no photos, here are a couple more links about it. I think it would be cool to print/photocopy some picture guides to add to this as well, possibly the same size as the pieces so the kids could do them like a puzzle, with the magnets holding the pieces in place to avoid frustration. Here are a bunch more activity bag ideas I’ve stumbled up and love — hopefully I’ll either make them or receive them via a trade or swap at some point! If you try any of them, let me know how they turn out!!! - Nuts, bolts and washers – just a mix of different sizes, for the kids to explore, sort, and put together. - Number wheel — clothespin and a cardboard circle with dots to match to numbers - Tangled Weaving Web — super easy, looks fun! - Shades of color activity — using paint chips to sort colors into a grid. Cool! - Double Trouble shapes – matching combinations of foam shapes - Popsicle stick puzzles — make your own puzzles with any image, with craft sticks! - Story Blocks/Dice – OMG! Love these! I want some to use during mealtimes, especially lunch! - Marble Travel Game — Brilliant! Though I fear my girls would be frustrated that the marble is stuck in there & they can’t see it or take it out! - Measure it! – sorting different lengths of fun ribbons into three sizes - Magnet Mosaics — use easily store bought round magnets to create pictures using a (printable) guide or doing it yourself (may be cost prohibative for a swap, but I am going to do it myself, as we already have these magnets!) - Magnetic Fishing — Easy version, cool but sewing involved version - Magnetic Personalities – making magnets out of photos and cut out characters (either laminated or glued on cardstock?), with heads cut off to mix and match (look half way down the page). - Velcro toys (description found here, no pictures!)– cover a piece of wood with velcro, and affix velcro to small toys or objects - Make your own mini- race track — This one I did for a swap years ago, and never finished making one for my own kids! Basically, I cut black canvas/heavy fabric into tracks (straights, curves, some intersections, etc) similar to a toy train track, with velcro on either side so the kids can stick them together whatever way they want. I included enough to make a complete circle or oval, plus extras to extend or make more of a town layout. I included a couple mini-cars. It was really fun! I really ought to pull out the supplies and do this for us (and blog about it, ha ha) - Sorting erasers (just a collection of those colorful mini-erasers, and cups/muffin tin/ice cube tray for sorting - Sensory balloons — looks like a fun, easy project! - Fine Motor games — Straw or lid dropor pipe cleaner sort - Button Outline Matching (or just button sorting would be fun too!) - Letter matching eggs – Instead of letters it could also be shapes, symbols, pictures, stickers… - Stringing straws and buttons — Very simple, and looks fun! - Craft foam bath murals– We have these already, and the girls LOVE them and it’s pretty much the only bath toy they use (for a loooooong time, if we let them). Hooray for activity bags, and busy kids!
Science Investigatory Projects The rapid evolution of technology shows a rapidly changing world. Inventions have evolved and continue to evolve such that after several years of study, research and experimentation reach great developments. This investigatory project mini website are made to promote science and technology consciousness among the general public. And help high school students find all possible online resources for their research projects in chemistry, physics, biology and other science investigatory projects. Define Science and Technology? The history of science and technology is a field of history which examines how humanity understands of the natural world (science) and ability to manipulate it (technology) has changed over the millennium. This field of history also studies the cultural, economic, and political impacts of scientific innovation. What is Chemistry? Chemistry is the science treating matter at the atomic to macromolecular scale, the reactions, transformations and aggregations of matter, as well as accompanying energy and entropy changes during these processes. In short, chemistry studies molecules, crystals, and metal/nonmetals and is concerned with the composition and statistical properties of such structures, as well as their transformations and interactions to become materials encountered in everyday life. According to modern chemistry, the physical properties of materials are generally determined by their structure at the molecular or atomic scale, which is itself defined by inter atomic electromagnetic forces, and laws of quantum mechanics and thermodynamics from various fields of physics. Robert Boyle (1661), Antoine Lavoisier (1787), and John Dalton (1808) can be considered the three fathers of modern chemistry, while some consider the earlier chemist Geber to be the father of chemistry. [Source: Wikipedia]
An energy indaba, similar to the much-mooted economic indaba, might be the route to go to resolve the “complex problems” of secure energy supply and high electricity prices, Minister in the Presidency for National Planning Trevor Manuel has proposed At a business breakfast running alongside the ANC’s national conference in Mangaung yesterday, the minister was asked what the solution was to ever-increasing power prices, which were whittling down, rather than expanding, jobs in the manufacturing sector. Manuel said the problems with Eskom were “unbelievably difficult” to solve, partly because “energy costs have been so low for so long”. The other challenge was that electricity generation was a carbon intensive industry, which was proving “exceedingly difficult” to change. Pressed on whether there should be greater competition in generation, distribution and transmission, he said while there was a commitment to bring in independent power producers, they could not initially match the unit cost of electricity achieved by Eskom. Noting the contradiction between the emphasis placed on promoting manufacturing in the National Development Plan (NDP) and the fact that the manufacturing sector was contracting because of recent electricity tariff hikes, Manuel said: “We need to talk to each other on these issues… no one wants to pay more for energy.” Manuel acknowledged that the experiment to introduce regional electricity distributors (Reds) had failed “They did not work… we pushed the Reds back under the bed,” he joked. He was referring to a network of planned Reds, of which only the first, Red One, was established covering the Western Cape and Northern Cape. However, it never properly got off the ground and municipalities continue to distribute electricity in areas where they are licensed to do so. Eskom serves the rest of the country directly. Only about half of the 283 municipalities are licensed to distribute electricity. Red One was aborted amid challenges from municipalities. Manuel said municipalities’ role in supplying electricity was an important issue in the power pricing outcome as they placed a surcharge on the Eskom price. “They use that as a revenue source, which adds to the cost… these are big issues.” While many stakeholders in South Africa wanted an economic indaba to find common ground in meeting the financial and fiscal challenges facing the country, he believed that “maybe we need an energy indaba” to find solutions to these seemingly intractable problems. The NDP, which was drawn up by the National Planning Commission chaired by Manuel, expressed itself wary of tapping into new sources of nuclear power if it proved costly. However, it was more amenable to the possibility of exploiting shale gas in the Karoo, which Mineral Resources Minister Susan Shabangu has pointed out could have potential reserves of 485 trillion cubic feet of gas. Asked whether implementation of the NDP would receive a fillip with the election of businessman Cyril Ramaphosa as ANC deputy chief, Manuel said he had already been a “resonant voice” in publicly articulating the plan “in spite of all of his responsibilities”. He was referring to Ramaphosa’s business interests in Shanduka and Ivanplats and board positions at MTN and Lonmin, among others. “He has actually made an immense amount of time available for the work of the commission.” Manuel said he was hoping to continue working both in the commission, which forged the NDP, “and outside of it”. He said the commission, of which Ramaphosa is deputy chairman, had a five-year lifespan, but discussions would be held with President Jacob Zuma to decide whether an extension of the commissioners’ terms would be necessary. Such discussions were likely to take place early in the new year. Meanwhile, Bloomberg reported yesterday that Ramaphosa, the chairman of MTN Group and Bidvest, was reviewing his business interests after being elected deputy president of the ANC. “This is necessary to address any potential conflicts of interest and to ensure that I can adequately perform the responsibilities of this position,” Ramaphosa said yesterday. In September, Sunday Times estimated his wealth at R2.22bn.
1937 – Best Actor in a Leading Role, "Captains Courageous" Tracy, an Irish American and devout Catholic, was the first actor to win back-to-back Oscars (1938 Best Actor for "Captains Courageous" and 1939 Best Actor for "Boys Town"). Between both performances, we consider Tracy’s portrayal as Portuguese-American fisherman Manuel in Rudyard Kipling’s "Captains Courageous" to be the better of the two. 2. Gregory Peck 1962 – Best Actor in a Leading Role, "To Kill a Mockingbird" After four Oscar nominations, Peck finally nabbed the award for his riveting performance as Atticus Finch in "To Kill a Mockingbird." In this legendary performance, Peck helps bring Harper Lee’s Pulitzer Prize-winning novel to life in his role as the Depression-era lawyer who defends a black man accused of raping a white woman in a racially tense town. Peck, who’s grandmother was a native of Dingle, Co. Kerry, helped his character earn the title of “Greatest Hero in 100 Years of Film History” by the American Film Institute. 1. Sean Penn 2003 – Best Actor in a Leading Role, "Mystic River" It’s tough to compare 1940s film performances to those of today, but it wasn’t difficult to identify Sean Penn’s depiction of Jimmy Markum in "Mystic River," a film based on the book written by Irish American Dennis Lehane, as one of the best. In this Clint Eastwood-directed film, Penn, who has Irish roots on his mother’s side, electrifies in his gut-wrenching performance as a father seeking revenge on his daughter’s murderer. The actor went on to win another much-deserved leading actor Oscar for 2008's "Milk." Log in with your social accounts: Or, log in with your IrishCentral account: Don't have an account yet? Register now ! Join IrishCentral with your social accounts: Already have an account ? Log in Or, sign up for an IrishCentral account below: Make sure we gathered the correct information from you You already have an account on IrishCentral! Please confirm you're the owner. Our new policy requires our users to save a first and last name. Please update your account:
How much do you know about yourself? What things are important to you? You know a lot about yourself. For example, you can answer the question, "What is your name?" You probably know your address, your age, and where you are from. But can you say more about yourself? What things are important to you? Values are beliefs that are important to you. Thinking about your values will help you answer the question "Who am I?" The better you know yourself, the easier it will be to find a career that matches your values and skills. Look at the picture of the person below. Look at the values that are important to him. He is answering the question "Who am I?" "Education is important to me. I want my children to get a good education." "Honesty is important to me. I always try to tell the truth." "I believe in hard work. I do not want to be lazy at my job." "I want to make enough money to pay the bills and take care of my family." "My culture is important to me." "My family is important to me." The exercise on the next page will help you answer the question What is Most Important to Me? Copyright © 1999- iSeek Solutions
John All fell 70′ down into a crevasse in the Himalayas and survived. He then recorded a video diary of his slow, painful escape: A couple years ago, Professor All answered the question, why does everyone climb Everest in May? It comes down to snow, temperature, and wind. “Mount Everest protrudes into the stratosphere, and most of the year the summit is buffeted by winds of over 100 miles per hour that will kill a climber in minutes or even hurtle them into the void,” All told Popular Mechanics. “It is only during the onset or cession of the Asian Monsoon that these winds die down and allow climbers short seven- to 10-day windows to climb the mountain.” The highest recorded wind speed at the summit was a 175 mph in February 2004. For reference, a Category 5 hurricane has sustained wind speeds of at least 157 mph. Throughout the winter, hurricane-force winds pummel the summit for three days out of four. The two windows in which those wild winds die down happen in May and September. But snow falls during the September calm, so fresh snow drifts offset the break from the wind. That’s why so many people try the ascent in May, All says.
Hadith about the Dajjal Abdullah Ibn 'Omar said, "'Omar Ibn al-Khattab went along with the Prophet and a group of people to Ibn Sayyad, and found him playing with some children near the battlement of Banu Maghalah. At that time Ibn Sayyad was on the threshold of adolescence; he did not realise that anybody was near until the Prophet struck him on the back. The Prophet said to him: 'Do you bear witness than I am the Messenger of Allah?' Ibn Sayyad looked at him and said, 'I bear witness that you are the Prophet of the unlettered.' Then Ibn Sayyad said to the Prophet, 'Do you bear witness that I am the Messenger of Allah? 'The Prophet dismissed this and said, 'I believe in Allah and His Messengers.' Then the Prophet asked him, 'What do you see?' Ibn Sayyad said, 'Sometimes a truthful person comes to me, and sometimes a liar.' The Prophet said to him, 'You are confused', then he said, 'I am hiding something from you.' Ibn Sayyad said, 'It is Dukh.' The Prophet said, 'Silence! You will not be able to go beyond your rank.' 'Omar Ibn al-Khattab said, 'O Messenger of Allah, shall I cut off his head?' The Prophet said, 'If he is (the Dajjal) you will not be able to overpower him, and if he is not, then killing will not do you any good.'" Salim Ibn 'Abdullah said, "I heard 'Abdullah Ibn 'Omar say, 'After that, the Prophet and Ubayy Ibn Ka'b went along to the palm trees where Ibn Sayyad was. The Prophet started to hide behind a tree, with the intention of hearing something from Ibn Sayyad before Ibn Sayyad saw him. The Prophet saw him lying on a bed, murmuring beneath a blanket. Ibn Sayyad's mother saw the Prophet hiding behind a tree, and said to her son, "O Saf (Ibn Sayyad's first name), here is Mohammad!" Ibn Sayyad jumped up, and the Prophet said, "If you had left him alone, he would have explained himself.'' Salim said, "'Abdullah Ibn 'Omar said, The Prophet stood up to address the people. He praised Allah as He deserved to be praised, then he spoke about the Dajjal: 'I warn you against him; there is no Prophet who has not warned his people against him, even Noah warned his people against him. But I will tell you something which no other Prophet has told his people. You must know that the Dajjal is one-eyed, and Allah is not one-eyed.'" Ibn Shihab said: "'Omar Ibn Thabit al-Ansari told me that some of the Companions of the Prophet told him that on the day when he warned the people about the Dajjal, the Prophet said: "There will be written between his eyes the word Kafir (unbeliever). Everyone who resents his bad deeds - or every believer- will be able to read it." He also said, "You must know that no one of you will be able to see his Lord until he dies.'" (Muslim, al-Bukhari). Ibn 'Omar said, "The Prophet mentioned the Dajjal to the people. He said, "Allah is not one-eyed, but the Dajjal is blind in his right eye, and his eye is like a floating grape.'" (Muslim) Anas Ibn Malik said, "The Prophet said, 'there has never been a Prophet who did not warn his people against that one-eyed liar. Verily he is one-eyed and your Lord is not one-eyed. On his forehead will be written the letter Kaf, Fa, Ra (Kafir).'" (Muslim, al-Bukhari) Hudhayfah said, "The Prophet said, 'I know more about the powers which the Dajjal will have than he will know himself. He will have two flowing rivers: one will appear to be pure water, and the other will appear to be flaming fire. Whosoever lives to see that, let him choose the river which seems to be fire, then let him close his eyes, lower his head and drink from it, for it will be cold water. The Dajjal will be one-eyed; the place where one eye should be will be covered by a piece of skin. On his forehead will be written the word Kafir, and every believer, whether literate or illiterate, will be able to read it.'" (Muslim) Abu Hurayrah said, "The Prophet said, 'Shall I tell you something about the Dajjal which no Prophet has ever told his people before me? The Dajjal is one-eyed and will bring with him something which will resemble Paradise and Hell; but that which he calls Paradise will in fact be Hell. I warn you against him as Noah warned his people against him.'" (al-Bukhari, Muslim) Mohammad Ibn Munkadir said: "I saw Jabir Ibn 'Abdullah swearing by Allah that Ibn Sayyad was the Dajjal, so I asked him, 'Do you swear by Allah?' He said, 'I heard 'Omar swear to that effect in the presence of the Prophet, and the Prophet did not disapprove of it.'" Some 'ulama' (scholars) say that some of the Sahabah (Companions of the Prophet) believed Ibn Sayyad to be the greater Dajjal, but that is not the case: Ibn Sayyad was a lesser dajjal. Ibn Sayyad travelled between Makkah and Madina with Abu Sa'id, and complained to him about the way that people were saying that he was the Dajjal. Then he said to Abu Sa'id, "Did not the Prophet say that the Dajjal would not enter Madina? I was born there. Did not he say that he would not have any children? - I have children. Did not he say that he would be a Kafir? - I have embraced Islam. Of all the people, I know the most about him: I know where he is now. If I were given the opportunity to be in his place, I would not resent it.'" (al-Bukhari, Muslim) - Category: The Signs Before the Day of Judgement - Hits: 77828
The telephone bug, pictured above, was responsible for siphoning the credit and debit card information of unwitting consumers from inside one of Australia’s biggest banks. The meticulously handcrafted device, smaller than the palm of a hand, was pinned carefully to telephone cable that ran along the carpet floor of the bank's metropolitan branch office. Two inconspicuous cuts were made in the wire to attach the bug. It would listen for keypad tones as unsuspecting customers keyed in their PIN numbers at the automatic teller. Each tone woke the device from slumber, which it diligently broadcast over a handpicked radio frequency. The attacker waited in the bank’s carpark and recorded the tones on a laptop. Each tone was then matched to a number, revealing the customer’s PIN. Corresponding card information was also being copied and stored. The brazen attacker had swapped the terminal on the teller's desk with a skimming device that was capturing enough bank data for replica cards to be manufactured. The thief needed only match the time signatures at which the card and PIN number were swiped to have unfettered access to potentially hundreds of accounts. Navid Sobbi, the phone interception expert who busted the scam, held a professional respect for the effort put into the bug. “It was a work of art,” Sobbi said. “It is one of the best made and tidy bugs I have come across.” The device was fully sealed save for an exposed screw head which was used to tune the radio frequency over which the PIN numbers were broadcast. A cleaner was found to have installed both the bug and the skimming device. “It’s almost always the cleaners,” Sobbi said, speaking of the dozens of interception cases he has foiled this year. “They have the access and are the most vulnerable – they often stand to make a lot of cash and that’s tempting considering they might not be paid a lot.” However, the bug wasn’t the most sophisticated Sobbi had encountered. He had recently stumbled on a government military-grade interception device installed in the bedroom of a residential property. The device transmitted captured audio via microwave links and was instantly recognisable as a government plant. It was deactivated, but Sobbi’s bug hunting kit was able to identify particular metallic components inside the device. In another case, Sobbi took a call from a client concerned that an office had been wiretapped. During the drive over, Sobbi was called by police to cease and desist: the client had phoned Sobbi to request the search within proximity of the bug. That tipped off police who soon after raided the premises. “If you ever suspect a phone bug,” Sobbi said “don’t talk about it if you are within range.” Though 20 percent of Sobbi's work involved searching for suspected bugs, this year he had also found several hidden cameras and keyloggers implanted on the backs of computers. Lasers had in some cases been used to listen in on corporate meetings, a ploy ultimately foiled by a mock meeting Sobbi established to detect the location of the laser. “With enough tweaking, even a whisper can be heard,” Sobbi said of the laser. Most of Sobbi’s cases involved suspected espionage. His team of six within National Surveillance and Intelligence serviced big business like Australia’s mining giants, government agencies and law firms. The company regularly performed “bug sweeps” of conference rooms ahead of sensitive meetings. Sobbi also ran forensic scans of mobile devices with the same equipment used by police. This service was a favourite of lawyers, big business and individual clients who suspected foul play by staff and partners. “When staff leave, companies often want to know if incriminating text messages or phone calls were sent," he said. "Husbands and wives also want to check out if their phone was tampered or tracking software had been installed.” Copyright © SC Magazine, Australia Processing registration... Please wait. This process can take up to a minute to complete. A confirmation email has been sent to your email address - SUPPLIED GOES EMAIL HERE. Please click on the link in the email to verify your email address. You need to verify your email before you can start posting. If you do not receive your confirmation email within the next few minutes, it may be because the email has been captured by a junk mail filter. Please ensure you add the domain @itnews.com.au to your white-listed senders.
“The people in our town, they died without ever seeing the ocean.” Strange words to hear on an island. They are spoken by an 80-year-old woman we have met at a bus stop just after arriving at the port of Akadomari on Sado Island. She has the signature stoop of many elderly rice farmers after decades of constantly bending over, her torso leaning from her waist at a 90-degree angle even when she stands. But she seems vigorous for her age and, as she talks, it’s clear her mind is still sharp. The town she speaks of is Hamochi, tucked away in the mountains. “My ancestors labored in the fields there for many generations,” she explains. “We didn’t have cars back then and at the end of a hard day, we never had any reason to walk the several kilometers to the sea.” It seems unimaginable that someone could live surrounded by the ocean and never set eyes on it, though Sado is a very big island covering some 855 sq. km. Administratively part of Niigata Prefecture, off whose northern coast it sits amid the chilly waters of the Sea of Japan, it is the sixth largest island in Japan, following the main island of Okinawa. As we board the bus, the woman tells us to keep our eyes out for toki (Crested Ibis), which apparently perch in the trees around her town. With a white body around 76 cm long, a white crest, red feet and face, and a long narrow beak, this bird — once common in Japan, Korea, China and parts of Russia — was nearly driven to extinction by hunting and pollution of its habitats. It vanished completely from Japan after the last five in the country, which lived on Sado, were captured for a failed breeding program that ended in their deaths. However, the world’s last seven wild specimens — found in China’s Shaanxi province in 1981 — have since multiplied into hundreds due to protection initiatives, and dozens have been given to Japan and reintroduced to Sado. With strict regulations on pesticides and chemical fertilizers, the island is now home to a second-generation population. Though we don’t spot a toki, the ride offers a good introduction to Sado’s coastal scenery. Lush trees just spill down the mountains to our right, with the ocean stretching out endlessly on the left, and in every town we pass through the houses are all traditional wooden ones with clay-tile roofs — there’s not a Western-style building anywhere. After saying farewell to the women as she gets off, we arrive at a beach called Sobama where we spend the rest of the day snorkeling and the night in our tents. Next morning, we catch the bus for Sado’s ancient gold and silver mine — Kinzan. On the way, I spot a toki perched in a tree and alert my companions with a shout of excitement, but by the time they look our bus has pulled us out of sight. The glimpse was fleeting, but there’s something rewarding about seeing such a rare creature brought back from the brink. Soon we arrive at Kinzan, a forested mountain near the west coast. Mining began here in 1601, just before the first Tokugawa Shogun seized the reins of power his dynasty would retain through the feudal Edo Period (1603–1867). Throughout that time, Kinzan’s bounty financed the regime, with rice and gold coins (many minted on Sado) serving as the two types of currency. Operations only stopped in 1989, when the mineral veins finally ran out, but since then two shafts have been converted into a museum. The first is the Sodayu Tunnel, a relic of the Edo Period. Descending a stairwell through a dark passage into the belly of the mountain, the temperature drops 10 degrees. Wooden beams prop up the walls and ceilings to stop cave-ins just as when the mine was in use and women and children were among the workforce. Through the lantern-lit gloom, we pass many placards explaining historical facts, as well as displays where humanoid robots reenact the grueling labor of the pre-industrial era when everything had to be done by hand: hewing tunnels through solid rock with hammers and chisels; pumping in air to prevent suffocation; and draining the steady accumulation of spring water on alternating 24-hour shifts. Here and there, too, are tanuki-ana (racoon-dog holes), frightfully narrow crawl tunnels dug to search for new veins. Although the pay was good, life spans were short and the work was so disliked that unregistered denizens of distant Edo (present-day Tokyo) were sometimes rounded up and hauled off there. The other tunnel, named Doyu dates from the Meiji Era (1868-1912), when mining began anew under Mitsubishi’s management using modern technologies. Rails for electric trolleys that once carried rock and ore run along the floors, with red and green traffic signals in place here and there. At the end, we climb a hill outside to view the peak of Kinzan, which has been split right open into a gaping crater. Oh, the power of our species! Next, we hitchhike to nearby Aikawa, an old town that flourished during the mining era, to visit Sado Hangamura Art Museum. Housed in a grand building used as a courthouse in the Meiji Era, this hosts fine displays of hanga (woodblock prints) carved mainly by residents of the island. These exquisite works depict an array of Sado’s icons — taiko drums, noh theater, Shinto rituals, toki, Kinzan and barrel-boating — giving us a great taste of the local culture in art form. And here comes the turning point for our trip. As we swim near our new campsite in the bay of Sawata, a strange local man engages us in conversation. Looking to be in his 60s, he is in good shape and has a rich tan. We think him a bit odd at first, but still we’re delighted when he strolls into our campsite at 8 o’clock the next morning and offers to give us a tour. It turns out he is a retired clothing designer turned painter by the name of Hiroshi Kominamidate. Apparently, he has been awake since 4 a.m., painting and drinking beer, so he will be unable to drive — though he’ll show us some must-see spots if one of us will take the wheel. We head north along the west coast, stopping periodically at shops where our guide gets cans of beer, which he chugs down with relish one after the other while chatting about his younger days. Our first stop is at a cave where Hiroshi says that Nichiren, founder of the Nichiren Sect of Buddhism, performed ascetic practices when he was exiled on Sado, which served for centuries as a place of banishment for inconvenient political rivals. Inside, water drips from the ceiling to pool on the stone floor, while deeper in a colony of bats huddle together in a clump, shrieking faintly. The perfect place to seek enlightenment, I’d say. As we take pictures, a farmer woman working in the adjacent rice field comes over and offers to show us another cave that our guide was unaware of. In the dim cavern are shallow ponds where she tells us to wash our eyes as the water has magical properties that improve vision. We enter and splash the water in our eyes as instructed. My vision is 20/20, but I thought it couldn’t hurt. Driving further along the coast, we pass many striking rock formations and drink fresh mountain water at Seisuiji Temple before stopping at a sandy beach facing two massive offshore outcrops named for what the’re said to resemble, Futatsugame (which means “two turtles”). The water is crystal clear and we spend two hours snorkeling. Afterward, we drive high into the mountains to Sado-Yahiko-Yoneyama Quasi-National Park for a brief walk through an ancient pine forest shrouded in milky fog. “The forest is fed by the mist,” Hiroshi explains, and proceeds to pick us some raspberries. Finally, we stop off briefly at our guide’s house to see his paintings — most of them female nudes. After he kindly lets us pick two each as souvenirs, we waste no time getting back in the car and speeding to the ferry, which we board with only minutes to spare. Though we were grateful for the chance to cover as much ground as we did on our three-day trip, I felt like we hardly scratched the surface. Perhaps it takes a lifetime to really appreciate such a profound place as Sado Island. Certainly, our fleeting impressions will never compare with the experiences of those who never needed to see the ocean. Sado Island can be reached by ferry from Teradomari, by ferry or jetfoil from Naoetsu, and by ferry, jetfoil or plane from Niigata City, all in Niigata Prefecture. English sightseeing information is available at www.mijintl.com.
In This Issue: - Chapter 1 Choice Of A Business Entity - Chapter 2 Introduction To Federal Securities Laws - Chapter 3 From Let’S Go Shopping To Closing: U.S. M&A Process - Chapter 4 Employment Considerations - Chapter 5 Equity Incentives For U.S. Employees - Chapter 6 U.S. Immigration Law - Chapter 7 U.S. International Trade And Investment - Chapter 8 Commercial Real Estate Transactions - Chapter 9 Intellectual Property - Chapter 10 Energy Regulation In The United States - Chapter 11 Clean Technology In The United States - Chapter 12 Environmental Law - Chapter 13 Taxation In The United States - Chapter 14 Litigation And Other Dispute Resolution Mechanisms - Chapter 15 Products Liability - Chapter 16 Insurance - Excerpt from Choice of a Business Entity: An important question that a non-U.S. business faces before doing business in the United States is the selection of an optimal business structure. Selecting the best type of entity helps maximize the chances of financial and operational success. There are four main types of business entities in the United States, namely: corporations, limited liability companies (LLCs), partnerships and sole proprietorships (a form used exclusively by natural persons). A non-U.S. investor may choose among any of them, but in most cases the corporation is preferred and recommended. The non-U.S. investor may also join forces with one or more other businesses to create a joint venture, which can take the form of a corporation, a partnership or a limited liability company. Finally, a non-U.S. investor may conduct business in the United States through a branch. This chapter provides a brief introduction of each type of business structure and discussion of the factors to consider in choosing a business structure and the mechanics of organization for each structure. Please see full guide below for more information.
Recently, in Boudreau v. Bank of Montreal, the Ontario Court of Appeal upheld a motion dismissing a lawsuit against Bank of Montreal (BMO), Rogers Communications Inc. (Rogers), and Umbro Inc. (Umbro). BMO, Rogers and Umbro were corporate sponsors of a soccer event organized by the Ontario Soccer Association (OSA). Boudreau was a player who sustained injuries during game play and was unfortunately rendered a paraplegic as a result of his injuries. Boudreau sued not only the OSA but also the corporate sponsors claiming that: the OSA carried inadequate accident insurance for the soccer players; that it was foreseeable to the corporate sponsors that a player would get hurt; and that the corporate sponsors had a legal duty to the appellant to inquire into the adequacy of insurance coverage for the players or, if they did inquire, to ensure that adequate insurance coverage was available. The court held that corporate sponsors who provide financial support to a sporting event should not be held liable in the event that a participant gets injured by participating in the event. Corporate sponsors have little to no control over the organization or the management of such events or the participants or attendees thereof. As a result, the court found in this case that there was insufficient proximity between corporate sponsors and individual participants to give rise to a duty of care owed by the sponsors to the plaintiff. This article by Canadian Lawyer Magazine discusses the issue in greater detail and provides some good insight for corporations who enter into sponsorship agreements of sporting and similar events.
The Magic of Kol Nidre: A Yom Kippur Story by Bruce H. Siegel, Illustrations by Shelly O. Haas; (Kar-Ben Copies, 1998, paperback $6.95, ages 5 to 10). Have you ever looked at a painting for a long time, discovering that its details only unveil themselves after long meditation? You wonder how you could miss so much at first glance. Cantor Bruce H. Siegel has written a story about the Kol Nidre service that will reveal a new truth about prayer to both children and adults who have watched the rays of the sun filter through the stained glass windows of the synagogue for many years and wondered why. The story weaves lyrically through several generations. The child sits playing with the fringes of his grandfather's tallit (prayer shawl). And the same rays of the sun shine on him years later as he cradles his own young infant in his arms waiting for the prayers to begin. In itself, this generational image is magic, illuminating in story form what is hard to preach to children about: someday the child will be the parent, and the task of explaining the ineffable will rest on his shoulders. Through the warm and mellow light that filters through the synagogue's stained-glass windows in tones of gold, rose and blue, artist Shelly Haas creates the hush of the synagogue, the continuity of the generations, the sacredness of prayer and God's love. "I look at the people milling around the sanctuary and know that finally I understand the magic of Kol Nidre," says the father. "All these years, the answer was around me and I didn't see it." Does he share it with his son? No, and this is another lesson to be gleaned from the story. Some things children must discover for themselves. Read this Yom Kippur story and learn whether you have lingered long enough over the meaning of the synagogue. Discover too, the magic explanation for the thrice-recited Kol Nidre prayer.
Jewish World Review Oct. 19, 1999 /9 Mar-Cheshvan, 5760 A belief in population control is one of those unexamined tenets that liberals tout not because it is true but because they think it should be true. The solution to the problem of poverty is to give people welfare checks and raise the minimum wage. The answer to violent crime is to ban handguns. The response to teeming millions of impoverished people in foreign countries is to practice birth control and bring their numbers down to manageable levels. But the danger of the Earth's peoples multiplying into starvation or ecological disaster, which modern Malthusians have been warning about for 50 years, has not only failed to materialize, the exact opposite has happened, instead. Despite an expanding population, Earth is experiencing a food glut. Even China has a problem with obesity. As Stephen Moore explained in the National Review: "Global food prices have fallen by half since 1950, even as population has doubled. ... Enough food is now grown in the world to provide each resident of the planet with almost 4 pounds of food per day." Aren't there still famines in Africa and elsewhere? Yes. But as human rights groups attest, famines are no longer the result of natural disaster, but instead the purposeful acts of malign governments. Recent famines in Ethiopia and Sudan were engineered by governments to punish rebellious subjects. But for the vast majority of the world's people, population increases have gone hand in hand with improvements in living standards. And, just as free market thinkers have been predicting all along, as nations get richer, their rate of population growth naturally slows. Wealth is a far better contraceptive than the condom. What about space? Isn't the planet getting overpopulated? Well, it may seem that your vacation spot or commuter route to work is overpopulated, but the Earth is not likely to run out of space for the numbers of people that even the most alarmist population controllers project. Moore points out that if all 6 billion of Earth's residents had to squeeze into the state of Texas, there would be enough room for each family of four to have a house and one-eighth of an acre of land. The rest of the globe would be empty. In point of fact, many of the developed nations of the world are experiencing what Ben Wattenberg calls the "birth dearth." In Japan, for example, population is slowing to such a marked degree that the nation will soon face a severe crisis in caring for an aging population. We, also, are concerned that we will soon have too few young workers contributing to the Social Security tax and too many elderly people collecting benefits. That is the topic our politicians are working so hard to avoid facing. But population control has been in the saddle for several decades now, and many people continue to equate it with responsibility -- this despite the gruesome crimes that have been committed, particularly by China but also by other nations, in its name. In China, the one-child-per-family policy has resulted in the exposure and infanticide of an estimated 10 million to 20 million female babies. Ninety percent of the children in Chinese orphanages are female, many abandoned, left to die essentially so that the parents can try again for a son. The government also enforces its one-child policy by forcing women who get pregnant without permission to undergo forced abortions -- even into the ninth month of pregnancy. China has created a new society: one without brothers, sisters, aunts or uncles. And millions of young Chinese males will never marry or have (one) child of their own because there aren't enough women to go around. It was all so tragically unnecessary. The birth rate in developing countries follows a predictable downward path as wealth increases. Since 1950, the birth rate in the Third World has halved, from six children per family to three, and it is continuing to fall. The little girl in Sarajevo poses no threat. We have abundant food. There are medicines to keep us healthy. And there is plenty of room to spare on
Categoria de Jogos - Jogos de matematica Jogos de matematica solve the math . Practice basic arithmetic operations in this sequel of popular math game The Numbers! Test your math skills! Become the absolute champion! Pit your ninja Math skills against the machine! Add the two numbers together then typethe answer in the box. hit the total buton to see you entered the correct answer Answer the 20 math question in the shortest time possible. Without using a calculator. It is time for the math exam. You will have just 1 minute to answer as many questions as possible. DinoKids – Math is simple, fun and educative mini game. You can solve simple math and compete the score. Are you good at math kids? Test it now! você gosta jogos de matematica?
A sharp decline in the circulation of the Nazi press in Germany is reported from Berlin. Emphasis is revealed that even the Voelkischer Beobachter, official organ of the Nazi Party, is losing thousands of readers. This decline comes as no surprise. The entire press in Germany today is nothing but one official organ of the Ministry of Propaganda. There is little difference between one paper and another. They are all dictated to by the same Dr. Goebbels. Under these circumstances, it is no wonder that the Berliner Tageblatt, once the most popular newspaper in Europe, now has a circulation much less than the circulation of the Juedische Rundschau, a Jewish newspaper appearing in Berlin. The Vossische Zeitung, another much-read German daily, was compelled to liquidate altogether. Even Der Angriff, the paper published by Dr. Goebbels, was about to be liquidated because of the lack of readers. THE ANGRIFF SEEKS JEWS It sounds like a myth, but it is an actual fact, that it is due to the Jews that Der Angriff still appears. Seeing that the circulation of his paper had dwindled down from 70,000 to 8,000, Dr. Goebbels came to the conclusion that the paper could be saved only if Jews were to become interested in reading it. Reaching this conclusion, Goebbels decided on a plan to send one of his best reporters to Palestine and to advertise that his observations would soon begin to appear in the Angriff. With the huge interest which Jews now show in migration to Palestine, Goebbels was certain that the circulation of his paper would definitely rise as soon as the first articles on Palestine were published. As a result, of this, Der Angriff started its famous series of articles, “A Nazi Goes to Palestine.” Two weeks before the first article appeared, much advertising was done by Goebbels to attract attention of Jewish readers. Special placards in the form of a huge Mogen Dovid were posted all over Germany. Thousands of young Nazis distributed in the streets of Berlin imitation coins containing the inscription: “A Nazi Goes to Palestine and Will Tell His Impressions in Der Angriff.” A maximum of publicity was given to the articles prior to their appearance. FROM 8,000 TO 65,000 The articles began to appear, and strangely enough, they seemed to be very sympathetic to Jewish achievements in Palestine. The Jews in Germany began to read them with the greatest of interest. The non-Jews in Germany also seemed to become interested in them. To make the story short: within the two weeks Der Angriff published the series the circulation of the paper leaped from 8,000 to 65,000. Now it has reached a quarter of a million. The paper, which was to be defunct, is now safe. But not every paper in Germany can obtain the privilege ### praising Jewish achievements, which was given Der Angriff. What Dr. Goebbels permits in his own paper he will not allo## in the other newspapers. The sharp drop in the circulation o# the general press is therefore not surprising. No reader, not even a Nazi member, likes to read newspapers which conta## only propaganda and give n## news.
... causing excess pain , warm body? Search for questions Still looking for answers? Try searching for what you seek or ask your own question. I have been prescibed Omeprazole and I would like to know in more detail how it is working in my body than its general purpose to reduce stomach acid ... 1 answer • 19 May 2010 I get violently ill if I take opiates for pain and I have severe Gastritis, IBS, and Acid Reflux so I was told not to take aspirin or ibruprofren as ... 3 answers • 1 Jul 2011 My baby is just 1and1/2 year old suffering from tuberculosis, Please suggest a recommended diet chart for my son during the therapy. 1 answer • 28 Apr 2012 Hi, my 2 month old breastfed son has been on Nexium for the past 3 weeks for his acid reflux. He's still on the treatment and seems to be doing ... 1 answer • 17 Mar 2014
"Turbulence: Remixes + Bonus Beats" by Eduardo Navas; translated by Lucrezia Cippitelli, Francesca De Nicolò, Raquel Herrera, Brenda Banda Corona & Ignacio Nieto. Turbulence is also part of the history of remix culture. Generally speaking, remix culture can be defined as the global activity consisting of the creative and efficient exchange of information made possible by digital technologies that is supported by the practice of cut/copy and paste. >>> "Narrating with New Media: What Happened with What has Happened?" by Belén Gache Translated from the Spanish by Raquel Herrera Edited by Jo-Anne Green, Helen Thorington and Eduardo Navas on narrative structures, ideologies and strategies There has been much talk about the relations between printed books, modernity and metaphysics; and about the relation between new writing applications and philosophical schools such as poststructuralism and deconstruction. The fact is that electronic writing applications involve a new way of writing and narrating, a new grammar and a new semiotics. >>> Digital Event 2007 Por Jorge Marulanda The appearance of the term "NetArt" (Vuc Cosic, 1995) paves the way for art that undertake processes which function only in the net and whose topic is the net. This fact turns the device into an exploration camp, in which artistic action must achieve a globalized expression, must work in an environment based on freedom of access and where user intervention becomes categorical. >>> Artistas Latinos Making Global Art Por Laura Baigorri Hasta ahora las artes plásticas y audiovisuales han catalogado un arte latino que desarrolla una conciencia social autóctona y también existe un mercado de arte latino, con unos canales de difusión y una dependencia económica específica. Pero el arte latino no tiene sentido en la red, un entorno concebido como el paraíso del no-lugar, la compartición, la dilución, el canibalismo, la contaminación y el equívoco. >>>
One of the coolest styles of the past fall season was punk. With tattoos, piercings, body modification and colorful, messy hair, punk style was back on the mainstream circuit. Once again, the upper echelon of the fashion industry took inspiration from the common and stylish consumer. Punk has gone from street to chic. Last fall season, punk-influenced styles were seen all over the runways from Versace to Chanel. Often when people think of punk they envision a certain kind of person wearing the style. The hardcore, fierce style is often associated with the lower class, angst ridden teenagers and most notably Caucasians. Society has a way of putting people into genres, boxes of expectations and limitations. When it comes to style, especially punk style, the ideas imposed on people by society are meant to be shattered. If style is a form of self-expression, then punk is arguably one of the most expressive styles there is – not meant to be restricted to one race or class. If this is the case, then why is it unexpected or sometimes shocking to see an African-American embrace the punk lifestyle, fashion and music? The origin of punk is usually attributed to Britain and New York in the mid-1970s and throughout the 1980s. Punk enthusiasts were against the excess of glam rock. They were fans of punk bands, wore “do it yourself” styles and railed against the “establishment” or the popular ideas about their generation. Today, young African-Americans are given a handful of style options by society and expected to be a fan of specific genres: hip-hop, R&B, pop, baggy jeans, long weaves, graffiti leggings, oversized t-shirts, stilettos and so on. African-Americans are often put into boxes like “urban” or “hood.” Wearing the punk style is a way of saying “No, I’m not who you expect or want me to be – I define who I am and how to express myself.” One movement that has helped drive this attitude is Afro-punk. Afro-punk is a movement that encourages and accepts African Americans and other people of color that are involved in the punk scene. It is a movement that has grown since the early 2000s into an entire subculture. Afro-punk is not a new movement – it has grown into an entire subculture. The punk style itself has been around for decades, but what is new is the idea that punk style can be embraced by anyone. Maybe punk being mainstream again will make it less “shocking” to see an African-American rocking a Mohawk and combat boots? Or maybe we still have a long way to go before style truly becomes a form of self-expression. City contractor DIA Corporation used its insider position ... Hey, you have got a very nice post there. I'm impressed, ...
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from Private Sellers Questions About This Book? - The New copy of this book will include any supplemental materials advertised. Please check the title of the book to determine if it should include any CDs, lab manuals, study guides, etc. - The Rental copy of this book is not guaranteed to include any supplemental materials. You may receive a brand new copy, but typically, only the book itself. After marriage and a move to Pacific Grove, he published two California books, The Pastures of Heaven (1932) and To a God Unknown (1933), and worked on short stories later collected in The Long Valley (1938). Popular success and financial security came only with Tortilla Flat (1935), stories about Monterey’s paisanos. A ceaseless experimenter throughout his career, Steinbeck changed courses regularly. Three powerful novels of the late 1930s focused on the California laboring class: In Dubious Battle (1936), Of Mice and Men (1937), and the book considered by many his finest, The Grapes of Wrath (1939). The Grapes of Wrath won both the National Book Award and the Pulitzer Prize in 1939. Early in the 1940s, Steinbeck became a filmmaker with The Forgotten Village (1941) and a serious student of marine biology with Sea of Cortez (1941). He devoted his services to the war, writing Bombs Away (1942) and the controversial play-novelette The Moon is Down (1942). Cannery Row (1945), The Wayward Bus (1948), another experimental drama, Burning Bright (1950), and The Log from the Sea of Cortez (1951) preceded publication of the monumental East of Eden (1952), an ambitious saga of the Salinas Valley and his own family’s history. The last decades of his life were spent in New York City and Sag Harbor with his third wife, with whom he traveled widely. Later books include Sweet Thursday (1954), The Short Reign of Pippin IV: A Fabrication (1957), Once There Was a War (1958), The Winter of Our Discontent (1961), Travels with Charley in Search of America (1962), America and Americans (1966), and the posthumously published Journal of a Novel: The East of Eden Letters (1969), Viva Zapata! (1975), The Acts of King Arthur and His Noble Knights (1976), and Working Days: The Journals of The Grapes of Wrath (1989). Steinbeck received the Nobel Prize in Literature in 1962, and, in 1964, he was presented with the United States Medal of Freedom by President Lyndon B. Johnson. Steinbeck died in New York in 1968. Today, more than thirty years after his death, he remains one of America's greatest writers and cultural figures. Pascal Covici, Jr., son of John Steinbeck's long-time editor and friend at The Viking Press, received his Ph.D. from Harvard and taught at Southern Methodist University. Susan Shillinglaw is director of the Center for Steinbeck Studies at San Jose State University.
International students can compete in a variety of funding schemes. For candidates wishing to study the MSc International Animal Welfare, Ethics and Law programme offered by the University of Edinburgh. A number of PhD Studentships are available for programmes in cardiovascular science sponsored by the British Heart Foundation at the University. The Foundation offers three-year grants to PhD students in medicine whose subject is relevant to the field of occupational and environmental health. Five part-scholarships available to students applying to study the MSc One Health programme. The University of Edinburgh will offer one Master's scholarship for the MSc in Surgical Sciences distance learning Master's programme offered by the University. The School of Biomedical Sciences will offer a number of Master's scholarships for the 2014-2015 academic session. Each will have a value of £5,000 and will be tenable for one academic year. This scholarship is awarded to an undergraduate or postgraduate student from the Czech Republic, Poland, Russia and Slovakia. The scholarship enables medical scientists at the outset of their careers to undertake a period of further study or research at the University’s Medical School and return to Poland. The College offers studentships with several of their Research Centres. This article was published on Nov 3, 2013
In a peculiar way there is a possibility that this article may offend, in equal measure, both the teaching profession and the parental body. I make no apologies if this is the case. I believe we (in education) should treat parents as customers and that we have an obligation to manage parents in order to meet their needs. In what remains of this piece I will endeavour to explain how these two seemingly conflicting concepts actually converge to enhance the service we provide. For me treating parents as customers is no metaphor. We are involved in the delivery of a public service. The notion of service in this sense corresponds to the “obligation” or “duty” which underpins what it is to be a professional. Of course the question arises from this analysis is whom do we actually serve? – society; government; children; parents; ourselves or a higher calling of our own choosing? The reality here is immensely complex, and persuasive cases could made for every group, but I actually think such a question leads us down the wrong road – for trying to define service in terms of who is the “master” falls into the trap of seeing professional service as being confined within a power/subservience model. Such a perception explains why so many in the teaching profession have real problems with seeing parents as customers. In recent correspondence with parents and teachers on this matter it has become apparent that many teachers equate treating parents as customers as giving way to their slightest whim, no matter how unreasonable, as characterised by “The customer is always right”. Such a conception reinforces the chilling and daunting prospect of parents forcing their way into classrooms to confront teachers who haven’t, in their opinion, met their needs as customers. Such a scenario is not an imaginary construct, nor an idle fear – but whatever else it might be – it is not “customer service”. And so it was helpful to receive a parental response, which proffered an alternative to the “customer is always right” with “The customer’s perception is always valid”. Rather than going off on a tangent to explore the psychology of such an approach it might be more helpful to refer to our own Scottish Bard Robbie Burns, who called upon us to “see oorsels as ithers see us”. In his own unique way Burns captures the essence of customer service, i.e. trying to see things from the customer’s point of view. Yet so often in education we consider situations from our own singular perspective, or what might better be described as “inward facing”, as opposed to “outward facing”. It is within such an outward facing service that the idea of managing the parent as a customer comes into true effect. For parents have had no training in their role as parents, they have probably been much better prepared to drive their car, than they have been to be a parent, and certainly not a parent who then has to interface with the education system – which can seem unwelcoming, confusing and bureaucratic. It’s into this schizophrenic world that we then introduce the the fact that many schools don’t like the idea of treating parents as customers, yet don’t want to manage them for fear of accusations of manipulation. The outcome being that we circle each other uneasily hoping that we can avoid conflict. Yet I would contend that parents do want to be managed – they don’t want to have more power over teachers (nor teachers to have power over them) but they do want a relationship that is built upon trust and mutual responsibility. Being a parent is a journey, a journey where they come into contact with the people who educate their children at relatively infrequent intervals. Regardless of policies, plans, mission statements, aims or objectives it’s these “touchpoints” or “moments of truth” which really characterise a school for a parent. Everything we do should therefore be underpinned by an obsessive attention to detail. Yet the reality is that we too often leave these touchpoints to chance and fail to manage them properly, thereby alienating and disaffecting some or all of our parent body. I would argue that the interface between education and parents is far too important to be left to chance. Yet where schools do accept their responsibility to manage their parents as customers the return and positive impact upon the education of children and the well-being of the entire community has to be seen to be believed.
There are some books you always remember for the way in which they opened your eyes to the world around you. They might have stripped away your innocence in the process, but they also reassured you that no matter how bad things could get, there were always some people doing their best to bring some balance to the world. The first book I remember providing me with that experience was Harper Lee’s To Kill A Mockingbird. Its harsh depiction of the American South in the 1930s of hatred and racism were mitigated by the simple beauty of the coming of age story it told. It’s one of those books you can still read today and find it as relevant as when it was first published in 1960.If anyone had any doubts about the durability of Lee’s book and the theme’s it expresses, you need look no further than the film Broken which was recently released on DVD from Film Movement. Transferred from the American South to suburban England and from the 1930s setting of the original to the present day, Broken uses much the same form and structure of “Mockingbird”. Both feature a single father lawyer raising two children with the help of a live in nanny, and the eleven year old girl, Skunk, (Eloise Laurence) being the main character whose eyes we see the world through. However, while wrongful accusations of sexual misconduct do play a significant role in propelling the movie’s story as it did in the book, the themes the movie explores are quite different from those the book deals with. The movie is also far more complex than the original story and nothing is as cut and dried as we’d like it to be or as first impressions might lead us to believe. As the movie progresses and our understanding of the characters involved increases we begin to understand, as Skunk does, there’s a lot more to people than what meets the eye. Actions, which taken out of context might seem senseless, while still not completely rational or normal, are at least explainable. Skunk and her family, her father Archie (Tim Roth) brother Jed and au pair Kasia live on a cul de sac in North London with two other families, the Oswalds and the Buckleys. The Buckley’s son Rick (Robert Emms) suffers from some undisclosed mental illness. Unlike the other two families, who are obviously professional class, the Oswalds, father Bob (Rory Kinnear) and his three daughters are at first glance, for lack of a better word, white trash. The movie opens with Skunk witnessing what seems like a completely unprovoked brutal attack on Rick by Bob. Skunk is standing in the middle of the road talking to Rick about washing his father’s car, when we see Bob come storming out of his house ripping his shirt and tie off. While completely focused on his target he greets Skunk as he passes her and then proceeds to beat Rick up. The next thing Skunk sees is Rick being taken away by the police. What Skunk doesn’t know is what led up to the events.Bob’s fourteen year old middle daughter has been playing with a condom she’d stolen from her eldest sister’s purse. Knowing her father would be furious with her for having a condom, and not wanting to get her sister in trouble either, when he discovers the wrapper in her room she claims Rick used it when he had sex with her. The recently divorced and overly protective Bob goes ballistic, beats up Rick and then phones the police to charge him with having sex with a minor. When it’s discovered the girl is still a virgin the charges against Rick are dropped, but his imprisonment results in him regressing and ending up having to be institutionalized. Against this background Skunk is also having to negotiate the tricky business of heading into her first year of the British equivalent of secondary school and her first boyfriend, Dillard. She also has to experience watching somebody whose she’s come to think of as a permanent fixture in her life walk out as her au pair breaks up with her long standing boy friend Mike (Cillian Murphy). However, the fear and unease she feels about her first day of school is somewhat mitigated when she discovers Mike is one of her teachers. Unfortunately she also runs afoul of an extortion ring run by Osbourne’s youngest and eldest daughters, the consequences of which send shockwaves through her entire community. Like the book it is freely based on, Broken is a deceptively simple sounding story. On the surface it can be seen as a coming of age of story in which the scales of innocence begin to fall from the eyes of a young girl. Yet the title itself is also a key to understanding the actions of the film’s characters as we gradually realize how most of their behaviour is dictated by how they’ve been broken by life and circumstances. All the events of the film occur because of a character’s fear based on their life experiences which have left them damaged in some way. Those who initially come across as unsympathetic are revealed to be just as damaged as those who we feel sorry for in the beginning. What makes this work so well is the universal excellence of the performances. Laurence, who had never acted prior to appearing in this role, is brilliant as Skunk. Her reactions to everything she sees are letter perfect and she comes across as one of the most real children I’ve ever seen on screen. Gawky, slightly geeky, but excited by life, she does a magnificent job of depicting the child turning into an adult. She manages to bring to life both the anger and fear she feels at the adult world she doesn’t understand and her excitement at entering this new world and all the while retaining the enthusiasm and naivety of the child she still is. As her father Archie, Roth gives one of his most understated and powerful performances. Normally an actor we associate with a variety of twitches and near neurotic behaviour, here he delivers a beautiful and powerful portrait of a devoted father whose life revolves around his children. When his wife abandoned him with two children he obviously poured all his love into them, and shut himself off from feeling anything for anybody else. It comes as a complete surprise to him when he discovers he can actually have feelings for someone other than his kids. However, he doesn’t realize the impact beginning a relationship with his children’s au pair will have on Skunk. He doesn’t realize how much she fears it might end up result in another person leaving her. One of the best performances in the film comes from Kinnear as Bob Osborne. Over the course of the film our image of him as a violent bully gradually evolves into a man desperate to protect his family from a world he’s seen fuck him over totally. Unlike his neighbour Archie who is able to demonstrate his love for his children through affection, Osborne, can only use his anger as a shield to protect them. When they are threatened or hurt he lashes out uncaring of the consequences following his instinct to keep them safe in only way he knows how. Kinnear does an amazing job of bringing all the different facets of this deeply troubled and broken man to life. We might not like his behaviour, but we can’t help but be sympathetic to the the depth of his passion and the very real love he feels for his children. Broken is one of those wonderful movies that come along only once in a while. Not only is it beautifully written and acted it’s a multilayered story which works on a number of levels. We see the world from the perspective of children trying to make their way in a strange and sometimes confusing adult world and from that of the adults trying to understand what their children are going through. While there are moments of heartbreak and sporadic violence throughout the film, overall it is also a beautiful story of compassion and love. You might not see a better or more well-acted movie this year.Broken is available on DVD, Blu-Ray and for download here.
Clifford Henry Harris, 16, was born in Southampton, Hampshire, England around 1895 1. He was the son of Wallace Mortimer Harris (1861-1933) and Hendreker Christina Squire (1866-1940). His father, a mariner, was born in the West Indies to English parents and his mother was born in Poplar, London; the couple were married in Southampton in 1887. Clifford was one of ten children, his known siblings being: Wallace (b. 1887), Ethel Blanche (b. 1888), Georgina Hendreker (b. 1889), Eliza (b. 1891), Charles William (b. 1893), Joseph (b. 1898), Christina Hendreker w. (b. 1899) and Edward (b. 1903). Clifford first appears on the 1901 census when he and his family were living at 14 Drummond (?) Road, Sholing, Southampton, his seafaring father being absent. When the 1911 census was taken, his family were residing at 14 Short Street, St Mary, Southampton. Clifford was recorded elsewhere as a Page Boy at a boarding house, address Solen Cliffs, Cliff Cottage Road, Bournemouth. He would go to sea shortly after. When he signed-on to the Titanic, on 6 April 1912, he gave his address as 14 Short Street, (Southampton). His last ship had been the Asturias. As a bell boy he received monthly wages of £2. Also serving aboard Titanic was his brother Charles, as a saloon steward in second class. Quartermaster Sydney Humphreys reported that during the sinking the bellboys were herded to their regular posts in the main cabin entry and taken in charge by a leading steward and ordered to remain there so as they did not get in the way. Humphreys said that the boys waited patiently around before they were released and later saw them smoking and joking with passengers. Both Clifford and his brother died in the sinking. Their bodies, if recovered, were never identified. The following death notice appeared in the Hampshire Advertiser (27 April 1912): HARRIS--On the 15th inst, at sea on s.s. Titanic, Charles William, aged 19, and Clifford Henry, aged 16, the sons of Wallace and Christina Harris, of 14, Short Street, Chapel Road, Southampton. - His birth appears to have not been registered References and Sources Agreement and Account of Crew (PRO London, BT100/259) Gavin Bell, UK
Welcome to the Evidence-Based Policy website! This website is part of a joint initiative of the National Association of State Directors of Developmental Disabilities Services and the Association of University Centers on Disabilities. The Evidence-Based Policy Initiative is intended to maximize the extent to which sound research is integrated into policy and program decisions that affect the independence, inclusion, productivity, self-determination, health and well-being of individuals with developmental disabilities. We are pleased to have you visit this website. Evidence: 1. "The data on which a conclusion or judgment may be made <glacial evidence of climatic change>.” Webster’s II New College Dictionary Please read our Overview to learn more about the initiative, its activities and about this website.

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