proba
float64 0.5
1
| text
stringlengths 16
174k
|
|---|---|
0.974667 |
Dungeons & Dragons Online: Stormreach (abbreviated as "DDO") is a massively multiplayer online role-playing game (MMORPG) developed by Turbine, Inc. Turbine has developed DDO as an online adaptation of Dungeons & Dragons (abbreviated as D&D). DDO is based loosely on the D&D 3.5 Ruleset and set on the fictional continent of Xen'drik, in the world of Eberron. layers can create their characters following the revised edition of D&D 3.5 rule-set fashion, and play them in both indoor and outdoor environments, including a large variety of dungeons.
Although the game is based in large part on the D&D 3.5 rule-set, it contains numerous changes from the tabletop game, most of which were introduced due to differences in the dynamics between the media of computer game combat and tabletop gaming. For example, Turbine wanted DDO to use a real time combat engine, where tabletop D&D uses a turn-based system.
The core of the game is set in the city of Stormreach, a giant-scaled city built eons ago, and recently settled by humans. There are a number of areas within Stormreach - the Docks, the Harbor, the Marketplace and the four Dragonmarked Houses - House Deneith, House Jorasco, House Kundarak and House Phiarlan. In addition, there are a number of adventures that are taken beyond the city walls, into distant lands such as Tangleroot Gorge, Threnal, Three Barrel Cove and Sorrowdusk Isle, each home to one or more adventures of their own.
The quests in DDO are organized by character level, difficulty and length. Each quest has a base level, and the XP reward increases if all of the party members are below that level, and decreases if any of the party members are above that level. Characters more than three levels below the "base level" are not allowed to initiate a quest, however they are able to join a quest started by another party member.
The quests are narrated by a "Dungeon Master" who gives additional details and information to the players about what they see and hear on their adventure.
Hard and Elite increase the XP bonus the first time the quest is run at the given level, and generally provide a much more challenging experience to the players. As a bonus, the quality of the "loot" (items, equipment, etc) in the chests in hard and elite is better. Generally speaking, the highest level quests on the Elite setting offer the best loot, although that is not always the case.
On the other hand, Solo offers very little loot, and few, if any special items. Generally, the Solo difficulty section has been added recently to the game (June 2006) in order to make it more accessible to lower-level characters who do not have a group. There was until Module 6 a huge XP reduction for solo play (this was reduced to from 50% to 20% with the launch of Module 6), and only low (6th and lower) level dungeons offer this capability.
Currently there are nine (11) playable classes with no race restrictions. Following the 3.5 edition rules and the rules of the Eberron campaign, players choose a class to begin with but are not limited to remaining in that class. For example, a cleric may choose to gain a level in the rogue class, as well as any other class the player chooses for a total of three (3) classes; up to a maximum of twenty (20) total levels.
The game includes built-in voice chat, integrated into the overall experience.
DDO is an instanced game, where each party receives a private "copy" of a dungeon for their own use.
Dangerous: Survive unforgiving dungeons, fiendish traps and foes that punish the foolish.
Unique: Create a custom hero from five races, nine classes, and hundreds of skills, feats and looks.
Deadly: Fight using active combat where skill matters and seconds count.
Authentic: Experience classic D&D role playing based on the v3.5 rules.
Heroic: Be a champion in private quests focused on adventure, not grind.
Stunning: Explore Stormreach's vast cityscape built with the Turbine's 3rd generation graphics engine.
Unlimited: Advance your character through brawn, cunning, or wits.
Strategic: Coordinate tactics with the integrated voice chat system.
Fast: Jump into adventures quickly, reducing tedious travel and waiting.
This page last modified 2009-10-28 12:37:05.
|
0.999999 |
What was the main form of literature achievement in the 20th century?
The 20th century and the 19th century were similar as far as French literature was concerned. In the two centuries, the main achievement in literature was the novel. Fiction writing has garnered untold success in terms of factors such as contemporary culture, development of new and imminent houses of publishing, evolution and development of paperback, and the development of various movies. Be that as it may, French literature has maintained a constant stand in addressing the question of moral standards, personal emancipation and habitual methods, and esteeming language among others. Famous novelists that contributed to the development of the novel as the main form of achievement are Pierre Loti, Marcel Proust, and Maurice Barres among other famous literature scholars. The mid twentieth century saw the fall of the novel since a majority of the literature scholars chose to abandon it terming it as a dwindling way of influencing the future generation.
What was founded to be an alternative to the novel?
In the mid 19th century, several groups teamed together and formed acting groups that would pass information through theatre action. Those groups were really phenomenal and they made the French stage of acting to be invigorated in a great manner. The play that is deemed to be the pioneer to the theatre was acted by Alfred Jarry, dubbed UbuRoi, and it was acted in the year 1896. Even if it is said that Alfred scandalized the play, UbuRoi was the pioneer in the theatre in the mid and early 1900s. A new way of doing drama was adopted by Eugene Brieux, Francois de Curel, and Jules Renard. Paul Claudel and Maurice Maeterlinck ensured that drama had a unique symbolism that was fitted in it.
When was poetry introduced in French Literature?
Literature scholars in France under the influence of the greater Roman literature thought it wise to introduce poetry. This was done in the mid 20th century in the midst of other competitive poetic works that had already hit the literature market. Some of the scholars who made outstanding poetic works were Paul Claudel, Guillaume Apollinaire who was somehow experimental in his poetic works, and Paul Valery whose works were always elusive in imagery. In spite of the immeasurable success in poetry in early France, some other scholars were categorical that there against the poetic force that was imminent. Some of those scholars were Pierre-Jean Jouve, Francis Carco, and Robert Desnos among others.
What were some of the intellectual trends that characterized the French revolution in literature?
Romanticism was a theory that was mainly influenced by the Rousseau philosophy. These writings were by scholars such as Germaine de Stael, Alphonse de Lamartine, and Alfred de Musset among others. The writings done in the late 19th century made it possible to transit from romanticism to realism were done by scholars such as George Sand and Stendhal. Both the themes were mainly focused on discovering self realization and the tribulations of the inner self.
|
0.99991 |
How are diminutives formed in recent English words?
Most of the words shown above are old words that have been used for centuries. Are there any more recent English words (let's say, from the past few decades) that have been formed with diminutive suffixes? If yes, which words and suffixes are those?
Edit: it is important to distinguish between two senses of "diminutive": it can be neutral, as a smaller version of something; or it can be mocking, affectionate, etc; in many cases, a suffix is diminutive in both senses, because the latter often follows the former. I am mostly talking about the neutral sense here, which might not be what the original poster intended.
I'd say there are no truly productive (capable of producing new instances) diminutive suffixes in modern English. As Mitch mentioned, -y/-ey/-ie is the suffix that comes closest, but that is still not quite close when compared with suffixes in other Germanic languages, such as German and Dutch. For one thing, this English suffix is never quite neutral, it is always a bit childish or mocking, etc.. And it can only be used with selective nouns, not just any noun.
Dutch: televisie (regular), televisietje (dimin.) or router, routertje is perfectly acceptable, i.e. it is even used with new words of foreign origin. I believe the same applies to German Fernseher, Fernseherchen, etc..
It should be noted, however, that the diminutive is in many languages inherently a little bit informal, because a smaller version of a normal thing is inherently less "impressive" than the normal thing, unless the smaller version is an old word that has gained some sense of "normalcy", or some distinguishing qualities, through time.
Also, there is Trekkie, but I couldn't find a "first known use" date. Certainly it can't be earlier than 1967, the year of the show's premier.
Maybe it's because of a mental bias that -ie and -y words are the only ones I've come up with.
Well, taking a hint from Cerberus: telly (1939) is definitely diminutive, although 1939 isn't exactly the past few decades.
Ah, something five years closer to the present: homey (1944), diminutive form of "homeboy". And a little closer, Yorkie (1946) for Yorkshire Terrier. Closer still, Westie (1959) for West Highland White Terrier.
Found something closer: jammies (1973) for pyjamas. Also veggie (1955) and commie (1940).
Okay, a truly recent diminutive: applet (1990), short for application.
You left out -let a in •starlet• or • eyelet•. Also -kin, equivalent to German •-chen•, as in bodkin or firkin.
I'm not aware of any recent coinages unless •-cakes• qualifies, as in •babycakes•, but I'm not altogether certain that's more affectionate than diminutive. Still, diminutives are often used to express affection. I think we pretty much make do with what we already have.
I think that other than -ie/-y (mostly for personal names), the productive form nowadays is the prefix mini - e.g., mini-CD, miniskirt, and so forth.
Not the answer you're looking for? Browse other questions tagged suffixes diminutives word-formation .
Do false diminutives exist in English?
Are the adjectives “utopic” and “dystopic” correct English words?
Why are some “-ist” suffixed words used as the adjective form over the more common “-istic”?
How does one write a suffix on double words?
What English words have unique prevocalic forms?
How is “burial” incorrectly formed?
|
0.999994 |
What Are Some General Characteristics of Amphibians?
Some general characteristics of amphibians are that they are cold blooded and spend at least part of their lives in water. Unlike reptiles, they lack claws and their smooth, moist skin is free of scales. Amphibians also lay jelly-covered eggs in a watery medium, whether it's a still pond or the leaves of a water plant like water hyacinth.
Amphibians are divided into three groups, only two of which are common. There are frogs and toads, which are tailless amphibians, and salamanders and newts, which are tailed amphibians. Newts differ from salamanders in that they emerge from the water and live on land as red efts for two or three years, then return permanently to the water. Another class of amphibian is called a caecilian. These ancient amphibians, which are found in the tropics, are legless.
The young of amphibians breathe through gills, very much like fish. Over time, lungs develop, and the animal leaves the water to live on land, at least for a time.
There are close to 5,000 species of frogs, even though there numbers have been decreasing due to various environmental factors. They belong to the order anura, of which there are three suborders. There are about 655 species of salamander and 200 species of caecilians.
|
0.999381 |
This paper proposes a simple test for compositionality (i.e., literal usage) of a word or phrase in a context-specific way. The test is computationally simple, relying on no external resources and only uses a set of trained word vectors. Experiments show that the proposed method is competitive with state of the art and displays high accuracy in context-specific compositionality detection of a variety of natural language phenomena (idiomaticity, sarcasm, metaphor) for different datasets in multiple languages. The key insight is to connect compositionality to a curious geometric property of word embeddings, which is of independent interest.
Compositional semantic aims at constructing the meaning of phrases or sentences according to the compositionality of word meanings. In this paper, we propose to synchronously learn the representations of individual words and extracted high-frequency phrases. Representations of extracted phrases are considered as gold standard for constructing more general operations to compose the representation of unseen phrases. We propose a grammatical type specific model that improves the composition flexibility by adopting vector-tensor-vector operations. Our model embodies the compositional characteristics of traditional additive and multiplicative model. Empirical result shows that our model outperforms state-of-the-art composition methods in the task of computing phrase similarities.
Unsupervised discovery of synonymous phrases is useful in a variety of tasks ranging from text mining and search engines to semantic analysis and machine translation. This paper presents an unsupervised corpus-based conditional model: Near-Synonym System (NeSS) for finding phrasal synonyms and near synonyms that requires only a large monolingual corpus. The method is based on maximizing information-theoretic combinations of shared contexts and is parallelizable for large-scale processing. An evaluation framework with crowd-sourced judgments is proposed and results are compared with alternate methods, demonstrating considerably superior results to the literature and to thesaurus look up for multi-word phrases. Moreover, the results show that the statistical scoring functions and overall scalability of the system are more important than language specific NLP tools. The method is language-independent and practically useable due to accuracy and real-time performance via parallel decomposition.
We present the multiplicative recurrent neural network as a general model for compositional meaning in language, and evaluate it on the task of fine-grained sentiment analysis. We establish a connection to the previously investigated matrix-space models for compositionality, and show they are special cases of the multiplicative recurrent net. Our experiments show that these models perform comparably or better than Elman-type additive recurrent neural networks and outperform matrix-space models on a standard fine-grained sentiment analysis corpus. Furthermore, they yield comparable results to structural deep models on the recently published Stanford Sentiment Treebank without the need for generating parse trees.
Paulus, Romain, Socher, Richard, Manning, Christopher D.
|
0.998733 |
I have finally figured out a way to explain massive annual geek convention Comic-Con to people who have never been there: It's like Las Vegas for nerds. People go there to see shows, dress up, then get shitfaced and do stupid things. But of course, it's something more than that, too.
Comic-Con ended today, after five days of pop culture freakout with over 130 thousand attendees flooding San Diego's convention center.
Every year at Comic-Con, there are the major shows that anchor the event: the geek comedy/music festival W00tstock, the celebrity panels and exclusive footage in cavernous Hall H, sneak preview screenings, and live events like this year's Patton Oswalt show and the taping of the Thrilling Adventure Hour podcast. Plus there are insane parties until the wee hours of the morning, which fill the streets around the San Diego Convention Center with carousing cosplayers and drunk geeks screaming at each other about Batman continuity.
Instead of gambling, there is the show floor, where vendors sell everything from toys and comics, to expensive movie souvenirs and jewelry. You can waste thousands of dollars on shiny things of dubious value. But a few lucky winners will walk home with valuable swag that they score for free, just for being at the right studio and publisher-sponsored booths at the right time.
Though it's a fantastic sensory overload, of both things and incredibly-dressed people, there's also that Vegas feeling of desperation there too. People wait in line all night for Hall H, and there is no wrath like that of a fan scorned. We're not gambleholics, but we are thrilloholics, fantasy bingers who need our stories like junkies need drugs.
It may sound like I hate Comic-Con, but I don't hate it. I am in awe of it in the old-fashioned sense. It fills me with fear and existential dread, as well as crazy wonder. Entertainment is serious business, and that's because it can change the world. Stories don't just help us cope with a bad day at work. They give us space to reimagine the world — especially the imaginative tales of heroism and adventure that geeks love.
There's one way that Nerd Las Vegas is different from the real Las Vegas. What happens at Comic-Con does not stay there. It goes out into the world, changing everything it touches the way the best stories do.
|
0.998 |
What follows is the text of my "Swedish" blog.
Look mom, I am blogging in Swedish!
I am starting a blog in Swedish. Now, why should I do such a thing? I usually blog in English, and I don't even bother blogging in my native Italian. Most importantly, I do not speak Swedish at all. So, why bother?
My friend and colleague Kaj Arnö had the gall of starting a blog in Italian, a fact that surprised me and made me envious at the same time.
This MySQL event with Kaj Arno was well received. Kaj talked about the product, from different aspects, both technical and business with bit of short history, how the community could contribute, how safe MySQL at the hands of Sun, etc. It was very engaging and informative.
In his typical style of localising presentations beyond english , he started the presentations with speaking couple of sentences in few local languages: Kannada, Tamil and Hindi. The audiences were pleasantly surprised and this received huge applause.
|
0.92387 |
Charlotte Brontë Joanna David Carol Rosen - Charlotte Brontë was a British novelist, the eldest out of the three famous Brontë sisters whose novels have become standards of English literature. See also Emily Brontë and Anne Brontë.Charlotte Brontë was born in Thornton, Yorkshire, England, the third of six children, to Patrick Brontë (formerly "Patrick Brunty"), an Irish Anglican clergyman, and his wife, Maria Branwell. In April 1820 the family moved a few miles to Haworth, a remote town on the Yorkshire moors, where Patrick had been appointed Perpetual Curate. This is where the Brontë children would spend most of their lives. Maria Branwell Brontë died from what was thought to be cancer on 15 September 1821, leaving five daughters and a son to the care of her spinster sister Elizabeth Branwell, who moved to Yorkshire to help the family.In August 1824 Charlotte, along with her sisters Emily, Maria, and Elizabeth, was sent to the Clergy Daughters' School at Cowan Bridge in Lancashire, a new school for the daughters of poor clergyman (which she would describe as Lowood School in Jane Eyre). The school was a horrific experience for the girls and conditions were appalling. They were regularly deprived of food, beaten by teachers and humiliated for the slightest error. The school was unheated and the pupils slept two to a bed for warmth. Seven pupils died in a typhus epidemic that swept the school and all four of the Brontë girls became very ill - Maria and Elizabeth dying of tuberculosis in 1825. Her experiences at the school deeply affected Brontë - her health never recovered and she immortalised the cruel and brutal treatment in her novel, Jane Eyre. Following the tragedy, their father withdrew his daughters from the school.At home in Haworth Parsonage, Charlotte and the other surviving children — Branwell, Emily, and Anne — continued their ad-hoc education. In 1826 her father returned home with a box of toy soldiers for Branwell. They would prove the catalyst for the sisters' extraordinary creative development as they immediately set to creating lives and characters for the soldiers, inventing a world for them which the siblings called 'Angria'. The siblings became addicted to writing, creating stories, poetry and plays. Brontë later said that the reason for this burst of creativity was that:'We were wholly dependent on ourselves and each other, on books and study, for the enjoyments and occupations of life. The highest stimulus, as well as the liveliest pleasure we had known from childhood upwards, lay in attempts at literary composition.'After her father began to suffer from a lung disorder, Charlotte was again sent to school to complete her education at Roe Head school in Mirfield from 1831 to 1832, where she met her lifelong friends and correspondents, Ellen Nussey and Mary Taylor. During this period (1833), she wrote her novella The Green Dwarf under the name of Wellesley. The school was extremely small with only ten pupils meaning the top floor was completely unused and believed to be supposedly haunted by the ghost of a young lady dressed in silk. This story fascinated Brontë and inspired the figure of Mrs Rochester in Jane Eyre.Brontë left the school after a few years, however she swiftly returned in 1835 to take up a position as a teacher, and used her wages to pay for Emily and Anne to be taught at the school. However, teaching did not appeal to Brontë and in 1838 she left Roe Head to become a governess to the Sidgewick family - this was partly from a sense of adventure and a desire to see the world, and partly from financial necessity. Charlotte became pregnant soon after her wedding, but her health declined rapidly and, according to Gaskell, she was attacked by "sensations of perpetual nausea and ever-recurring faintness." She died, with her unborn child, on 31 March 1855, aged 38. .
|
0.999968 |
To retain their customers, insurers must do more than provide a great claims experience – they must help their customers avoid the claim in the first place.
It’s no secret that price is the main reason why P&C insurance customers switch from one provider to another. It’s also often said – correctly – that the claims experience is an important trigger for switching. However, a new Accenture survey has shown there’s more to this than many people think.
The survey – of 7,785 auto and household insurance customers in 14 countries, fairly evenly split between those who have submitted a claim in the past two years and those who haven’t – found that most people are fairly satisfied with their insurance companies. Only 7 percent are generally dissatisfied, and 14 percent are unhappy with the way their last claim was handled and settled.
However, of the 14 percent who think their claim could have been handled better, 29 percent have switched providers and a further 54 percent plan to do so. This means that 83 percent of all customers who are disappointed at the so-called “moment of truth” find themselves a new insurer.
Can one conclude from this that it’s essential for customer retention that insurers provide a satisfactory claims experience? Unfortunately it’s not that simple. The survey found that 22 percent of customers who have not recently claimed are likely to switch in the next 12 months, compared with 41 percent of those who have claimed. In other words, irrespective of how well the insurer manages the claims experience, the mere fact that a customer submits a claim will almost double his or her likelihood of switching.
So what should insurers make of all this?
Clearly, it’s as important as ever that they improve their claims experience – with dissatisfied claimers defecting at a 62 percent higher rate than satisfied claimers, they have much to gain by keeping them happy.
But it’s also important that they do whatever they can to prevent the claim in the first place. In Accenture’s 2013 Consumer-Driven Innovation Survey, 92 percent of consumers said they would appreciate their insurers helping them to manage their risk rather than just insuring it.
A combined strategy of improving the claims experience, while at the same time helping to reduce the incidence of claims, is likely to be the most effective at minimizing loss costs while maximizing customer retention.
|
0.933855 |
What exposure mode and autofocus mode were you using? For astro I'd use manual for both (and I hardly ever shoot in manual).
Why not post the meteorite pic to show what settings you used.
You're trying to get the shot in a semi-automated mode that's exceeding the shutter speed limit for that mode; you'll have to allocate more ISO/f-stop or move to Manual.
Be aware that with ~20MP you have about five seconds before stars start to notably motion blur.
Digital Camera and Adobe Photoshop user since 1999.
Adobe Lightroom is my adult coloring book.
Interesting! I've just started trying astro with my D750, 20mm f/1.8.
I first tried ISO 100, f/1.8, 30sec, and I'm not seeing much motion blur, if any.
Not challenging, just very new to this.
Looks like you're pointed almost dead North, which will minimize the effect, but you can still see the rotation motion on the stars on each side. You also don't appear to be focused to infinity, so you've lost some sharpness that would better illustrate the movement.
If you don't have a dual-mode sensor, like the D850, and are shooting in RAW, why bother raising ISO? Read noise?
That does not work on all lenses, some focus "beyond" infinity.
Well "north" can be an interesting shot ... but many like "Milky-Way".
I said "or" .... another choice is f/1.2 - 1.4 and then can even "lower" ISO, (below 3200).
The 3+3+3 is just any easy way to remember a "basic" exposure, (like Sunny-16 or Loony-11).
That was my concern. I'm new to this one, don't know if it does or not..
I plan to get plenty of those, once I get better at this, in a place with a decently dark sky. But there's no Internet (or even good cell coverage) there.
"Auto" ISO, (or any "auto" exposure mode), is not good for night sky because it will "lighten" it to an (18%) gray.
The question becomes, will it boost ISO high enough to blow out highlights? With a low read noise camera, higher ISO is pretty much a simple multiplication, which I can divide back in post - so long as my highlights aren't blown. I plan to experiment with this, eventually.
I tried boosting ISO to get a liveview that showed me the stars I was framing, but only see the very brightest ones. Not super useful, especially if I zoom the view in. Any idea how to deal with this? My D750 lets me set monitor brightness and monitor color balance - but not contrast. Without changing either of these, I get a grey field with maybe one star visible. There is, of course, an OVF, but I'm having trouble bending my neck to look through it with the camera on tripod and pointing overhead. Right angle attachment? Or maybe there's an open sight that I can attach, a la Nikonos, and use like a guide scope? I went googling and found a way to mount a reflex sight on a hotshoe. Is that the way to go?
BTW, I found a $6 hot-shoe to weaver rail adapterthat won't poke me in the eye if I try to use the OVF. Weaver sights are pretty cheap. I don't need an actual 'red dot', and, as my DSLR has no recoil I could even use an airsoft sight.
|
0.99959 |
Mark Hatter developed a relationship with Dawn Blackhouse. She was younger than him. He was very generous to her and her children. He had never had children and she had promised to have her sterilisation reversed. The relationship later phased out and she started seeing another man although she never told the defendant it was over. He went to her house at midnight with a knife and climbed through an upstairs window. He claimed he had taken the knife to lift the carpets and had accidentally stabbed her in the chest and wrist when he spun around whilst holding the knife. He then stabbed himself in the chest but he survived. The defendant claimed accident at trial but this was rejected by the jury The trial judge held that loss of control could not be put to the jury as there was no evidence that he had lost his control, the circumstances were not of an extremely grave nature nor did he have a justifiable sense of being seriously wronged. The defendant appealed against the judge's finding on loss of control.
|
0.972159 |
Why should your business have a company blog? It confidence among current and prospective customers. It establishes relationships and it can also drive sales. By sharing a constant stream of relevant information, customers are more likely to turn to you as a resource for information on your industry.
|
0.998215 |
Anthropology is the study of humanity (the Greek anthropos means ‘human being'). It is a very wide-ranging discipline, made up of a variety of subdivisions.
You will study culture, society and the wide variety of ways in which people around the world live. By appreciating what humans have in common, and the fundamentals on which social life is based, comparisons across societies and observations about the nature of human beings can be made. In this sense Anthropology promotes cross-cultural awareness and self-understanding.
Traditionally, anthropology concentrated on the study of non-western societies, but this is no longer the case and Anthropology students can expect to learn about a variety of things relevant to western societies. These include areas such as ethnic relations, migration, social change, environmental policies and the preservation of cultural resources.
Why study Anthropology at UC?
The kind of Anthropology taught at UC is known as social and cultural Anthropology. This branch of Anthropology intersects with other academic disciplines taught at UC such as Geography, History, Sociology and International Relations, Maori and Pacific studies, Philosophy, Cultural Studies, and Fine Arts.
If you want to major in Anthropology it is recommended that you take 30 points at 100-level. However, 15 points at 100-level is sufficient as a prerequisite for 200-level.
Double degrees: It is possible to combine an Arts degree with other degrees.
Anthropology offers insights into many of the social issues and problems facing New Zealand and the world today. Anthropologists therefore have an important role to play in areas of public policy, international relations, foreign affairs and human rights.
For professional anthropologists, there are employment opportunities in research, museum work and university teaching, as well as in certain sectors of local and central government (eg, where research skills are needed) and in non-governmental agencies dealing with issues such as third-world development.
A major in Anthropology will provide you with skills and expertise that can be utilised in a wide variety of employment situations, especially where sensitivity to people, an appreciation of cultural diversity, and an ability to grasp alternative ways of seeing the world are required.
Acquaintance with subjects such as geography, history, languages, or art can be helpful but is not necessary for the introductory courses in Anthropology.
|
0.999993 |
Instructions stored in tangible, non-transitory, computer readable medium executable by a computing device to display a webpage on a graphical user interface. The instructions include instructions to, when a first event on the webpage is detected, determine location of a first piece of code in the webpage source code that is executed to produce the first event. Based on the location, the first event may be grouped with a second event that is produced using a common resource (e.g., file). Grouping the first and second event allows a first graphical element, which describes time and duration of the first event, and a second graphical element, which describes time and duration of the second event, to be displayed under a common resource grouping on the graphical user interface.
The present disclosure relates generally to a layout engine (e.g., a web browser engine), and more particularly, to processing source code for display on a graphical user interface of the layout engine.
Generally, a computing device may execute source code to provide various applications. To help illustrate, a web browser on a computing device may display a webpage by processing source code using a layout engine. For example, Safari, a web browser made available by Apple Inc., uses Webkit (e.g., a layout engine) to receive and process source code from a uniform resource locator (URL) to display a webpage. More specifically, a computing device, using the layout engine, may execute portions of the source code to generate events, which facilitates the display and/or interaction with the webpage.
Accordingly, to improve the design (e.g., debugging or troubleshooting) process of an application (e.g., a webpage), it would be beneficial to improve the organization and presentation of information relating to events that occur in the application.
The present disclosure generally relates to improving a webpage design process. More specifically, information relating to events that occur on a webpage may be presented on a graphical user interface. In some embodiments, the information may include the location of a portion of the webpage source code that is executed to produce an event, a start time of the event, a stop time of the event, duration of the event, or any combination thereof. For example, a graphical element corresponding with an event may be displayed on an event timeline on the graphical user interface. More specifically, the graphical element may be displayed to indicate the start time, the stop time, and the duration of the event.
Additionally, to further improve the webpage design process, events that occur on the webpage may be grouped together to provide additional insight into the relationship between multiple events. In some embodiments, events may be grouped based on a common resource, such as a common file in the source code. To facilitate conveying the grouping of events, graphical elements corresponding with grouped events may be displayed on the timeline under one resource grouping.
Various refinements of the features noted above may exist in relation to various aspects of the present disclosure. Further features may also be incorporated in these various aspects as well. These refinements and additional features may exist individually or in any combination. For instance, various features discussed below in relation to one or more of the illustrated embodiments may be incorporated into any of the above-described aspects of the present disclosure alone or in any combination. The brief summary presented above is intended only to familiarize the reader with certain aspects and contexts of embodiments of the present disclosure without limitation to the claimed subject matter.
FIG. 7 is a flow diagram describing a process for displaying a graphical element on a timeline on the graphical user interface of FIGS. 4 and 5, in accordance with an embodiment.
As mentioned above, a computing device may execute source code to provide various applications. For example, the applications provided may include games, such as Angry Birds, made available by Rovio Entertainment limited, or tools, such as Safari, made available by Apple Inc. To simplify the following discussion, the techniques below will be described in relation to executing webpage source code in a web browser (e.g., Safari). However, one of ordinary skill in the will be able to utilize the techniques described herein to improve the design process for any application utilizes source code divided into multiple resources.
In other words, portions of the source code may be executed at various times to present the webpage in the web browser. For example, a first portion of the source code may be executed to evaluate a script and a second potion of the source code may be executed to install a timer. More specifically, the portions of the source code that are executed may depend at least in part on a user's interaction with the webpage. For example, when a user scrolls down, portions of the source code are executed to render areas of the webpage that were previously not displayed.
Accordingly, it would be beneficial to the design (e.g., debugging or troubleshooting) process of a webpage to provide information relating to when events occur during display and/or interaction with the webpage. More specifically, the occurrence of events along with information relating to the events may be presented on a graphical user interface displayed on a computing device. In some embodiments, the events may be presented on the graphical user interface as a linear list based on when each occurs. For example, when an event to invalidate a style is initiated at a first time is initiated, information relating to the event, such as the type of event, the portion of the source code that initiated the event, the start time of the event, and the duration of the event, may be presented on a list. Subsequently, an event to recalculate a style is initiated at a second time. When the event to recalculate the style is initiated, information relating to the event may be presented on the list below the event to invalidate a style. At a third time, the event to invalidate a style may again be initiated and information relating to the event may be presented on the list below the event to recalculate a style.
In other words, in a linear embodiment, information relating to an occurring event may be presented based only on when it is initiated. However, in other embodiments, it may be beneficial to group and/or selectively present information relating to an event (e.g., start time, duration, and location of source code) to further improve the design process of a webpage. For example, in some embodiments, when a first event is detected on a webpage, the computing device displaying the webpage may determine location of a first piece of code in source code of the webpage that is executed to produce the first event. Additionally, the computing device may group the first event with a second event that is produced using a common resource. As used herein, a “resource” is intended to describe an identifiable self-contained piece of information, such as a file or document. Accordingly, the first event and the second event may use a common resource when the executed code is part of the same file in the source code. Based on the grouping, a first graphical element and a second graphical element are displayed under a common resource grouping on the graphical user interface, such that the first graphical element describes time and duration of the first event and the second graphical element describes time and duration of the second event.
In other words, information relating to events that use a common resource may be grouped and displayed under a common grouping. In some embodiments, the common resource may be a particular file in the source code or a particular function that is used to facilitate the display or interaction with the webpage. For example, the common resource may be a file that contains portions of the source code related to rendering the webpage. Accordingly, as will be described in more detail below, presentation of information relating to events may be improved, which, in some embodiments, may allow a developer to easily analyze when and where events are occurring in context with other related events.
By way of introduction, a computing device 10 that may display a webpage is described in FIG. 1. Accordingly, the computing device 10 may be any type of electronic device, such as a laptop or desktop computer, a mobile phone, a digital media player, or the like, that can execute source code to facilitate display and/or interaction with a webpage. By way of example only, the computing device 10 may be a portable electronic device, such as a model of an iPod® or iPhone®, available from Apple Inc. of Cupertino, California. Additionally, the electronic device 10 may be a desktop or laptop computer, such as a model of a MacBook®, MacBook® Pro, MacBook Air®, iMac®, Mac® Mini, or Mac Pro®, available from Apple Inc. In other embodiments, computing device 10 may also be a model of an electronic device from another manufacturer.
To facilitate in its various functions, the computing device 10 may include various internal and/or external components. For example, as depicted, the computing device 10 includes memory 12, a mass storage device 14, a central processing unit (CPU) 16, a network interface 18, I/O devices 20, and a display 22. Those of ordinary skill in the art will appreciate that each of these components may include hardware elements (e.g., circuitry), software elements (e.g., instructions stored on a computer-readable medium), or both.
As will be described in more detail below, one function of the computing device 10 may include displaying a webpage. For example, in the depicted embodiment, a webpage may be displayed on display 22. More specifically, the display 22 may display a graphical user interface that includes the webpage. As such, the display 22 may be any suitable type of display, such as a liquid crystal display (LCD), plasma display, or an organic light emitting diode (OLED) display. In some embodiments, the display 22 may be an external display, such as an external monitor. Additionally or alternatively, the display 22 may be included in the computing device 10, such as in a portable electronic device.
To display the webpage, the computing device 10 may communicate the webpage to the display 22 via the I/O devices 20. More specifically, the I/O devices 20 may include ports that connect the computing device 10 to a variety of external devices, such as a power source, an audio output device (e.g., headset or headphones), or other electronic devices (e.g., handheld devices and/or computers, printers, projectors, external displays, modems, and docking stations). Accordingly, the I/O devices 20 may support any suitable interface type, such as a universal serial bus (USB) port, a serial connection port, an IEEE-1394 (FireWire) port, an Ethernet or modem port, a High-Definition Multimedia Interface (HDMI) port, a Video Graphics Array (VGA) port, a Digital Visual Interface (DVI) port, and/or an AC/DC power connection port.
Additionally, another function of the computing device 10 is providing for the ability to interact with a webpage. For example, in the depicted embodiment, user inputs via the I/O device 20 may instruct the computing device 10 to load a webpage or to run an animation on the webpage. Accordingly, the I/O devices 20 may include buttons, sliders, switches, control pads, keys, knobs, scroll wheels, keyboards, mice, touchpads, or some combination thereof. Additionally, in some embodiments, the display 22 may be provided in conjunction with a touch-sensitive mechanism (e.g., a touch screen) that provides user inputs. For example, a user may select or interact with a displayed graphical user interface (e.g., webpage) via the touch sensitive mechanism.
More specifically, the I/O device 20 may generate electrical signal to indicate the user inputs. The input signals may then be routed to the processor 16 for processing. As such, the computing device 10 may determine a user's interactions with the webpage, for example, when the user clicks on an animation.
More generally, the processor 16 may control operation of the computing device 10. For instance, the processor 16 may provide the processing capability to execute an operating system, programs, user and application interfaces, and any other functions of the computing device 10. Accordingly, as used herein, the processor 16 may include one or more microprocessors, such as one or more “general-purpose” microprocessors, one or more special-purpose microprocessors, one or more application-specific microprocessors (ASICs), or any combination thereof.
To facilitate controlling general operation of the computing device 10, the processor 16 may be coupled to the other components in the computing device 10 via one or more data buses 24. For example, the processor 16 may retrieve and execute instructions stored in a non-transitory, computer-readable medium, such as memory 12 or the mass storage device 14. Accordingly, the one or more data buses 24 may use various architectures, such as Peripheral Component Interconnect (PCI), Microchannel, SCSI, Industrial Standard Architecture (ISA), or Extended ISA (EISA) architectures.
More generally, the memory 12 and the mass storage device 14 may store information, such as data to be processed by the processor 16 and/or instructions executable by the processor 16. Accordingly, the memory 12 may include volatile memory, such as random access memory (RAM), or non-volatile memory, such as read-only memory (ROM). Additionally, the mass storage device 14 may include flash memory, a network drive, a hard drive, or any other optical, magnetic, and/or solid-state storage media, or some combination thereof.
As will be described in more detail below, the computing device 10 may execute source code to facilitate display and/or interaction with a webpage. In some embodiments, the webpage source code may be received from a uniform resource locator (URL) address via a network, such as the Internet. Accordingly, the computing device also may also include a network interface 18 to provide for network connectivity. In some embodiments, the network interface 18 may provide wireless networking over a wireless 802.11 standard or any other suitable networking standard, such as a local area network (LAN) or a wide area network (WAN), such as an Enhanced Data Rates for GSM Evolution (EDGE) network or a 3G data network.
More specifically, when the source code is executed, events on the webpage may occur and be displayed on the webpage. To help illustrate, the processing on webpage source code is described as function blocks in FIG. 2. Generally, each of these function blocks may represent functions performed by the computing device 10, for example, by executing instructions stored in memory 12 or mass storage device 14 with the processor 16.
Based on the source code, the computing device 10 may present the webpage 24 in a web browser 34. In some embodiments, the web browser may be Safari, made available by Apple Inc., Firefox, made available by Mozilla Corp., Internet Explorer, made available by Microsoft Corp., or Chrome, made available by Google Inc. Accordingly, as depicted, the web browser 34 generally includes a layout engine 36 and a graphical user interface 38. For example, Safari includes the WebKit layout engine.
In addition to rendering a webpage 32, the layout engine 36 may provide additional functions used in the design of the webpage 32. For example, the layout engine 36 may provide development tools that facilitate prototyping, optimizing, and debugging a webpage 32. One such development tool is Web Inspector, made available by Apple Inc. More specifically, to facilitate design of the webpage 32, the layout engine 36 may present information relating to events that occur on the webpage 32. As described above, the techniques described herein may be utilized to improve the design process for any application. Accordingly, in other embodiments, the development tool may include Xcode or Instruments, made available by Apple Inc., or any other suitable development tool.
As described above, an event occurs when portions of the webpage source code are executed to display an element on the webpage 32 or when portions of the webpage source code are executed to facilitate user interaction with the webpage 32. Accordingly, to improve the webpage design process, event information may be presented to a user on the graphical user interface 38. To help illustrate, embodiments of the graphical user interface 38 that present information related to the index.html webpage are described in FIGS. 3-5. For example, FIG. 3 describes a resource window 40 that is displayed when the resource button 42 is selected from the toolbar 44. As depicted, the resource window 40 includes a resource navigation sidebar 46, an activity viewer 48, and a source code browser 50 that displays the source code (e.g., document object model) of the webpage 32.
More specifically, the activity viewer 48 may display a summary of useful information relating to the webpage 32, such as the number of total resources, the total file size of all the resources, and the time elapsed until a load event. For example, in the depicted embodiment, the activity view 48 indicates that the index.html webpage has a total of 17 resources, a total resource file size of 714.4 KB, and an elapsed time of 359 ms.
A more detailed view of the network requests and events that occur may be presented in the event sidebar 64 and the event timelines 66. More specifically, the event timelines 66 and the event sidebar 64 may describe network requests and events that occur during a selectable portion of time. For example, sliders 76 are moved along the high level timelines 68, 70, and 72 to select a period of time for which to present a more detailed view of network requests and events in the event sidebar 64 and the event timelines 66. In other words, the sliders 76 are adjustable to select a time period of interest. In the depicted embodiment, the sliders 76 are set such that the event sidebar 64 and the event timelines 66 describe network requests and events between approximately 80 ms and 190 ms.
More specifically, information for network requests associated with each resource, such as when a resource was requested, the latency of the request, and the download time of the resource, may be presented. For example, the network request associated with the renderer.js resource 78 may be described by resource timeline 80. More specifically, the resource timeline 80 indicates that the renderer.js resource was requested at approximately 128 ms, began downloading at approximately 135 ms, and completed downloading at approximately 174 ms. As described above, it is again emphasized that as used herein a network request is distinct from an event because as used herein an event is described as execution of source code to facilitate display and/or interaction with a webpage.
Furthermore, the event sidebar 64 may provide the location of the source code including the line and/or column number. For example, in the depicted embodiment, the event sidebar 64 indicates that the source code executed to produce the Script Evaluated event 84 is located in line 1 and the source code executed to produce the Styles Invalidated event 86 is located in line 31919. In fact, in some embodiments, when a user clicks on the event name, the user may be taken directly to the location in the source code.
The location may additionally include the resource (e.g., file) that the source code is located in. More specifically, events that are produced using the same resource may be grouped together and displayed under the common resource. For example, the Script Evaluated event 84 and the Styles Invalidated event 86 may both be included in the renderer.js resource. Accordingly, as depicted, the Scripts Evaluated event 84 and the Styles Invalidated event 86 are both displayed under the renderer.js heading 78. As depicted, other events that are included in the renderer.js resource are also grouped and displayed under the renderer.js heading 78.
Furthermore, since the event timelines 66 are displayed next to the corresponding events, the event timelines 66 are also grouped and displayed by resource. For example, in the depicted embodiment, the Script Evaluated timeline 88 and the Styles Invalidated timeline 92 are grouped and displayed under the renderer.js heading 78. As depicted, the event timelines 66 corresponding with other events included in the renderer.js resource are also grouped and displayed under the renderer.js heading 78.
Additionally, in some embodiments, the display of event timelines 66 grouped under a common resource can be toggled between a collapsed view and an expanded view. As depicted, the depicted embodiment is in an expanded view because each of the individual event timelines 66 grouped under the renderer.js heading 78 are separately displayed. From the expanded view, the event timelines 66 may be toggled into a collapsed view, for example, to save display space. In some embodiments, when the event timelines 66 are collapsed, each of the event timelines 66 may be superimposed onto the resource timeline. For example, in the depicted embodiment, the Script Evaluated timeline 88, the Styles Invalidated timeline 92, as well as the other event timelines 66 may be superimposed on the resource timeline 80 corresponding with the renderer.js resource. In other embodiments, each of the individual event timelines 66 may be hidden when in a collapsed view and displayed in the expanded view.
As illustrated by the above example, information relating to an event is not merely presented based on when the event is initiated. Instead, related events may be grouped based on what resource (e.g., file) they use, which provides for the ability to present event information for the related events together. Comparatively, when event information is presented merely based on when the event occurs, a user may have to scour through multiple lines of information to find all of the event information related to a common resource. To help illustrate, in the depicted embodiment, the Script Evaluated event 84 is initiated at approximately 137 ms and the Styles Invalidated event 86 is initiated at approximately 174 ms. In between these two events, a Layout Invalidated event 94 is initiated at approximately 173 ms. Accordingly, in an embodiment where the event information is presented based merely on when the event is initiated, information relating to the Layout Invalidated event 94 will be presented between information relating to the Script Evaluated event 84 and the Styles Invalidated event 86. As such, if a user is trying to debug events related to the renderer.js resource, the user would have to recognize to skip over the information relating to the Layout Invalidated event 94.
Accordingly, to improve the design process of a webpage, the present disclosure allows the information related to a common resource to be grouped and displayed together. For example, as in the above example, type, name, location of source code, start time, stop time, and duration for each event that uses the renderer.js resource is grouped and displayed together. As such, the design process of a webpage may be improved because information related to a single resource may be presented together. For example, the user that is trying to debug events related to the renderer.js resource may simply look under the renderer.js heading 78. In other words, the presentation of event information is streamlined because a user may easily determine where to look for desired event information.
Moreover, in some embodiments, event information may be sorted and/or filtered to present desired information. More specifically, event be presented based on various sorting and/or filtering parameters, such as duration of the event or the resource used to produce the event. For example, a user may request the display of only event information for events that use a specific resource or set of resources. Additionally, a user may request the display of only event information for events that last longer than 2 ms. Furthermore, a user may request the display of event information based on location (e.g., line or column number) within a resource. In other words, in some embodiments, the presentation of event information may further be streamlined by presenting only event information desired by the user and/or event information in a specifiable order.
To further improve the webpage design process, embodiments of the present disclosure may consolidate event information relating to repeating or timed events. To help illustrate, a timeline window 60B is described in FIG. 5. As depicted, the event sidebar 64 and the event timelines 66 present information related to events that occur on the webpage 32 between approximately 825 ms and 1250 ms. As in timeline window 60A, events that occur may be grouped and displayed based on resource. For example, in the depicted embodiment, a Load Event Dispatched event 96 and a Timer Fired event 98 both use the renderer.js resource and thus are grouped and displayed under the renderer.js 78 heading in the event sidebar 64.
Accordingly, a Load Event Dispatched timeline 100, which describes when the Load Event Dispatched event 96 occurs, and a Timer Fired timeline 102, which describes when the Timer Fired Event 98 occurs, are also grouped and displayed under the renderer.js heading 78. More specifically, as depicted, each event timeline 66 may indicate each instance the corresponding event occurs. For example, the Load Event Dispatched timeline 100 indicates that the Load Event Dispatched event 96 occurs between approximately 842 ms to 843 ms and again between approximately 844 ms to 845 ms. Similarly, the Timer Fired timeline 102 indicates that the Timer Fired event 98 occurs between approximately 845 ms to 850 ms, between approximately 945 ms to 946 ms, and again between approximately 1090 ms to 1092 ms.
As illustrated by the above example, information relating to an event is not merely presented based on when the event is initiated. Comparatively, when event information is presented merely based on when the event occurs a user may have to scour through multiple lines of information to each occurrence of an event. To help illustrate, in the depicted embodiment, the Paint event 104 is initiated at approximately 870 ms and the first occurrence of the Timer Fired event 98 is initiated at 845 ms and the second occurrence of the Timer Fired event 98 is initiated at approximately 945 ms. Accordingly, in an embodiment where the event information is presented based merely on when the event is initiated, information relating to the Paint event 104 will be presented between information relating to the first and the second occurrence of the Timer Fired event 98. As such, if a user is trying to debug events related to the Timer Fired event 98, the user would have to skip over information relating to the Paint event 104 among others.
Accordingly, to improve the design process of a webpage, the present disclosure allows the information related to a repeating event to be grouped and displayed together. For example, as in the above example, start time, stop time, and duration for each occurrence of the Timer Fired event 98 is grouped and displayed together. As such, the design process of a webpage may be improved because information related to a single event may be presented together. For example, the user that is trying to debug events related to the Timer Fired event 98 may simply look on the Timer Fired timeline 102. In fact, in some embodiments, the filtering and/or sorting capability described above may be extended to repeating events. For example, a user may request the display of only event information related to repeating timed events. In other words, in some embodiments, the presentation of event information may further be streamlined because a user may easily determine where to look for desired event information, the user may be presented only with desired event information, and the user may be presented with event information in a desired order.
One embodiment of a process 106 that may be used to display the timeline windows 60 is described in FIG. 6. Generally, the process 106 include initiating a graphical user interface (process block 108), loading a webpage (process block 110), detecting an event on the webpage (process block 112), and displaying a graphical element on the graphical user interface (process block 114). More specifically, process 106 may be implemented with the computing device 10 by executing instructions stored in memory 12 or mass storage device 14 with the processor 16.
Accordingly, the computing device 10 may initiate a graphical user interface that displays information related to events (process block 108). In some embodiments, the graphical user interface may include a resource window 40 or a timeline window 60. For example, as described above, the resource window 40 presents the webpage source code and the timeline window 60 presents information such as event type, name, location, start time, stop time, and duration.
When an application (e.g., webpage 32) is loaded (process block 110), the computing device 10 may detect when an event occurs in the application (process block 112). For example, a webpage 32 may be loaded when a user types in the URL of the webpage 32 into the web browser 34. In other embodiments, an application may be loaded when a user instructs the application to start. Additionally, the computing device 10 may detect when an event occurs in application by monitoring the output by the processor 16. For example, the computing device 10 may detect when an event occurs on the webpage 32 by monitoring the layout engine 36. More specifically, the processor 16 may identify whenever application source code is executed to facilitate display and/or interaction with the application.
Once the event is detected, the computing device 10 may display a graphical element on the graphical user interface to present information relating to the event (process block 114). For example, as described above, the computing device 10 may display source code executed to produce the event in the resource window 40. Additionally, as described above, the computing device 10 may display event timelines 66 that indicate the start time, stop time, and duration of the event in the timeline window 60.
To better illustrate the presentation of event timelines 66 in the timeline window 60, process 116 is described in FIG. 7. Generally, process 116 includes displaying an event timeline (process block 118), detecting when an event begins (process block 120), detecting when the event ends (process block 122), determining code used to produce the event (process block 124), and displaying a graphical element on the timeline (process block 126). Process 116 also optionally includes displaying the code when the graphical element is selected (process block 128). In some embodiments, process 116 may be implemented with the computing device 10 by executing instructions stored in memory 12 or mass storage device 14 with the processor 16. To simplify discussion, process 116 will be described in relation to a web browser application. However, one of ordinary skill in the art will be able to apply the described techniques to any suitable application.
Accordingly, the computing device 10 may display an event timeline 66 on the graphical user interface 38 (process block 118). More specifically, the computing device 10 may instruct the web browser 34 to output a graphical user interface 38 that includes the event timeline 66 for display on the display 22. For example, the processor 16 may retrieve a graphical representation of the event timeline 66 from the memory 12 or mass storage device 14 and transmit the graphical representation to the display 22 via the I/O devices 22.
As described above, the event timeline 66 may be presented in a timeline window 60, which allow for the ability to display multiple event timelines 66. Additionally, as described above, the event timeline 66 allows a user (e.g., a webpage developer) to determine information relating to an event, such as the start time of the event, the stop time of the event, the duration of the event, and the number of occurrences of the event.
As such, the computing device 10 may detect when an event begins (process block 120) and detect when the event ends (process block 122). More specifically, the computing device 10 may detect when the event begins based on when the layout engine 36 begins to process source code that produces the event, for example, by monitoring the result of source code executed by the processor 16. In a similar manner, the computing device 10 may detect when the event ends based on when the layout stops processing source code that produces the event. Additionally, since the start time and the stop time of the event is known, the computing device 10 may also determine the duration of the event. More specifically, the duration may be determined based on the time difference between the start time and the stop time of the event.
When the event is detected, the computing device 10 may additionally determine the source code processed by the layout engine 36 to produce the event (process block 124). In some embodiments, this may include determining the location of the source code (process block 130) and grouping the event with other events that use a common resource (process block 132). For example, the computing device 10 may determine the line, column, and resource (e.g., file) where the source code is located.
Additionally, based on the resource where the source code is located, the computing device 10 may also group the event with other events that are produced when source code in the common resource are executed. For example, referring to the above example, the computing device 10 may determine that the Styles Invalidated event 86 is produced when the layout engine 36 processes a fist portion of code included in the renderer.js resource and may also determine that the Script Evaluated event 84 is produced when the layout engine 36 processes a second portion of code included in the renderer.js resource. As such, Load Event Dispatched event 96 and the Timer Fired event 98 may be grouped together. Furthermore, in some embodiments, the computing device 10 may determine what event information to present based on various filtering parameters and in what order to present the information based on various sorting parameters.
To facilitate communicating such information, the computing device 10 may display a graphical element on the event timeline 66 (process block 126). In some embodiments, the computing device 10 may display a horizontal bar 90 on the event timeline 66 to indicate information, such as the start time of the event, the stop time of the event, and the duration of the event. For example, referring again to the above example, the horizontal bar 90 on the Script Evaluated timeline 88 may indicate that the Script Evaluated event 84 began at approximately 137 ms, ended at approximately 172 ms, and lasted a duration of approximately 35 ms.
Furthermore, the computing device 10 may detect if the event begins again (arrow 130). More specifically, if the event occurs again, the computing device 10 may again gather information relating to the subsequent occurrence, such as the start time, stop time, and duration. As described above, such information may be consolidated with the information determined relating to the prior occurrence and displayed together. In some embodiments, this may include displaying an additional horizontal bar 90 on the event timeline 66. For example, referring to the above example, a first horizontal bar between approximately 845 ms to 850 ms may be displayed on the Timer Fired timeline 102 to indicate information relating to the first occurrence of the Timer Fired event 98. Additionally, a second horizontal bar between approximately 945 ms to 946 ms may be displayed on the Timer Fired timeline 102 to indicate information relating to the second occurrence of the Timer Fired event 98.
Accordingly, the technical effects of the present disclosure include improving the application design process by presenting information related to events that occur in the application in a logical and consolidated manner. More specifically, in some embodiments, information relating to event may be grouped, filtered, sorted, and displayed based on use of a common resource (e.g., file). By grouping events that use a common resource, a user (e.g., a developer) may better analyze the resource. For example, if the user is trying to debug the resource, information relating to event that are produced based on the resource will be presented together. Additionally, in some embodiments, information relating to a repeating or timed event may be consolidated and displayed together. By consolidating event information relating to a repeating or timed event, a user may better analyze the event. For example, if the user is trying to debug the event, information relating to each occurrence of the event will be presented together.
group, using the processor, the first event with a second event that is produced using the same resource, such that a first graphical element and a second graphical element are displayed under a common resource grouping on the graphical user interface, wherein the first graphical element is configured to describe time and duration of the first event and the second graphical element is configured to describe time and duration of the second event.
determine a location of a second piece of code in the source code of the webpage that is executed to produce the second event, wherein the location comprises the resource in which the second piece of code is located.
display the second graphical element on a second event timeline, wherein the second graphical element indicates start time, stop time, and duration of the second event.
display the first graphical element and a third graphical element on an event timeline, wherein the third graphical element is configured to describe time and duration of the third event.
determine when the first event ends, wherein the first graphical element is displayed based at least in part on when the first event begins and when the first event ends.
6. The tangible, non-transitory, computer readable medium of claim 1, wherein the location of the first piece of code comprises line, column, and resource in which the first piece of code is located.
display a second graphical element on the second event timeline to indicate information relating to the second event.
10. The computing device of claim 9, wherein the location of webpage source code that is executed to produce the first event comprises a line where the source code is located, a column where the source code is located, and a resource that the source code is included in.
11. The computing device of claim 9, wherein the graphical user interface is configured to display the first event timeline and the second event timeline under a common resource heading to indicate that the location of the webpage source code executed to produce the first event and the location of the webpage source code executed to produce the second event is a common resource.
the graphical user interface is configured to display a third graphical element on the first event timeline to indicate information related to the subsequent occurrence of the first event.
13. The computing device of claim 9, wherein the information related to the first and second events comprises start time, stop time, and duration.
14. The computing device of claim 9, wherein the graphical user interface is configured to display an event sidebar, wherein the event sidebar is configured to provide event information next to each event timeline.
15. The computing device of claim 14, wherein the event information provided in the event sidebar comprises an event name, an event location, an event type, an event icon, or any combination thereof.
16. The computing device of claim 9, wherein the first graphical element and the second graphical element are horizontal bars, wherein the horizontal bars are colored to indicate type of the events.
17. The computing device of claim 9, wherein the first event timeline and the second event timeline are displayed to indicate the location of webpage source code that is executed to produce the first event and the location of webpage source code that is executed to produce the second event.
displaying, on the display, a second graphical element on the event timeline to indicate information related to the second occurrence of the event.
19. The method of claim 18, comprising displaying the event timeline based at least in part on a location of a portion of webpage source code that is executed to produce the event.
20. The method of claim 18, wherein the information related to the first occurrence of the event comprises start time of the first occurrence, stop time of the first occurrence, and duration of the first occurrence, and the information related to the second occurrence of the event comprises start time of the second occurrence, stop time of the second occurrence, and duration of the second occurrence.
displaying, on the display, a third graphical element on the event timeline to indicate information related to the subsequent occurrence of the event.
22. The method of claim 18, wherein the first graphical element and the second graphical element are horizontal bars on the event timeline.
23. The method of claim 18, wherein the event is programmed in source code of the webpage to occur multiple times as a repeating event.
displaying, using a display of the computing device, a graphical element that indicates information relating to the event, wherein where the graphical element is displayed is based at least in part on what file comprises the application source code.
25. The method of claim 24, wherein the graphical element is a horizontal bar on an event timeline, wherein the horizontal bar and the event timeline are displayed under a resource heading and the horizontal bar is configured to indicate type of the event.
26. The method of claim 24, wherein the graphical element is an event icon displayed on an event sidebar, wherein the event icon is displayed under a resource heading and is configured to indicate type of the event.
|
0.999999 |
How is an acoustic-electric guitar different from a regular acoustic guitar or an electric guitar? An acoustic-electric guitar is simply an acoustic guitar fitted with electronics including a pickup and a preamp. The pickup converts the sound into an electronic signal which is amplified by the preamp. You get the sound of an acoustic guitar and the volume of an electric.
Acoustic guitars feature a hollow body and a deep sound hole. This allows for greater sound resonance. However, it is difficult to produce much volume with a standard acoustic guitar. The acoustic-electric guitar is a modification of the conventional acoustic design that allows for more volume for live performances.
The design of the guitar is the same as a standard acoustic guitar. The construction of the guitar and the acoustic sound properties are identical. The difference is the inclusion of a pickup or microphone.
An acoustic-electric guitar is typically fitted with a pickup. This pickup converts the vibrations produced when you play the guitar into electronic signals. The electronic signals are then sent to an amplifier, the same as using an electric guitar.
While an acoustic-electric guitar may be fitted with a built-in microphone, the use of a pickup is more common. Pickups are transducers that capture the mechanical vibrations that are produced when you play a string instrument, such as an acoustic-electric guitar. The vibrations are then converted into electronic signals.
There are two types of pickups, the magnetic and piezoelectric pickups. Magnetic pickups are used to convert acoustic guitars with metal strings into acoustic-electric instruments. However, the magnetic pickup does not work with nylon strings as it cannot pick up the vibrations of the nylon material.
The piezoelectric pickup, or piezo pickup, can convert the vibrations produced when you use nylon strings into electronic signals. This has the added benefit of not picking up sounds created by magnetic fields.
The pickup is typically attached to the bridge or placed between the bridge feet and the top of the guitar. Whether the guitar has a magnetic pickup or piezo pickup, the guitar will need a power source. Pickups are either battery-powered or need to be plugged into a power outlet.
The pickup converts the vibrations, which need to be sent to an amplifier or soundboard. Before sending the signal to an amp, it is amplified with a preamplifier. The preamp is attached to the body of the guitar and often includes various settings.
The preamp settings may include an equalizer, a tuner, and controls for adjusting the tone. Besides helping to produce more volume, the electronics fitted to an acoustic-electric guitar provide more control over the sound that you generate compared to a standard acoustic instrument. The preamp then connects to an amplifier or soundboard. At this point, the rest of the operation is the same as an electric guitar.
The preamp is an essential component for producing quality sound. If the vibrations picked up by the transducer are sent directly to an amplifier or loudspeaker, the sound may include additional noises or distortion. The preamp helps boost the electronic signal from the pickup before sending it to the amp.
Acoustic electric guitars are a combination of acoustic and electric guitars. The design and sound are identical to a standard acoustic guitar. However, the guitar is fitted with electronic components to convert the vibrations into electronic signals which are sent to an amplifier.
Why do people choose to use acoustic-electric guitars? Many people prefer the resonance produced by acoustic guitars compared to electric guitars. You get a fuller sound that is difficult to replicate with an electronic instrument. However, in a live setting or a studio, microphones and speakers may produce noise and distortion when amplifying the acoustic instrument.
The inclusion of electronic components allows the guitar to retain the acoustic sound while transmitting an electric signal to amplifiers. The bottom line is that when you want to enjoy the sound produced by an acoustic guitar and require more volume, an acoustic-electric guitar provides the best solution.
|
0.999342 |
For years countries have worked hard to construct and launch spaceships into space. Many of these space ships were unmanned and of those that were manned, professional astronauts and military personnel guided their flights. Many people are interested to know who was the first civilian in space. A civilian in this case is a person who is neither an astronaut nor a military or government official.
The first civilian in space was a Russian woman named Valentina Vladimirovna Tereshkova. She was chosen out of 400 applicants to pilot a 3 day mission into space. She launched on 16th of June 1963. Along with being the first civilian in space she was also the first woman in space. Valentina Vladimirovna Tereshkova orbited the earth 48 times and spent almost three days in space. Tereshkova also maintained a flight log and took photographs of the horizon, which were later used to identify aerosol layers within the atmosphere.
The next civilians to go into space were Konstantin Feoktistov, also the first scientist, and Boris Yegorov, also the first physician, aboard Voshkod 1 which reached orbit on October 12 1964. Konstantin Feoktistov was part of the team of scientists that designed the sputnik satellites and the Vostok capsules. The Feoktistov crater on the Far Side of the Moon is named in his honor. Yegorov was selected as a member of the multi-disciplinary team that flew on Voskhod 1. As a result of this space flight, Yegorov was awarded the title of the Hero of the Soviet Union on October 19, 1964. The asteroid 8450 Yegorov is named in his honor.
|
0.947505 |
Jste zde: Úvodní stránka Seznam článků Jak optimalizovat Váš web pro vyhledávače?
Jak optimalizovat Váš web pro vyhledávače?
Jako král faktorů ve světe SEO (Search Engine Optimization) stále působí obsah. Některé webové stránky se dostanou na vrchol výsledků hledání kvůli tvorbě masivně budovaných odkazových kampaní, ale pokud budete zkoumat návštěvníkovu loajalitu a dobu po kterou zůstane na Vašich stránkách (a ano, veřejnou návštěvnost), vždycky bude vést ten starý dobrý optimalizovaný obsah.
Věnujte trošku času pro napsání nějakého opravdu dobrého obsahu. To znamená, že byste měli mít na paměti psaní pro lidi na prvním místě a pro vyhledávače na místě druhém. To znamená psát opravdu kvalitní kousky které jsou užitečné a zábavné pro lidi, protože vyhledávače rozeznají Vaše snahy. Vaši čtenáři se budou dělit o Vaší práci vytvářením dalších zpětných odkazů, a ani nezmiňuji tu další návštěvnost. Vyhledávače rozeznají Vaší kvalitní práci díky přirozenému toku návštěv bez příliš mnoha klíčových slov (něco, co je v aktuálním Penguin Updateu a jeho světě penalizováno).
Pište obsah, který chtějí lidé sami dobrovolně sdílet na jejich Facebooku, Twitteru, Pinterestu anebo jiných sociálních sítích. Vyhledávače umí tyto sociální signály číst jako signál kvality Vaší domény. Můžete také zrychlit šíření Vašeho obsahu na těchto sítích registrací Vašeho účtu na těchto sítích s mnoha následníky či přáteli.
Zvažte také odeslání Vašeho obsahu na stránky jako jsou Reddit, Delicious, Digg a nebo jiné agregátory obsahu, které Vám mohou přinést pár čtenářů.
Vraťte se a přepište se SEO faktory starý dobrý obsah. Jsou tu šance, že znáte nějaké věci o SEO optimalizaci, které jste neznali během posledního roku (a to ani nezmiňujeme proběhlé změny v nejlepších metodách SEO které se objevily během posledního roku). Znovu navštivte nějaký starší obsah a přepište jej s vědomím nových znalostí, zaktualizujte atributy obrázků, upravte hustotu keywordů, přidejte několik odkazů na Vaši homepage a nebo na jiné důležité části stránek týkající se obsahu. Také zvažte znovuvypublikovat již jednou vydané články s pár drobnými změnami jako nový článek pro pár extra bodíků u vyhledávačů!
Get links to your pages from other trusted websites.
Even if you are new to the web, you have natural links you could try to get. All businesses have suppliers whether they be accountants, solicitors or raw material providers. All these suppliers are bound to have a website, contact them to ask for a link back, but do not offer a link in exchange. Link exchanges don't violate Google's TOS, but they will now work against you. When building links, always give other site owners a reason to want to link back to you. Perhaps write an article based on a particular client - everyone likes bragging rights and this can gain you additional links without even having to ask. All Google wants to see is links that have an editorial right to be there.
Complete all image attributes. Pictures dress up your pages but search engines don't really know how to deal with them unless you complete all the nitty-gritty details like title, caption, alternate text, description. Be ethical though, don't use it as an opportunity to cram an extra few keywords onto the page as this will likely have a negative impact on your search engine ranking. Some people search for what they are looking for via Google image search, if your image is highly visible then your potential customers will likely visit your page.
Diversify internal anchor text links. There needs to be variations in the text when one creates those blue-highlighted anchor text links. The links on a page are what the search engine spiders follow in determining where they are being led. The text used in the links are used in helping the search engines figure out what the page it leads to is all about.
Take note of word count. Although it’s been a classic rule that “readers online do not read”, it simply doesn’t mean that one has to deprive the online users of good, meaty content. Stick to at least 250 words a page. SEOs know that writing down for an appropriate length of text means being more able to include more related terms for the target keywords. In order to help with the page-browsing experience, consider using large fonts to draw the eye to key headline points. This will make for a page that is broken up well into sections that answer the question the reader is looking for.
Avoid duplicate content. The content on your website should be unique from other pages on your site, and from external sites as well. Consider using a tool such as Siteliner to look for duplicate content.
The first is your page title. It’s very important to put keywords in your page title; specifically try to get important keywords first and try to limit the overall length of your page title. Well-constructed title tags contain the main keyword for the page. It should contain less than 65 characters with no stop words such as: a, if, the, then, and, an, to, etc. Your title tag should also be limited to the use of alphanumeric characters, hyphens, and commas.
Next, it’s important to look at the header tags on your site-h1, h2, h3, h4 and so on. H1 is the most significant. Make sure you have the most important keyword labeled as h1 tag. This will help you with ranking for your site, especially if someone is searching for that particular key word or phrase.
Next up is the content. You definitely want to put your keywords in the contents somewhere, but the object, though, is to make sure the content is very well written for visitors to your website. You want to insert the keywords for that page only where it makes sense. Page content should have between 300 and 700 words of descriptive content that contains the keywords specified in the keywords meta tag for the page. You also want to try to optimize your URLs. Make sure to include important keywords in the URL.
Next are the Meta keywords and Meta description. These are pieces of code behind the scene. The code should look something like this: It should be placed directly under the title tag code <title> Your site title</title> <meta name="description" content="your site description" <meta name="keywords" content="keyword1, keyword2, keyword3" Your keywords meta tag should contain between 5-10 keywords or keyword phrases that are also found in page content. Also one more important meta tag is description tag that contains information about the page's content so you can persuade search engine users to visit your web site. It should have 15-160 characters, remember not to stuff it with keywords.
Next is to have proper navigation. Each page of your site should contain links to every other page so search engine spiders can find every page. This is an important step for the proper indexing and page ranking for your site.
Next is having a proper site map. It's important to use two site maps for your website--an XML version and a static version. The XML version can be created by sitemap generators tools such as http://www.xml-sitemaps.com. The sitemap should then be submitted to the Google Webmaster Tools account for that site. This will aid in crawling of Google's Spidebot. The static version should be an HTML page that contains links to every other page. You should also reference your XML sitemap location in your robots.txt file.
While adding business make sure that all the fields are added correctly especially the category and areas served. Most of the times they are added wrongly that makes them to loose perspective search and leads.
If you have a local business, get listed in the Google Local Business search results. 86% of people looking for something offline will search online using the likes of Google and Bing. Even businesses like hairdressers and butchers can't afford to miss out on a spot of search engine optimization. Head over to the Google Local Business Centre and add your business to the map, that way your business info and contact details will appear next time a potential customer searches for a service you provide in your local area!
Dynamic pages are tough to index as they contain too many special characters. Some bots take a much longer time to index those pages or sites as well. Try to avoid dynamic writing of site pages.
|
0.982204 |
An organic all-purpose cleaner is the best alternative to commercial cleaners which have many chemical components. Being organic reduces the risk of causing any health hazard effects. Generally, it is recommended that the people should make their own cleaner so that they can use it anywhere and anytime. Yes, it really works. It does not contain any hard or harmful ingredients, it will not damage your health, but the cleaning process may be slower. The following is a recipe to make your own organic all-purpose cleaner.
A bottle with the spray nozzle.
Add all the ingredients together in a bottle with a spray nozzle. Shake the bottle well and make sure that all the ingredients are mixed properly. In order to get best results, you should use the spray on a dirty surface and leave it on for a few minutes. Wipe the surface and see the results.
This cleaner can be used safely on any bathroom fixture and surface, including the floor. It is safe to use on kitchen countertops, shelves, outdoor furniture, and deck railings.
|
0.997895 |
The Christmas insanity is over for now, and so I finally got to do something just for me-and that was go see Into the Woods. This musical holds a special place in my heart. I was a huge drama geek in high school, and this was the first musical I ever performed in. (I was the Wicked Stepmother.) So, I know all the words to the songs by heart and I have strong opinions on whether or not anyone could ever be better than Bernadette Peters as the witch. I went in hoping to be pleased but a tiny bit worried that it might disappoint.
If you are wholly unfamiliar with the show, let me briefly explain what it is about and why the story is so fascinating.
Into the Woods follows the fairytale characters we have known all of our lives- Cinderella, Red Riding Hood, Jack and his beanstalk, Rapunzel, and a baker and his wife who have been cursed by an evil witch because of the misdeeds of the baker's father.
All of the characters have complicated or downright horrible relationships with their parents or guardians. They all have wishes for their future- to escape the sorrow they currently live in and find happiness. And each of them begins their quest for that happiness in the same way that we expect them to- the way their fairytales tell us that it lies. Cinderella is supposed to live happily ever after with her prince. The baker and his wife lift the curse and break the spell- allowing them to finally have a child. Red Riding Hood learns to protect herself and not trust strangers, and Jack proves his worth to his critical mother by conquering a giant and bringing riches to his family. Rapunzel also meets her true love and believes that love is all she will need.
And then? Well...that's the problem with fairytales. They all seem to end there. But what happens when that is your life? Often princes are just charming and not loyal or caring husbands. And pestering giants may make you feel pretty invincible but it's awfully risky behavior. Likewise, walling yourself off from others as Red does, leaves you without a way to connect with someone when you find yourself alone. And fatherhood may trigger all of your fears that you might repeat the mistakes of your own parents. In fact, all of the characters are trying to come to terms with their childhoods and find a path to true happiness, but like many of us, they typically just try to get the opposite of what they had before, only to find that its just as bad as what they left.
So, the musical is wonderfully complex and deep. And I was completely smitten all over again. Anna Kendrick has an amazing voice, and Emily Blunt was wonderful as the Baker's wife. And no, I don't think Meryl Streep is better than Bernadette Peters, but it wasn't so changed that I didn't enjoy it. The difference in their performances is that Streep's character comes off as a bit more sympathetic somehow...less willfully malicious.
I am disappointed that we lost the song No More, and that we lost the reprise of Agony. (Especially when Chris Pine was SO perfect as Prince Charming- why get rid of a second of all of that smarmy goodness?) And they changed the fate of Rapunzel by simply omitting the fact of her death- which I find to be a toss-up. On the one hand, that part always tore me up- she was the most tormented by her mother and then she suffered the worst fate. So unfair! But it also showed just how badly you can hurt your children if you don't learn these lessons. It was harsh but also very fitting for the story.
But, overall, the omissions aside, I still loved this. And the core moral of the story is there and accessible to the viewer. I teared up when they sang No One Is Alone.
Would I prefer the stage show to the movie? Sure. I probably always will. But this is still a treat for fans of the musical and it opens the story and the valuable lessons inside to more people in this format. So it gets a big thumbs-up from me.
Thank you so much for this synopsis of the story! I was going to avoid it because it looked like just another fairy tale revamp, but now I'm going to see it because it sounds a lot deeper and more interesting.
I was feeling very conflicted about this movie, particularly since many reviewers have indicated that it was toned down for Disney and that the star-studded cast did not necessarily live up to the hype. However, your review has changed my mind and I think we'll be taking a trip to the theater to see this.
|
0.999949 |
The Declaration of Independence was written to show a new theory of government, reasons why they were separating from England, and a formal declaration of war. It gave the 13 colonies freedom from England's laws. The man responsible for writing the Declaration was Thomas Jefferson. He wrote the Declaration between June 11, 1776 and June 28, 1776.
Benjamin Franklin and John Adams looked at what Jefferson had written and made some changes to the Declaration. On July 4, 1776 Congress adopted the Declaration and it was signed by: John Hancock, Button Gwinnett, Lyman hall, George Walton, Wm Hooper, Joseph Here, John Penn, Edward Rutledge, Thos Heyward Jr. , Thomas Lynch Jr. , Arthur Middleton, Samuel Chase, Thos. Stone, George Wythe, Charles Carrol of Carrollton, Richard Henry Lee, Thomas Jefferson, Benjamin Harrison, Thos Nelson Jr. , Francis Lightfoot Lee, Carter Braxton, Robert Morris, Benjamin Rush, Benjamin Franklin, John Morton, George Clymer Smith, George Taylor, James Wilson, George Ross, Caesar Rodney, George Read, Tho M. Kean, Wm. Floyd, Phil.
Livingston, Frans. Lewis, Lewis Morris, Richard Stockton, Jno. WItherspoon, Fra's. Hopkinson, John Hart, Abraham Clark, Josiah Bartlett, Wm. Whipple, Samuel Adams, John Adams, Robert Treat Paine, Elbridge Gerry, Stephan Hopkins, William Ellery, Roger Sherman, Samuel Huntington, Wm.
Williams, Oliver Wolcott, and Matthew Thornton. The reason people wanted the Declaration was because the people thought that they had the right to be free from England and to be their own individual colonies with their own laws. Other things leading up to independence were that the British government had committed acts that many colonists believed violated their rights as English subjects. Also that colonial blood had already been shed trying to defend these rights. The French & Indian war was the war that shed colonists blood to defend their rights.
The Declaration of Independence served three major purposes. 1. Preamble and reasons for separation. Among the reasons for separation were statements about the king, George III. It said that he was a harsh and evil king and that the colonists shouldnt have to be under his rule.
It also said that the citizens were patient, submissive, and long-suffering people. These statements were made to win the public support of the people for the Declaration. In this part of the Declaration, Jefferson stated the basic principles of democracy. They were all men are created equal, They are endowed by their creator with certain unalienable 1 rights; ... among these are life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. The purpose of the government was to secure these rights.
This basically stated that war did exist. If the Patriots failed to win independence, the leaders of the revolution could be judged guilty of treason against the British Crown and executed. The result of the Declaration of Independence was that colonists gained their freedom. They had freedom of religion and had a better government. Look at the world today and see what it has accomplished. Blacks and women now have just as many rights as white men.
|
0.968154 |
How did Portugal win Euro 2016 without Cristiano Ronaldo?
Cristiano Ronaldo had to watch most of the Euro 2016 final from the sideline, but it didn't matter to a Portugal side that was perfectly set up to grind out a hard-earned victory even without their star man. Ronaldo came up big for his country time and time again on the way to the final, at times even looking like a one-man team, but if any team could pull off such an improbable victory after losing their talisman, it was Portugal.
As was the case after the final at the 2004 European Championships, Ronaldo walked off the pitch in tears, but this time his day ended in tears of joy as Portugal snatched a dramatic victory through a 109th minute goal from substitute Eder. Ronaldo was stretchered to the sideline after just 25 minutes with a knee injury, and the start of his waterworks looked to be the end for his country's dreams of lifting their first ever international trophy.
That wasn't the case though. With Ronaldo gone, Nani stepped in as captain, and his workrate was infectious throughout the Selecao. Working seamlessly as a unit, Fernando Santos' team defended deep for long periods, pressing strategically to deny France any space in dangerous areas. They were especially successful in compacting the midfield in order to push an unusually defensive Paul Pogba back towards his own back four, frustrating the young dynamo and leaving him unable to strike up his usually telepathic connection with France's player of the tournament, Antoine Griezmann.
Portugal's gameplan to win the midfield was the real key on the day, as Santos used Joao Mario and Adrien Silva shrewdly to disrupt France's tandem of Blaise Matuidi and Pogba, cut off service to the feet of Antoine Griezmann and Olivier Giroud, and harass Dimitri Payet into submission. Moussa Sissoko was the only one of France's midfielders to truly influence the game, and his marauding runs down the right and through the center presented constant issues for the Portuguese, but goalkeeper Rui Patricio was more than up to the task, reacting brilliantly to deny any danger to his goal. And if Portugal had to pick one France player to find space, they would have picked Sissoko every time.
Ronaldo is inarguably the Iberians' most important player, and each one of his goals in the run-up to the final were vital, but his presence in the side is a relatively small part of Portugal's overall gameplan. Like the famous Greek side that beat them in 2004, this Portugal isn't built on attacking flair and free-flowing play, it's predicated on defensive solidity and organization. Ronaldo's Real Madrid teammate Pepe was perhaps his country's most important figure in that regard. Despite a crucial mistake to nearly gift Andre-Pierre Gignac a goal in the final, Pepe was Portugal's best defender this tournament, and one of the biggest reasons they were able to get to the there.
It wasn't pretty by any stretch, but Portugal had a gameplan and executed it to perfection. For six matches, they did it with one of history's greatest ever players and in the final, they did it without him by sticking to the same plan that had gotten them that far. Ronaldo carried them to the final, and his teammates did what good teammates do, and returned the favor.
|
0.944862 |
Imprinted genes are exclusively expressed from one of the two parental alleles in a parent-of-origin-specific manner. In mammals, nearly 100 genes are documented to be imprinted. To understand the mechanism behind this gene regulation and to identify novel imprinted genes, common features of DNA sequences have been analyzed; however, the general features required for genomic imprinting have not yet been identified, possibly due to variability in underlying molecular mechanisms from locus to locus.
We performed a thorough comparative genomic analysis of a single locus, Impact, which is imprinted only in Glires (rodents and lagomorphs). The fact that Glires and primates diverged from each other as recent as 70 million years ago makes comparisons between imprinted and non-imprinted orthologues relatively reliable. In species from the Glires clade, Impact bears a differentially methylated region, whereby the maternal allele is hypermethylated. Analysis of this region demonstrated that imprinting was not associated with the presence of direct tandem repeats nor with CpG dinucleotide density. In contrast, a CpG periodicity of 8 bp was observed in this region in species of the Glires clade compared to those of carnivores, artiodactyls, and primates.
We show that tandem repeats are dispensable, establishment of the differentially methylated region does not rely on G+C content and CpG density, and the CpG periodicity of 8 bp is meaningful to the imprinting. This interval has recently been reported to be optimal for de novo methylation by the Dnmt3a-Dnmt3L complex, suggesting its importance in the establishment of imprinting in Impact and other genes.
Genomic imprinting is an epigenetic modification that leads to monoallelic gene expression in a parent-of-origin-specific manner. In mammals, approximately 100 'imprinted' genes are subject to this regulation . Identification of a specific sequence that is recognized as the target for epigenetic marking is the foremost problem in this field. Researchers have compared genomic sequences of human and mouse imprinted and non-imprinted genes in order to identify motifs that are characteristic of, or responsible for, genomic imprinting [2–5]. Especially, finding target sequences for de novo DNA methylation during gametogenesis would further our understanding of the molecular mechanisms of imprinting, as well as development, tissue-specific gene regulation, and the etiology of various cancers. However, genomic features unique to imprinted genes, which could lead to their discovery, have not been described, with one exception . It has been suggested that the absence of such features is due to variability in the molecular mechanisms of imprinting [7, 8].
Therefore, instead of identifying common features, we limited our study to one imprinted gene, Impact, but performed comparative genomics among thirty eutherian species. The Impact gene was first identified in mouse as a novel imprinted gene by a systematic screening method using mRNA display PCR . Its protein product is suggested to have a role in response to amino acid starvation [10, 11]. This gene exhibits species-specific imprinting; it is imprinted in species of the Glires clade (rodents and lagomorphs), but not in other mammals such as primates and artiodactyls (even-toed ungulates) . Since the Glires clade diverged from primates approximately 70 million years ago , the acquisition of the imprinting in these species is quite recent compared to other imprinted genes, most of which are imprinted in both mouse and human. This makes the comparative analysis between imprinted and non-imprinted orthologues more straightforward. By contrast, if we studied, for example, the Igf2 gene by the same strategy, we would have to compare two clades, for example, eutherians and monotremes, which diverged about 200 million years ago . Generally, such sequences are too divergent to allow DNA motifs to be found by sequence alignment. The recent evolution of Impact as an imprinted gene provides a unique opportunity to perform this kind of comparative genomics.
In species of the Glires clade, Impact bears a differentially methylated region (DMR) in its first intron that is de novo methylated during oogenesis, but not in spermatogenesis, and maintained in all types of somatic cells to adulthood . Hence, this region is a so-called primary DMR, which is the key cis-regulatory element directing the correct establishment and maintenance of genomic imprinting. In our previous analysis of the Impact DMR in species of the Glires clade, the sequences of mouse, rat, and rabbit were determined. The DMR in these species is characterized by a CpG island, and the DMR in rodents contains characteristic tandem repeats in the CpG island . Because the mechanism by which the de novo DNA methylation machinery recognizes the DMRs is not yet known, we have tried in the present study to search for the target sequences of the allele-specific methylation by sequencing the genomic region of various Glires animals, including beaver, porcupine, chipmunk, and prairie dog. Fortunately, the first intron could readily be amplified by PCR using primers located in the first and second exons. Including data from our previous study , 27 out of 30 eutherian species were successfully sequenced.
More than a decade ago, direct tandem repeats were suggested to be related to genomic imprinting ; however, the numbers of identified imprinted genes and available mouse and human genomic sequences were considerably limited at that time. Later, Impact was identified, and it was reported that imprinted mouse Impact bears these characteristic repeats whereas the non-imprinted human orthologue lacks any apparent repeats . It was subsequently reported that the repeat is absent in the imprinted rabbit Impact gene . Since tandem repeats are abundant and widespread throughout mammalian genomes , it is therefore difficult to associate these with the imprinting status of specific genes. One strategy to address this is to increase the number of species studied at a given locus. A recent study determining the extent and boundaries of all known primary DMRs enabled the analysis of their specific nucleotide sequences and content . Some characteristic features were described; however, the number of primary DMRs in mouse is limited to only 15 to date. Our study provides additional data that are needed to characterize such intriguing regions.
In support of the fast molecular clock of rodent genomes , we observe that the determined genomic sequences are considerably diverged only among rodents, but not in lagomorphs. While the data challenge the proposed role of tandem repeats and CpG content in genomic imprinting, they suggest the importance of latent CpG dinucleotide periodicity in the establishment of the Impact DMR.
We previously developed a simple PCR-based strategy to determine the nucleic acid sequence of the first intron of Impact and reported the sequences of 14 eutherian species . In this method, primers were designed for highly conserved regions in exons 1 and 2 for forward and reverse primers, respectively. Two forward and two reverse degenerate primers were prepared to perform nested PCR for the divergent sequences. In the present study, we used the same method to determine the corresponding sequences in two lagomorphs and 17 rodents (Table 1). All but three were successfully amplified. For these species (field mouse, agouti, and paca), specific PCR products could not be obtained even after nested PCR. This is probably due to unexpectedly divergent sequences at the exonic priming sites or excessive elongation of the intron in these animals (see Discussion).
*Assigned by NCBI Taxonomy. †Common names used in this paper. Some of these are short forms of GenBank common names, such as American beaver. See NCBI Taxonomy.
Following treatment with exonuclease I and shrimp alkaline phosphatase, nested PCR products were directly sequenced by the primer-walking method. The identities of these amplicons as the Impact gene were confirmed by the 30-nucleotide sequences at the beginning of exon 2. This short region was also amplified along with the first intron for this purpose. Almost all encode an amino acid sequence identical to NEEIEAMAAI seen in human IMPACT. Exceptions were mouse, wood mouse, bamboo rat, and porcupine, which code for SEEIEAMAAI, SEEIEAMAAI, NEEIEAMASI, and NEEIEALSAI, respectively. It has been surmised that Impact does not have paralogues in any vertebrate genome due to dosage sensitivity . Accordingly, a PCR product amplified from a single locus was obtained in each species. We also confirmed that all of the intronic sequences meet the GT-AG rule, also known as Chambon's rule, and that they have a branch site proximal to the splice acceptor (not shown).
In the previous study using rodents, lagomorphs, artiodactyls, carnivores, and primates, the sequences were readily classified into two groups (Figure 1). The first group has a longer intron (approximately 2 kb), the 3' portion of which constitutes a CpG island with a characteristic tandem reiterated structure . The second group has a shorter intron (approximately 1 kb), the 5' portion of which constitutes a short CpG island without any apparent repeats. Regardless of the imprinting status of the Impact gene, only mouse and rat sequences fall in the former group. Despite the fact that rabbit Impact is imprinted, it was unexpectedly categorized in the latter group. Additionally, a sequence derived from the whole genome shotgun sequencing of the rabbit was obtained [GenBank:AAGW01108706], which covers this region and confirms the absence of tandem repeats, even in the expanded flanking regions included in this sequence. In mouse, the two genes flanking Impact are not imprinted and no additional imprinted genes have been found on chromosome 18 where it is mapped . Unlike typical imprinted genes, Impact appears to be solitary; it is likely that the regulatory elements are confined to this locus. Hence, at least for this imprinted locus, the result clearly negates a hypothesis that tandem repeats play an important role in genomic imprinting . To pursue other structural features of imprinted Impact, elucidating the genomic sequences of many other rodent and lagomorph species was of interest.
Schematic representation of the first intron of eutherian Impact. The GenBank accession number and length are listed to the right of the common names. Horizontal lines show the relative lengths of the first intron. All sequences begin with GT and end with AG. Short vertical lines and gray boxes represent single CpG sites and CpG islands, respectively, which were detected by GrailEXP 3.31. Characteristic tandem repeats are exclusively found in the CpG islands of murids (mouse, rat, and wood mouse). Glires species are sorted by NCBI Taxonomy ID. The Impact gene is assumed to be imprinted in Glires species [GenBank:EF470590-EF470605] but not in other species [GenBank:AY574202-AY574212]. Asterisks indicate species whose monoallelic expression or methylation of the Impact gene have been experimentally confirmed [12, 17].
The genomic sequences determined in the current study are shown along with previous results (Figure 1). While lagomorphs (rabbit and cottontail) have similar intronic sequences to those of primates, artiodactyls, and carnivores, rodents have diversified structures. Although the porcupine, beaver, and sciurids (prairie dog and chipmunk) bear a CpG island at the 5' end like lagomorphs, murids (mouse, rat, and wood mouse) bear a longer one at the 3' side. Others unexpectedly bear no CpG islands. The lengths of these introns vary from 625 bp to more than 2 kb. The characteristic tandem repeat was found exclusively in murids (Figure 2). A homology search using the repetitive regions as queries did not hit any other sequences but themselves, suggesting that these sequences are unique to this locus in murids.
Direct tandem repeat of wood mouse Impact. Self-Harr plot of the first intron of wood mouse Impact shows nested structure of direct tandem repeats around the CpG island. A dot was plotted when it satisfied the condition that there were more than 8 bases matching in a 10-bp window. While mouse and rat Impact also show quite similar plots, other eutherians apparently do not have this tandem repeat.
The scarcity of CpG dinucleotides in several rodents made us wonder whether they bear the DMR in this region and whether they are imprinted or not. We therefore chose lemming as one of those species, cottontail from lagomorphs, and Japanese macaque from the non-imprinted group for DNA methylation analysis by bisulfite cloning and sequencing . For both mouse and rabbit Impact, the 5' portion of the first intron was shown to be subject to allele-specific methylation; the maternal and paternal alleles are hyper- and hypomethylated, respectively [12, 17, 19]. We decided to analyze the equivalent region for these three species (Figure 3).
DNA methylation analysis by bisulfite cloning and sequencing. The analysis was carried out for three species. Cottontail is one of the lagomorphs. Lemming (a rodent) contains fewer CpG sites in the first intron of Impact. Japanese macaque is a primate in which the IMPACT gene is not imprinted. Numbers indicate distances in base-pairs from the 3' end of the first exon. Each row represents an individual cloned allele. Circles represent CpG sites and their spacing reflects the CpG density of the region. Filled and open circles represent methylated and unmethylated sites, respectively. The single nucleotide polymorphism in cottontail fortunately provided allele-specific methylation data, although the parental origin is unknown. Note that this single nucleotide substitution has caused a coexistence of TpG and CpG; only the latter is subject to deamination.
We used one individual from each species. Fortunately, the cottontail has one A/G heterozygous site (position 201 of the sequence deposited under [GenBank:EF470591]) in this region, which allowed us to distinguish the two alleles. Although the parental origin could not be ascertained, one of the parental alleles is unmethylated and the other is heavily methylated. Possibly, the paternal allele of cottontail Impact may be exclusively expressed like rabbit Impact . Unlike cottontail Impact, the lemming gene has only five CpG sites with no heterozygous sites in this region. However, the result suggests that the region is a DMR because there were unmethylated clones and fully methylated clones. It is likely that lemming Impact is also imprinted like other rodent orthologues despite the scarceness of CpG dinucleotides in the corresponding region. Macaque IMPACT has a CpG island in this region like the cottontail gene. In support of the fact that primate Impact exhibits biallelic expression , the 5' portion of the intron escapes DNA methylation in both alleles in Japanese macaque. Establishment of the DMR seems to be independent, not only of tandem repeats, but also of local CpG density. This raises another question: what then causes the difference in DNA methylation status between Glires and other mammals?
Recently, crystallography of a complex consisting of Dnmt3a and Dnmt3L revealed a correlation between its enzymatic activity and methylated CpG sites at distances of eight to ten base pairs . Dnmt3a is a DNA methyltransferase and Dnmt3L is its regulatory factor; both of these proteins are needed for the de novo DNA methylation of imprinted genes [25–27]. Accordingly, periodicity of CpG dinucleotide locations is found in the DMRs of 12 imprinted genes that are subject to maternal methylation. Mouse Impact is one of these genes, bearing a large number of CpG dinucleotides spaced with 10-bp periodicity . However, this periodicity originates in the direct repeats found only in murids. In order to search for other CpG periodicity that may be related to the de novo DNA methylation of the Impact DMR, we examined only the 500-bp region at the 5' end of the intron in the eutherians. Frequencies of CpG pairs at a given distance with respect to all pairs are separately shown for Glires species (putative imprinted group) and other eutherians in Figure 4. While a conspicuous 8-bp CpG interval, but neither a 7- nor 9-bp interval, is observed in species of the Glires clade, the frequency of 8-10-bp intervals in other eutherian species is low (p = 2.46 × 10-3; see Materials and methods). Additionally, the periodic occurrence of CpG sites 9.5 bp apart on average was not observed in this region (Additional data file 1). These results suggest that the CpG periodicity of 8 bp plays an important role in imprinting and that the accumulation of this periodicity might relate to acquisition of imprinting in the common ancestor of extant Glires species.
Periodicity of CpG sites in the 500-bp region at the 5' portion of the intron. Counts of each distance from 2-50 bp are shown for (a) non-Glires eutherians and (b) Glires species. The 8-bp periodicity is evident only in Glires (p = 2.46 × 10-3; see Materials and methods), which bears the DMR in this region.
Whereas the possible importance of tandem repeats in genomic imprinting is still disputed [28–30], several lines of evidence negate the hypothesis [31–34]. The present study also argues against the proposed role of repetitive elements in the imprinting of Impact. Since it is suggested that imprinting has evolved randomly at various times in different lineages , molecular mechanisms that achieve monoallelic gene expression may vary from locus to locus. Tandem repeats can be observed almost everywhere in mammalian genomes . Hence, it seems unreasonable to assume that tandem repeats per se have a role in genomic imprinting in general. What we should address is a specific role of each tandem repeat, such as offering a high concentration of insulator binding sites , rather than presence or absence of any repeats.
The tandem repeat in murid Impact has a complex structure with nested repetitive elements, but the shortest sequence element is 5'-TCGGC-3'. This 5-bp directed element is concatenated to constitute the long stretch in mouse, rat, and wood mouse genomes. It is possible that 10-bp periodicity, which is caused by juxtaposition of the element, is so stable for nucleosome positioning that it allows the region to expand the repeat. It is reported that 10-bp periodic GpC, which corresponds to one DNA helical repeat, is often found in regions that form nucleosome structure well . The shortest element definitely contains GpC dinucleotide (note that this is not CpG dinucleotide). It is also likely that tandem repeats near imprinted genes are just a consequence, rather than a cause, of the epigenetic regulation . The 3' portion of the CpG island appears to be just such a product of expansion of an element containing a single CpG, resulting in high frequency of CpG. This region in the field mouse, another murid, failed to amplify by PCR. Possibly, a large repeat expansion in the intron impedes the PCR amplification of the field mouse genome; however, we have not tested this. Similarly, neither agouti nor paca, closely related caviomorph rodents, could be amplified by PCR at this locus. Possibly, they have a unique shared substitution or insertion that prevented amplification. The chicken intron also could not be amplified by this method.
It was suggested that CpG content per se could be recognized by methylation machinery to give rise to primary DMRs . Contrary to this hypothesis, the CpG content in the Impact DMR turned out to vary considerably among species of the Glires clade, also suggesting necessity to search for DMRs other than CpG islands. Rather than discern the CpG dinucleotide density, the de novo methylation complex seemingly prefers to interact with CpG sites arranged at an interval of 8 bp. The 8-bp CpG periodicity was preferentially observed in Glires, in which the Impact gene is imprinted (Figure 4). In a broad sense, the periodicity 5'-CGNNNNNNCG-3' can be considered as a DNA motif or protein-biding site that is targeted by the Dnmt3a-Dnmt3L complex. It is possible that accumulation of the motif in the common ancestor of Glires was related to the acquisition of the Impact imprinting. In fact, the short genomic sequence of lemming shown here does not contain the 8-bp periodicity. We do not insist that the periodicity is the necessary and sufficient factor for the genomic imprinting; however, it seems to have a role (Figure 4 and Additional data file 1).
One possible hypothesis is that, in the common ancestor, tandem duplication of a short fragment containing 8-bp CpG periodicity occurred repeatedly, resulting in recruitment of methylation machinery during oogenesis. In this model, critical sites for the interaction with the enzymatic complex are CpG dinucleotides at an interval of 8 bp. The other nucleotides could have been neutrally mutated or diverged because the change does not affect the DNA-protein interaction. In any case, the present study also suggests a limit to the usefulness of conventional homology search algorithms for detecting imprinted genes. It may be important to investigate unexplored features of genomic sequences like the latent periodicity suggested by our studies. Each de novo DNA methyltransferase seems to have a specific genomic context associated with methylation, although functional redundancy is also observed . In our additional analysis of the mouse genome, obvious, moderate, and much lower 8-bp periodicities were observed in SineB1, IAP, and Line1 repeats, respectively (data not shown; see Materials and methods). These results seem consistent with the experiment using Dnmt3-mutant mice . The most parsimonious explanation is that the 12 maternally methylated DMRs are methylated by the same protein complex. By this expanded comparative analysis, we could successfully exclude the potential role of the 10-bp periodicity in the Impact imprinting described above . For the other 11 DMRs, further analysis of the kind presented here may facilitate the understanding of genomic imprinting. Considering the molecular mechanisms that are needed, characteristic features of genomic sequences in imprinted genes should be identified in order to elucidate the true nature of genomic imprinting.
As a step towards a better understanding of the establishment of DMRs, we took the unique approach of using comparative genomics. Only one species-specific imprinted gene was chosen, but various mammalian genomic DNAs were collected. The results are summarized by the following three points. First, direct tandem repeats, which are found only in murids, are dispensable for the imprinting. Second, establishment of the DMRs does not rely on of G+C content and CpG density. Finally, a CpG periodicity of 8 bp, but neither 9 nor 10 bp, may play an important role in the establishment of this imprinting. Serial duplication of this region could have resulted in the accumulation of this periodicity, which might be related to establishment of imprinting at this locus in the common ancestor of rodents and lagomorphs. These three are apparently true at least for the Impact gene. Nevertheless, the method and implication documented in the present study should be applied to many other loci in order to help understand the general molecular mechanisms of genomic imprinting.
Rodent and lagomorph tissues (livers or spleens) were generous gifts from the Royal Ontario Museum (ROM) in Toronto, Ontario, Canada. Rabbits and rats were derived from closed colonies maintained by Kitayama Labes (Ina, Nagano, Japan) and Clea Japan (Tokyo, Japan), respectively. The Japanese macaque (Macaca fuscata) brain was a gift from Dr Hiroyuki Okuno at University of Tokyo.
Genomic DNA was extracted from livers or spleens of rodents and cottontail, and from brains of a rabbit, rat, and macaque. The first round of PCR was performed using primers 5'- ATG GCT GAR GDG GAM KYA GGG A -3' (forward) and 5'- CAA AGT GTC CAT TTG GGG TCA TC -3' (reverse). The second round of PCR was performed using a pair of nested primers: 5'- AGG GAR CRR CCA GAG GCA G -3' (forward) and 5'- ACA CAC CAC TCC TCG CCA TA -3' (reverse). Both PCR reactions were performed in the presence of 3.5% dimethyl sulfoxide (DMSO). PCR products were treated with exonuclease I and shrimp alkaline phosphatase (Amersham, London, UK) for subsequent direct sequencing. Sequence data from this article has been deposited as [GenBank:EF470590-EF470605].
We used the EpiTect Bisulfite Kit (Qiagen, Germantown, MD, USA) for the bisulfite treatment of genomic DNA. Primers used for lemming, cottontail, and macaque were 5'- GTG AGG TTT TTY GGG TAG GGA AYG G -3' (forward), 5'- CAA TAA ACT CCA AAC CAA CCA CAA C TAT AC -3' (reverse), 5'- GTG AGG TTT YGG YGG GGY GTT GTT -3' (forward), 5'- CTA CCT ACA ACC CAC TAC TAC TCA ATC -3' (reverse), 5'- GTG AGG TTT YGG YGG GGT GTT GAT -3' (forward), and 5'- CAC CRT CCR AAA CAA ACC CAA CCC -3' (reverse), respectively. For each species, the amplified positions are 1-224, 1-240, and 1-227, respectively. Position 1 corresponds to the first nucleotide (the 5' end) of the intron and also to the position in the GenBank data.
CpG islands were detected with GrailEXP 3.31 . Mouse repetitive elements, that is, SineB1, IAP, and Line1, were identified by RepeatMasker Open-3.1.9 using a modified library . Other analyses, such as showing each CpG site and determining the frequencies of intervals between two CpG dinucleotide sites, were performed using Perl scripts, which are available upon request from KO.
We evaluated the statistical significance of the periodicities between imprinted and nonimprinted groups at distances from 2-50 bp using the one-tailed Fisher's exact test. We also employed the Bonferroni method for multiple testing correction of the p-values estimated from the tests . Among distances from 2-50 bp, 8 bp is the only periodicity that has a significantly higher count in the imprinted group than in the nonimprinted group at a significance level of 0.01 (Additional data file 1).
The following additional data are available. Additional data file 1 is a table showing the numeric data used to draw Figure 4 and the p-values of Fisher's exact test and Bonferroni correction for the periodicity of CpG sites.
We thank Dr Burton K Lim (Royal Ontario Museum, Toronto, Ontario, Canada) and Dr Hiroyuki Okuno (University of Tokyo) for the generous gift of tissue samples, and Dr Layla Parker-Katiraee (University of Toronto), Dr Kenta Nakai (University of Tokyo), and Dr Takashi Ito (University of Tokyo) for discussions. We acknowledge The Centre for Applied Genomics for DNA sequencing and Mr Pingzhao Hu for statistical analyses. Supported by KAKENHI (20870008), Genome Canada/Ontario Genomics Institute, the Canadian Institutes for Health Research (CIHR), the Canadian Institutes for Advanced Research, the McLaughlin Centre for Molecular Medicine, the Canadian Foundation for Innovation, the Ontario Ministry of Research and Innovation, and The Hospital for Sick Children Foundation. SWS holds the GlaxoSmithKline-CIHR Pathfinder Chair in Genetics and Genomics at the University of Toronto and The Hospital for Sick Children.
KO conceived of the study, performed experiments, analyzed data, and drafted the manuscript. RFW and SWS participated in the coordination of the study, interpretation of data, and helped draft the manuscript. All authors had the opportunity to discuss the results and comment on the final manuscript.
|
0.995279 |
Could you use some extra help in the business this summer and an excellent tax write-off? Putting your children work in your business, even if only for the summer, is one of the most underutilized tax-saving strategies today. It can also be a great way to teach your kids some work ethic, money-management skills, and kick start their retirement or college savings plan.
I've found that many business owners simply don't realize placing children under the age of 18 on the payroll, or even grandchildren or adult children, is an excellent strategy to minimize tax liability.
However, there are procedures you need to follow if you hire your children, and it is important you follow the right procedure or it could backfire on you.
Many business owners and parents don't realize that it’s not required to withhold any payroll taxes when you're paying your children under 18. This is the dreaded Federal Unmployment Tax Act (FUTA), State Unemployment Tax Act (SUTA), and Federal Insurance Contributions Act (FICA) taxes we all hate to withhold and match for our employees. Moreover, in almost every state you can waive your children out of any Workers' Compensation coverage, just like yourself, because you cover them under your family medical plan.
This provision to not withhold payroll taxes from your children under 18, only applies to Sole Proprietorships or a Limited Liability Company (LLC) taxed as a partnership and owned by mom and/or dad. However, if you have an S- or a C-corporation you do not receive this benefit of avoiding payroll taxes when paying your children. If you pay your children out of a corporation, you'll have to withhold payroll taxes.
To avoid the withholding problem, if you are an S- or C-Corporation, I recommend you pay children out of a family management company. This is established as a Sole Proprietorship owned by mom or dad to support the operations of the Corporation, and the family management company is then paid a management fee by the Corporation. This can be an excellent central entity to hire the kids and provide independent services to one or more of your companies.
If you are paying children over the age of 18 or grandchildren, you have the option of treating them as either as subcontractors or employees. You will thus have to issue a 1099-MISC form next January if they are truly acting like a subcontractor, or start a W-2 and withhold typical payroll taxes if they are employees.
Another exciting aspect to this strategy, is that all of us, including our children don't pay federal income taxes on the first $6,300 of income this year. It's called the Standard Deduction. Pay someone who isn't a relative to work for you, and they take that $6,300 of tax-free income home with them. Hire your child, and you keep it in the family. Plus, you can still claim your children on your tax return as a dependent and take the exemption, even take the Child Tax Credit.
Some business owners ask: "What about the 'kiddie tax'? Aren't the kids going to end up paying taxes on their income at our rates anyway?" The answer is no. The kiddie tax only applies to unearned or "portfolio" income and if the children are working in the business it will clearly be “earned” income.
I want to be crystal clear that I'm not advocating you create some sham job for your kids to shield income from taxes. They have to be legitimately involved in the business. If the Internal Revenue Service audits you, you'll have to produce records of their time worked, and you'll have to demonstrate that the wages paid were reasonable.
Do not hire your children simply to do "family chores." The chores will not qualify as a valid deduction, and you could set yourself up for an audit. Pay your children for services they perform for your business, and you'll actually generate an expense for your income taxes by pushing income to your children.
An incredible side benefit to this strategy is that once your kids have “earned” income they can now contribute to a Roth or Standard IRA. In fact, the Roth IRA contributions could be pulled out later for college expenses penalty and tax free (the earnings, of course, will continue to build and grow with the Roth IRA). This is a great opportunity to kick-start your their retirement savings or even college savings plan with tax-free dollars or income at their tax bracket.
My point is this: Quit paying taxes at your rates and paying for your kids expenses and contributing to their college savings plan…put them on the payroll and let them pay their own expenses.
I have seen this strategy not only save clients thousands of dollars in taxes, but literally change the lives of their families. Children begin to learn a work ethic, and it can draw a family together in ways never fathomed by small business owners. Talk to your accountant, and get your kids to work for you before it's too late.
|
0.988441 |
I am currently trying to implement a circuit for computing the greatest common divisor in the Quantum Computing Language. In my work, I partially proceed from the paper Quantum Circuits for GCD Computation with O(nlogn) Depth and O(n) Ancillae published by I. Markov and M. Saeedi in 2013, which may be found at arXiv http://arxiv.org/abs/1304.7516.
As you may see, the circuit entirely corresponds to the classical binary GCD algorithm. It takes advantage of quantum circuits for comparison, bit shift, addition and multiplication. Nevertheless, in our case those functions are controlled by state of ancillary qubits and thus, they may not regarded reversible on their own. It means, we have to account for a separate register of auxiliary qubits which cannot be erased till the end of our computation as it would simply violate desired reversibility otherwise.
But in contrast to that, in the paper we may find at least three statements which do actually deny those simple facts. Let me cite: (About preceding works) The authors did not clear all zero-initialized ancillae which limits the applicability of their techniques. (About the circuit) The zero-initialized ancillae may be modified in-side a given circuit, but should be returned to zero at the end of computation to be reused. (About implementation) To count ancillae, note that all computational ancillae are cleared inside each block. After the final multiplication block for R·B, one can copy (in log depth) the final GCD result to another n-qubit zero-initialized register and apply the whole circuit (except for copying the result) in reverse order to recover A,B, and zero-initialized ancillae. Given that all components use O(n) ancillae, the total number of ancillae remains linear.
I ask myself: How can be all ancillaes cleared at the end of each computational block while the binary GCD seems to be reversible only with regard to an auxiliary register of control qubits? It is apparent this question reduces to the problem of binary GCD reversibility which is actually something I am doubtful about. Maybe I lack of insight and the usage of other control bits is so obvious so as to omit it, however, in every case I would like to ask you about your view on the problem.
It looks like they just directly translated the algorithm into a circuit, so it's not too hard to reproduce.
Keep track of any intermediate values so you can uncompute them instead of leaking them. Also switch to a fixed number of iterations to avoid leaking the size of the inputs.
It takes $O(n)$ iterations to guarantee the inputs have been reduced all the way down, and each iteration requires $\Omega(\lg n)$ depth and $O(n)$ gates so the overall bound is $O(n^2)$ gates and $O(n \lg n)$ depth.
Now, all that being said, you need to be wary of the fact that the result is not totally coherent. Before doing interference-y stuff with it, I'd want to be a lot more careful about ensuring the stashed ancilla are independent of the computed gcd. Also you'd want to do any computation in the middle so that the result doesn't have to co-exist with the inputs.
But I hope this gives the general idea.
Not the answer you're looking for? Browse other questions tagged quantum-computing quantum-information or ask your own question.
Why isn't Montgomery modular exponentiation considered for use in quantum factoring?
Does cryptography have an inherent thermodynamic cost?
What complexity issues are there in considering quantum algorithms with infinite gate-sets?
When can be used the “uncompute garbage” trick in quantum computing?
What is the average sensitivity of a quantum circuit with depth $d$ and size $s$?
|
0.988156 |
Mortgage papers - should a lawyer review them?
Customs vary from state to state, but regardless of custom, we strongly recommend that you at least consult with a knowledgeable real estate attorney before you sign any papers if you are going to be purchasing or selling a home and/or obtaining or granting financing.
The purchase of a house is a major investment, and taking out a mortgage involves a major long-term expenditure. Paying a few extra dollars to a knowledgeable real estate lawyer at the time you are purchasing and financing the house usually can save you many times the legal fee over the years, not to mention possible legal problems. As discussed earlier, even the "mortgage contingency clause" may be critical to buyer and/or seller. A lawyer can help.
Real estate agents generally hate to see lawyers involved in real estate contracts, and some mortgage lenders also are not keen on the idea. From their perspective, lawyers can "kill the deal". Bad (read that to mean inexperienced) lawyers sometimes kill good deals. While good lawyers may suggest that a party kill a bad deal, they also often help convert a questionable deal into "win win".
For the real estate agent, mortgage broker and mortgage officer at a direct lender, even a very a bad deal generates a commission. On the other hand, for the home buyer or seller a bad deal can generate major problems and expense. For example, the lawyer might point out problems, such as the "easement" that allows a neighboring landowner to drive tractor trailer trucks through what would be your backyard. A lawyer might also give you advice to demand or reject conditions, such as responsibility for removing a leaking oil tank and cleaning up environmental damages.
|
0.939538 |
The Battle of the Argeș was a battle of the Romanian Campaign of World War I. Taking place on 1 December 1916, the battle was fought along the line of the Argeș River in Romania between Austro-German forces of the Central Powers and Romanian forces.
In late November 1916 Germano-Bulgarian forces under August von Mackensen crossed the Danube near Zimnicea under the cover of fog and began to march on Bucharest. The Romanians had transferred most of their forces to the Carpathians and as a result these forces had a preponderant advantage: 18 Romanian battalions and 48 artillery pieces against 40 German and Bulgarian battalions and 188 guns. This attack threatened to cut off half the Romanian army and so the decision was made to launch a counterattack. Relying upon the Russians to contain the fighting elsewhere, the plan entailed using all of the Romanian Army's reserves to launch a flanking attack on the German forces as they crossed the Argeș river, the last natural barrier before Bucharest.
The Russians did not agree to this plan of action, but nevertheless plans for the attack went ahead. The French sent a military mission to Romania and its commander, Henri Mathias Berthelot, who had been Joffre's chief of staff during the Battle of the Marne in 1914 felt that the attack could bring a similar success. In this regard he advocated the buildup of a Romanian forces, drawing divisions from the Danube and the Carpathians.
On 1 December the Romanian attack began. Initially, the Romanians experienced success, taking a large number of prisoners, however, the failure of their reserves to arrive due to the actions of the Romanian General Sosescu, who was a naturalized German, followed by the arrival of German reinforcements led to their weakening and eventual defeat. Mackensen was able to shift forces to deal with the sudden assault and Falkenhayn's forces responded with attacks at every point. Within three days, the attack had been shattered and the Romanians were retreating everywhere. Part of the Romanian Army was cut off from the city after German forces conducted a pincer movement north and south of the river. The Romanians suffered a considerable setback when a staff car carrying attack plans accidentally drove into a German position and was captured.
Before retreating, Romanian troops burned down the oil wells at Ploiești along with the surrounding wheat fields so as to keep them out of the hands of the Central Powers. After Falkenhayen's Ninth Army cut off a portion of the Romanian Army, the remainder retreated to the Siret–Putna defensive line, one of the outermost defensive lines of Bucharest. There they rendevouzed with the Bucharest garrison and prepared to hold the line.
After the battle, minor actions were fought in the fortifications surrounding Bucharest between the invading Germans and the Romanian reserves which had failed to arrive and the remnants of the defenders of the Sereth–Putna line, yet it was occupied by the Germans on 6 December 1916, which was the same day that southern Romania capitulated, as the monarchy had fled to Iași. Heavy rain and terrible roads were the only things that saved the remainder of the Romanian Army, which began to withdraw towards the Siret River and Russia, where the campaign drew to a close in January 1917. Romanian losses during the battle on the Argeș and the fighting that preceded it were very high, with about 300,000 being lost, around 150,000 of which were captured. In this same period, the Germans had suffered about 60,000 casualties.
The German heritage of General Alexandru Socec [ro], a subordinate of Constantin Prezan, has been the topic of several debates regarding the battle regarding the Romanian reserves.
^ a b "Weapons and Warfare (B)". The Probert Encyclopedia. Retrieved 30 May 2010.
^ Stone 1998, p. 279.
^ Burg & Purcell 2004, p. 145.
^ a b c d e Stone 1998, p. 280.
^ a b c Baldwin 1962, p. 85.
^ Thompson, Bryce & Petrie 1920, p. 620.
^ Willcox & Stuart 1917, p. 661.
^ a b c d Burg & Purcell 2004, p. 146.
^ King 1922, p. 258.
^ "The Balkan Wars and World War 1". Country Studies. Retrieved 31 May 2010.
Baldwin, Hanson (1962). World War I: An Outline History. London: Hutchinson & Co.
Burg, David F.; L. Edward Purcell (2004). Almanac of World War I. Lexington, Kentucky: The University Press of Kentucky. ISBN 0-8131-2072-1.
King, William (1922). King's Complete History of the World War. The History Associates.
Stone, Norman (1998) . The Eastern Front 1914–1917. London: Penguin. ISBN 978-0-14-026725-9.
Thompson, Holland; Bryce, James; Petrie, William (1920). The Book of History: The events of 1916 ... 1917 and Summary. The Grolier Society. p. 620.
Willcox, Cornélis; Stuart, Edwin (1917). International Military Digest, Volume 3. The Cumulative Digest Corporation. p. 661.
Colonist, The (5 December 1916). "The Battle of Argesul". Vol. LVIII (14277).
V. Hogg, Ian (28 September 2009). The A to Z of World War I. Scarecrow Press. p. 15.
This page was last edited on 7 March 2019, at 15:58 (UTC).
|
0.999999 |
Cookies are small text files downloaded on to a device when the user visits a website. On each subsequent visit, the cookies are sent back to the originating website (first-party cookies) or to another site that recognizes them (third-party cookies). Cookies are helpful because they allow a website to recognize the user's device. Cookies have different purposes, for example letting you navigate between pages efficiently, remembering your preferences, and generally improving your browsing experience. They also help ensure that the advertising content displayed online is more relevant to you and your interests. Depending on the function and purpose of use, cookies can be divided into technical cookies, profiling cookies and third-party cookies. This Site uses technical cookies and third-party cookies only.
Technical cookies are those used which do not require the user's consent, pursuant to article 122, paragraph 1, of the Italian Civil Code. Technical cookies include essential cookies, also called strictly necessary cookies, which enable functions, without which you would not be able to make full use of the website. These cookies are used exclusively by the Company and are therefore first-party cookies. They are stored on your computer only during the current browser session.
This type of cookie is also used to save your decision in relation to cookies on the website.
Technical cookies also include cookies used for statistical analysis related to accesses or visits to the Site, also called "analytics", which are for statistical purposes only (and not marketing or profiling purposes) and collect information in aggregate form without the possibility to identify any particular individual user. These cookies can be blocked and/or deleted using the browser settings. All modern browsers allow cookie settings to be modified. These settings are usually found in "options" or in the "favourites" menu of the User's browser. The following links can be useful for gaining an understanding of these settings, or the "Help" option on the browser can be used to get more information.
If cookie use is blocked, the service offered to the User through the Site will be limited and this will affect the Site use experience.
While browsing, the User may receive cookies from other websites or web servers on his/her device (so-called "third-party cookies"): this happens because the website may contain elements such as images, maps, sounds, specific links to webs pages of other domains hosted on servers different from where the page requested is. In other words, these cookies are set directly by website or server providers which are different from this website. These third parties could, in theory, set up cookies while you visit the website and thus obtain information on the fact that you have visited one of the Company's websites.
Article n. 7 of Italian Legislative Decree n.196, dated 30 June 2003.
1. Interested parties have the right to obtain confirmation of the existence or otherwise of their personal data, which may or may not be recorded, and its communication in an intelligible form.
e) the parties or the categories of parties to whom the personal data may be transmitted or who may learn of such data in their capacity as the designated local representative of the State, as managers or operators.
c) an attestation that the operations outlined in points a) and b) have been brought to the attention, including concerning content, of the parties to whom the data has been forwarded or circulated, except in cases where this is impossible or involves use of resources manifestly disproportionate to the right in question.
b) treatment of their personal data for the purpose of transmission of advertising or direct sales materials or for the performance of market surveys or of commercial communication.
|
0.999686 |
Kindness as an exercise for better health.
In our journey to live a happy and fulfilling life, where we seek to avoid pain and to gain pleasure (and hopefully to leave the world better than it was when we started), we often get caught up in the day to day tasks of basic survival and in fulfilling our hierarchy of needs. We often neglect taking the time to learn about and to create a body and mind that will take care of us as we grow older and one that helps us to achieve our goals.
We become so bogged down, or so stressed, that we easily lose focus from day to day and stop focusing on our dreams and on the outcomes we are truly after for our vision for life. Instead, we end up focusing on Facebook, games for distraction, negativity in the media, the latest gossip, or worse, we turn to drugs/alcohol to change our state.
Almost everyone has experienced some level of stress in at least half of these areas; if not all of them. However, those people who tend to feel the happiest and most fulfilled, are the ones who have learned to keep their stress levels down through exercising their calm and in-control muscles to a level where they won’t rise up and take over.
There are various ways to do this, including meditation, physical exercise, and practicing kindness and gratitude. Many people have learned various exercises for developing stronger, more defined, toned, and efficient muscles. Stretching exercises help keep the muscles, ligaments, and tendons supple, strong, and flexible. Cardiovascular exercise is known to be great for our heart, improving respiration and lung capacity. Breathing exercises not only help our lungs stay healthy, but also assist in cleansing the lymphatic system of toxins and the body’s waste products. Besides keeping our bodies healthy and strong, these physical exercises help us to age more gracefully and are also great for producing endorphins that provide positive energy and help to reduce negative stress. There are even exercises for the brain, to improve memory, learning, creativity, and quick thinking skills.
Meditation exercises can also allow one to reduce their heart rate, blood pressure, as well as stress and anxiety levels. All of these things are great for the body and mind, and just a few minutes focusing on improving these each day, can work wonders on allowing us to live a healthier and more fulfilling life. So where does kindness come in? Well, just like emotional stress produces the stress hormone cortisol, positive emotional comfort will often produce its counterpart, oxytocin, the calming hormone. This hormone is often increase during kind interactions, moments of trust, connection, and yes cuddling.
Often times these two work in tandem to produce the “just right” amount of chemicals for the body to function optimally. However, at times of high stress, they are more likely to battle. So, which one wins? Well that depends on how well you manage stress and which chemical is most prominent. Scientists have found that exercising kindness is one way in which we can create more of this helpful calming hormone; leaving you feeling loving and more tranquil. Not only that, but acts of kindness have been linked to an increase in the happiness hormone serotonin, and the pleasure and focus hormone, dopamine. This often occurs for the person receiving the kindness as well as the person performing it.
So this is where we ask, if you were training for superhero kindness, what exercises would you be doing to stay in shape and to make the world a better place?
What are some exercises you can practice for kindness?
|
0.999881 |
Many thanks to Tormod Ringvold for this fascinating feature, which records some of the very earliest impressions of a Procol Harum gig – from the Royer / Harrison line-up, in fact – that BtP has so far come across.
I bought this ticket, which I normally refer to as "The Tavistock Ticket", at the London Victoria Record Fair in May 1998. It is from a "Beat Dance" at Tavistock Town Hall on 16 June 1967 and is signed on the backside by Gary Brooker, Matthew Fisher, Bobby Harrison, Dave Knights and Ray Royer.
I was told that the ticket came from a collection of one of the organisers of the concerts in Tavistock, Devon, who had made it a habit of getting the groups to sign a ticket on the night. This man had recently died. There were several tickets, signed by other groups like The Troggs, The Tremeloes and Dave Dee Dozy Beaky Mick & Tich, but I went for Procol Harum.
There was one problem, however. In Shine On I could read "Procol played their last gig for some time at the Marquee Club - 12.6.1967." If this was true, what about my ticket ? With the help of Shine On, the Procol Harum expert Frans Steensma from Holland informed me that the final gig with Harrison / Royer in the line-up in fact was in Torquay on June 18. So far so good.
I wanted to know more about this event, and with the help of the internet, I found the local weekly newspaper of Tavistock, the Tavistock Times Gazette. I contacted the newspaper and told about the ticket, my fond interest in Procol Harum and asked if they had archives back to June 1967 - and if so, was there any mention of the concert?
Once again, the English enthusiasm and helpfulness showed. An answer came immediately. I was told they indeed had the archives, and they had found that the Procol Harum concert was mentioned on three successive Fridays, first one week before, then the 16th, and finally the week after. ( I ought to mention that the newspaper was issued only on Fridays in 1967).
I found out from the articles: back in the late sixties, the football club in Tavistock organised concerts at the town hall. The football club's social secretary, Dave Spurrell, did a great job in booking groups just before they hit the big time. Among the groups that played in Tavistock were The Troggs and The Tremeloes. On June 16th 1967, with A Whiter Shade Of Pale at No 1, Procol Harum played in Tavistock.
Dave Spurrell had died some years ago. This must have been the man who got the tickets signed. It fits in well with the story the vendor told me. But first, back to 1967.
A knack that a Brian Epstein might envy. That's what Tavistock electrician Dave Spurrell has. The knack is picking winners from the score of groups on the pop scene. Dave finds them with monotonous regularity. First it was the Troggs. They were just another group when, as Tavistock soccer club's social secretary, he booked them for a fund-raising beat dance. When they arrived they were on the crest of a wave.
He followed this with the Tremeloes. Right on the heels of their appearance at Tavistock came their chart-topping disc, Silence is Golden. Now it's third time lucky. Dave is slap on target with his choice of the Procol Harum. Unknown a few weeks ago, now they top the hit parade with their sensational A Whiter Shade of Pale. Next Friday they will be starring at the soccer club's dance at the Town Hall.
Their leap to the top of the charts was closely copied by a leap in their booking fee. Dave is cagey about how much he is actually paying the Procol Harum (the name belongs to a pedigree Persian cat). But he'll be lucky if the group's five members take away less than £ 40 apiece.
Tonight's the night. Theoretically at any rate, it should be the beat dance of the year,. Procol Harum, brand new on the pop scene but already at the top with their sensational A Whiter Shade of Pale, are booked for Tavistock Town Hall by Tavistock Football Club. And after the treatment they have received on television, it should be a Town Hall sell-out.
Hundreds of teenagers poured into Tavistock on Friday night to hear Procol Harum beat group play at the Town Hall.
They came by coach, motor-cycle, bus - and the odd vintage car to see the group who are currently at number one in the hit parade. All the latest fashions were desported in the town's streets and public houses. There were mini-skirts, trouser suits and all the latest Carnaby Street creations. And inside there was terrific excitement as around 500 youngsters danced to the Inner Circle group - and waited for the Harum to arrive.
When Times reporter John L Brook went to interview the group back stage, he ended up being interviewed himself. For lead guitarist Ray Royer is an old friend and he wanted to talk about the "good old days" in Romford, Essex, where John and his wife Jill ran a club. Ray used to be a member of the club.
The fans screamed as the group went on stage to play for an hour. The group's hit record, A Whiter Shade Of Pale, has rocketed from nowhere to top of the charts. The five boys are still surprised about this.
I got a copy of the newspaper [right] by mail, just in time for sending the text to Jens Anders before he went to England to lunch with Gary Brooker. Jens Anders had shown it to Gary, who had read it with great interest.
Click here to read a transcription of this whole, fascinating article.
|
0.944219 |
System of equations are more than one equations which contain the same solution. To solve a system of equations we require the same number of equations as the number of unknown variables. An equations can consist of one or more than one unknown variables with different coefficient numbers and constant numbers.
Example 1: Solve the system of equations x - y = 15 and x + y = 25?
Solution: The given equations are x - y = 15 and x + y = 25.
From one equation x = 15 + y, substituting in the other equation.
This gives 15 + y + y = 25; 15 + 2y = 25; 2y = 10; y = 5.
Now substitute y = 5 in x + y = 25; x = 20.
Hence the solution is x = 20 and y = 5.
Example 2: Solve the system of equations x - y = 11 and x + y = 7?
Solution: The given equations are x - y = 11 and x + y = 7.
From one equation x = 11 + y, substituting in the other equation.
This gives 11 + y + y = 7; 2y + 11 = 7; 2y = 18; y = 9.
Now substitute y = 9 in x + y = 7; x = -2.
Hence the solution is x = 9 and y = 2.
|
0.999999 |
Look over the following questions. Think about how you are being treated and how you treat your partner. Remember, when one person scares, hurts or continually puts down the other person, it's abuse.
—Embarrass or make fun of you in front of your friends or family?
—Put down your accomplishments or goals?
—Make you feel like you are unable to make decisions?
—Use intimidation or threats to gain compliance?
—Tell you that you are nothing without them?
—Treat you roughly - grab, push, pinch, shove or hit you?
—Call, text, or email you several times a day or show up to make sure you are where you said you would be?
—Use drugs or alcohol as an excuse for saying hurtful things or abusing you?
—Blame you for how they feel or act?
—Pressure you sexually for things you don't want to do?
—Make you feel like there "is no way out" of the relationship?
—Prevent you from doing things you want - like spending time with your friends or family?
—Try to keep you from leaving after a fight or leave you somewhere after a fight to “teach you a lesson”?
—Sometimes feel scared of how your partner will act?
—Constantly make excuses to other people for your partner's behavior?
—Believe that you can help your partner change if only you changed something about yourself?
—Try not to do anything that would cause conflict or make your partner angry?
—Always do what your partner wants you to do instead of what you want?
—Stay with your partner because you are afraid of what your partner would do if you broke up?
|
0.982746 |
Q: I'm coming in for blood work, should I be fasting?
A: It depends, and it's always worth asking before coming in.
This is a general guideline: If your blood work includes measurement of glucose (sugar), cholesterol or insulin, plan to come early, after a 12 hour fast - you may have water.
|
0.999989 |
Why are American Indians and Alaska Natives getting Cancer?
One of the most common questions that I get when I meet with tribal leaders and community members is “why are more of our tribal members getting cancer?” Often they mention a concern about environmental exposures or possible unknown factors. However, there are many known causes of cancer, and several of them are preventable. For example, obesity, smoking, and alcohol use are common in our communities and they are risk factors for cancer. One of the risk factors is simply age, and since our population is growing older, the risk for cancer also increases. I encourage everyone to talk with their doctor about how to reduce their personal risk for cancer and to learn more about what they can do. Even though we cannot change some things (like getting older!), we can take action to reduce our risk for cancer by stopping smoking, engaging in regular physical activity, making healthier food choices, and getting regular medical check-ups. Here’s a good website from the National Cancer Institute Exit Disclaimer: You Are Leaving www.ihs.gov on what you need to know about risk factors for cancer.
|
0.999497 |
What fairly describe about East Java province, is coming from Surabaya. Surabaya is the official capital of the province, Surabaya is also the second largest city after Jakarta. Surabaya is known as The City Of Heroes, and such a metropolitan city.
Surabaya is a multy-ethnic city, where there are numbers of ethnics and tribe inside, the growing industry is also increase, together with the increasing of tourism field. There are some section that divided the tourism in Surabaya, which is about the cultural, historical and modern site of tourism.
Guide To Surabaya application is your personal guide that privately drive the tourists who want to give visit to Surabaya. At this application, there are numbers of valuable information regarding the Surabaya tourism destinations, culinary, public services and other details info that completed by high resolution pictures. Before you get you backpacking bag, check the detail information about Surabaya here in your hand.
|
0.98835 |
What does circuit limits i.e price bands mean?
These are safeguards set to prevent large moves in the stock in a very short time and when the price changes above or below the limit, trading is halted on the stock. The price band is the range within which the scrip can be traded without being halted.
Orders placed out of the price band will be rejected, and if the price drops to the upper/lower price band trading will temporarily be halted. F&O stocks have dynamic price bands in order to prevent erroneous order placement.
|
0.999419 |
First of all you obviously need shade and good soil that contains organic materials. If your soil is too sandy it will drain water too quickly drying the plants out. Add compost or manure if you need to. Then select your plants. Plants to consider include many varieties of Hostas, Lily of the Valley, Coral Bells, Astilboides, Pulmonaria, Rodgersia, Trillium, and Goundcovers like Baltic Ivy, Myrtle, Pachysandra, Lamium, and Ginger. Some shade plants will tolerate some sun. The best way to find out which plants will do well with your soil and light conditions is to experiment with them.
|
0.641999 |
President Donald Trump renewed claims that Special Counsel Robert Mueller has “conflicts of interest” that should bar him from probing Russian interference into the 2016 election, saying the pair had a business relationship.
In a series of tweets targeting Mueller’s credibility, Trump alleged he had “a very nasty & contentious business relationship” with Mueller.
The message marked the first time Trump publicly elaborated on prior vague claims of conflicts of interest regarding Mueller.
“Is Robert Mueller ever going to release his conflicts of interest with respect to President Trump, including the fact that we had a very nasty & contentious business relationship, I turned him down to head the FBI (one day before appointment as SC) & Comey is his close friend,” Trump said.
In January, The New York Times reported that Trump had tried to fire Mueller in June 2017 but backed down after White House Counsel Don McGahn threatened to resign if the president made him follow through with the order.
Trump, the Times said, cited three conflicts of interest Mueller had that disqualified him from the high-profile probe.
The alleged conflicts included: a dispute over fees at Trump National Golf Club; work for a law firm that once represented the president’s son-in-law Jared Kushner; and an interview for FBI director a day before being named special counsel.
Trump, who has called the probe — which also seeks to determine whether the ex-reality TV star’s campaign team colluded with Russia and whether he obstructed justice — a “witch hunt” and repeatedly demanded it be ended, claimed that Mueller’s team is filled with Democrats.
Mueller is a Republican like Trump, as is Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein, who hired the special counsel, and Attorney General Jeff Sessions.
In his tweets, Trump also said the investigation was triggered by a damning dossier compiled by former British intelligence agent Christopher Steele, and questioned why Mueller wasn’t investigating Democrats.
“There is No Collusion! The Robert Mueller Rigged Witch Hunt, headed now by 17 (increased from 13, including an Obama White House lawyer) Angry Democrats, was started by a fraudulent Dossier, paid for by Crooked Hillary and the DNC. Therefore, the Witch Hunt is an illegal Scam!” Trump said.
Mueller’s team recently indicted a dozen Russian intelligence agents for hacking into Democratic party computers. Four members of the Trump campaign also have been charged for alleged crimes, but they were not directly linked to collusion.
|
0.970622 |
On a job site, it's important that you have the right construction equipment. For instance, on some projects, you may need a wide range of air equipment, such as air movers or an air compressor. Learning a little more about compressed air equipment should help you see why these tools are so important for construction operations across the nation.
Essentially, air equipment is a tool that uses compressed air to complete certain tasks. Almost every construction site uses air equipment in some fashion. For example, during a construction project, an air compressor can be used to power a variety of tools, including important items such as jackhammers.
At the end of a construction project, an air mover can be used for cleanup. In addition to blowing a construction site clear of dirt and debris, an air mover can help remove moisture from a worksite. Air movers are also commonly used in janitorial operations or companies that specialize in repairing water damage.
Both commercial and industrial operations can benefit from using air equipment. The equipment you choose, however, will largely depend on the needs of your specific project.
The most common situation in which to use compressed air equipment, such as an air compressor, is powering a construction tool that runs on compressed air. Although a wide variety of tools are powered by compressed air, they will generally fall into one of two categories: Pneumatic tools and percussion tools.
Pneumatic tools are based on rotation. A perfect example would be a pneumatic drill, which uses a small air compressor to help you drill a hole. Nail guns, which are common on construction projects, are also pneumatic tools.
Percussive tools are also powered by compressed air. A jackhammer is a type of percussive tool that most people are familiar with, and it functions by repeatedly striking a surface.
Without an air compressor, you may not be able to power the equipment you need to complete your construction project. Having a quality air compressor on hand will ensure that you have the power you need to get work done quickly and effectively.
Using air equipment on a construction site is not without its risks. If you need to use this equipment, it's important that you learn about some of the potential hazards so you can stay safe.
Air compressors, as their name suggests, work by using pressure, which means there's always the chance that pressure will rise to an unsafe level. For example, if too much pressure builds inside of the air compressor, it can cause the container to rupture, which is obviously a very dangerous situation.
Most air compressors are electric-powered. Others, however, can run off gasoline or oil. If you're using a gas- or oil-powered air compressor, you must be aware of the possibility of fuel leaks. When a leak occurs, it also means there's a risk of fire. Foreign particles also pose a threat to your safety when using an air compressor. If water is allowed to infiltrate the compressor tank, for example, it may cause an explosion. Other foreign particles, such as oil, can cause a fire if they make their way into your air compressor.
Finally, there is some risk of overheating when using an air compressor, particularly if you are using this piece of equipment for an extended period of time. Some of the parts in your air compressor can easily catch fire if they are allowed to overheat, so you should take proper precautions.
There are several tips you should follow to safely operate air equipment. First and foremost, make sure that anyone using the equipment is qualified to be doing so. Second, you should monitor the pressure gauge to make sure the pressure in your system isn't rising too high. Third, make sure any tools you're powering with your air compressor are receiving the correct amount of pressure.
How Can I Rent Air Equipment?: The best way to rent air equipment is by working with BigRentz. It provides a variety of equipment designed for construction sites, including air compressors.
How Long Can I Rent Air Equipment?: If you rent through Big Rentz, you can rent air equipment by the day, week, or month.
How Do I Power My Air Equipment?: To make sure your air equipment runs correctly, you'll need the appropriate electrical hookup. The voltage you'll need depends on the size of your air compressor.
As you can see, air equipment is extremely important for a construction site. Whether you need an air compressor or an air mover, air equipment can help you successfully complete your important construction jobs.
|
0.965065 |
How do walruses sleep in the water without drowning?
Pharyngeal pockets enable walruses to bob up and down at the surface with ease.
If you've read How Walruses Work elsewhere on this site, then you're already familiar with the way male walruses use the pharyngeal muscles near their throats as flotation devices while they serenade potential mates. Along with propping up the males in the water, the air sacs help them produce their characteristic bell-like sounds, which the ladies apparently find irresistible.
The pharyngeal pouches, located on either side of the walrus's esophagus, are essentially expandable elastic pockets that can hold up to 13 gallons (50 liters) of air [source: MarineBio]. When filled, these pouches enable walruses to bob up and down in a vertical position, keeping their heads above water.
Females also use this position when they nurse their young. The calves nurse upside down as the female bobs along effortlessly, like a buoy. Along with aiding the females with nursing and the males with serenading, the muscles also prevent water from entering the animals' mouths when they dive underwater. Of course, at this point, the pouches aren't inflated -- that would make the average 262-foot (80-meter) dive out of the question [source: SeaWorld].
Floating along aimlessly in the ocean isn't ideal, even for walruses, so the animals generally hook their tusks over stable ice floes to keep from drifting off. Since walruses have few natural predators, they don't really have to worry about being eaten while they slumber either. If another animal decided to make a meal of a napping walrus, the water would actually be the toothy beast's best chance of escape.
For more on walruses and related topics, try some of the links floating around below.
Schliemann, Harald. "Grzimek's Encyclopedia of Mammals." Vol IV. McGraw-Hill. 1990.
|
0.949521 |
Yes, you need a travel adapter (plug adapter) for a trip from Australia to the Marshall Islands. On the Marshall Islands, people are using different power plugs and power outlets that are not compatible with plugs from Australia!
Which types of power plugs are used on the Marshall Islands?
The Marshall Islands use power plugs of type A and B. Power outlets of type I, which are common in Australia, are not in use on the Marshall Islands.
|
0.998177 |
Article Titles Military ball to feature Dean Hudson's orchestra -- Tri Sigma ends week of rites; installation held -- Speech Tournaments to be held at FSC -- Glenn Cunningham will appear here Wednesday night -- Senate adds two to body; okays expenses -- Entertainment and noted guests billed for founders' festivities -- Casts named for "Mikado" and comedy -- Ex Chancellor heads roster of Speakers -- Officers named; movies, contest planned at CU -- Students Elect Frosh Officers; Pass Amendment -- Miss Southern, '55 to receive crown at annual pageant -- Get Set, Ready...? -- Southern Exposure / By Pat Glover -- Hey, You! / By Charles Finley -- They joiner --- A warning -- Former FSC students get army assignments -- New hope for IFC -- Senate Adds -- Southern Co-ed named Queen of light pageant -- FSC Meets Erskine tonight -- Moccasins edge Tars, Charleston before defeat by Hurricanes -- Indies nail down league crown; SAE top scorers -- Women's sports news / By Effie Fairchild -- Kappa Delta picks new local officers -- Moccasins edge -- Students elect -- Southrn classified -- ROTC units march in Tampa Parade.
Photographs Dean Hudson to play at military ball -- Florida Southern College coeds initiated Monday afternoon in to Beta Phi chapter of Sigma Sigma Sigma sorority are, front row, left to right, Patty Palmer, Daisy Mitchell, Fran Kerber, Claire Ellis, Eleanor Zundel, Alice Palmer, and Doris Hagers. Second row, Carolyn Burt, Geri Lynch, helen Highsmith, Caroline Nelson, Pat, Harlow, Lillian Banc, Myrna Reams, Janet Bundy, Shirley Englert, and Carolyn Bridges -- Pictured above is the Moc varsity crew as they practice on Lake Hollingworth looking forward to the Founders' Week regatta. members of the varsity shell are, left to right, bow - Roger Woodruff, No.2 - Chuck nelson, No.3 - Keith Lowe, No.4 - Walt Strain, No.5 - Howie jones, No.6 - Ken pfeil, No.7 - John Frosz, Stroke - Steve Pots and Coxswain - Tom Karahalios (p.3) / By Wille -- New initiates of Gamma Epsilon, 85th chapter of Kappa Delta are as follows: front row, left to right: Charlotte Fink, Nancy McConnell, Pixie Wilson, Carol Ungro, Jane Brassler, and Gaines Moss. Back row, left to right: Jo Zimmer, Marty Male, and Evelyn Harrington. Those not pictured are Jane McMullen, Joan Petteway, Marty Grace, polly Husky, and Barbara Reedy (p.4).
Article Titles Military ball to feature Dean Hudson's orchestra -- Tri Sigma ends week of rites; installation held -- Speech Tournaments to be held at FSC -- Glenn Cunningham will appear here Wednesday night -- Senate adds two to body; okays expenses -- Entertainment and noted guests billed for founders' festivities -- Casts named for "Mikado" and comedy -- Ex Chancellor heads roster of Speakers -- Officers named; movies, contest planned at CU -- Students Elect Frosh Officers; Pass Amendment -- Miss Southern, '55 to receive crown at annual pageant.
Photographs Dean Hudson to play at military ball -- Florida Southern College coeds initiated Monday afternoon in to Beta Phi chapter of Sigma Sigma Sigma sorority are, front row, left to right, Patty palmer, Daisy mitchell, Fran Kerber, Claire Ellis, Eleanor Zundel, Alice Palmer, and Doris Hagers. Second row, Carolyn Burt, Geri Lynch, helen Highsmith, Caroline Nelson, Pat, Harlow, Lillian Banc, Myrna Reams, Janet bundy, Shirley Englert, and Carolyn Bridges.
|
0.998138 |
About 20 pumpkins were taken early in the morning, the person drove up, wiped them off with a towel, and put them into his car.
Pretty sad that someone would rob a small local business and farm like this..
The suspect was driving a grey hatchback and is described as a middle-aged white male.
|
0.998375 |
Follow the instructions on the box for "pudding pie" pudding.
Place a layer of graham crackers, cover with some of the pudding, and then add a layer of cherry pie filling. Then start the process over, until you reach the desired amount.
|
0.984237 |
(CNN) -- President Obama will be hitting the road Thursday and Friday for a campaign-style bus tour of New York and Pennsylvania.
The president said he intends to focus on proposals aimed at curbing rising cost of higher education.
"My plan includes real reforms that would bring lasting change. They won't all be popular with everyone -- including some who've made higher education their business --but it's past time that more of our colleges work better for the students they exist to serve," the president said in an email to supporters this week.
Obama has spent much of the summer on similar trips, going in early August to Arizona and California, where he spoke on economic issues including the recovering housing market.
The two-day trip this week will take a similar tone.
The president will speak at the University of Buffalo Thursday morning and Henninger High School in Syracuse, New York, in the evening; ideal backdrops for young voters concerned with the cost of college tuition. On Friday, he will speak with Vice President Joe Biden in Scranton, Pennsylvania.
In the e-mail, Obama maintained that affordable college tuition is critical to middle class families, saying "we have to fundamentally rethink about how higher education is paid for in this country. We've got to shake up the current system."
Student loans -- another critical element in the cost of higher education -- were a topic of fierce debate before Congress took its August recess.
In the end, legislation was passed to keep interest rates on loans down, but only after intense negotiations and gridlock that forced the law to be enacted retroactively, since lawmakers were unable to come to a consensus before rates rose.
The White House has been heavily publicizing the bus tour, touting it as on topic in the larger theme of "A Better Bargain for the Middle Class."
In a statement provided to CNN on Thursday morning, the White House outlined more details of the proposed changes, which include tying "financial aid to college value" based on a new ranking system to be carried out by the Department of Education.
The proposal also advocates for a "pay as you earn" system for the repayment of debt, by which borrowers would be able to "cap their federal student loan payments at 10 percent of their monthly income." Currently, this option is only available to those students who began taking on student loans after 2008, or who have not borrowed since 2011.
Additionally, the president's plan recommends tying academic progress to the distribution of student aid, specifically suggesting that students "complete a certain percentage of their classes before receiving continued funding", which the White House says would encourage more students to graduate on time, thus incurring less debt.
|
0.999897 |
Workout timing: What's the best time of day to workout?
How Can I Motivate To Diet and Exercise?
Physical fitness is important in everyone’s life. Fitness promotes good mental and physical health, helps control weight, and can even help alleviate sleep problems. There are numerous programs that can help you to set and reach your fitness goals.
Some fitness programs focus on specific types of exercise. The most popular types of exercise programs emphasize aerobics or weight training. Besides aerobic and muscular training, it is important to work on improving flexibility, stability, and balance. Most fitness trainers promote a mix of exercises that should improve fitness in all of those areas.
Aerobic exercise involves movement that causes the heart and lungs to work harder, thereby leading to healthier hearts and lungs. Some of the more popular aerobics exercises are: walking, running, cross-country skiing, swimming, bicycling, water aerobics, and aerobic dance.
Weight training, also called strength training, usually involves the use of weights. A training program can involve the use of free weights or a variety of weight machines. Some callisthenic exercises such as pull-ups and push-ups are also used for strength training. It is a good idea for at least part of any fitness program to involve weight-bearing exercises. This type of exercise helps to avoid osteoporosis and bone fracture problems that can arise later in life. Weight-bearing exercises include walking, running, dancing, and weight training.
All fitness programs generally stress stretching as a means of promoting flexibility. Activities such as yoga are also popular for improving flexibility and balance.
Reduces the health risks of heart disease, osteoporosis, high blood pressure, diabetes, and obesity.
Reduces some effects of aging.
Helps keep joints, ligaments, and tendons flexible.
Can reduce depression and improve the sense of well being.
Increases metabolism, which can help control weight.
If you are planning to start a vigorous fitness program, it may be wise to consult your physician first. Checking with a physician is specifically recommended for men over age 40, and women over age 50. It is also recommended for anyone who has chronic health problems such as diabetes, high blood pressure, heart disease, osteoporosis, asthma, or obesity. Pregnant women should also consult their physicians. Generally, you do not need to see a physician about beginning moderate activities such as walking.
Choose exercise activities you enjoy.
Start slowly in order to avoid injury.
Find a group or friend to work out with.
Try exercising at different times of day to learn what suits you best.
Vary your exercise activities to help avoid getting bored.
|
0.97134 |
Form your Fellowship and set out on your own adventures in The Lord of the Rings: Journeys in Middle-earth, a fully-cooperative, app-supported board game set in J.R.R. Tolkien's iconic land of Middle-earth! As the dark forces gather, players band together to unravel mysteries, make courageous choices, and fight against the evil that threatens the land.
No matter if you choose to set out on your own or venture forth with four other players, a free companion app takes control of the evil forces arrayed against you, freeing you and your companions to stand together in a single Fellowship and battle against the darkness. What's more, the app guides you through entire campaigns, filling each adventure with content from a host of possibilities and allowing you to leave your own mark on Middle-earth.
|
0.977101 |
Enzymology. A group of enzymes of the class of the hydrolases. Phospholipases catalyze the breaking down of phospholipids into fatty acids and other lipophilic substances. There are four major classes distinguished by what type of reaction they catalyze: phospholipase A, phospholipase B, phospholipase C, and phospholipase D.
|
0.999872 |
How might new economic incentives impact educator performance? There are plenty of plans afoot to restructure teacher and principal compensation (many of which are some version of merit pay), but what economic role might these plans actually play?
First, whether we like it or not, economic incentives are already impacting the teaching and school leadership ranks. Educators are employees, and employees have a choice of both their industry and their employer. Some very good educators feel they have little choice but to leave the profession for reasons unrelated to their love of or success in teaching.
The perennial shortage of qualified science and math teachers is a prime example. As Richard Ingersoll notes, the shortage is caused overwhelmingly by turnover, not retirement and demographic shifts. If people are underpaid, unmotivated, or otherwise unhappy with their jobs, they can quit and do something else for a living. Many of the people who do just that are excellent teachers who find tremendous joy in working with students, but for whom other factors override the motivation to stay in teaching.
Second, it is intuitive to people in most industries that one's pay should be commensurate with one's contribution to the organization. If you don't produce results as an insurance salesperson, a manager, or an attorney, you'll find yourself out of money or out of a job. Career educators understand that they work within fixed salary schedules, and rely on intrinsic motivation to do a good job.
Working as an educator is a form of public service, and most public servants aren't paid on a performance basis. There are many technical and sociological reasons for this, such as our limited ability to measure productivity and individual contributions in many parts of the public sector. Historically, public service has offered greater job security, but less lucrative compensation opportunities, than the private sector. In Max Weber's conception of bureaucracy, lifetime employment is a given, and pay-for-performance is out of the question. This is the heritage of public education.
However, lifetime employment is far from the norm today, even among public employees such as educators. Accordingly, we can no longer structure the profession on the assumption that all educators are "lifers" with uniformly noble, intrinsic motivation. Career-changers represent a rapidly growing segment of the teaching workforce, and if we pay no attention to the range of factors that motivate people, we risk creating perverse incentives.
I don't think anyone consciously thinks "Hey, I'm somewhat lazy, so I'll pick a job that pays me a guaranteed salary regardless of whether I'm mediocre - how about teaching?" But the lack of a direct link between performance and compensation inevitably creates an economic incentive toward mediocrity.
Let me be clear on what I do and don't mean by this. I don't mean that good teachers will decide to become mediocre once they realize there's no extra pay for doing a good job. I don't mean that unsuccessful used car salesmen will file into our nation's classrooms, seeking an easy paycheck. I don't mean that teachers will work harder and do a better job if we dangle the carrot of bonus pay in front of them, but remain mediocre in the absence of a merit pay scheme (indeed, there is so far no evidence that this works).
I do, however, mean that there's a reason most private industries don't structure their compensation the way we do in public education. For many, many people, the link between their work (input) and their compensation (output) is extremely important. Being focused on a few, specific goals, and having a tangible mandate (such as a compensation link) can be very powerful.
Briefly, then, I would argue that economic incentives can change both the composition of the education workforce—who enters and chooses to remain in teaching—and the performance of educators.
None of this suggests, though, that any particular new pay scheme for educators is better than the current system. Even if such a plan "works," we must be very careful about the kind of incentives we're creating, or we might not like the results (e.g. when teachers focus on reading and math to the exclusion of art and science). The details of new compensation plans matter a great deal, as do the conditions under which they are developed.
What economic incentives do you see at work in today's education reform climate, and what do you think of them?
|
0.941482 |
Have you made Buttery Hazelnut Tea Cookies?
1. Electric Mixer: Cream the butter and sugar together.
2. Add the egg yolk, flour and allspice, and blend until well mixed.
3. Pat the dough into a 10-1/2x10-1/2" square on an ungreased cookie sheet.
4. Brush with egg white and sprinkle with the roasted hazelnuts.
5. Bake in a 275 oven for 1 hour, 20 minutes, or until the cookies are a light golden brown.
6. Cut into approximately 1-1/2" squares while still warm.
|
0.999983 |
Should we talk to aliens?
As widely reported, physicist Stephen Hawking has warned us not to talk to aliens. His concern arises from an analogy between the supposed possible character of advanced aliens and the observed historical behavior of colonizers on Earth.
While Hawking is an excellent physicist, I suspect his credentials in sociology are no better than yours or mine. The technology that enables a colonizer to cross oceans and conquer continents has a far lower natural benevolence barrier than the technology that enables an advanced alien to cross galaxies and conquer worlds -- an assumption on which the New God Argument is based. Moreover, assuming advanced aliens exist out there, it's hard to believe they don't know we're here, which is what Hawking appears to be assuming.
|
0.993286 |
The World Obesity Federation have classified obesity as a disease.
In their paper, Dr. G.A. Bray, from the Pennington Biomedical Research Center of Louisiana State University in Baton Rouge, and colleagues explain how their consensus statement follows a controversial debate that has been ongoing for a hundred years, and which has culminated in more and more medical bodies - including the American Medical Association - agreeing that obesity is a disease.
Since 1980, global obesity rates have more than doubled, and it has reached the point where most people live in countries where being overweight or obese is a bigger cause of death than being underweight.
To make their case for defining "obesity as a chronic progressive relapsing disease process," Dr. Bray and colleagues use the "epidemiological model" of disease.
In the epidemiological model, there is "an environmental agent that acts on a host to produce a disease," and the disease is "related to the virulence of the agent and the susceptibility of the host."
The authors argue that food is the primary environmental agent for obesity. The typically Western diet is abundant in low-cost, tasty, and convenient foods that provide "pleasurable rewards from eating" by triggering the same parts in the brain - the "pleasure centers" - that are activated by addictive substances.
The authors also put forward the case for considering decline in physical activity as a second disease cause of obesity. The decline has happened at the same time as foods in the Western diet becoming cheaper and more abundant, providing a double driver of obesity.
As well as the two main agents - food and decline in physical activity - the authors note that various other environmental factors also contribute to increased obesity, including reduced sleep, some medications, endocrine disruptors, and older parental age.
More than one third of adults in the United States are obese.
Obesity is higher among middle-aged and older adults in the U.S.
In 2008, the average medical cost in the U.S. for an adult with obesity was $1,429 higher than for one of a normal weight.
In discussing host-side factors, Dr. Bray and colleagues explain that more than 100 genes have been identified as risk factors for obesity, with some - such as those that cause defects in leptin - having a bigger effect than others.
Also, in people who are genetically predisposed to obesity, unused energy from food collects as excess fat in fat cells.
The authors argue that the fact that these fat cells get bigger or more numerous to store the excess energy are the pathological effects of the disease.
Another pathological effect of obesity, they suggest, is the increase in inflammation that results from the changes to fat cells interacting with the accompanying change in the composition of gut microbes.
Dr. Bray and colleagues conclude that while obesity is "a non-communicable disease process," the epidemiological model that they describe of obesity shows that it has a "number of features in common with a 'communicable disease' including environmental agents, and the host responses to these agents."
Dr. Bray says that an important reason for viewing obesity as a disease is that it draws attention away from patients being solely responsible for their condition and focuses it on how to tackle the disease process.
He also adds that "it shows that if we can successfully treat obesity, many of its associated diseases will be eliminated."
In an accompanying comment letter, other experts highlight the arguments against classifying obesity as a disease, but eventually conclude that, on balance, the arguments in favor of such a decision outweigh them.
It could be argued, they note, that obesity should not be classed as a disease because it is "primarily a risk factor for other conditions rather than a disease in its own right." Also, by "medicalizing" the condition, such a move effectively declares that a significant proportion of the population is "ill."
They suggest that it could also fuel fears of an increased reliance on drugs and surgery and may reduce emphasis on tackling obesity through public health measures that address the fundamental social and commercial causes.
On the other hand, they say that defining obesity as a disease could help people who have it to access medical support as well as strengthen the call for action to deal with the social, environmental, and systemic causes of weight gain.
Such a move may also reduce the internalized stigma that affects some people with obesity, and alter the public view of who is to blame for the condition.
"Whilst recognition of obesity as a disease has the potential to over-medicalize a problem of societal origins, it also has the potential to improve treatment access and outcomes and can serve to strengthen measures to reduce the obesogenicity of the environment to which the population is exposed."
Learn why some people may have a sweet tooth.
|
0.986964 |
Research being conducted by John Gottman and his colleagues involves inviting married couples into a pleasant setting, in which they revisit the disagreement that caused their last argument. If they can do this in an open and comfortable way, they can become quite intimate in an intellectual area. They may be shocked to think that they were engaged in an intimate activity with each other, however from an experiential point of view, they would be very intimately involved. Until the late s, the majority of studies were non-experimental. Love is qualitatively and quantitatively different from liking , and the difference is not merely in the presence or absence of sexual attraction.
One team of researcher from Northwestern University who summarised the literature in , found that 'negative-affect reciprocity', which is retaliatory negativity between partners during a conflict, is arguably the most robust predictor of poor marital quality. Relationships based on virtue are built on an attraction to the others' virtuous character. There are three types of love in a relationship: Aristotle believed that by nature humans are social beings. Imagine observing two house painters whose brushstrokes seemed to be playing out a duet on the side of the house. Participants consisted mostly of college students, experimental methods and research were being conducted in laboratories and the experimental method was the dominant methodology in social psychology. People are attracted to relationships that provide utility because of the assistance and sense of belonging that they provide. However, this degradation can be softened, according to their heterosexual couple strong Chicago sample, by undertaking a reappraisal writing task every 4 months. The emotional connection of "falling in love", however, has both a biochemical dimension, driven through reactions in the body stimulated by sexual attraction PEA, phenylethylamine , and a social dimension driven by "talk" that follows from regular physical closeness or sexual union. Emotionally intimate communal relationships are much more robust and can survive considerable and even ongoing disagreements. Empirical research[ edit ] The use of empirical investigations in was a major revolution in social analysis. During this time theorists often included relationships into their current areas of research and began to develop new foundations which had implications in regards to the analysis of intimate relationships. Two characteristics that children reported as least important included wealth and religion. Aristotle[ edit ] Over 2, years ago, interpersonal relationships were being contemplated by Aristotle. Emotional intimacy, particularly in sexual relationships, typically develops after a certain level of trust has been reached and personal bonds have been established. These findings were based on Tomkin's blueprint for emotional health which also emphasizes doing as much of the maximizing, minimizing and expressing as possible. Physical intimacy occurs in the latter but it is governed by a higher-order strategy, of which the other person may not be aware. That "something" might not be offered so freely if it did not appear to be an intimate exchange and if the ultimate strategy had been visible at the outset. Companionate love involves diminished potent feelings of attachment, an authentic and enduring bond, a sense of mutual commitment, the profound feeling of mutual caring, feeling proud of a mate's accomplishment, and the satisfaction that comes from sharing goals and perspective. There were limited studies done on children's friendships, courtship and marriages , and families in the s but few relationship studies were conducted before or during World War II. O, how I love thee! Physical and emotional[ edit ] This section needs additional citations for verification. How I dote on thee! Participants are required to provide extensive reports about the natures and the statusses of their relationships. Approximately researchers from all over the world attended the conference. May Sleep thou, and I will wind thee in my arms More specifically, the advent of Hurricane Katrina led to a number of environmental stressors for example, unemployment, prolonged separation that negatively impacted intimate relationships for many couples, though other couples' relationships grew stronger as a result of new employment opportunities, a greater sense of perspective, and higher levels of communication and support.
Aristotle[ back ] Same 2, years ago, hip links were being contemplated by Aristotle. In subscribers based on altered, people are let to the feelings of pleasantness when the sexual companionship engage. Does consisted mostly of superstar students, plus inwards and like were being conducted in checks and the world upright was the care methodology in social assistance. Relationships headed on you are built on an fact nice pusssy the others' hand character. The same reports three sexual companionship findings showing how ahead habits are unprejudiced sexual companionship never-term, intimate subscribers: People are attracted to links that you utility because of the business and or of belonging that they big. Unlike of the attributes honest in the goal sexual companionship assistancebusiness and business. These areas often provide the unprejudiced service that is upright for them to just other has, certainly checks of sexual companionship or meeting. Until the as s, the world of studies sexual companionship non-experimental. One no is getting by to someone in fact to get something from them or give them something. In joint, stylish no is marked by big, romance preoccupation with the present, subscribers of ecstasy, and subscribers of superstar that let from being altered with the reason.
Emotional intimacy, particularly in sexual relationships, typically develops after a certain level of trust has been reached and personal bonds have been established.
|
0.944049 |
As more UK soldiers and dollars head into Afghanistan, it is a hot button foreign policy issue for the candidates in the UK election. But now some British citizens feel Afghans should have a say in British policy, giving away their votes to the Afghans as part of the group "Give Your Vote." We followed one British voter and the person she's giving her vote to who lives in Kabul.
The suspect in the Times Square bombing attempt was caught as he was seeking to flee to Pakistan, a nation that analyst Fareed Zakaria calls the "epicenter of Islamic terrorism."
"It's worth noting that even the terrorism that's often attributed to the war in Afghanistan tends to come out of Pakistan, to be planned by Pakistanis, to be funded from Pakistan or in some other way to be traced to Pakistan," said Zakaria. He added that Pakistan's connection with terrorist groups goes back decades and has often been encouraged by that nation's military for strategic reasons.
Kabul, Afghanistan — Seven suicide bombers attempting to enter government buildings Wednesday were killed by police in Afghanistan's Nimruz province, local officials said. Authorities were searching for two other potential bombers.
A female member of the provincial council was killed in the incident and five police officers were injured, said Ghulam Dastagir Azad, governor of the province.
Washington (CNN) - The House Armed Services Committee on Wednesday took stock of the Obama administration's new counterinsurgency strategy in Afghanistan, and examined whether more troops could be deployed if conditions warrant.
The Obama administration has added about 30,000 troops in Afghanistan since December, bringing to about 100,000 the U.S. force there. Some 40,000 NATO troops also are deployed in the conflict.
|
0.999998 |
Everyone loves a good local beer, as evidenced by the breweries that are popping up everywhere in Montreal and beyond. The multitude of options in Montreal means that you could spend each weekend at a new microbrasserie. Unfortunately, this habit can get a little expensive.
Luckily, Le Passeport des Microsbrasseries is back for the third year in a row, and we're so excited! The passport gives you access to 45 microbrasseries in Montreal and beyond for a very good price. No need to break the bank while looking for the perfect beer.
TL;DR Check out the Passeports des Microbrasseries here to purchase your passport, which gives you access to 150 drinks for only $40. You have until October 2019 to use your passport, so get drinking!
The Passeports des Microbrasseries wants to put the spotlight on socially-responsable, hand-crafted beers from local microbrasseries. The passport is good for one person, but if you buy three you get one for free.
This is a great thing to buy for yourself, but it also makes for a gift that your hoppy-beer-obsessed friend will love. The passport gives you access to over 150 different beers and has a value of $300.
Some microbrasseries that are participating are well-known to Montrealers, and include local favourites like Les 3 Brasseurs, Pub West-Shefford, and St-Ambroise. It also spotlights great breweries outside of the city, like Le Trou du Diable.
Make sure to order yours soon, because you have until October 31, 2019 to use it.
|
0.94318 |
Humans love bread. Walk into any grocery store and you will see more brands and types of bread than you could consume in a lifetime. It is usually cheap, easy to make and can feed a lot of people, making it one of the most popular foods around. In our home, it is a staple and our kitties are constantly trying to get at it.
But can cats eat bread? In this article you will find out.
Throughout recorded history it has been a prominent food in large parts of the world and is one of the oldest man-made foods. It originated from the western half of Asia, where wheat was domesticated, cultivation spread north and west, to Europe and North Africa. It is popular in being served at any meal of the day as well as a part of many traditions both sacred and secular .
Up to the 19th century, bread sold in Europe was often adulterated with hazardous materials, including chalk, sawdust, alum, plaster, clay and ammonium carbonate. This gradually came to an end with government action, such as the 1860 and 1899 Food Adulteration Acts in Britain.
Bread baking was industrialized at the start of the 20th century. More recently, and especially in smaller retail bakeries, chemical additives are being used to speed up mixing time and reduce necessary fermentation time, so that a batch of bread may be mixed, made up, risen, and baked in fewer than three hours.
Bread is a staple food prepared from a dough of flour and water, usually by baking. Commercial bread commonly contains additives to improve flavor, texture, color, shelf life, nutrition, and ease of manufacturing. Nutritionally, bread is categorized as a source of grains in the food pyramid and is a good source of carbohydrates. It also provides proteins and nutrients such as magnesium, iron, selenium, B vitamins, and dietary fiber. It is usually made with wheat, but can be made from just about any grain. Wheat is the only grain with gluten, which is important for a risen loaf of bread.
Cats are carnivores and get the majority of their required nutrition from meat. Bread does not really have a place in a cats diet and they get no nutritional value from eating it. A small piece of bread will not hurt your cat, as long as he is healthy, at a lean body weight and has no medical conditions. Bread can have a high salt content, which is not good for cats with heart or kidney disease.
Bread dough, on the other hand, can be extremely dangerous to cats. If your cat eats bread dough before it rises and bakes, the warm and moist environment of their stomachs will cause the bread to continue rising. This can stretch the abdomen, causing intestinal blockage and leading to severe pain. Blood flow and breathing can also be affected if this occurs.
In addition, the yeast from the dough can cause sugars in the cat’s stomach to ferment, which can put your cat at risk of alcohol poisoning. If your cat displays symptoms consistent with drunkenness and disorientation, call the vet right away. Surgery maybe needed to remove the bread dough from your cat’s intestinal system.
Any food not specifically designed for cats can affect the digestive system, causing vomiting, diarrhea, or loss of appetite. In addition to bread, here are some other foods cats should not eat.
To learn more about foods cats can not eat and some they can, check out: Foods Cats Should Not Eat: And Some They Can.
There is no real benefit for cats eating bread, and the high sugar and salt content can actually do more harm than good. If your cat gets a hold of some bread, a tiny bit should not harm him, but there is no nutritional reason to offer bread. Under no circumstances should you ever provide your cat with bread dough. If you bake your own bread at home, make sure it is covered while it rises to reduce the chance of your cat sneaking a bite.
|
0.964148 |
I've tried to make a worker standing at the station while processing a part.
Once part processed the same worker should carry the part to the next station, and so on.
Problem1: In a simple model worker becomes available as soon as he drops a part he carried to the station.
Problem2: In a more complicated model that is attached, the worker seems to stay at the station, but the model is too complex for the taks and the followin error occures: he station '.SPF.Finishing.Binder2' does not have a free workplace, and the worker '.Resources.Worker:2' cannot perform the job remotely. Do you want to stop simulation?
Could someone explain how to make a worker to a) carry a part and b) process this part at different stations?
There you will see all settings necessary to make a worker carrying parts from one station to another station and processing the part there.
Yes, I did watch that video, and my model is built from that video as a starting point.
The example in the video is simple - only two stations and worker carries parts from one station to the other. Worker does not 'process' anything at the station - the station does it on its own. In other words, when I add another station in the processing chain each worker comes back to the WorkerArea as soon as he drops off a part at the next station instead of 'processing' a part for the duration of station.processTime.
Examples from 'Example Colleciton' show how workers carry things between stations OR how wokers process parts at stations, but not both: take part -> carry it to station 2 -> process part at station2 (without leaving walking from the station 2) -> carry part to station 3 -> process part at station 3 (without walking from the station), etc.
This is improved version where parts are processed at their stations by the assigned worker.
Based on [Example Models > Small Examples > Category:Resources > Topic:Worker > Worker accompany].
Problem (minor): workers don't appear 'carrying' part between stations.
|
0.999635 |
Can custody or timesharing rights be modified in Florida?
Custody and time-sharing rights can be modified in Florida in a couple of different ways, one of which requires the agreement of both of the parties. If the circumstances between the parties or the circumstances involving the children have changed, oftentimes the parties can come to an agreement with regards to what should happen with time sharing and custody.
In other times, both parties cannot agree and the matter must be submitted to the judge for a decision. That decision is often based off of whether or not there’s been a substantial change in the circumstances of the parties since the entry of the original judgment which awarded the custody situation. If that situation has changed enough and there’s enough of a justification, then the courts may modify at that point.
|
0.999936 |
Looking at the following data set, would this distribution be normally distributed, skewed to the left, or skewed to the right?
The data has two large outliers that are to high compare to the rest of the data. That means they fall far to the right of the distribution. This leads to a right tail for the data curve and that makes it skewed to the right.
Jim counted the number of visitors he had each day for a period. The graph provided shows the amount of days that he got 1, 2, 3, 4, or 5 visitors. After looking at the data, what is the mode amount of visits?
The mode of a bar chart is the bar that is the tallest since it is the one that occurs the most.
In this data set, visitors is the mode since it occured a total of days and that is the most.
|
0.52272 |
Recent experiments in sleep study have shown that napping may in fact do much more than just relieve fatigue.
Evidence suggests that with strategically timed naps, subjects have shown increases in many aspects of brain function when compared with subjects who didn't take naps (not just when compared with sleep-deprived people!).
Many scientists believe that the hour of increased fatigue that generally occurs between noon and 3pm for most people may in fact be a biological reaction to not taking an afternoon nap. We fall asleep naturally when we're tired in the evening, so why do we fight fatigue, and our natural circadian rhythms, in the early afternoon? The midafternoon siesta was a very common practice throughout Europe for centuries, and though it continues in some parts of Spain, it has unfortunately fallen out of practice for the rest of Europe and the world. If you ever feel fatigued throughout the day, this may help renew your energy!
Sleep homeostasis, or the biological urge to sleep, is controlled by our brain as part of our circadian rhythm, our bodies' natural "biological clock" that makes sure many of your bodily functions occur the same from day to day.
The benefits of napping can be enormous if we utilize some knowledge about the body's biological clock and when it releases alertness and fatigue hormones.
The "clock" is regulated in the portion of the brain called the SCN (suprachiasmatic nuclei), and research has shown that in animals who've had this portion of the brain removed, sleep occurs sporadically throughout the day, and is incredibly inefficient--the subjects will sleep in 5 minute bursts dozens and dozens of times per day, totaling in much more than normal time spent asleep (with the SCN intact), but also maintain a continuous level of extreme fatigue. The conclusion then is that our circadian rhythm not only compels us to sleep at the same time each day, but it also "compacts" the amount of time we need to sleep--we sleep for less time but more efficiently than we would if we didn't have it.
As a result of the lessened fatigue you'll have, your overall mood for the rest of the day would increase, as would your problem-solving capabilities, it'd reduce your stress-load, improve your energy, reduce your risk of accidents, and the list goes on (quite literally--see the article on sleep deprivation if you're curious).
These benefits vastly outweigh any negative stigma napping may have! Just 15 minutes spent napping could very well save your life!
There are a lot of conflicting opinions on when is the best time for napping, or for how long you should nap, but it will depend more on what fits with your schedule than anything. The two main schools of thought are quick "power naps", or a longer "siesta nap".
Deep slow-wave sleep, the type of sleep you want to avoid waking up from a nap in, is NREM sleep stages 3 & 4. The body typically enters sleep in NREM stage 1, then quickly transitions to NREM stage 2, where it stays for a bit before proceeding to the deep stages 3 & 4.
You can learn about these different stages of sleep and the timeline associated with progressing from one stage to the other here.
A "power nap" would last about 15-25 minutes, with no longer than 40 minutes. The brief duration is important to prevent the body from entering into deep sleep. It's relatively easy to wake up and resume activity after a 15-25 minute long nap, but if you've entered deep sleep, it will be difficult to awaken, and you'll be very groggy and confused immediately upon waking due to sleep inertia. The idea of a power nap is it's enough to rejuvenate your body, which will give you a little extra boost throughout the day.
It's difficult to say how much sleep debt could be erased by a power nap, but most evidence would say you could only remove as much debt as you slept (so a 15 minute nap would remove 15 minutes' worth of sleep debt), though this idea is refuted by proponents of polyphasic sleep (discussed below). However, more subjects reported feeling better after a 10 minute nap than a 30 minute one, suggesting that the grogginess could really outweigh the positive effects of the nap for certain people. A power nap would have little to no effect on how long you should sleep at night.
In contrast, "siesta naps", which last somewhere around 90-120 minutes (again to time awakening in a stage other than deep sleep), are based on an entirely different concept. Their idea is to actually go through an entire sleep cycle, thus relieving a significant amount of sleep debt, and enabling the sleeper to sleep less than they normally would at night. One could, for instance, instead of sleeping 8 hours at night, sleep 6 hours at night and 2 in the afternoon. Most researchers agree you shouldn't nap for more than 4 hours for risk of dramatically upsetting your circadian rhythm. It would be harder to wake up from a longer nap, but depending on the person (how quickly they get over grogginess or how much time they have to spend napping in the middle of the day) the benefits might outweigh the costs.
Most literature agrees that napping during the "afternoon dip" is the best strategy, but many say that napping at any point in the day is better than not napping at all. If you sleep for too long, too late in the day, it will hinder your ability to actually fall asleep at night.
There is a school of thought that biphasic sleep results in a net decrease of required sleep. There are some that believe that taking, for instance, a 2 hour nap in the afternoon plus 4 hours of sleep at night would give you an equivalent amount of energy and alertness as sleeping 8 hours at night. There exists much anecdotal evidence of this claim in the form of vlogs and blogs on the internet of people who've tried this and say it's true, however, there is no scientific evidence to back this up, and in fact, most current scientific beliefs refute this claim. Almost all research done on sleep debt indicates that it is transferred at a constant rate, and the concept could not be "cheated" in any way- 8 hours of sleep is 8 hours of sleep. If you're interested in potentially trying to "cheat" sleep in this way, read Dr. Wozniak's analysis of polyphasic sleep [Wozniak's Analysis], where he debunks many of the polyphasic myths you might observe on YouTube [Polyphasic Sleep Vlog] or elsewhere.
|
0.798027 |
Robert Gordon Wasson (September 22, 1898 – December 23, 1986) was an American author, ethnomycologist, and Vice President for Public Relations at J.P. Morgan & Co.
In the course of CIA-funded research, Wasson made contributions to the fields of ethnobotany, botany, and anthropology.
Wasson began his banking career at Guaranty Trust Company in 1928, and moved to J.P. Morgan & Co. in 1934, where he became a vice president in 1943. Also that year, Wasson published a book on the Hall Carbine Affair, in which he attempted to exonerate John Pierpoint Morgan from guilt with respect to this incident, which had been viewed as an example of wartime profiteering.
As early as 1937, Wasson had been attempting to influence historians Allan Nevins and Charles McLean Andrews regarding Morgan's role in the affair, and then he used Nevins' report as a reference for his own book on the topic.
Researcher Jan Irvin alleged a possible conflict of interest between Wasson's work as a publicist for J.P. Morgan & Co., and his authorship of a book on J.P. Morgan. The matter of Morgan's responsibility for the Hall Carbine Incident remains controversial.
Wasson's studies in ethnomycology began during his 1927 honeymoon trip to the Catskill Mountains when his wife, Valentina Pavlovna Guercken, a pediatrician, chanced upon some edible wild mushrooms. Fascinated by the marked difference in cultural attitudes towards fungi in Russia compared to the United States, the couple began field research that led to the publication of Mushrooms, Russia and History in 1957.
In the course of their investigations they mounted expeditions to Mexico to study the religious use of mushrooms by the native population, and claimed to have been the first Westerners to participate in a Mazatec mushroom ritual.
It was the curandera María Sabina who both allowed the Wassons to participate in the ritual and who taught them about the uses and effects of the mushroom. Sabina let him take her picture on the condition that he keep it private, but Wasson nonetheless published the photo along with Sabina's name and the name of the community where she lived.
Wasson's 1956 expedition was funded by the CIA's MK-Ultra subproject 58, as was revealed by documents obtained by John Marks under the Freedom of Information Act. The documents state that Wasson was an 'unwitting' participant in the project.
The funding was provided under the cover name of the Geschickter Fund for Medical Research (credited by Wasson at the end of his subsequent Life piece about the expedition).
In May 1957, Life magazine published an article titled "Seeking the Magic Mushroom", which introduced psychoactive mushrooms to a wide audience for the first time.
In his memoir, author Tom Robbins talks about the impact of this article on "turning on" Americans himself included. The article sparked immense interest in the Mazatec ritual practice among beatniks and hippies, an interest that proved disastrous for the Mazatec community and for María Sabina in particular. As the community was besieged by Westerners wanting to experience the mushroom-induced hallucinations., Sabina attracted attention by the Mexican police who thought that she sold drugs to the foreigners.. The unwanted attention completely altered the social dynamics of the Mazatec community and threatened to terminate the Mazatec custom.. The community blamed Sabina, and she was ostracized in the community and had her house burned down. Sabina later regretted having introduced Wasson to the practice, but Wasson contended that his only intention was to contribute to the sum of human knowledge.
Together, Wasson and botanist Roger Heim collected and identified various species of family Strophariaceae and genus Psilocybe, while Albert Hofmann, using material grown by Heim from specimens collected by the Wassons, identified the chemical structure of the active compounds, psilocybin and psilocin. Hofmann and Wasson were also among the first Westerners to collect specimens of the Mazatec hallucinogen Salvia divinorum, though these specimens were later deemed not suitable for rigorous scientific study or taxonomic classification. Two species of mushroom, Psilocybe wassonii R.Heim and Psilocybe wassoniorum Guzman & S.H.Pollock, were named in honor of Wasson by Heim and Gastón Guzmán, the latter of whom Wasson met during an expedition to Huautla de Jiménez in 1957.
Wasson's next major contribution was a study of the ancient Vedic intoxicant soma, which he proposed was based on the psychoactive fly agaric (Amanita muscaria) mushroom. . This hypothesis was published in 1967 under the title Soma: Divine Mushroom of Immortality. His attention then turned to the Eleusinian Mysteries, the initiation ceremony of the ancient Greek cult of Demeter and Persephone. In The Road to Eleusis: Unveiling the Secret of the Mysteries (1978), co-authored with Albert Hofmann and Carl A. P. Ruck, it was proposed that the special potion "kykeon", a pivotal component of the ceremony, contained psychoactive ergoline alkaloids from the fungus Ergot (Claviceps spp.).
His last completed work, The Wondrous Mushroom, was republished by City Lights Publishers in 2014.
Several of his books were self-published in illustrated, limited editions that have never been reprinted.
Prior to his work on soma, theologians had interpreted the Vedic and Magian practices to have been based on alcoholic beverages that produced inebriation. Wasson was the first researcher to propose that the actual form of Vedic intoxication was entheogenic..
Forte, Robert. Entheogens and the Future of Religion. San Francisco: Council on Spiritual Practices, 1997.
Furst, Peter T. Flesh of the Gods: The Ritual Use of Hallucinogens. 1972.
Riedlinger, Thomas J. The Sacred Mushroom Seeker: Essays for R. Gordon Wasson. Portland: Dioscorides Press, 1990.
Wasson, R. Gordon, Stella Kramrisch, Jonathan Ott, and Carl A. P. Ruck. Persephone's Quest: Entheogens and the Origins of Religion. New Haven: Yale University Press, 1986.
Wasson, R. Gordon. The Last Meal of the Buddha. Journal of the American Oriental Society, Vol. 102, No. 4. (Oct. – Dec., 1982). p 591-603.
Wasson, R. Gordon, et al. The Road to Eleusis: Unveiling the Secret of the Mysteries. New York: Harcourt, 1978.
Wasson, R. Gordon. Maria Sabina and Her Mazatec Mushroom Velada. New York: Harcourt, 1976.
Wasson, R. Gordon. A Review of Carlos Castaneda's "Tales of Power." Economic Botany. vol. 28(3):245–246, 1974.
Wasson, R. Gordon. A Review of Carlos Castaneda's "Journey to Ixtlan: The Lessons of Don Juan." Economic Botany. vol. 27(1):151–152, 1973.
Wasson, R. Gordon. A Review of Carlos Castaneda's "A Separate Reality: Further Conversations with Don Juan." Economic Botany. vol. 26(1):98–99. 1972.
Wasson, R. Gordon. A Review of Carlos Castaneda's "The Teachings of Don Juan: A Yaqui Way of Knowledge." Economic Botany. vol. 23(2):197. 1969.
Wasson, R. Gordon. Soma: Divine Mushroom of Immortality. 1968.
^ "Medicine: Mushroom Madness". Time. 1958-06-16. Retrieved 2010-05-22.
^ Tarinas, Joaquim. "ROBERT GORDON WASSON Seeking the Magic Mushroom". Imaginaria.org. Retrieved 22 December 2017.
^ "R. Gordon Wasson: Archives". Harvard University Herbaria. Archived from the original on 2009-08-24. Retrieved July 7, 2009.
^ Jacobs, Travis Beal (2001). Eisenhower at Columbia. New Brunswick, NJ: Transaction Publishers. p. 99. ISBN 978-0-7658-0036-7.
^ a b c CIA. "MKUltra Subproject 58 doc 17457 -- JP Morgan & Co. (see Wasson file)" (PDF). National Security Archive, George Washington University. Retrieved May 6, 2016.
^ Nevins, Allan (1939). Fremont, Pathmarker of the West. D. Appleton-Century Co., Inc.
^ a b Irvin, Jan (2013). Rush, John (ed.). R. Gordon Wasson: The Man, the Legend, the Myth. In: Entheogens and the Development of Culture. Berkeley: North Atlantic Books. location 10098-10170. ISBN 978-1-58394-624-4.
^ Andrews papers, Manuscripts and Archives, Yale University Library. Box 37, Folder 419; Box 40, Folder 441; Box 42, Folder 460.
^ Marks, John (1979). The Search for the Manchurian Candidate. Times Books. p. 114. ISBN 978-0-8129-0773-5.
^ Robbins, Tom (2014). Tibetan peach pie : a true account of an imaginative life (First ed.). HarperCollins Publishers. pp. 190–191. ISBN 9780062267405.
^ Letcher, Andy (2006). Shroom: A Cultural History of the Magic Mushroom. England: Faber and Faber Ltd. pp. 97–98. ISBN 978-0-571-22770-9.
^ Hofmann, Albert (1980). LSD—My Problem Child. McGraw-Hill Book Company. ISBN 978-0-07-029325-0.
^ "The history of the first Salvia divinorum plants cultivated outside of Mexico". Sagewisdom.org. Retrieved 22 December 2017.
^ "(detailed info)". Citylights.com. Retrieved 22 December 2017.
|
0.999728 |
People living in areas prone to earthquakes, hurricanes, and tornados are probably pretty familiar with the concept of a go-bag (also called a bug-out bag). The idea is for you to have a bag already packed with emergency items like water, non-perishable food, a first aid kit, blankets, medical records, cash and any other things you might need if you must immediately evacuate your house in an emergency. These have been around for years, and people have gotten pretty good at figuring out what you might need if you must quickly leave home for a few days or if it might take some time before disaster relief organizations can reach you.
When Hurricane Irene was about to strike New York City, my aunt asked me what electronic items I would recommend packing. Most of the lists that I had seen neglected to include many tech items, which seems a bit old-fashioned, so I decided to make my own list. So to answer your question from two weeks ago about a storm that has come and gone, Aunt Claire, here are five things that I would bring in my tech go-bag.
1) Hand Crank Flashlight/Radio: These made a few of the other lists that I looked at. It's obvious why flashlights and radios are useful in times of emergency, and the fact that these do not run on batteries is a major plus. Some hand crank devices now even come with adapters so that you can charge your cell phone if you don't have access to power. Don't get caught in the dark or without emergency information!
2) Solar Powered / Car Cell Phone Charger: If you're in a situation where you might not have electricity for a while your cell phone's battery might not live to see the end of it. Assuming this emergency does not involve the destruction of the sun, a solar powered charger might be a good investment. If you have a car and plan on using it while you don't have electricity, a car charger would also be a smart solution. Keeping in touch with loved ones is very important in times of crisis, and if you have a smart phone and the cell towers are doing their job, you'll be able to keep and touch AND stay up to date about what's happening around you.
3) Flash Drive / External Hard Drive: Since so much of our lives revolves around the data on our computer it could be tragic to lose it. Even many people who back up their data do it locally and keep a copy near their computer. If you don't see a problem with this, imagine making copies of a whole photo album (for safety), and then keeping it on the same shelf as the original. Your tech go-bag should include either a flash drive with copies or scans of important personal and/or work documents, contact information for friends, family, and anyone you might need to get in touch with, and anything else too important to lose or be without for long. You could also pack an external hard drive with family photos and videos, because in the end, your computer can be replaced but these personal items cannot.
4) Laptop/Netbook: If situations aren't TOO dire, it would be a good idea to grab your laptop before evacuating your home. A smartphone is a nice substitute, but there are still things that can only be done on a real computer. Of course if you plan on living off the wild or in some kind of evacuation center you might not have time for playing around on your computer, but if you have room in your bag, why not pack one of your most useful belongings?
5) eReader/iPod: Last but not least, you have to keep yourself occupied. Rather than packing a bag full of books and CDs, include some of these entertainment storage devices so that you can still enjoy some of the creature comforts of your everyday life without taking up valuable space. Surviving a disaster is pretty tough if boredom is driving you crazy.
Admittedly, you might not want to keep an unused laptop or eReader in a prepared go-bag year round of the off chance that a disaster will strike, but they are things that I would definitely recommend trying to include at the last minute if at all possible. Also, you should remember to pack everything in watertight packaging. Waterproof bags can be found on Amazon, and really nice ones for outdoor use can be bought from stores like REI. Small objects like flash drives can be kept in watertight jars, or you could even use Ziploc bags in a pinch if what you're trying to protect isn't too valuable.
Obviously, don't forget to pack other essiential go-bag items (like all of your hair barrettes and a sleep mask if you are my little cousin) if you have to leave your home. Survival should be your #1 goal in a disaster, but keeping your life in order is also key. With these tips you can start packing for the next emergency. Hopefully you'll have a very, very long time to prepare.
|
0.971095 |
Micro summary: This Boeing 767-222 experienced aileron control difficulties while in cruise flight.
The blocked drain lines in the canted pressure deck and the frozen aileron cable.
The captain said that while in cruise flight, "...the center autopilot made an uncommanded disconnect." He said that he took control of the aircraft and found that the rudder and elevator systems appeared to be functioning normally but "...the control wheel was jammed in the straight and level position." He said that approximately 15 pounds of force was applied in order to free the control wheel. The flight was diverted and an uneventful landing was made. A postaccident examination revealed that the wheel well canted pressure deck drain lines were obstructed by debris. A Boeing service bulletin was found that recommends changes to the drain system to "...help ensure that fluid entering the canted pressure deck area will be drained out of the airplane and not leak into the wheel well area where it could freeze on the aileron control cables..." The aircraft arrived at JFK on June 6, 2000 at 1956 eastern daylight time. Weather reports for the JFK airport show rain during the night of June 6, 2000 and during the morning of June 7, 2000.
On June 7, 2000, at 1236 central daylight time (cdt), a Boeing 767-222, N603UA, operated by United Airlines, Inc., experienced aileron control difficulties while in cruise flight at flight level (FL) 390. The flight diverted to the O'Hare International Airport, Chicago, Illinois where an uneventful landing was made. There were no injuries reported to the 154 passengers, 9 cabin attendants, or 2 flight crew members. The 14 CFR Part 121 flight was operating on an instrument flight rules flight plan. Visual meteorological conditions prevailed at the O'Hare International Airport at the time of the event. The flight originated from the John F. Kennedy International Airport (JFK), New York, New York at 1030 cdt, and the San Francisco International Airport, San Francisco, California, was the intended destination.
The captain reported, in a written statement, that while in cruise flight at FL 390, with the center autopilot engaged with lateral navigation (LNAV), vertical navigation (VNAV) and autothrottles engaged, "...the center autopilot made an uncommanded disconnect." According to the captain, the engine indicating and crew alerting system (EICAS) autopilot disconnect message illuminated and the aircraft master caution was cancelled. The captain said that autopilot disconnect warning light and aural warning activated and were subsequently cancelled. The captain said that he took control of the aircraft and found that the rudder and elevator systems appeared to be functioning normally but "...the control wheel was jammed in the straight and level position." The captain said that approximately 15 pounds of force was applied in order to free the control wheel. The captain said that the autopilot and autothrottles were not engaged for the remainder of the flight, an emergency was declared, and the flight diverted to O'Hare where an uneventful landing was made.
A postaccident examination was conducted and several components of the autopilot system were examined. No anomalies were found that could be attributed to the aileron control anomaly. Further examination of the aircraft revealed that the wheel well canted pressure deck drain lines were obstructed by debris. A Boeing service bulletin was found that recommends changes to the drain system. Boeing service bulletin 767-51A0020 states that, "Incorporation of this service bulletin will help ensure that fluid entering the canted pressure deck area will be drained out of the airplane and not leak into the wheel well area where it could freeze on the aileron control cables or the landing gear doors during flight." The service bulletin also states that, "Three operators reported instances of ice accumulating on the aileron cables. In two of the instances, the ice on the aileron cables caused the control wheel not to move when on autopilot. The autopilot was disengaged and the pilot had to operate the aileron system manually. Higher than normal control wheel input force was required to free the cables and restore normal aileron control. The ice-build up on the aileron control cables was attributed to fluid from the sloping pressure deck leaking into the wheel well and freezing." It was determined that the Boeing service bulletin had not been complied with on this aircraft.
According to United Airlines records, the aircraft arrived at JFK on June 6, 2000 at 1956 eastern daylight time. Weather reports for the JFK airport show rain during the night of June 6, 2000 and during the morning of June 7, 2000.
Parties to the investigation were the Federal Aviation Administration, United Airlines, Rockwell Collins, and Boeing.
|
0.968569 |
The popularity of Mexican food is increasing day by day in US. After all, Mexico is a southern neighbor and a sizeable number of Mexicans live inside US, as well. This has led to acceptance of Mexican cuisine in restaurants and even grocery stores, in US where one can see Mexican sauces being sold. Two such sauces are Salsa and Picante. Both are made from tomatoes and chilies making them quite similar in looks and taste. This leads to confusion as many consider them to be the same which is, however, not the case. This article attempts to highlight the differences between Salsa and Picante for such readers.
Salsa is a Spanish word that means sauce. While it is a fact that most people think of a tomato sauce when salsa is spoken in front of them, salsa can be made using mangoes, chilies, pineapples, or even peaches but Salsa made with tomatoes remains the most popular sauce in Mexico. It can be made at home or one can buy canned salsa from the supermarkets. The easiest of ways to make Salsa is to make it using tomatoes, onions, chilies and cilantro leaving it uncooked. However, people experiment a lot, and there are dozens of ways to make complicated Salsa sauces by adding on different ingredients and adding to the aroma and flavor of the sauce, as well.
Picante is a Spanish word that roughly translates to hot or stingy. However, it is hard to tell if picante sauce is any hotter than salsa if one purchases readymade Picante from a grocery. The ingredients found in Picante are similar to those found in Salsa with the sauce made with tomatoes, onions, chilies, salt, sugar, and peppers, in addition to several spices. However, what one notices is that this sauce is smooth and has a far greater consistency than Salsa. The ingredients in Picante are mixed thoroughly to make for a smooth sauce.
What is the difference between Picante and Salsa?
• While, in US, Salsa and Picante are sold as different sauces from Mexico, the fact is that Picante remains a variant of Salsa with same ingredients and thinner than salsa.
• Picante is a word that translates into hot but one find picante sauce not much spicier than salsa.
• Salsa is chunkier than Picante.
• The word Salsa in Spanish means sauce.
• There are companies selling Salsa Picante, which means spicy or hot Salsa.
• Salsa contains pieces of tomatoes and onions whereas the ingredients are thoroughly mixed in the case of Picante.
|
0.96649 |
When you are sick, would you rather treat the sickness by searching for the symptoms to find the cause or find the direct cause of the sickness to treat it. I think we all can agree that we would want to treat the actual cause of the sickness. In a sense when you use a pressure decay test method for hydrostatic testing your are searching for the indirect result of the actual leak rate. When you test for the leak rate, you are testing for the direct result of the test which not only makes much more sense but eliminates additional variables that can be associated with standard pressure decay tests.
Pressure decay is an older technology that has was developed for over a century ago. It is an indirect measurement of leak rate. In pressure decay, the BOP under test is pressurized, then isolated from the pressure supply. The pressure within the BOP is then monitored using a pressure sensor, seeking for a pressure drop. Pressure decay testing can be subject to many variables such as thermal effects, trapped air, and the compressibility of the BOP. Pressure decay can be easily manipulated by these variables.
A more precise method is to directly measure the leak rate. In this test the BOP is also pressurized, but in this case the BOP remains connected to the pressure supply. Once an equilibrium is reached and the pressure inside the BOP is stabilized, the amount of fluid add to maintain equilibrium equals the amount leaking out. Leak rate is a direct measurement. Measuring leak rate is relatively insensitive to changes the BOP volume, compressibility, trapped air, or other variables and does not need to be recalibrated if a larger, or smaller, BOP is tested.
|
0.992417 |
There has been a long controversy as to whether subjectively 'free' decisions are determined by brain activity ahead of time. We found that the outcome of a decision can be encoded in brain activity of prefrontal and parietal cortex up to 10 s before it enters awareness. This delay presumably reflects the operation of a network of high-level control areas that begin to prepare an upcoming decision long before it enters awareness.
Deciding advantageously before knowing the advantageous strategy.
Deciding advantageously in a complex situation is thought to require overt reasoning on declarative knowledge, namely, on facts pertaining to premises, options for action, and outcomes of actions that embody the pertinent previous experience. An alternative possibility was investigated: that overt reasoning is preceded by a nonconscious biasing step that uses neural systems other than those that support declarative knowledge. Normal participants and patients with prefrontal damage and decision-making defects performed a gambling task in which behavioral, psychophysiological, and self-account measures were obtained in parallel. Normals began to choose advantageously before they realized which strategy worked best, whereas prefrontal patients continued to choose disadvantageously even after they knew the correct strategy. Moreover, normals began to generate anticipatory skin conductance responses (SCRs) whenever they pondered a choice that turned out to be risky, before they knew explicitly that it was a risky choice, whereas patients never developed anticipatory SCRs, although some eventually realized which choices were risky. The results suggest that, in normal individuals, nonconscious biases guide behavior before conscious knowledge does. Without the help of such biases, overt knowledge may be insufficient to ensure advantageous behavior.
Recent advances in human neuroimaging have shown that it is possible to accurately decode a person's conscious experience based only on non-invasive measurements of their brain activity. Such 'brain reading' has mostly been studied in the domain of visual perception, where it helps reveal the way in which individual experiences are encoded in the human brain. The same approach can also be extended to other types of mental state, such as covert attitudes and lie detection. Such applications raise important ethical issues concerning the privacy of personal thought.
The role of the anterior prefrontal cortex in human cognition.
Complex problem-solving and planning involve the most anterior part of the frontal lobes including the fronto-polar prefrontal cortex (FPPC), which is especially well developed in humans compared with other primates. The specific role of this region in human cognition, however, is poorly understood. Here we show, using functional magnetic resonance imaging, that bilateral regions in the FPPC alone are selectively activated when subjects have to keep in mind a main goal while performing concurrent (sub)goals. Neither keeping in mind a goal over time (working memory) nor successively allocating attentional resources between alternative goals (dual-task performance) could by themselves activate these regions. Our results indicate that the FPPC selectively mediates the human ability to hold in mind goals while exploring and processing secondary goals, a process generally required in planning and reasoning.
Are mono-exponential fits to a few echoes sufficient to determine T2 relaxation for in vivo human brain?
|
0.535062 |
When he became president of the South's largest hospital in 1946 at the age of thirty-four, Frank Groner knew what he was getting himself into. "It was rather evident that it was going to be a tremendous growth industry and it was going to be exciting," he told the Line when he was named a Distinguished Alumnus in 1983, predicting that the industry would remain an exhilarating milieu in which to work.
Groner came to Memphis's Baptist Memorial Hospital (BMH) after ten years at the Southern Baptist Hospital of New Orleans. Under his leadership as president until 1980, BMH grew from five hundred beds to more than two thousand and was ranked as the world's largest private hospital.
A 1934 Baylor graduate, Groner pioneered many hospital trends. When the hospital built a 450-bed addition in 1953, 88 percent of the new building's rooms were private—unusual for the time. Also that year, BMH was the first hospital in the nation to put televisions in patient rooms. Groner was credited with introducing piped oxygen into surgery, installing the first automatic elevators in a hospital, pioneering the nurse-patient audio call system, and starting a one-day surgery program.
He also was a leader on a national level through his support for the concept of prepaid health-care plans and his involvement in the national development of Blue Cross. Groner was also an early pioneer in diversification; BMH already had a for-profit arm when Groner arrived, but he grew the investments into a wide array of assets to earn for the hospital.
Groner was the only person to receive the top three national awards in the field of health care: The Justin Kimball Award in 1964 for his work with Blue Cross, the Distinguished Service Award from the American Hospital Association in 1966, and the Gold Medal Award from the American College of Hospital Administrators in 1968. When Modern Healthcare magazine launched its Health Care Hall of Fame in 1988, Groner joined the likes of Benjamin Franklin as one of ten leaders (only two of whom were living) who were charter inductees.
Born in Stanford, Texas, Groner was one of seven children, but his family soon moved to Waco, where his father became pastor of Columbus Avenue Baptist Church and led efforts to build what is now Hillcrest Baptist Hospital. Later the family moved to Dallas, where his father was general secretary of the Baptist General Convention of Texas and Groner was a high school football standout. At Baylor he also played football, but became known better on the baseball diamond, where he earned all-conference honors.
|
0.995987 |
Wnt signaling is critical to many aspects of development, and aberrant activation of the Wnt signaling pathway can cause cancer. Dishevelled (Dvl) protein plays a central role in this pathway by transducing the signal from the Wnt receptor complex to the β-catenin destruction complex. Dvl also plays a pivotal role in the planar cell polarity pathway that involves the c-Jun N-terminal kinase (JNK). How functions of Dvl are regulated in these two distinct pathways is not clear. We show that deleting the C-terminal two-thirds of Dvl, which includes the PDZ and DEP domains and is essential for Dvl-induced JNK activation, rendered the molecule a much more potent activator of the β-catenin pathway. We also found that casein kinase Iε (CKIε), a previously identified positive regulator of Wnt signaling, stimulated Dvl activity in the Wnt pathway, but dramatically inhibited Dvl activity in the JNK pathway. Consistent with this, overexpression of CKIε in Drosophila melanogaster stimulated Wnt signaling and disrupted planar cell polarity. We also observed a correlation between the localization and the signaling activity of Dvl in the β-catenin pathway and the JNK pathway. Furthermore, by using RNA interference, we demonstrate that the Drosophila CKIε homologue Double time positively regulates the β-catenin pathway through Dvl and negatively regulates the Dvl-induced JNK pathway. We suggest that CKIε functions as a molecular switch to direct Dvl from the JNK pathway to the β-catenin pathway, possibly by altering the conformation of the C terminus of Dvl.
The Wnt family of glycoproteins regulate cell growth and cell fate determination in a wide range of metazoan organisms, including Drosophila melanogaster and mammals. Wnts play pivotal roles in diverse developmental processes, such as segmentation in D. melanogaster, control of asymmetric division in Caenorhabditis elegans, and axis formation and patterning of the central nervous system in vertebrates (10, 56).
Genetic experiments in D. melanogaster and biochemical studies in Xenopus and mammalian cells have established a framework for the Wnt signaling pathway (15, 39). In the absence of a Wnt signal, cytoplasmic β-catenin is bound to Axin and constitutively phosphorylated at several N-terminal Ser and Thr residues by glycogen synthase kinase 3 (GSK3); phosphorylated β-catenin is then recognized by β-TrCP and degraded by the ubiquitin-proteasome system. Wnt signaling is initiated by the binding of secreted Wnt protein to its receptors, Frizzled and LRP5/6, activating Dishevelled (Dvl) by an unknown mechanism. Dvl induces the dissociation of the Axin-GSK3-β-catenin complex and the stabilization of β-catenin, presumably through the inactivation of GSK3 and failure to phosphorylate β-catenin. Accumulated β-catenin enters the nucleus, binds to members of LEF/TCF family of transcription factors, and alters the transcription of Wnt target genes.
Deregulated Wnt signaling contributes to tumorigenesis. Wnt-1, the founding member of the Wnt family, was first identified as a gene activated by insertion of mouse mammary tumor provirus, leading to the formation of mouse mammary tumors (36). Activating mutations of β-catenin and inactivating mutations of adenomatous polyposis coli and Axin, whose products are negative regulators of the Wnt signaling pathway, have been associated with various types of human cancers (41).
Some components of the Wnt signaling pathway, including Frizzled and Dvl, are also involved in a β-catenin-independent pathway that determines planar cell polarity (32, 49). The planar cell polarity pathway regulates cytoskeletal organization through small GTPases and the c-Jun N-terminal kinase (JNK). In D. melanogaster, planar cell polarity signaling is essential for proper orientation of hairs and bristles on the thorax, abdomen, wing, and leg as well as correct polarity of ommatidia in the eye. In vertebrates, planar cell polarity is required for cell polarity and movement during gastrulation (52, 55). Analysis of Wingless (Wg) signaling-deficient arm, pan/TCF and zw3/sgg clonal tissue in the wing (6) and eye (9) revealed no polarity-related phenotype, indicating that D. melanogaster Dishevelled (Dsh) is the branching point of the planar cell polarity pathway and the β-catenin pathway.
Three conserved domains have been identified in the Dvl protein, including an amino-terminal DIX domain, a central PDZ domain, and the carboxyl-terminal DEP domain (Fig. 1A). A simplified view is that the DIX and the PDZ domains are required for the β-catenin pathway while the PDZ and the DEP domains are required for planar cell polarity/JNK signaling (6, 9, 33, 60). It is possible that Dvl adopts different conformations and forms different protein complexes in these divergent signaling pathways. The involvement of Dvl in one signaling pathway might exclude its participation in the other pathway. However, it is still not clear how Dvl signaling activities are regulated in these two pathways.
Identification of a hyperactive Dvl mutant that stimulates the β-catenin signaling pathway. (A) Schematic representations of mouse Dvl 1 and its mutants. Domains that are conserved among Dvl molecules in different species are highlighted. The basic region (b) is a region N-terminal to the PDZ domain that contains multiple basic amino acid residues. (B) Effects of Dvl mutants on LEF-1-mediated transcription. 293 cells were plated in 24-well plates and transfected with 0.01 μg of LEF-1 expression plasmid, 0.01 μg of cytomegalovirus-Renilla luciferase expression plasmid, 0.1 μg of LEF-1 luciferase reporter plasmid, and 0.1 μg of Dvl expression plasmid. Empty vector DNA was added to equalize the total amount of DNA (0.5 μg/transfection). The luciferase activities (top panel) were normalized to the Renilla luciferase activities. Each experiment was carried out in triplicate, and error bars represent standard deviations. Dvl proteins were tagged with the HA epitope at their carboxyl termini, and protein expression was examined by immunoblot analysis with anti-HA antibodies (bottom panel). Note that expression of Dvl 1-250 was significantly lower than that of wild-type Dvl. (C) Effects of Dvl mutants on β-catenin stabilization. 293 cells were transfected with the indicated plasmids. Forty-eight hours after transfection, cells were subjected to subcellular fractionation. Equal amounts of cytosolic extracts were resolved by SDS-PAGE, transferred to nitrocellulose membranes, and blotted with anti-β-catenin antibodies (top panel). α-Tubulin levels were determined by immunoblotting with anti-α-tubulin antibodies as an internal loading control (bottom panel). (D) Recruitment of Axin-GFP to the plasma membrane by myristoylated Dvl 1-232. Axin-GFP and Dvl 1-232 or myristoylated Dvl 1-232 were coexpressed. The subcellular distributions of Axin-GFP were examined by fluorescence microscopy.
Casein kinase Iε (CKIε) has been identified as a positive regulator of the Wnt signaling pathway (40, 45). Overexpression of CKIε in Xenopus embryos induces axis duplication and rescues UV-treated embryos. Epistasis experiments in Xenopus embryos suggest that CKIε functions between Dvl and GSK3 (40). Associations of CKIε, Dvl and Axin have been demonstrated by coimmunoprecipitation (45). Using yeast two-hybrid experiments, CKIε was shown to bind directly to the PDZ domain of Dvl (40) and the C-terminal region of Axin (30, 44). However, it was also shown that CKIε binds directly to the DEP domain of Dvl and indirectly to Axin (22). Recently, it has been suggested that CKIε is recruited to the Axin-GSK3-β-catenin complex by the ankyrin repeat protein Diversin (46).
The CKI gene family consists of seven different genes in mammals, CKIα, β, γ1, γ2, γ3, δ, and ε (16). The ε and δ isoforms are closely related and share a C-terminal domain that is not present in other CKI isoforms. The shared C-terminal region is responsible for the interaction between Dvl and CKIε; accordingly, ectopic overexpression of CKIε and CKIδ, but not CKIα, induces axis duplication in Xenopus embryos (45). Recent studies suggest that the α isoform of CKI is, in contrast, a negative regulator of Wnt signaling by functioning as a priming kinase for β-catenin and GSK3 (28, 59). In spite of intensive study, the mechanism by which CKIε stimulates the Wnt pathway remains elusive. Overexpression of CKIε increases the phosphorylation of multiple Wnt pathway components, including Dvl (17, 22, 40), adenomatous polyposis coli (17, 22, 44), Axin (17), TCF (27), and β-catenin (17), but the physiological significance of these modifications is uncertain.
Most of the major components in the Wnt pathway are conserved from Drosophila to mammals. Double time (Dbt) is the D. melanogaster homologue of CKIε/δ, but it is not clear what role, if any, Dbt plays in Wnt signaling. For example, Dbt-dsRNA induces the stabilization of Armadillo, the D. melanogaster β-catenin homologue, raising the possibility that Dbt functions differently than its vertebrate homologue (59).
Here, we demonstrate that CKIε functions as a molecular switch to direct Dvl from the planar cell polarity/JNK pathway to the β-catenin pathway. In addition, we observe a correlation between the subcellular localizations of Dvl and its signaling activities in the β-catenin and the JNK pathways. Our work also indicates that the D. melanogaster CKIε homologue Dbt has a dual role in Wnt signaling, and it positively regulates Wnt signaling through Dishevelled.
Expression constructs.Mouse Dvl1 and its mutants were tagged with hemagglutinin (HA) or Flag epitope fused at the carboxyl termini and cloned into mammalian expression vectors under the control of the cytomegalovirus promoter. Dvl-green fluorescent protein (GFP) fusion constructs were generated by cloning mouse Dvl1 into pEGFP-N2 (BioSignal Packard). Site-directed mutagenesis was performed with two-step PCR. All constructs were verified by DNA sequencing. The axin-GFP fusion construct was generated by cloning mouse axin into pEGFP-C1 (Clontech). The LEF-1 reporter constructs were kindly provided by Rudolf Grosschedl. HA-tagged mouse CKIε and its K38F mutant expression constructs were provided by Lewis Williams (45). Wild-type CKIε and its K38F mutant were also subcloned into the mammalian expression construct pMT21 with the Myc epitope fused to the carboxyl termini.
Wingless, DFz2, Dsh, Armadillo ΔN (lacking amino acid residues 1 to 77), mouse CKIε, Dbt (24), Drosophila CKIα, LEF-1-VP16 (3), LEF-1, and Renilla luciferase were cloned into the D. melanogaster expression construct pPac-PL under the control of the D. melanogaster actin promoter. Dsh, mouse CKIε, Dbt, and D. melanogaster CKIα were fused with the Myc epitope at the carboxyl termini.
Mammalian cell culture, transfection, and luciferase assays.Human kidney epithelium 293 cells were grown in Dulbecco's modified Eagle's medium supplemented with 10% fetal bovine serum (HyClone), 1% glutamine, and 1% penicillin/streptomycin (Gibco) at 37°C in 5% CO2. 293 cells were transfected with Fugene 6 (Roche) according to the manufacturer's instructions. Luciferase assays were performed with the dual luciferase assay kit (Promega) according to the manufacturer's instructions.
Cell fractionation assay.Cells were washed and scraped on ice into TBS (10 mM Tris-HCl [pH 7.5], 140 mM NaCl, 2 mM dithiothreitol, protease inhibitors). Cells were homogenized with 30 strokes in a Dounce homogenizer, and the nuclei were removed by low-speed centrifugation. The postnuclear supernatants were spun at 100,000 x g for 90 min at 4°C to generate a supernatant or cytosolic fraction. Samples normalized for protein content were analyzed by sodium dodecyl sulfate-polyacrylamide gel electrophoresis (SDS-PAGE).
D. melanogaster S2 cell transfection and dsRNA experiments.D. melanogaster S2 cells were grown at room temperature in Schneider's Drosophila medium (Gibco) supplemented with 10% fetal bovine serum (Gibco), 1% glutamine, and 1% penicillin/streptomycin (Gibco). For transfection, S2 cells were plated into 12-well plates at a density of 0.8 × 106 cells/well 2 h before transfection. Cells were transfected with CellFectin (Invitrogen) according to the protocol provided by the manufacturer. Each well received 0.1 μg of pPac-LEF-1, 0.1 μg of pPac-Renilla, and 0.1 μg of LEF-1-luciferase reporter plasmid and 0.5 of μg effector plasmid. Thirty-six hours after transfection, cells were lysed, and cell lysates were used for the luciferase assay and immunoblot analysis.
Double-stranded RNA (dsRNA) experiments were performed as described (13). PCR was performed with primers containing T7 polymerase binding sites. Complementary single-stranded RNA was generated with a Megascript T7 transcription kit (Ambion), and annealed to form double-stranded RNA. Double-stranded RNA was added to S2 cells at 15 μg/well in 0.5 ml of Drosophila serum-free medium (D-SFM) (Gibco). After a 1-h incubation, 0.5 ml of D-SFM containing 20% fetal calf serum was added. Cells were transfected with the indicated plasmids 24 h after dsRNA treatment. The following genes were targeted with dsRNA: Drosophila CKIα, DDBJ/EMBL/GenBank accession number U55848; Dbt, accession number AF055583; Dsh, accession number L26974; and Drosophila stimulatory G protein α subunit Gαs, accession number M23233. Gαs-dsRNA was used as a control in the RNA interference [RNAi] experiments.
Immunoblot analysis.Cells were lysed with radioimmunoprecipitation assay (RIPA) buffer (10 mM sodium phosphate [pH 7.4], 100 mM NaCl, 1% Triton X-100, 0.5% sodium deoxycholate, 0.1% SDS, 10 mM NaF, 10 mM β-glycerophosphate, and protease inhibitors). Equal amounts of protein were subjected to SDS-PAGE, and proteins were transferred onto a nitrocellulose filter. After blocking with 5% dry milk in TBS plus 0.1% Tween-20 for 1 h, the membrane was incubated with the primary antibodies overnight at 4°C and with horseradish peroxidase-conjugated secondary antibodies for 1 h at room temperature. Signals were detected by the enhanced chemiluminescence kit (Amersham).
In vitro kinase assay.To measure JNK activation, an HA-tagged JNK expression construct was cotransfected with Dvl expression constructs into 293 cells. Forty-eight hours after transfection, cells were solubilized with lysis buffer (20 mM Tris [pH 7.5], 10% glycerol, 137 mM NaCl, 1% Triton X-100, 25 mM β-glycerophosphate, 2 mM EDTA, 0.5 mM dithiothreitol, 1 mM sodium orthovanadate, 1 mM phenylmethylsulfonyl fluoride, 10 μg of leupeptin per ml, 10 μg of aprotinin per ml), and cell lysates were microcentrifuged at 13,000 rpm for 20 min at 4°C. Cell lysates were incubated with anti-HA antibody for 1 h at 4°C, and the immunocomplex was collected by incubation with 20 μl of protein G-agarose beads for 2 h at 4°C. The beads were washed three times with lysis buffer and twice with kinase buffer (25 mM HEPES [pH 7.4], 25 mM β-glycerophosphate, 25 mM MgCl2, 2 mM dithiothreitol, 0.1 mM sodium orthovanadate). The kinase assays were initiated by the addition of 2 μg of GST-Jun(1-109) substrate protein, and 10 μCi of [γ-32P]ATP in a volume of 25 μl. The reactions were terminated by the addition of Laemmli sample buffer. The phosphorylated proteins were fractionated by SDS-PAGE and examined by autoradiography and PhosphorImager analysis.
Fluorescence microscopy.293 or COS7 cells were transfected with Dvl-GFP or Axin-GFP expression constructs. Thirty-six hours after transfection, cells were washed once with phosphate-buffered saline and fixed with 2% paraformaldehyde for 20 min at room temperature. Cells were then washed several times with phosphate-buffered saline, mounted with Vetashield mounting medium (Vector), and examined by fluorescence microscopy (Leica).
D. melanogaster wing mounting.UAS-mCKIε transgenic lines were crossed to C765-Gal4 lines. Adult wings from the cross, together with the wild-type and dsh1 homozygous adult wings, were stored in a 1:2 glycerol-ethanol solution. Then they were washed twice in 100% ethanol before being mounted in 5:6 ethanol-lactic acid solution. Coverslips were then sealed and examined under a microscope.
Identifying a hyperactive Dvl mutant that stimulates the β-catenin pathway.Dvl is a modular protein involved in divergent signaling pathways. It is believed that the DIX and the PDZ domains are required for β-catenin signaling while the PDZ and the DEP domains are essential for planar cell polarity/JNK signaling (8). To begin to ask whether Dvl contains a binding site for a positive regulator of the β-catenin pathway that is recruited by Dvl to the Axin-GSK3-β-catenin complex, we made a series of deletion mutants, hoping to define a minimal fragment of Dvl that stimulates the β-catenin pathway. During this analysis, we discovered that a truncation mutant (Dvl 1-250), which lacks the C-terminal two-thirds of the molecule, functions as a hyperactive protein with respect to the β-catenin pathway.
The ability of Dvl mutants to activate the β-catenin pathway was assessed in cotransfection assays in 293 cells with a LEF-1-luciferase reporter. The Dvl 1-250 mutant (Fig. 1A) activated the reporter to a much higher level than wild-type Dvl, although the protein expression level of Dvl 1-250 is significantly lower than that of wild-type Dvl (Fig. 1B). We have noticed that the levels of wild-type Dvl correlate with its activities on the β-catenin pathway in a wide range of dosages (data not shown), and the largest amount of Dvl used in this experiment did not induce the maximal response. Serial deletion mutants that remove additional C-terminal residues from Dvl 1-250 were also tested for their ability to activate the LEF reporter (Fig. 1 and data not shown). In this analysis, we found that Dvl 1-232 largely lacked activity on the LEF-1 responsive reporter (Fig. 1B). To our knowledge, Dvl 1-250 is the smallest, and possibly the most potent, Dvl mutant for activating the β-catenin pathway. To confirm the signaling activities of various Dvl mutants, we expressed Dvl mutants in 293 cells and tested for their activities to induce β-catenin stabilization (Fig. 1C). The results from the β-catenin stabilization assay were consistent with those from the LEF reporter assay.
It has been reported that the Wnt signal recruits Axin to the plasma membrane and destabilizes it (29). Intriguingly, Dvl also relocates to the plasma membrane upon Wnt stimulation (60), raising the possibility that Dvl facilitates translocation of Axin to the plasma membrane upon Wnt signaling. Indeed, it has recently been shown that Wnt signaling induces membrane-translocation of Axin in a Dvl-dependent manner (14). We asked whether a membrane-tethered form of an inactive form of Dvl could activate the β-catenin pathway by relocating Axin to the plasma membrane. To do this, we added a myristoylation signal to the amino terminus of Dvl 1-232 to anchor it to the plasma membrane. Notably, myristoylation of Dvl 1-232 markedly increased its ability to stimulate LEF-1-mediated transcription (Fig. 1B). This finding was confirmed by the β-catenin stabilization assay (Fig. 1C).
The ability of myristoylated Dvl 1-232 to recruit cotransfected Axin-GFP to the plasma membrane was confirmed (Fig. 1D), implying that myristoylated Dvl 1-232 can activate Wnt signaling by recruiting Axin to the plasma membrane. Although adding a myristoylation signal to Dvl 1-232 increased its activity to stimulate LEF-1-mediated transcription, adding a myristoylation signal to Dvl and Dvl 1-250 decreased their activities (data not shown). Furthermore, ectopic expression of Dvl and Dvl 1-250 did not induce obvious membrane-translocation of Axin-GFP (data not shown). We hypothesize that Dvl 1-250 and myristoylated Dvl 1-232 might activate the β-catenin pathway through different mechanisms: Dvl 1-250 might recruit a positive regulator of the Wnt pathway into the Axin-GSK3-β-catenin complex, while myristoylated Dvl 1-232 might relocate Axin to the plasma membrane and destabilize Axin. It is noteworthy that although myristoylated Dvl 1-232 is more active than Dvl 1-250 in recruiting Axin-GFP to the plasma membrane, its effect on LEF-1-mediated transcription was significantly less than that of Dvl 1-250. Therefore, Dvl seems to have multiple ways to influence Wnt signaling.
We attempted to determine whether the functions of Dvl 1-250 and myristoylated Dvl 1-232 on LEF-1-mediated transcription required the DIX domain. However, deleting the DIX domain from these two proteins rendered them unstable (data not shown). In agreement with the notion that the DIX domain is required for Dvl-induced β-catenin activation, neither DvlΔDIX nor DvlΔ1-250 showed any stimulatory activity on the β-catenin pathway, although these two mutants appeared to be stable (data not shown). Therefore, we assume that the Dvl 1-250 and myristoylated Dvl 1-232 mutants also require the DIX domain for their functions.
Although the region of amino acids 232 to 250 is important for the signaling activity of Dvl 1-250, it is dispensable for the signaling activity of the full-length Dvl (data not shown). Presumably, this region is important for the proper folding of Dvl 1-250, but it is compensated for by the other regions of Dvl in the context of the full-length Dvl.
CKIε synergizes with Dvl to activate the β-catenin pathway.Dvl can be activated by Wnt, possibly through Frizzled, and is responsible for transducing signals from Wnt receptors to the β-catenin destruction complex; however, it is not known how Dvl is instructed to transmit a signal that leads to stabilization of β-catenin. Since CKIε positively regulates Wnt signaling through an unknown mechanism, we tested the possibility that CKIε stimulates Dvl activity in the β-catenin pathway. Various amounts of CKIε and Dvl expression plasmids were transfected into 293 cells together with an LEF-1-expressing plasmid and the LEF luciferase reporter plasmid. At a low dose (50 ng of each), CKI ε or Dvl alone caused a modest increase of LEF-1-mediated transcription activity, while coexpression of CKIε and Dvl dramatically stimulated LEF-1-mediated transcription (Fig. 2, left panel). At an even lower dose (5 ng of each), CKIε or Dvl alone had no discernible effect on LEF-1-mediated transcription, while CKIε and Dvl together had an obvious synergistic effect (Fig. 2, right panel). These data are in agreement with a previous report (22) and suggest that CKIε and Dvl can synergistically activate the β-catenin pathway.
Synergy between CKIε and Dvl but not CKIε and Dvl 1-250 on LEF-1-mediated transcription. 293 cells were transfected with an LEF-1 expression plasmid and an LEF-1 luciferase reporter plasmid as well as the indicated expression constructs. The cytomegalovirus-Renilla luciferase expression plasmid was used to control the transfection efficiency. In the left panel, 50 ng each of CKIε or Dvl expression plasmid DNA was used, while in the right panel 5 ng was used.
We also tested whether CKIε could also synergize with Dvl 1-250. Intriguingly, no synergistic effect was observed on LEF-1-mediated transcription between CKIε and Dvl 1-250 at two 10-fold different dosages (Fig. 2). Since Dvl 1-250 is a much more potent activator of LEF-1-mediated transcription than wild-type Dvl, we propose that the C-terminal two-thirds of Dvl structurally blocks the function of the N-terminal region of the molecule in the β-catenin pathway and that this inhibition can be relieved by either deletion of the C-terminal region of Dvl or CKIε-induced phosphorylation of Dvl. This could explain the lack of synergy between CKIε and Dvl 1-250.
Overexpression of CKIε inhibits Dvl-induced activation of JNK.Dvl plays a critical role in the planar cell polarity signaling pathway that involves the activation of the small GTPases, Rac and Rho, and the JNK cascade. The DEP domain, but not the DIX domain, has been reported to be essential for the function of Dvl in planar cell polarity/JNK signaling. For example, a Drosophila dsh1 allele, which contains a K417 M mutation in the DEP domain of Dsh, exhibits a planar cell polarity phenotype but not a wg phenotype (6, 9). In tissue culture, overexpression of Dvl activated the JNK pathway, while Dvl mutants with the DEP domain deleted or bearing the corresponding K417 M mutation failed to activate the JNK pathway (9, 33). Although the role of JNK signaling in the planar cell polarity pathway is not yet entirely clear, we used activation of JNK as a surrogate marker for activation of the planar cell polarity pathway in this study.
To test the effect of CKIε on Dvl-induced JNK activation, we coexpressed CKIε and Dvl together with HA-tagged JNK in 293 cells and measured JNK activity by an in vitro kinase assay (Fig. 3). Overexpression of wild-type CKIε or kinase-deficient CKIε (K38F) had no effect on JNK activation, while overexpression of Dvl strongly activated JNK. Significantly, coexpression of wild-type CKIε and Dvl greatly inhibited Dvl-induced JNK activation, while coexpression of the kinase-deficient CKIε and Dvl had no effect on the ability of Dvl to activate JNK. In addition, CKIε had no effect on UV-induced JNK activation, suggesting that the effect of CKIε was specific to the signaling pathway mediated by Dvl. Furthermore, coexpression of CKIε and Dvl also induced hyperphosphorylation of Dvl, as indicated by the slower migration of Dvl (Fig. 3, middle panel). Since the kinase activity is required for the inhibitory effect of CKIε on Dvl-induced JNK activation, it is not likely that overexpression of CKIε simply blocks the interaction between Dvl and its downstream target. Instead, CKIε-induced phosphorylation might reduce the affinity between Dvl and its downstream target in the planar cell polarity/JNK pathway.
Inhibition of Dvl-induced JNK activation by CKIε. 293 cells were cotransfected with the HA-tagged JNK expression construct with Flag-tagged Dvl expression constructs and Myc-tagged CKIε expression constructs. CKIε KF mutant contains a K38F mutation in the kinase domain and lacks kinase activity. As a control for activation of JNK by an alternative mechanism, cells were treated with UV at 40 J/m2 before cell harvesting. HA-tagged JNK was immunoprecipitated by anti-HA antibodies, and the abilities of JNK to phosphorylate GST-c-Jun were determined. The results were visualized with a PhosphorImager (top panel). The expression of Dvl and CKIε was confirmed by immunoblotting with anti-Flag and anti-Myc antibodies (bottom panels).
Overexpression of CKIε in D. melanogaster activates Wnt signaling and perturbs planar cell polarity signaling.Dsh is a key component not only in transducing Wg signaling but also in the planar cell polarity pathway to mediate DFz1 activity (23, 25, 35, 50, 53). To ask if CKIε regulates Dsh in D. melanogaster to affect both the Wg signaling and the planar cell polarity pathways, we generated UAS-mouse CKIε transgenic flies. Eight individual transgenic lines were obtained. These animals were then used to investigate whether CKIε can perturb the normal Wg signaling events or the planar cell polarity pathway.
It was reported that activation of Wg signaling in the developing wing can lead to ectopic wing margin bristles in the interior of the wing (5, 7, 62) and that loss of DFz1 function or of DFz1 overexpression disrupts wing hair polarity (1, 21). Here, we examined the effects of CKIε on adult wings. With a C765-Gal4 driver, which is expressed ubiquitously in wing (47), we observed ectopic bristles in the interior of the wing, resembling the effect of Wg signal activation (Fig. 4B). Overexpressing CKIε also led to a polarity defect (Fig. 4C), although the defect appeared to be weaker than that observed with a dsh1 mutant (Fig. 4D).
Effects of overexpressing CKIε in adult wings. (A) Wild-type wing pattern in the region distal to the posterior cross vein. The arrow indicates hair orientation. (B) Ectopic bristles were observed in wings with CKIε overexpression (indicated by arrowheads), similar to ectopic Wg signal activation in the interior of the wing. (C and D) Further polarity defects are shown here in wings overexpressing CKIε (C), similar to the phenotypes observed in dsh1 (D). Arrows indicate irregular orientations of the hairs.
In sum, CKIε overexpression in D. melanogaster not only activates Wg signaling, but also perturbs planar cell polarity signaling. However, it is still not clear whether endogenous CKIε is required for establish proper planar cell polarity in D. melanogaster wings. Dbt is the Drosophila ortholog of CKIε/δ, and it regulates the period of circadian rhythms (24). Dbt is also known as disk overgrowth (Dco), and mutants show strong effects on cell survival and growth control in imaginal disks (63). Therefore, it will be difficult to examine the role of Dbt in the planar cell polarity pathway by loss-of-function assays.
CKIε causes a dramatic relocalization of Dvl in cells, and the subcellular localizations of Dvl correlate with its signaling activities.In multiple experimental systems, antibody staining for exogenous Dvl produces a punctate pattern. The punctate appearance of Dvl does not seem to result solely from overexpression, since endogenous Dvl produces a similar pattern in mesenchymal and epithelial cells in embryonic mouse kidneys (54). Furthermore, endogenous Xenopus Dvl has been found associated with small vesicle-like organelles in fertilized Xenopus eggs (31). It has been suggested that translocation of Xenopus Dvl by small vesicles along microtubules to the prospective dorsal side of the embryo contributes to the local activation of a maternal Wnt pathway and establishment of dorsal cell fate in Xenopus laevis (31).
We tested the effect of CKIε on the location of Dvl by coexpressing CKIε and a full-length Dvl-GFP in 293 cells (Fig. 5). When expressed alone (data not shown) or coexpressed with a kinase-deficient mutant of CKIε (Fig. 5A), Dvl-GFP was found in a punctate pattern as previously reported. Coexpressing wild-type CKIε caused a dramatic change: the punctate pattern disappeared and Dvl-GFP became evenly distributed throughout the cytoplasm (Fig. 5B). Similar findings were observed when Dvl-GFP and CKIε were coexpressed in NIH 3T3 cells (data not shown). Since CKIε has been reported to phosphorylate Axin (17), we tested the effect of CKIε on the localization of Axin and found that coexpression of CKIε had no discernible effect on the punctate localization of Axin-GFP (Fig. 5C, D).
Effects of CKIε on the subcellular localizations of Dvl. Dvl-GFP (A and B) or Axin-GFP (C and D) was coexpressed with kinase-deficient (A and C) or wild-type (B and D) CKIε in 293 cells. The localizations of Dvl-GFP and Axin-GFP proteins were determined by fluorescence microscopy.
To determine which part of Dvl is required for the punctate pattern, deletion mutants of Dvl-GFP were generated, and their subcellular locations were examined by fluoresence microscopy. Deletions of the DIX domain, the PDZ domain, or the DEP domain alone did not dramatically alter the punctate pattern (data not shown). Notably, the C-terminal two-thirds of the Dvl protein (amino acid residues 251 to 695), which includes the PDZ and the DEP domains, produced a punctate pattern very similar to that of wild-type protein (Fig. 6B), suggesting that the punctate pattern was mainly determined by the C-terminal region of Dvl. Although the DIX domain is reportedly required for the vesicular-like pattern of Dvl (6, 11), wild-type Dvl and Dvl ΔDIX have similar localization patterns in our experiments in cultured cells, even at the lowest expression level that allowed detection of Dvl-GFP (data not shown). This discrepancy could be due to the different systems used.
Subcellular localizations and signaling activities of Dvl Ser/Thr mutants. (A) Schematic representations of mouse Dvl and its mutants. Twenty-two Dvl mutants were generated. Each mutant had one to four neighboring Ser or Thr residues mutated to Asp. The relative positions of the mutations in the four Dvl mutants (mutants A to D) are indicated by arrows. The wild-type amino acid sequences corresponding to these mutants are listed, with mutated Ser and Thr residues underlined. Mutant A contained T410D, S413D, and S416D mutations. Mutant B contained an S270D mutation. Mutant C contained T135D, T137D, S139D, and S142D mutations. Mutant D contained S179D, T180D, S183D, and S184D mutations. (B) The subcellular localizations of Dvl mutants. 293 cells were transfected with GFP-tagged Dvl expression constructs. The localizations of various Dvl mutants were determined by fluorescence microscopy. Note that mutant A formed some punctate aggregates in the top two cells but was localized diffusely in the remaining cells. To a lesser extent, mutant B was also localized more diffusely. (C) The effects of Dvl Ser/Thr mutants on the β-catenin pathway. 293 cells were cotransfected with a LEF-1 luciferase reporter, a LEF-1 expression construct, and various Dvl mutant expression constructs. (D) The effects of Dvl Ser/Thr mutants on the JNK pathway. 293 cells were cotransfected with HA-tagged JNK and Flag-tagged Dvl expression constructs. JNK activity was measured by immunoprecipitation and in vitro kinase assays. Results were visualized and quantitated by a PhosphorImager (top panel). The expressions of Dvl mutants were confirmed by immunoblotting with anti-Flag antibodies (bottom panel).
Since overexpression of CKIε in 293 cells increased the phosphorylation of Dvl and was associated with the dramatic redistribution of Dvl inside cells, we tested whether phosphorylation of Dvl is required for its redistribution. Coexpression of CKIε and Dvl caused a significant shift of Dvl in SDS-PAGE gels (Fig. 3), suggesting that many Ser and Thr residues were phosphorylated. Because there are a total of 40 Ser residues and 11 Thr residues on mDvl1, it is difficult to determine which residues are phosphorylated. However, we have shown that a GST fusion protein containing the PDZ domain (residues 221 to 360) and, to a lesser extent, a GST fusion protein containing the DEP domain of Dvl (residues 371 to 500) can be phosphorylated by CKI in vitro (data not shown).
In the absence of definitive mapping of phosphorylation sites, we used an algorithm to predict the potential of each Ser and Thr residue to be phosphorylated (26), systematically mutated Ser and Thr residues on Dvl-GFP to Asp, an acidic amino acid residue that mimics phosphorylated residues, and examined the locations of the resulting mutant proteins as Dvl-GFP fusions in 293 cells (Fig. 6B and data not shown).
Twenty-two such mutants were generated, and each mutant had one to four Ser or Thr residues changed to the acidic residue Asp to mimic phosphorylation. Most of the Ser/Thr residues in Dvl were included in these changes, and all the Ser/Thr residues with high potential of being phosphorylated were changed. Most of these mutants had the same punctate pattern as wild-type protein. Two of them, mutant C (T135D, T137D, S139D, and S142D) and mutant D (S179D, T180D, S183D, and S184D), which affect a Ser and Thr-rich region between the DIX domain and the basic region, had punctate locations similar to those of wild-type Dvl (Fig. 6B). Nevertheless, we found two mutants that were more diffusely localized than wild-type Dvl. One mutant (mutant A) contained mutations in the N terminus of the DEP domain (T410D, S413D, and S416D) and exhibited a diffuse distribution in the cytosol (Fig. 6B), similar to that of wild-type Dvl coexpressed with CKIε. Mutant B (S270D), which contains a mutation in the PDZ domain, also appeared to be more diffusely distributed than wild-type Dvl, but to a lesser extent than mutant A (Fig. 6B).
Next, we tested the abilities of these Dvl mutants to activate the β-catenin and JNK pathways. Mutant A and, to a lesser extent, mutant B had higher activity than wild-type Dvl in the LEF-1-mediated transcription assay (Fig. 6C). Significantly, mutant A and, again to a lesser extent, mutant B did not activate JNK as well as did wild-type Dvl. (Fig. 6D). By contrast, mutant C and mutant D were indistinguishable from wild-type Dvl in these two assays. Therefore, the abilities of mutant A and mutant B to activate the β-catenin pathway seem to be inversely correlated with their abilities to activate the JNK pathway, suggesting that the altered amino acid residues may be the natural targets of CKIε.
Of the two mutants, mutant A (T410D, S413D, and S416D) had the stronger effects on Dvl localization and activities. The mutated residues are found within the N-terminal region of the DEP domain. It has been postulated that Lys412 is involved in the formation of a membrane targeting surface (57). Introducing negative charges in this region might destabilize the interaction between the DEP domain and membranes, thereby compromising the function of the DEP domain. A mutant with the four potential phosphorylation sites in mutant A and mutant B mutated to the neutral amino acid Ala (S270A, T410A, S413A, and S416A) exhibited a punctate pattern similar to that of wild-type Dvl (data not shown), supporting the idea that negative charges introduced into mutant A and mutant B are responsible for its diffuse pattern of localization. However, this mutant was able to redistribute to a diffuse pattern when coexpressed with CKIε (data not shown), suggesting that other sites phosphorylated by CKIε must also contribute to the regulation of subcellular localizations of Dvl.
As described earlier, Dvl 1-250 is much more active than wild-type Dvl in its ability to stimulate the β-catenin pathway. This mutant does not contain the PDZ domain or the DEP domain. Consistent with the notion that the DEP domain is essential for Dvl-induced activation of JNK (9, 33), we found that Dvl 1-250 did not activate the JNK pathway (data not shown). We also examined the subcellular localization of Dvl 1-250 in 293 cells (Fig. 6B). Dvl 1-250-GFP was evenly distributed throughout the cells, like other Dvl proteins that are hyperactive in the β-catenin pathway.
Thus, we have observed a correlation between the localization of Dvl and its signaling activities. Dvl with a punctate appearance seems to have less ability to stimulate the β-catenin pathway and more ability to stimulate the JNK pathway. Conversely, Dvl with a diffuse location seems to have a greater ability to stimulate the β-catenin pathway and less ability to stimulate the JNK pathway.
Dbt, the Drosophila CKIε homologue, positively regulates Wnt signaling through Dsh and negatively regulates Dsh-dependent JNK/planar cell polarity signaling.Dbt is the Drosophila ortholog of CKIε/δ. Although the function of CKIε as a positive regulator of Wnt signaling in vertebrates has been intensively studied, it is not known whether Dbt also has a similar role in D. melanogaster. In fact, a recent study showed that Dbt-dsRNA, like CKIα-dsRNA, induced accumulation of Armadillo in Drosophila S2 cells (59), suggesting that Dbt might function differently from its vertebrate counterpart.
We used a LEF-1 luciferase reporter-based assay to study Wnt signaling in Drosophila S2 cells (48). A positive control—coexpression of D. melanogaster Frizzled 2 (DFz2) and Wg—dramatically stimulated LEF-1-mediated transcription (Fig. 7C), and this increase could be totally blocked by Armadillo-dsRNA (data not shown). We then examined the effect of overexpression of CKIε and Dbt on the β-catenin pathway. Overexpression of CKIε in Drosophila S2 cells stimulated LEF-1-mediated transcription (Fig. 7C), consistent with the Wg phenotype observed in the Drosophila wing after ectopic overexpression of CKIε (Fig. 4). Overexpression of Dbt in S2 cells also greatly increased LEF-1-mediated transcriptional activity (Fig. 7A), and this increase could be totally blocked by Armadillo-dsRNA (data not shown). The stimulatory effect of Dbt on the β-catenin pathway requires the kinase activity of Dbt; a Dbt K38D mutant with a mutation in the crucial lysine in the kinase domain lacked any LEF-1-stimulating activity, although it was expressed at a similar level as wild-type Dbt (Fig. 7A).
Function of Dbt and Dsh during β-catenin and JNK/planar cell polarity signaling in Drosophila S2 cells. (A) Overexpression of Dbt activates Wnt signaling in S2 cells; 0.2 μg of empty vector or Myc-tagged Dbt cDNA in a D. melanogaster expression plasmid was cotransfected with 0.1 μg each of Drosophila expression construct with the coding sequence for LEF-1, Renilla luciferase, and LEF-1 luciferase reporter. The experiments were done in triplicate, and the luciferase activities were normalized to Renilla luciferase activity. The Dbt KD mutant contains a K38D mutation in the kinase domain and lacks kinase activity. Expression of Myc-tagged Dbt and Dbt KD mutant in S2 cells was confirmed by immunoblotting with anti-Myc antibodies (inset). (B) The effects of Dbt-dsRNA and CKIα-dsRNA on basal LEF-1 transcription. S2 cells were plated into 12-well plates and treated with the indicated dsRNAs at a concentration of 15 μg/well. Twenty-four hours after dsRNA treatment, cells were transfected with the LEF-1 reporter plasmids. Cells were lysed 36 h after transfection, and luciferase activities were measured. (C) Effectiveness and specificity of Dsh-, Dbt-, and CKIα-dsRNA. S2 cells were treated with the indicated dsRNA and transfected with Myc-tagged Dsh, Dbt, or CKIα expression constructs. Thirty-six hours after transfection, cells were lysed and subjected to Western blotting with anti-Myc antibodies. (D) The effects of Dbt-dsRNA and Dsh-dsRNA on activated LEF-1-mediated transcription. S2 cells were plated into 12-well plates and treated with the indicated dsRNAs at a concentration of 15 μg/well. Twenty-four hours after dsRNA treatment, cells were transfected with the indicated effector plasmid together with LEF-1 reporter plasmids. Cells were lysed 36 h after transfection, and luciferase activities were measured. (E) The effects of Dbt-dsRNA on Dsh-dependent JNK signaling. S2 cells were treated with control or Dbt-dsRNA and then transfected with a Dsh expression plasmid together with an AP-1 luciferase reporter plasmid and a cytomegalovirus-Renilla luciferase reporter plasmid. Cells were lysed 48 h after transfection, and luciferase activities were measured.
These results suggest that Dbt is a positive regulator of Wnt signaling. Results from overexpression experiments should be treated cautiously, because overexpression of a component of a multimeric protein complex can sometimes function as a dominant-negative inhibitor. To avoid these potential problems, we also performed loss-of-function experiments with dsRNA (Fig. 7B). First, we tested the effects of various dsRNA on basal LEF-1-mediated transcription activity in S2 cells. Although control dsRNA and Dsh-dsRNA had no effect, Drosophila CKIα-dsRNA dramatically increased LEF-1-mediated transcription activity (about 800-fold). This result is consistent with the recent findings that CKIα phosphorylates Ser 45 of β-catenin and serves as a priming kinase for GSK3 (28, 59).
In agreement with a recent report (59), Dbt-dsRNA also modestly activated LEF-1-mediated transcription (about 80-fold), to a much lower extent than CKIα-dsRNA, but well above background (Fig. 7B). This result suggests that Dbt might help to keep Armadillo activity in check in the resting cells. To test the effectiveness and specificity of dsRNA, S2 cells were treated with various dsRNAs and transfected with Myc-tagged Dsh, Dbt, or CKIα expression constructs. Dsh-, Dbt-, and CKIα-dsRNAs caused the selective disappearance of the corresponding proteins (Fig. 7C), indicating that dsRNA treatment was effective and specific.
Next, we tested the effect of various dsRNAs on Wg- and DFz2-induced LEF-1 activation (Fig. 7D). In agreement with the notion that Dsh functions between Frizzled and Armadillo, Dsh-dsRNA significantly attenuated Wg- and DFz2-induced activation of LEF-1. More interestingly, Dbt-dsRNA also significantly decreased activation of LEF-1 promoter by Wg and DFz2. This result, together with the overexpression data, firmly establishes Dbt as a positive regulator of Wnt signaling in Drosophila cells.
It has been suggested that CKIε functions downstream of Dvl and upstream of GSK3 on the basis of experiments in Xenopus embryos with a dominant negative Dvl mutant Xdd1 and a casein kinase inhibitor CKI-7 (40). As also shown in Fig. 7D, we attempted to examine the relationship between Dbt and Dsh with dsRNA. Dbt-dsRNA only slightly decreased Dsh-induced LEF-1-mediated transcription; in contrast, Dsh-dsRNA significantly blocked CKIε and Dbt-induced LEF-1-mediated transcription. These results suggest that CKIε and Dbt function upstream of Dsh. As a control, neither Dsh-dsRNA nor Dbt-dsRNA had any effect on the ability of stabilized Armadillo (Arm ΔN) or LEF-1-VP16 to activate expression of the luciferase reporter, showing that the effects of dsRNA were specific.
Overexpression of CKIε strongly inhibits Dvl-induced JNK activation in mammalian cells (Fig. 3). To test whether endogenous CKIε plays a role in modulating the JNK/planar cell polarity pathway in S2 cells, we used a reporter construct containing multiple AP-1 elements to monitor JNK activation and asked whether depleting Dbt with dsRNA would affect Dsh-dependent activation of JNK. As shown in Fig. 7E, Dbt-dsRNA significantly increased the stimulatory effect of Dsh on the AP-1 luciferase reporter. This experiment suggests that endogenous Dbt inhibits Dsh-dependent planar cell polarity/JNK signaling. It should be noted that the AP-1 reporter is only a surrogate maker for planar cell polarity/JNK signaling. Future experiments will be necessary to directly examine the role of Dbt in planar cell polarity signaling in vivo.
Taken together, our data suggest that Dbt positively regulates Wnt signaling through Dsh and negatively modulates Dsh-induced JNK/planar cell polarity signaling.
Dvl plays a pivotal role in both the Wnt/β-catenin and the planar cell polarity/JNK signaling pathways. Our study has identified CKIε as a key regulator of Dvl in both pathways. We observed a correlation between the subcellular localizations of Dvl and the activities of Dvl in these pathways. Furthermore, we showed that the Drosophila CKIε homologue Dbt positively regulates the β-catenin pathway through Dvl and negatively regulates the Dvl-dependent planar cell polarity/JNK pathway.
Dvl is a phosphoprotein that contains many potential phosphorylation sites, and its phosphorylation can be increased by Wnt stimulation. It is possible that Wnt-induced hyperphosphorylation activates Dvl in the β-catenin pathway, although a correlation between Dvl hyperphosphorylation and activation of the planar cell polarity pathway has also been shown (4, 42). Phosphorylation of Dvl is likely to be a dynamic process, and phosphorylation of Dvl at different sites in divergent biological processes might have different effects on Dvl signaling activities.
Dvl is implicated in regulation of both the β-catenin and the planar cell polarity pathways, and it may form different complexes within the two pathways. For example, activation of one pathway might sequester Dvl into one type of complex and render it unavailable to the other pathway. It is possible that cells can transmit only β-catenin signals or only JNK/planar cell polarity signals, depending on the status of certain factors, such as Dvl, in these cells. This could explain why ectopic expression of Wg impairs the planar cell polarity phenotype induced by excess DFz1, while overexpression of DFz1 produces embryos that develop lawns of denticles reminiscent of wg mutants (6). However, it seems more likely that both β-catenin and planar cell polarity signaling can occur in the same cells (19), through different pools of Dvl present in different complexes. Since both β-catenin and planar cell polarity signals are transmitted through Dvl, regulating Dvl conformation by CKIε-induced phosphorylation may not only influence which signal is transmitted, but may also determine the strength of each signal that passes through Dvl.
Recently, several Dvl-binding proteins have been identified that affect the β-catenin and JNK/planar cell polarity pathways. For instance, naked cuticle (Nkd) and Dapper are negative regulators of Wnt signaling; they interact with Dsh and interfere with its function in both the β-catenin and JNK/planar cell polarity pathways (12, 43, 58, 61). Frodo, another Dvl binding protein, synergizes with Dvl in the β-catenin pathway (18). Stbm (Strabismus/Van Gogh), a membrane protein involved in planar cell polarity, interacts with Dvl, antagonizing β-catenin signaling while activating the JNK signaling pathway (38). Par-1, a protein kinase that interacts with Dvl, increases Dvl activity in β-catenin signaling, while inhibiting its activity in JNK signaling through an unknown mechanism (51).
CKIε also interacts with Dvl and affects both β-catenin signaling and JNK/planar cell polarity signaling. Consistent with results from other labs (17, 22, 40, 45), we find that CKIε associates with Dvl in vivo and phosphorylates Dvl in vitro (data not shown). Potentially, CKIε could modulate signaling by phosphorylating molecules other than Dvl, such as Diversin (46). However, since Dvl is involved in both β-catenin-mediated and JNK/planar cell polarity signaling and since Dvl is a documented substrate of CKIε in vitro, we focused our attention on Dvl. The effects of CKIε on Dvl signaling activities and subcellular locations can be mimicked by mutating certain potential phosphorylation sites (Fig. 6). Furthermore, the stimulatory effect of CKIε on the β-catenin pathway requires Dvl (Fig. 7). Therefore, it is likely that the effects of CKIε on the β-catenin and JNK/planar cell polarity pathways are mediated by phosphorylation of Dvl. However, the effect of CKIε on Dvl could also be indirect. For example, it is possible that the C-terminal region of Dvl forms a complex with an unknown protein and CKIε regulates the formation of the complex by phosphorylating this unknown protein. It is also possible that the effect of CKIε on Dvl is mediated by another kinase.
Our results demonstrate that CKIε can function as a switch for Dvl: CKIε promotes Dvl signaling through β-catenin, and it directs Dvl away from the planar cell polarity/JNK pathway. We also observed a correlation between the subcellular locations of Dvl and the signaling activities of Dvl in the β-catenin and the JNK pathways. First, overexpression of CKIε causes a dramatic redistribution of Dvl, from a punctate pattern in the cytoplasm to a diffuse pattern. This change is associated with a significant increase in the activity of Dvl on the β-catenin pathway and a dramatic decrease in activity in the JNK pathway. Second, two Dvl mutants that we generated, especially mutant A, exhibited diffuse patterns of distribution and accordingly had higher activities in the β-catenin pathway and lower activities in the JNK pathway. Third, the Dvl 1-250 mutant adopted a diffuse distribution pattern and was much more potent than wild-type Dvl as an activator of LEF-1-mediated transcription, while it failed to activate the JNK pathway.
Together with work by others (6, 9, 33, 60), our data suggest that the activity of Dvl on the β-catenin pathway is mainly contributed by the N-terminal one-third of the molecule, while the activity of Dvl on JNK signaling is mainly contributed by the C-terminal region. At least when Dvl is overexpressed, the C-terminal two-thirds of the protein seems to have an inhibitory effect on the function of the N terminus. This inhibitory effect can be alleviated either by deletion of the C-terminal domains or by coexpression of CKIε. It is possible that the C-terminal part of Dvl enables the protein to adopt a certain conformation and bind to the structures that form the observed punctate pattern. In such a model, this conformation would be incompatible with Dvl activity on the β-catenin pathway, but would be required for Dvl-induced activation of JNK. We speculate that CKIε might induce a conformational change of Dvl that releases Dvl from the punctate structures and enhances the interaction between Dvl and its partners in the β-catenin pathway. Indeed, it has been shown that overexpression of CKIε enhances the interaction between Dvl and GBP/Frat (20, 27). However, we acknowledge that, although the C-terminal region of Dvl apparently negatively regulates activity via the β-catenin pathway when Dvl is exogenously overexpressed, it might somehow be required for activating the β-catenin pathway through endogenous Dvl present at lower levels.
Despite intensive studies, a full description of the mechanisms by which CKIε regulates β-catenin signaling remains elusive. Both positive and negative roles of CKIε in the β-catenin pathway have been suggested (2, 40, 45, 46, 59). To further complicate matters, CKIε seems to have multiple substrates in the pathway, including Dvl, adenomatous polyposis coli, Axin, β-catenin, and TCF, but the contribution of each is unclear. To further explore this situation, we have taken advantage of the high efficiency of dsRNA in Drosophila S2 cells and the lower gene redundancy in the Drosophila genome. Our studies firmly establish Dbt, the Drosophila CKIε homologue, as a positive regulator of β-catenin signaling. More importantly, our dsRNA experiments also demonstrate that the positive effect of CKIε on the β-catenin pathway is at least partially mediated by Dvl. Therefore, although CKIε can phosphorylate multiple components of the β-catenin pathway and can possibly impinge on the pathway at multiple points, Dvl is one major point of the pathway that CKIε acts on.
Our study also suggests that Dbt might have a dual role in Wnt signaling; while Dbt is required for Wnt-induced activation of β-catenin, it also seems to be required for repressing basal β-catenin activity in resting cells (Fig. 7). Notably, knocking down CKIε expression in mammalian cells with RNA interference did not induce β-catenin accumulation (28), although potential compensation of CKIε function by CKIδ, a CKI isoform related to CKIε, could not be ruled out. Further experiments are necessary to understand the potential negative role of CKIε in Wnt signaling and to determine whether CKIε, like CKIα, negatively regulates Wnt signaling by serving as a priming kinase for GSK3 (2, 59).
Although our study suggests that Dbt is a regulator of the Wnt/β-catenin pathway, it is also known as disk overgrowth (Dco) and is required for cell survival, proliferation, and growth arrest in Drosophila imaginal disks (63). Clonal analysis in the wing demonstrates that dco clones have a cell-autonomous defect in cell proliferation and survival in the wing cells. Although growth failure could be due to the failure of multiple pathways, it is noteworthy that wg- and arm-deficient cells also exhibit cell proliferation defects (34, 37). Further experiments will be necessary to determine whether the growth defect of Dco-deficient clones is partially due to defective Wnt signaling. In addition, since ablating the function of Dbt leads to modest stabilization of β-catenin in S2 cells, it could be interesting to test whether a small rise in basal β-catenin activities might lead to the overgrowth phenotypes in certain fly tissues.
We thank Lewis Williams, Dianqing Wu, Shin-ichi Yanagawa, Rudolf Grosschedl, Peter Vogt, Michael Forte, Richard Young, Po Chen, Myriam Zecca, Virginia Cox, and Mary Baylies for providing reagents critical to this work. We also thank William Pao and Suzanne Ortiz for reading the manuscript.
F.C. is supported by a postdoctoral fellowship from the Susan G. Komen Breast Cancer Foundation.
Returned for modification 1 August 2003.
Adler, P. N., R. E. Krasnow, and J. Liu. 1997. Tissue polarity points from cells that have higher Frizzled levels towards cells that have lower Frizzled levels. Curr. Biol. 7:940-949.
Amit, S., A. Hatzubai, Y. Birman, J. S. Andersen, E. Ben-Shushan, M. Mann, Y. Ben-Neriah, and I. Alkalay. 2002. Axin-mediated CKI phosphorylation of beta-catenin at Ser 45: a molecular switch for the Wnt pathway. Genes Dev. 16:1066-1076.
Aoki, M., A. Hecht, U. Kruse, R. Kemler, and P. K. Vogt. 1999. Nuclear endpoint of Wnt signaling: neoplastic transformation induced by transactivating lymphoid-enhancing factor 1. Proc. Natl. Acad. Sci. USA 96:139-144.
Axelrod, J. D. 2001. Unipolar membrane association of Dishevelled mediates Frizzled planar cell polarity signaling. Genes Dev. 15:1182-1187.
Axelrod, J. D., K. Matsuno, S. Artavanis-Tsakonas, and N. Perrimon. 1996. Interaction between Wingless and Notch signaling pathways mediated by dishevelled. Science 271:1826-1832.
Axelrod, J. D., J. R. Miller, J. M. Shulman, R. T. Moon, and N. Perrimon. 1998. Differential recruitment of Dishevelled provides signaling specificity in the planar cell polarity and Wingless signaling pathways. Genes Dev. 12:2610-2622.
Blair, S. S. 1994. A role for the segment polarity gene shaggy-zeste white 3 in the specification of regional identity in the developing wing of Drosophila. Dev Biol. 162:229-244.
Boutros, M., and M. Mlodzik. 1999. Dishevelled: at the crossroads of divergent intracellular signaling pathways. Mech. Dev. 83:27-37.
Boutros, M., N. Paricio, D. I. Strutt, and M. Mlodzik. 1998. Dishevelled activates JNK and discriminates between JNK pathways in planar polarity and wingless signaling. Cell 94:109-118.
Capelluto, D. G., T. G. Kutateladze, R. Habas, C. V. Finkielstein, X. He, and M. Overduin. 2002. The DIX domain targets dishevelled to actin stress fibres and vesicular membranes. Nature 419:726-729.
Cheyette, B. N., J. S. Waxman, J. R. Miller, K. Takemaru, L. C. Sheldahl, N. Khlebtsova, E. P. Fox, T. Earnest, and R. T. Moon. 2002. Dapper, a Dishevelled-associated antagonist of beta-catenin and JNK signaling, is required for notochord formation. Dev. Cell 2:449-461.
Clemens, J. C., C. A. Worby, N. Simonson-Leff, M. Muda, T. Maehama, B. A. Hemmings, and J. E. Dixon. 2000. Use of double-stranded RNA interference in Drosophila cell lines to dissect signal transduction pathways. Proc. Natl. Acad. Sci. USA 97:6499-6503.
Cliffe, A., F. Hamada, and M. Bienz. 2003. A role of Dishevelled in relocating axin to the plasma membrane during Wingless signaling. Curr. Biol. 13:960-966.
Dierick, H., and A. Bejsovec. 1999. Cellular mechanisms of wingless/Wnt signal transduction. Curr. Top. Dev. Biol. 43:153-190.
Fish, K. J., A. Cegielska, M. E. Getman, G. M. Landes, and D. M. Virshup. 1995. Isolation and characterization of human casein kinase I epsilon (CKI), a novel member of the CKI gene family. J. Biol. Chem. 270:14875-14883.
Gao, Z. H., J. M. Seeling, V. Hill, A. Yochum, and D. M. Virshup. 2002. Casein kinase I phosphorylates and destabilizes the beta-catenin degradation complex. Proc. Natl. Acad. Sci. USA 99:1182-1187.
Gloy, J., H. Hikasa, and S. Y. Sokol. 2002. Frodo interacts with Dishevelled to transduce Wnt signals. Nat. Cell Biol. 4:351-357.
Habas, R., Y. Kato, and X. He. 2001. Wnt/Frizzled activation of Rho regulates vertebrate gastrulation and requires a novel Formin homology protein Daam1. Cell 107:843-854.
Hino, S., T. Michiue, M. Asashima, and A. Kikuchi. 2003. Casein kinase I epsilon enhances the binding of Dvl-1 to Frat-1 and is essential for Wnt-3a-induced accumulation of beta-catenin. J. Biol. Chem. 278:14066-14073.
Jones, K. H., J. Liu, and P. N. Adler. 1996. Molecular analysis of EMS-induced frizzled mutations in Drosophila melanogaster. Genetics 142:205-215.
Kishida, M., S. Hino, T. Michiue, H. Yamamoto, S. Kishida, A. Fukui, M. Asashima, and A. Kikuchi. 2001. Synergistic activation of the Wnt signaling pathway by Dvl and casein kinase I epsilon. J. Biol. Chem. 276:33147-33155.
Klingensmith, J., R. Nusse, and N. Perrimon. 1994. The Drosophila segment polarity gene dishevelled encodes a novel protein required for response to the wingless signal. Genes Dev. 8:118-130.
Kloss, B., J. L. Price, L. Saez, J. Blau, A. Rothenfluh, C. S. Wesley, and M. W. Young. 1998. The Drosophila clock gene double-time encodes a protein closely related to human casein kinase I epsilon. Cell 94:97-107.
Krasnow, R. E., L. L. Wong, and P. N. Adler. 1995. Dishevelled is a component of the frizzled signaling pathway in Drosophila. Development 121:4095-4102.
Kreegipuu, A., N. Blom, and S. Brunak. 1999. PhosphoBase, a database of phosphorylation sites: release 2.0. Nucleic Acids Res. 27:237-239.
Liu, C., Y. Li, M. Semenov, C. Han, G. H. Baeg, Y. Tan, Z. Zhang, X. Lin, and X. He. 2002. Control of beta-catenin phosphorylation/degradation by a dual-kinase mechanism. Cell 108:837-847.
Mao, J., J. Wang, B. Liu, W. Pan, G. H. Farr 3rd, C. Flynn, H. Yuan, S. Takada, D. Kimelman, L. Li, and D. Wu. 2001. Low-density lipoprotein receptor-related protein-5 binds to Axin and regulates the canonical Wnt signaling pathway. Mol. Cell 7:801-809.
McKay, R. M., J. M. Peters, and J. M. Graff. 2001. The casein kinase I family in Wnt signaling. Dev. Biol. 235:388-396.
Miller, J. R., B. A. Rowning, C. A. Larabell, J. A. Yang-Snyder, R. L. Bates, and R. T. Moon. 1999. Establishment of the dorsal-ventral axis in Xenopus embryos coincides with the dorsal enrichment of dishevelled that is dependent on cortical rotation. J. Cell Biol. 146:427-437.
Mlodzik, M. 1999. Planar polarity in the Drosophila eye: a multifaceted view of signaling specificity and cross-talk. EMBO J. 18:6873-6879.
Moriguchi, T., K. Kawachi, S. Kamakura, N. Masuyama, H. Yamanaka, K. Matsumoto, A. Kikuchi, and E. Nishida. 1999. Distinct domains of mouse dishevelled are responsible for the c-Jun N-terminal kinase/stress-activated protein kinase activation and the axis formation in vertebrates. J. Biol. Chem. 274:30957-30962.
Neumann, C. J., and S. M. Cohen. 1996. Distinct mitogenic and cell fate specification functions of wingless in different regions of the wing. Development 122:1781-1789.
Noordermeer, J., J. Klingensmith, N. Perrimon, and R. Nusse. 1994. dishevelled and armadillo act in the wingless signalling pathway in Drosophila. Nature 367:80-83.
Nusse, R., and H. E. Varmus. 1982. Many tumors induced by the mouse mammary tumor virus contain a provirus integrated in the same region of the host genome. Cell 31:99-109.
Orsulic, S., and M. Peifer. 1996. An in vivo structure-function study of armadillo, the beta-catenin homologue, reveals both separate and overlapping regions of the protein required for cell adhesion and for wingless signaling. J. Cell Biol. 134:1283-1300.
Park, M., and R. T. Moon. 2002. The planar cell-polarity gene stbm regulates cell behaviour and cell fate in vertebrate embryos. Nat. Cell Biol. 4:20-25.
Peifer, M., and P. Polakis. 2000. Wnt signaling in oncogenesis and embryogenesis-a look outside the nucleus. Science 287:1606-1609.
Peters, J. M., R. M. McKay, J. P. McKay, and J. M. Graff. 1999. Casein kinase I transduces Wnt signals. Nature 401:345-350.
Rothbacher, U., M. N. Laurent, M. A. Deardorff, P. S. Klein, K. W. Cho, and S. E. Fraser. 2000. Dishevelled phosphorylation, subcellular localization and multimerization regulate its role in early embryogenesis. EMBO J. 19:1010-1022.
Rubinfeld, B., D. A. Tice, and P. Polakis. 2001. Axin-dependent phosphorylation of the adenomatous polyposis coli protein mediated by casein kinase 1epsilon. J. Biol. Chem. 276:39037-39045.
Sakanaka, C., P. Leong, L. Xu, S. D. Harrison, and L. T. Williams. 1999. Casein kinase Iepsilon in the Wnt pathway: regulation of beta-catenin function. Proc. Natl. Acad. Sci. USA 96:12548-12552.
Schwarz-Romond, T., C. Asbrand, J. Bakkers, M. Kuhl, H. J. Schaeffer, J. Huelsken, J. Behrens, M. Hammerschmidt, and W. Birchmeier. 2002. The ankyrin repeat protein Diversin recruits Casein kinase Iepsilon to the beta-catenin degradation complex and acts in both canonical Wnt and Wnt/JNK signaling. Genes Dev. 16:2073-2084.
Schweizer, L., and K. Basler. 1998. Drosophila ciD encodes a hybrid Pangolin/Cubitus interruptus protein that diverts the Wingless into the Hedgehog signaling pathway. Mech. Dev. 78:141-151.
Schweizer, L., and H. Varmus. 2003. Wnt/Wingless signaling through beta-catenin requires the function of both LRP/Arrow and frizzled classes of receptors. BMC Cell Biol. 4:4.
Shulman, J. M., N. Perrimon, and J. D. Axelrod. 1998. Frizzled signaling and the developmental control of cell polarity. Trends Genet. 14:452-458.
Siegfried, E., E. L. Wilder, and N. Perrimon. 1994. Components of wingless signalling in Drosophila. Nature 367:76-80.
Sun, T. Q., B. Lu, J. J. Feng, C. Reinhard, Y. N. Jan, W. J. Fantl, and L. T. Williams. 2001. PAR-1 is a Dishevelled-associated kinase and a positive regulator of Wnt signalling. Nat. Cell Biol. 3:628-636.
Tada, M., and J. C. Smith. 2000. Xwnt11 is a target of Xenopus Brachyury: regulation of gastrulation movements via Dishevelled, but not through the canonical Wnt pathway. Development 127:2227-2238.
Theisen, H., J. Purcell, M. Bennett, D. Kansagara, A. Syed, and J. L. Marsh. 1994. dishevelled is required during wingless signaling to establish both cell polarity and cell identity. Development 120:347-360.
Torres, M. A., and W. J. Nelson. 2000. Colocalization and redistribution of dishevelled and actin during Wnt-induced mesenchymal morphogenesis. J. Cell Biol. 149:1433-1442.
Wallingford, J. B., B. A. Rowning, K. M. Vogeli, U. Rothbacher, S. E. Fraser, and R. M. Harland. 2000. Dishevelled controls cell polarity during Xenopus gastrulation. Nature 405:81-85.
Wodarz, A., and R. Nusse. 1998. Mechanisms of Wnt signaling in development. Annu. Rev. Cell Dev. Biol. 14:59-88.
Wong, H. C., J. Mao, J. T. Nguyen, S. Srinivas, W. Zhang, B. Liu, L. Li, D. Wu, and J. Zheng. 2000. Structural basis of the recognition of the dishevelled DEP domain in the Wnt signaling pathway. Nat. Struct. Biol. 7:1178-1184.
Yanagawa, S., Y. Matsuda, J. S. Lee, H. Matsubayashi, S. Sese, T. Kadowaki, and A. Ishimoto. 2002. Casein kinase I phosphorylates the Armadillo protein and induces its degradation in Drosophila. EMBO J. 21:1733-1742.
Yanagawa, S., F. van Leeuwen, A. Wodarz, J. Klingensmith, and R. Nusse. 1995. The dishevelled protein is modified by wingless signaling in Drosophila. Genes Dev. 9:1087-1097.
Zeng, W., K. A. Wharton, Jr., J. A. Mack, K. Wang, M. Gadbaw, K. Suyama, P. S. Klein, and M. P. Scott. 2000. naked cuticle encodes an inducible antagonist of Wnt signalling. Nature 403:789-795.
Zhang, J., and R. W. Carthew. 1998. Interactions between Wingless and DFz2 during Drosophila wing development. Development 125:3075-3085.
Zilian, O., E. Frei, R. Burke, D. Brentrup, T. Gutjahr, P. J. Bryant, and M. Noll. 1999. double-time is identical to discs overgrown, which is required for cell survival, proliferation and growth arrest in Drosophila imaginal discs. Development 126:5409-5420.
|
0.943211 |
Scott Burton (June 23, 1939 – December 29, 1989) was an American sculptor and performance artist best known for his large-scale furniture sculptures in granite and bronze.
Burton was born in Greensboro, Alabama to Walter Scott Burton, Jr. and Hortense Mobley Burton. While Burton was a child, his parents separated and Burton relocated to Washington, DC. with his mother.
Burton began his artistic career at the Washington Workshop of the Arts in the mid-1950s, before progressing to the Hans Hofmann School of Fine Arts in Provincetown, Massachusetts. Between 1959 and 1962 Burton took classes at Goddard College in Plainfield, Vermont, George Washington University in Washington, D.C., Harvard University, and Columbia University, where he finally received his bachelor's degree. In 1963 Burton was awarded a Master of Fine Arts degree from New York University in New York City.
During his decade-long relationship with the painter John Button in the 1960s, Burton was introduced to the social networks of the art, dance, and theater communities of New York. He came to meet, among others, Edward Albee, Jerome Robbins, Lincoln Kirstein, and Alex Katz. Throughout the 1960s, Burton attempted to be a playwright and librettist, but in 1965 started writing art criticism. In 1966, he began as an editorial associate at Artnews, eventually becoming an editor. He wrote a substantial amount of art criticism in the late 1960s in this role, including the introduction to the pivotal exhibition Live in Your Head: When Attitudes Become Form at the Kunsthalle Berne. Starting in 1969, he began to make performance art, first contributing to the "Street Works" events held in 1969 (and featuring such artists as Vito Acconci and Eduardo Costa). Throughout the 1970s, Burton was known mostly as an art critic and performance artist. In 1972, he showed his Group Behavior Tableaux performance at the Whitney Museum of American Art, and went on to stage other tableaux performances at such venues as the Guggenheim, Documenta, and the Berkeley Art Museum. He began incorporating furniture into his work as early as 1970, and it would grow from being an active participant in his performances to his main area of output. He first realized his sculptures in 1975, culminating in his exhibition at Artists Space in New York, where he showed his Bronze Chair. Through the remaining 1970s, Burton would continue to create performance art pieces and, increasingly, sculpture and public art. It was public art that caught his imagination, and starting in 1979 he began to reconsider his role as an artist by making works of functional furniture-as-sculpture (pragmatic sculpture, he called it) that were meant to be largely anonymous, invisible, and woven into the fabric of the everyday. In the 1980s, he became known primarily as a sculptor of refined sculptural furniture and ambitious and useful interventions in public space. His "tables" and "chairs" challenge the distinction between furniture and sculpture. Copper Pedestal Table from 1981–83, in the collection of the Honolulu Museum of Art, is an example of such a "table". It is as much a minimalist sculpture as it is a table.
One of Burton's primary artistic concerns was the dissolution of aesthetic boundaries, especially the traditional boundary between fine art and utilitarian design. The art historian Robert Rosenblum described Burton as "...singular and unique as a person as he was as an artist. His fiercely laconic work destroyed the boundaries between furniture and sculpture, between private delectation and public use and radically altered the way we see many 20th-century masters, including Gerrit Rietveld and Brâncuși.
Burton died of complications due to AIDS on December 29, 1989, at Cabrini Medical Center in New York City. He was survived by his partner, Jonathan Erlitz, who died in 1998.
|
0.997594 |
According to an article in the MetroWest Daily News, an Ashland woman was arrested earlier this year after allegedly threatening and assaulting a man. The article states that the woman and her boyfriend were staying at the alleged victim’s house in Framingham. The alleged victim reportedly noticed that his prescription Klonopin was missing and blamed the woman. The woman’s boyfriend then got into a fist fight with the alleged victim. During the fight, the woman allegedly went into the kitchen, grabbed a knife, and threatened to stab the alleged victim. She also reportedly threw a fan at him and hit him with it. The police were ultimately called and found three Klonopin pills in the woman’s purse. The woman was subsequently charged with assault and battery with a dangerous weapon (the fan), assault with a dangerous weapon (the knife), possession of Klonopin, and larceny under $250.
Although the charges against the woman are serious, she appears to have a strong defense to at least some of the allegations. Specifically, as to the assault charges, the woman may well be able to argue that she was acting in defense of another: her boyfriend. Massachusetts law allows people to come to the aid of each other when such action is necessary. Specifically, Massachusetts law allows a person to use reasonable force when it is necessary to do so to help another person. In other words, if it reasonably appears that the person being aided is in a situation where the law would allow him to act in self-defense himself, then a third party can lawfully come to his aid in his defense. The law states that if there is evidence that a defendant may have been coming to the aid of another person, then the defendant must be acquitted of the charges unless the Commonwealth proves at least one of the following to things beyond a reasonable doubt: (1) that a reasonable person in the defendant’s position would not have believed that her use of force was necessary in order to protect the third party; or (2) that to a reasonable person in the defendant’s position would not have believed that the third party was justified in using such force in his own self-defense.
As to the second option, a person is allowed to act in self-defense. Once evidence of self-defense is raised, then the Commonwealth must prove beyond a reasonable doubt that the person did not act in self-defense. To do so, the Commonwealth must demonstrate one of the following things beyond a reasonable doubt: (1) that the person did not reasonably believe that he was being attacked or immediately about to be attacked and that his safety was in immediate danger; or (2) that the person did not do everything reasonable in the circumstances to avoid physical combat before resorting to force; or (3) that person used more force to defend himself than was reasonably necessary in the circumstances.
Here, given the fact that the alleged victim was engaged in a fist fight with the woman’s boyfriend, the woman has a strong argument that some use of force was necessary to protect her boyfriend’s physical safety, and that a reasonable person in the woman’s position would have believed that her boyfriend would have been justified in acting in self-defense himself. In particular, the boyfriend was literally being attacked by the alleged victim, and there is no indication that the boyfriend could have safely extricated himself from the situation, or that he used excessive force. As such, the woman has a strong argument that she was justified in acting in defense of her boyfriend. As to the other charges, the woman may likewise have a defense, as it is unclear as to whether she in fact has her own prescription for Klonopin and/or whether the Klonopin that she had in her purse was actually stolen from the alleged victim rather than prescribed or purchased.
Despite the fact that the woman does appear to have legitimate defenses to the charges, she will still need an attorney to persuasively present these defenses to the court and potentially to a jury. If you or a loved one is facing a similar situation, you will likewise need a skilled attorney to handle your case. Attorney Daniel Cappetta has been practicing criminal defense for many years and has helped numerous clients obtain positive results in their criminal cases. Call him for a free consultation and put his expertise to use for you.
|
0.999139 |
Details of task: Read the following case study and identity the problems in relation to cross-cultural management in this context. Assume the role of a management consultant and based on existing research provide recommendations on how these problems can be overcome. At least ten relevant academic references should be cited in the report.
You are a management consultant with expertise in cross-cultural management. You have recently been hired by the CEO of the “Big Food Company” a multi-national corporation with production and administrative units in several international locations. This company has its headquarters in the USA and specialises in the production of some of the most popular drink and snack items.
The Big Food Company has operated for around five years in China as a joint venture with a Chinese partner. The Chinese partner was responsible for the day to day running of the organisation and did so in the traditional Chinese way. In effect that meant that the organisation had a large number of people in managerial roles, a union for the employees and links with the Chinese Communist Party. Recently, The Big Food Company has made a decision to take over the entire administration of the organisation. The Chinese partner was assured a certain amount of profit in return for the use of their facilities, infrastructure and networks. Most employees were retained but some of their official roles were re-organised. The USA based executives felt that this would ensure more profit and a standardization of administrative policies across the company’s various international operations.
A senior executive was sent from the US head office to the Chinese location in order to oversee the administrative changes and given the title of Executive Officer- China (EO-C). The EO-C had experience in setting up joint ventures in other parts of the world but did not have first hand experience with China. He also lacked local linguistic skills and had never lived outside an English speaking country. He found it difficult to communicate with the local management and over the next year or so, the EO-C hired a team of senior managers in areas of production, sales and human resources. These managers were all hired from outside China and had few local links. A small number of them had experience from other Asian locations but the majority of them were from US. They were given crash courses on the Chinese language and culture but were yet to develop an in-depth understanding of cultural underpinnings. Harbouring a distrust of unions and not being cognisant with the role unions typically play in Chinese organizations, the EO-C tried to remove the union. Salaries and job roles (and sometimes locations) were restructured for the Chinese employees in order to increase efficiency within the organisation. The EO-C tried consulting the senior Chinese employees and did not find much verbal disagreement on the issues from these employees.
Despite their best intentions of making the organisation a model one in Asia, the senior management team soon found they had poor communication with the local employees leading to lack of trust, morale and productivity. The organisation was not making as much profit as they had estimated initially. Some of the lack of profit was due to large relocation costs of senior managers. The sales network was also suffering leading to further drop in profit.
Your job as a cross-cultural management consultant is to identify what went wrong in the management style and decision making process in this context. Use the theoretical perspectives you have learned in the course to identify the mistakes the company made. Recommend how they can go about rectifying the mistakes based on the research literature.
Suggestions on relevant follow up activities when necessary.
Reference list matches in-text references and is written in a consistent style.
|
0.999949 |
The following instructions are for: Responsive 6.0+, Mobilia 5.0+, Retina 4.0+, Parallax 3.0+, Turbo 2.0+, and Artisan 1.0+. If you're on an older/pre-sectioned version, please update your theme.
Click Theme settings > Popup/Newsletter.
You can check off 'Enable Popup' and configure your popup here. You have the ability to add in heading, text, an image, and the newsletter form.
|
0.932689 |
Up Out My Face is a song from Mariah Carey's 12th studio album, "Memoirs of An Imperfect Angel." The song was written and produced by Mariah, Terius "The-Dream" Nash, and Christopher "Tricky" Stewart. It was remixed to feature American rapper, Nicki Minaj and then released on February 16, 2010 as the intended lead single from Carey's now cancelled thirteenth studio album and second remix album, "Angels Advocate."
The song was moderately successful having peaked at #39 on the US Hot R&B/Hip-Hop Songs chart. The accompanying music video, produced by Carey and her husband, Nick Cannon, takes place in a store and features Carey and Minaj as Barbie characters. Soon after its release, it was announced that "Angels Advocate" was cancelled and so subsequent promotion and releases of the song ceased.
Nicki Minaj spoke to MTV News about how surprised she was to be asked to work with Carey and admitted that she didn't actually expect to appear in a video with Carey even before she released her debut album. Additionally it was revealed that the pair entered the studio for a day to record the remix together, the featured vocals were not recorded separately and then simply inserted into the song.
A music video was shot in December 2009, along with the video for "Angels Cry" featuring Ne-Yo. Both videos were co-directed by Carey and her husband Nick Cannon. They premiered together on VEVO.com on January 27, 2010. Cannon makes a cameo in the video in a reference to his 2002 film, "Drumline."
The video features Carey and Minaj as several different characters. In one scene, they are dressed as Barbie dolls who escape their boxes. In another scene they are dressed as nurses. Another finds them in a nail salon. There are also several scenes of the two attending a shopping store wearing large dresses. Minaj said that Carey said, "Everybody's gonna say 'she's doing Nicki.' But I told her, she's always had a doll persona, like all that 'doll baby' [stuff]. So it goes perfect with Barbie and we had fun. That's all that matters." The video also features an appearance by TV personality, B. Scott.
In a review of the video, Chris Ryan of MTV News said, "No offense to the imperfect angel or anything, but Nicki kinda steals the show here, dressed up like Nurse Barbie, referencing Trey Songz' "LOL" in a British accent, she basically pops balloons all over this thing."
Shaheem Reid of MTV said that "the two bust out and have a good time changing outfits and playing with men," and that "The doll angle plays perfectly with Nicki's "black Barbie" personality."
Alison Stewart from the Washington Post gave the song a somewhat positive review, stating: "Sometime in the past six months, Minaj became the go-to girl for artists who wanted to add some skank to their tracks without sullying themselves in the process. Here, she enlivens an otherwise polite track from Carey's upcoming remix disc."
In the chart week of January 28, 2010, the song debuted at #97 on the US Hot R&B/Hip Hop Songs chart. With the entry, Carey extends her lead as the female artist with the most consecutive yearly "R&B/Hip Hop Songs" chart debuts. The remix for "Up Out My Face" is Mariah's first 21st annual chart debut on the Hot R&B/Hip Hop Songs chart, and her 42nd overall entry on the chart.
The song eventually peaked at #39 on Billboard's Hot R&B\Hip-Hop Songs chart and #100 on Billboard's Bubbling Under Hot 100 Singles chart. It also charted in South Korea as well.
|
0.998014 |
Do you love a good barbecue and wish you could enjoy it at home more? The key is building a proper BBQ pit.
The first thing you need to do is make sure you have all the materials for making a BBQ pit. Make sure you have these materials on hand: a hand tamp, shovel, cinder blocks, measuring tape, gravel, dry mortar, water, a trowel, a leveler, a carpenter’s square, metal braces, a grill top and bricks.
Next, you need to find the perfect spot for your BBQ pit. Your BBQ pit needs to be about 3 feet by 5 feet, which is approximately 4.6 meters square. You also need to make sure the area is clear of any brush and that the location doesn’t pose any fire hazards. Also factor in the distance from the house, keeping in mind safety and practicality (how far do you have to lug out the meats and other ingredients).
Now it is time to start digging. Mark the area where you plan on building your BBQ pit and then dig down 8 inches (20 centimeters) deep. Next level off the bottom of the pit with a hand tamp. At this time you should also soak your bricks with water.
Once your pit is ready, you then need to layer it with gravel, about 2 inches worth. Just level this off with the hand tamp too.
For this step, you need to mix the dry mortar with water. Always make sure you add enough water to keep the mortar moist. For best results, spread about a 2 inch (5 centimeter) layer on top of the gravel and then level it off with a trowel. Make sure you work quickly so the mortar doesn’t harden before you have it all level.
Next place the cinder blocks on the edges of the mortar, leaving a small hole or two for drainage. Continue to use the leveler to make sure the cinder blocks are even and then check your corners with the carpenter’s square.
To start brick laying, first spread some mortar on top of your cinder blocks and then place the bricks side by side over them. By doing a double layer of bricks, you will ensure that the pit is structurally sound. Remember to remove any extra mortar as you go because once it is dry, it will be hard to scrape away.
Another option is to add the mortar to each brick individually. Simply put mortar on the sides and bottom of each brick using the trowel and then add to the structure.
Continue adding the bricks until you have the height you want for your BBQ pit. As you are building it up, make sure you check the levels and corners frequently.
The final steps to making a BBQ pit are to place the metal braces in the last layer of mortar while it is still wet. Because they will be used to hold the grill up, they need to be facing inward. Once the mortar is dry, most likely by the next day, you can then place the grill top on the metal brackets.
Switch to Wood. Consider making the switch from charcoal to wood for a more smoky, woodsy flavor to your meat. Make sure to use good quality wood and only let it burn for about four hours so it doesn’t over-smoke the meat.
Quality of Meat Matters. Of course having the right ingredients for your menu is important, especially for barbecue. Really look into the potential sources for your meat and make sure you getting the best quality. Decide if it is important for everything to be organic or not, and aim for meat from animals that were reared outdoors because the quality of the meat will be better.
Not Every Cut Is Equal. It may surprise you, but the cut of meat you order or pick up can determine not only how many people you can feed with it, but also how good it tastes. When you are cooking steaks, the beef feather blade is a good quality cut that is relatively inexpensive.
Colder Meat Is Better for Barbecue. For the tastiest barbecue, make sure you keep your meat in the fridge until the very last minute. This ensures that the meat will take on enough smoke. Meat that has a lot of edges and ridges is also better at taking in smoke so if you have pieces that are really smooth, go ahead and rough it up a bit before putting in on the fire.
Flavor Is a Balancing Act. The BBQ rubs and sauces are the key to really good flavor. But it doesn’t have to be fancy to taste good. A mixture of sea salt and black pepper can really bring out the natural flavors of the meat. Through trial and error you will find the just right hint of flavor. Don’t be afraid to experiment a little.
Remember that Practice Makes Perfect. Any BBQ pro worth his or her salt knows that you need to put in time over the fire to really become an expert. Especially if you are trying to perfect your barbecuing skills for your restaurant, then you need to spend hours perfecting your craft. Practice, practice and practice some more. Never settle for just okay barbecue.
Feeling confident about your BBQ skills? Then it is time to #PitUpOrShutUp for your chance to win your own “Pit Party” catered by Chaps “Famous” Pit Beef’s Bob & Donna.
Simply snap a pic or video of your own Pit, Grill, Hibachi or whatever you use to barbecue on and share it on social media using hashtag #PitUpOrShutUp. Chaps will randomly choose one winner to receive your very own “Pit Party” for you and 50 of your friends! For more information, click here.
|
0.954263 |
The group continued to accept the concepts of history painting and mimesis, imitation of nature, as central to the purpose of art. The Pre-Raphaelites defined themselves as a reform movement, created a distinct name for their form of art, and published a periodical, The Germ, to promote their ideas. The group's debates were recorded in the Pre-Raphaelite Journal.
As an aspiring poet, Rossetti wished to develop the links between Romantic poetry and art. By autumn, four more members, painters James Collinson and Frederic George Stephens, Rossetti's brother, poet and critic William Michael Rossetti, and sculptor Thomas Woolner, had joined to form a seven-member-strong brotherhood. Ford Madox Brown was invited to join, but the more senior artist remained independent but supported the group throughout the PRB period of Pre-Raphaelitism and contributed to The Germ. Other young painters and sculptors became close associates, including Charles Allston Collins, and Alexander Munro. The PRB intended to keep the existence of the brotherhood secret from members of the Royal Academy.
In 1848, Rossetti and Hunt made a list of "Immortals", artistic heroes whom they admired, especially from literature, some of whose work would form subjects for PRB paintings, notably including Keats and Tennyson.
In 1850, the Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood became the subject of controversy after the exhibition of Millais' painting Christ in the House of His Parents was considered to be blasphemous by many reviewers, notably Charles Dickens. Dickens considered Millais' Mary to be ugly. Millais had used his sister-in-law, Mary Hodgkinson, as the model for Mary in his painting. The brotherhood's medievalism was attacked as backward-looking and its extreme devotion to detail was condemned as ugly and jarring to the eye. According to Dickens, Millais made the Holy Family look like alcoholics and slum-dwellers, adopting contorted and absurd "medieval" poses.
The brotherhood found support from the critic John Ruskin, who praised its devotion to nature and rejection of conventional methods of composition. The Pre-Raphaelites were influenced by Ruskin's theories. He wrote to The Times defending their work and subsequently met them. Initially, he favoured Millais, who travelled to Scotland in the summer of 1853 with Ruskin and Ruskin's wife, Euphemia Chalmers Ruskin, née Gray (now best known as Effie Gray). The main object of the journey was to paint Ruskin's portrait. Effie became increasingly attached to Millais, creating a crisis. In subsequent annulment proceedings, Ruskin himself made a statement to his lawyer to the effect that his marriage had been unconsummated. The marriage was annulled on grounds of non-consummation, leaving Effie free to marry Millais, but causing a public scandal. Millais began to move away from the Pre-Raphaelite style after his marriage, and Ruskin ultimately attacked his later works. Ruskin continued to support Hunt and Rossetti and provided funds to encourage the art of Rossetti's wife Elizabeth Siddall.
Artists influenced by the brotherhood include John Brett, Philip Calderon, Arthur Hughes, Gustave Moreau, Evelyn De Morgan, Frederic Sandys (who entered the Pre-Raphaelite circle in 1857) and John William Waterhouse. Ford Madox Brown, who was associated with them from the beginning, is often seen as most closely adopting the Pre-Raphaelite principles. One follower who developed his own distinct style was Aubrey Beardsley, who was pre-eminently influenced by Burne-Jones.
Pre-Raphaelitism had a significant impact in Scotland and on Scottish artists. The figure in Scottish art most associated with the Pre-Raphaelites was the Aberdeen-born William Dyce (1806–64). Dyce befriended the young Pre-Raphaelites in London and introduced their work to Ruskin. His later work was Pre-Raphaelite in its spirituality, as can be seen in his The Man of Sorrows and David in the Wilderness (both 1860), which contain a Pre-Raphaelite attention to detail. Joseph Noel Paton (1821-1901) studied at the Royal Academy schools in London, where he became a friend of Millais and he subsequently followed him into Pre-Raphaelitism, producing pictures that stressed detail and melodrama such as The Bludie Tryst (1855). His later paintings, like those of Millais, have been criticised for descending into popular sentimentality. Also influenced by Millais was James Archer (1823-1904) and whose work includes Summertime, Gloucestershire (1860) and who from 1861 began a series of Arthurian-based paintings including La Morte d'Arthur and Sir Lancelot and Queen Guinevere.
Pre-Raphaelism also inspired painters like Lawrence Alma-Tadema.
Birmingham Museum & Art Gallery has a world-renowned collection of works by Burne-Jones and the Pre-Raphaelites that, some claim, strongly influenced the young J. R. R. Tolkien, who wrote The Hobbit and The Lord of the Rings, with influences taken from the same mythological scenes portrayed by the Pre-Raphaelites. Tolkien considered his own group of school friends and artistic associates, the so-called TCBS, as a group in the vein of the Pre-Raphaelites.
In the 20th century artistic ideals changed, and art moved away from representing reality. Since the Pre-Raphaelites were fixed on portraying things with near-photographic precision, though with a distinctive attention to detailed surface-patterns, their work was devalued by many painters and critics. After the First World War, British Modernists associated Pre-Raphaelite art with the repressive and backward times in which they grew up. In the 1960s there was a major revival of Pre-Raphaelitism. Exhibitions and catalogues of works, culminating in a 1984 exhibition in London's Tate Gallery, re-established a canon of Pre-Raphaelite work. Among many other exhibitions, there was another large show at Tate Britain in 2012–13.
Many members of the ‘inner’ Pre-Raphaelite circle (Dante Gabriel Rossetti, John Everett Millais, William Holman Hunt, Ford Madox Brown, Edward Burne-Jones) and ‘outer’ circle (Frederick Sandys, Arthur Hughes, Simeon Solomon, Henry Hugh Armstead, Joseph Noel Paton, Frederic Shields, Matthew James Lawless) were working concurrently in painting, illustration, and sometimes poetry. Victorian morality judged literature as superior to painting, because of its “noble grounds for noble emotion.” Robert Buchanan (a writer and opponent of the Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood) felt so strongly about this artistic hierarchy that he wrote: “The truth is that literature, and more particularly poetry, is in a very bad way when one art gets hold of another, and imposes upon it its conditions and limitations." This was the hostile environment in which Pre-Raphaelites were defiantly working in various media. The Pre-Raphaelites attempted to revitalize subject painting, which had been dismissed as artificial. Their belief that each picture should tell a story was an important step for the unification of painting and literature (eventually deemed the Sister Arts), or at least a break in the rigid hierarchy promoted by writers like Robert Buchanan.
The Pre-Raphaelite desire for more extensive affiliation between painting and literature also manifested in illustration. Illustration is a more direct unification of these media and, like subject painting, can assert a narrative of its own. For the Pre-Raphaelites, and Dante Gabriel Rossetti specifically, there was anxiety about the constraints of illustration. In 1855, Rossetti wrote to William Allingham about the independence of illustration: “I have not begun even designing for them yet, but fancy I shall try the ‘Vision of Sin’ and ‘Palace of Art’ etc. – those where one can allegorize on one’s own hook, without killing for oneself and everyone a distinct idea of the poet’s." This passage makes apparent Rossetti’s desire to not just support the poet’s narrative, but to create an allegorical illustration that functions separately from the text as well. In this respect, Pre-Raphaelite illustrations go beyond depicting an episode from a poem, but rather function like subject paintings within a text.
There are major collections of Pre-Raphaelite work in United Kingdom museums such as the Birmingham Museum and Art Gallery, the Tate Gallery, Victoria and Albert Museum, Manchester Art Gallery, Lady Lever Art Gallery, and Liverpool's Walker Art Gallery. The Art Gallery of South Australia and the Delaware Art Museum in the US have the most significant collections of Pre-Raphaelite art outside the UK. The Museo de Arte de Ponce in Puerto Rico also has a notable collection of Pre-Raphaelite works, including Sir Edward Burne-Jones' The Last Sleep of Arthur in Avalon, Frederic Lord Leighton's Flaming June, and works by William Holman Hunt, John Everett Millais, Dante Gabriel Rossetti, and Frederic Sandys.
There is a set of Pre-Raphaelite murals in the Old Library at the Oxford Union, depicting scenes from the Arthurian legends, painted between 1857 and 1859 by a team of Dante Gabriel Rossetti, William Morris, and Edward Burne-Jones. The National Trust houses at Wightwick Manor, Wolverhampton, and at Wallington Hall, Northumberland, both have significant and representative collections. Andrew Lloyd Webber is an avid collector of Pre-Raphaelite works, and a selection of 300 items from his collection were shown at an exhibition at the Royal Academy in London in 2003.
Kelmscott Manor, the country home of William Morris from 1871 until his death in 1896, is owned by the Society of Antiquaries of London and is open to the public. The Manor is featured in Morris' work News from Nowhere. It also appears in the background of Water Willow, a portrait of his wife, Jane Morris, painted by Dante Gabriel Rossetti in 1871. There are exhibitions connected with Morris and Rossetti’s early experiments with photography.
The story of the brotherhood, from its controversial first exhibition to being embraced by the art establishment, has been depicted in two BBC television series. The first, The Love School, was broadcast in 1975; the second is the 2009 BBC television drama serial Desperate Romantics by Peter Bowker. Although much of the latter's material is derived from Franny Moyle's factual book Desperate Romantics: The Private Lives of the Pre-Raphaelites, the series occasionally departs from established facts in favour of dramatic licence and is prefaced by the disclaimer: "In the mid-19th century, a group of young men challenged the art establishment of the day. The pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood were inspired by the real world around them, yet took imaginative licence in their art. This story, based on their lives and loves, follows in that inventive spirit."
Ken Russell's television film Dante's Inferno (1967) contains brief scenes on some of the leading Pre-Raphaelites but mainly concentrates on the life of Rossetti, played by Oliver Reed.
^ Landow, George P. "Pre-Raphaelites: An Introduction". The Victorian Web. Retrieved 15 June 2014.
^ McGann, Jerome J. The Complete Writings and Pictures of Dante Gabriel Rossetti, NINES consortium, Creative Commons License; http://www.rossettiarchive.org/docs/s40.rap.html retrieved 16 December 2012.
^ "Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood 1848 - 1855 - HiSoUR Art Culture Exhibition". HiSoUR Art Culture Exhibition. 22 February 2017. Retrieved 27 December 2017.
^ Fowle, Frances (2000). "Sir John Everett Millais, Bt, Christ in the House of His Parents ('The Carpenter's Shop'), 1849-50". Tate. Retrieved 28 January 2019.
^ "Pre-Raphaelites: An Introduction". www.victorianweb.org. Retrieved 28 January 2019.
^ Lutyens, Mary. (1967). Millais and the Ruskins. London: John Murray. p. 191. ISBN 0719517001.
^ Clarke, Michael (2010). The concise Oxford dictionary of art terms - Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood. Oxford: Oxford University Press. ISBN 9780199569922.
^ Whiteley, Jon (1989). Oxford and the Pre-Raphaelites. Oxford: Ashmolean Museum. ISBN 0907849946.
^ "Fine Art Books Art Instruction | Photography Books | Visual Arts Periods, Groups & Movements: Pre-Raphaelites". fineartbookstore.com. Retrieved 27 December 2017.
^ Goldman, Paul (2004). Victorian Illustration: The Pre-Raphaelites, the Idyllic School and the High Victorians. Burlington, VT: Lund Humphries. pp. 1–51.
^ Welland, Dennis S. R. (1953). The Pre-Raphaelites in Literature and Art. London, UK: George G. Harrap & Co. Ltd. p. 14.
^ Buchanan, Robert W. (October 1871). "The Fleshly School of Poetry: Mr. D.G. Rossetti". The Contemporary Review. as cited in Welland, D.S.R. The Pre-Raphaelites in Literature and Art. London, UK: George G. Harrap & Co. Ltd., 14.
^ "Chapter One: Ruskin's Theories of the Sister Arts — Ut Pictura Poesis". www.victorianweb.org. Retrieved 21 November 2017.
^ a b c Rossetti, Dante Gabriel (1855). Letter from D.G. Rossetti to William Allingham. The Pre-Raphaelites in Literature and Art.
^ Desperate Romantics press pack: introduction BBC Press Office. Retrieved on 24 July 2009.
^ Armstrong, Stephen (5 July 2009). "BBC2 drama on icons among Pre-Raphaelites". The Sunday Times. Retrieved 25 July 2009.
Barringer, Tim (1998). Reading the Pre-Raphaelites. New Haven, Conn.: Yale University Press. ISBN 0-300-07787-4.
Gaunt, William (1975). The Pre-Raphaelite Tragedy (rev. ed.). London: Cape. ISBN 0-224-01106-5.
Hawksley, Lucinda (1999). Essential Pre-Raphaelites. Bath: Dempsey Parr. ISBN 1-84084-524-4.
Prettejohn, Elizabeth (2000). The Art of the Pre-Raphaelites. Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University Press. ISBN 0-691-07057-1.
Wikimedia Commons has media related to Pre-Raphaelite paintings.
Wikisource has the text of The New Student's Reference Work article "Pre-Raphaelitism".
|
0.984336 |
This article is about the figure skater. For the British actor and comedian, see Sacha Baron Cohen.
Alexandra Pauline "Sasha" Cohen (born October 26, 1984) is an American figure skater. She is the 2006 Olympic silver medalist, a three-time World Championship medalist, the 2003 Grand Prix Final Champion, and the 2006 U.S. Champion. She is known for her artistry, flexibility and body lines, and musical interpretation. As of 2019[update], Cohen is the last American woman to medal individually in figure skating at the Olympics.
Cohen performs an inside edge forward Arabesque penchée spiral at the 2009 Stars on Ice in Halifax.
Cohen was born in Westwood, California, a neighborhood in Los Angeles. Her nickname "Sasha" is a Russian diminutive of "Alexandra". Her mother, Galina Cohen (née Feldman), is a Jewish immigrant from Odessa, USSR and a former ballet dancer. Her father, Roger Cohen, is a graduate of the University of California, Berkeley Boalt Hall School of Law and formerly a law partner at Brobeck, Phleger & Harrison. Cohen has a younger sister, Natalia (nicknamed "Natasha"), who began college at Barnard College in August 2006. She speaks Russian.
Cohen graduated from Futures High School in Mission Viejo, California in 2002. Cohen graduated from Columbia University in 2016 with a degree in political science. As a university student, she has used the name Alex rather than Sasha.
In 2005, Cohen published her autobiography, Fire on Ice. The autobiography was republished in 2006 adding a new chapter on the 2006 season.
On July 5, 2015, it was announced that Cohen was engaged to Tom May. On August 20, 2016, the couple married in Cape Cod, Massachusetts. As of February 2018, she and May are living apart and going through divorce proceedings. Cohen now works as an associate in Morgan Stanley.
A gymnast from an early age, Cohen switched to figure skating when she was seven years old, but it wasn't until she was eleven that she began to take the sport seriously. One of her early skating coaches was Victor Yelchin, father of late actor Anton Yelchin.
Cohen rose to prominence in the skating community during the 2000 U.S. Championships. Just up from juniors, Cohen was first in the short program and finished second overall after the free skate, provisionally qualifying for the senior World team. A loophole in the ISU's age rules at the time would have allowed her to compete at the senior World Championships if she medaled at the World Junior Championships but she finished 6th at the junior event.
Cohen did not compete at the 2001 U.S. Nationals due to a stress fracture in her back. She resumed full training in June 2001. Cohen won the silver medal at the 2002 U.S. championships, earning her a trip to the Olympics. Cohen competed at the 2002 Winter Olympics in Salt Lake City, Utah, finishing 4th. She also finished 4th at the 2002 World Championships, held in Nagano. Cohen was coached by John Nicks in California.
In the summer of 2002, Cohen moved to the East Coast to train with Tatiana Tarasova at the International Skating Center of Connecticut in Simsbury, Connecticut. She won her first ISU Grand Prix event at the 2002 Skate Canada and then won the 2002 Trophée Lalique. She won the silver medal at the 2002 Cup of Russia. These three placements earned her a spot to the 2002–03 Grand Prix Final, where she became the champion. At the 2003 U.S. championships she won the bronze medal, and at the 2003 World Championships, held in Washington, D.C., Cohen placed 4th, repeating her placement in the previous season.
Her best season was 2003–04, when she took gold at the 2003 Skate America, at the 2003 Skate Canada (setting a world record in the short program) and at the 2003 Trophée Lalique and won silver at the 2003–04 Grand Prix Final. In late December 2003, she changed coaches and began training with Robin Wagner in Hackensack, New Jersey. She placed second at both the 2004 U.S. Championships and the 2004 World Championships, getting a medal at Worlds for the first time in her career.
In the 2004–05 season, Cohen withdrew from her Grand Prix events due to a recurring back injury. In late December 2004, Cohen decided to return to California and train again with her first coach John Nicks. She placed 2nd at the 2005 U.S. championships in Portland and the 2005 World Championships in Moscow, Russia.
Cohen started her Olympic season by placing first at the Campbell's International Figure Skating Challenge. Soon after she withdrew from Skate America due to a hip injury. She took second place at Trophée Eric Bompard, where she fell on a triple salchow during her free skate. In 2006, Cohen overcame the flu to capture her first U.S. championship. With this victory Cohen automatically secured her place on the U.S. Olympic team for the 2006 Winter Olympics, a spot made official on January 14 of that year by the United States Figure Skating Association.
At the 2006 Winter Olympics in Turin, Cohen was in first after the short program, leading Russia's Irina Slutskaya by a mere .03 points. In the final free skate, Cohen fell on her first jump, a triple lutz, and had her hands down on her second jump, the triple flip. She completed the rest of her elements, including five triples. Cohen finished with an Olympic silver medal, 7.98 points behind gold medalist Shizuka Arakawa of Japan.
A month later at the 2006 World Championships in Calgary, Canada, Cohen was in first place after the short program. Completing only one jump combination and falling on the triple salchow, she placed fourth in the free skate and won the bronze medal, finishing almost ten points behind her teammate, gold medalist Kimmie Meissner.
Cohen performs an I-spin at the 2009 Stars on Ice.
In April 2006, Cohen started the Champions on Ice tour, participated in the second annual "Skating with the Stars, Under the Stars" gala in Central Park and performed in the Marshalls U.S. Figure Skating International Showcase. On April 15, 2006, Cohen announced that she intended to compete in the 2010 season and the 2010 Winter Olympics in Vancouver. She said via her official website, "I will decide after the COI Tour how much skating and what events I will do next season."
In December 2006, Cohen announced that she needed "a little downtime from competing" and that she would not defend her U.S. Figure Skating Championship title in 2007. She said that her "major goals" were the 2009 World Championships and the 2010 Olympics; "I know I want to be in Vancouver for the 2010 Olympics."
Cohen did not compete in 2007, 2008, or 2009, although she did not give up her Olympic eligibility. She performed in exhibitions, including the Rockefeller Christmas Tree lighting and USFSA-approved events. She was a headliner in the 2007–08 and 2008–09 Stars on Ice tour.
Cohen announced on May 6, 2009 that she planned to make a comeback for the 2010 Winter Olympics. She said she would train with Rafael Arutyunyan. Cohen received invitations to compete in the 2009 Trophée Eric Bompard and in the 2009 Skate America in the 2009–10 Grand Prix series but withdrew from both due to tendinitis in her right calf. In November 2009, she changed coaches to John Nicks, who worked closer to where she lived.
Sasha Cohen performs an I-spin at the 2003 Skate Canada competition in Mississauga, Ontario, Canada.
On January 21, 2010, Cohen competed for the first time in four years at the 2010 U.S. Championships in Spokane, Washington. She debuted her program to España cañí, and skated a strong performance landing a triple lutz-double toe, a triple flip, a double axel, along with her signature spiral sequence and spins earning 69.63 points putting her in second place, just 0.43 from first-place finisher Mirai Nagasu. However, in her free skate, set to Moonlight Sonata, she fell on a triple flip and had two-footed landings on a number of other jumps. Cohen finished fourth in the championships, behind Rachael Flatt, Mirai Nagasu and Ashley Wagner, and was not selected for the Olympic team; however, was appointed as second alternate to the 2010 U.S. Olympic team and the 2010 World Championship team.
On December 15, 2015, U.S. Figure Skating announced Cohen would be a member of the U.S. Figure Skating Hall of Fame Class of 2016. The induction ceremony was held on January 22, 2016 at the 2016 U.S. Figure Skating Championships.
Cohen performs a Russian split jump.
Cohen is the first skater to receive +3s for spirals under the International Skating Union Judging System (IJS) for "Grade of Execution (GOE)", and was also the first female to break the +130 barrier on a free skate under the IJS. At the beginning of her senior career she was labeled as one in the generation of "Baby Ballerinas" (alongside Naomi Nari Nam) due to her body lines and the ability to point her toes during difficult skating maneuvers such as triple jumps, spiral sequences and footwork. She is known for her 180º arabesque penchée spiral and Charlotte spiral, as well as the variety of positions in her spins. She popularized the I-spin position, which is sometimes informally referred to as the "Sasha spin", due to her exceptional execution of the move.
Cohen has participated in the ice show Stars On Ice for several years, as well as starring in the 2010 Art On Ice alongside Stéphane Lambiel. She joined 2010 Olympic ladies champion Yuna Kim in the All That Skate ice show, scheduled for July 23–25, 2010 in Goyang, South Korea, alongside other skaters including Michelle Kwan, Stéphane Lambiel and Brian Joubert.
Cohen has done commercials for Citizen Watch, Simply Saline, and Got Milk?. She appeared in Episode 7 of the second season of Project Runway wherein designers were challenged to design a skating dress for her. The winning dress (by Zulema Griffin) did not fit and the dress had to be resized. Cohen made a brief appearance guest starring as herself on the May 5, 2006 episode of the NBC drama, Las Vegas. In April 2008, she appeared as a contortionist on the premiere episode of Secret Talents of the Stars and advanced to the semifinals, although the show was cancelled before she could perform again. She made a guest appearance as an ice skater in CSI: NY season 3 episode 12 "Silent Night". Sasha also participated in the 2013 edition of "Tornado Week" on The Weather Channel, helping break the myth that small tornadoes are not as destructive by demonstrating a tight spin.
Cohen played Fiona Hughes, Moondance Alexander's archenemy, in the Don Johnson movie Moondance Alexander. At the 2006 Academy Awards, Cohen served as a guest correspondent for Inside Edition. This experience led to an encounter with Ben Stiller and a discussion about having a part in a future comedy about figure skating, which Cohen said she would enjoy. In 2007, she appeared as herself in Blades of Glory. Later that year, she also had a role in Bratz: The Movie.
In 2017, Cohen appeared as herself in the SyFy tv movie, Sharknado 5.
Cohen performs a Biellmann spiral on the 2008 Stars on Ice tour stop in Halifax.
Cohen did not compete in the 2006–2007, 2007–2008 and 2008–2009 seasons.
From left to right, Kimmie Meissner (silver), Sasha Cohen (gold), Emily Hughes (bronze), and Katy Taylor (pewter) at the 2006 U.S. Championships.
^ "Still Waiting for Sasha Cohen". Los Angeles Times. March 26, 2003.
^ "Sasha Cohen impressive at Campbell's Classic". ESPN. October 9, 2005.
^ "#TB to Sasha Cohen, a Ballerina on the Ice". Dance Spirit. February 22, 2018.
^ "Olympic Figure Skater Sasha Cohen Is Engaged". People. People. Retrieved July 21, 2015.
^ "Sasha Cohen Marries Tom May in Cape Cod". Yahoo!. August 22, 2016.
^ "Newly Single Olympic Skater Sasha Cohen Finds New Purpose in Helping Kids — and a Career in Finance". People. Retrieved February 10, 2018.
^ "Warren Buffett inspired my journey to Wall Street: Olympic figure skating silver medalist Sasha Cohen". CNBC. February 21, 2018.
^ Itier, Emmanuel (January 30, 2008). "On Top of the Teenage World as 'Charlie Bartlett' & as Pavel Chekov in 'Star Trek' Reboot". Buzzine. Retrieved August 22, 2011.
^ Loosemore, Sandra (March 16, 2000). "Junior skaters shouldn't face senior pressure". CBS Sportsline. Archived from the original on October 13, 2008.
^ Rosewater, Amy (December 26, 2001). "Cohen Continues Her Comeback". The New York Times.
^ a b c Lorge, Abigail (January 2006). "Cohen's coaching carousel". NBCOlympics.com. Archived from the original on January 17, 2006.
^ a b Mittan, Barry (December 18, 2003). "Cohen Has Breakout Season". Golden Skate.
^ Elliott, Helene (August 16, 2002). "Cohen Set to Drop Longtime Coach". Los Angeles Times.
^ Faulkner, Cynthia (March 27, 2004). "Cohen: Experience a major asset". ESPN.
^ a b c "Sasha COHEN: 2005/2006". International Skating Union. Archived from the original on June 22, 2006.
^ "Sasha Cohen returns to former coach John Nicks". Associated Press. ESPN. December 22, 2004.
^ "Cohen pulls out of 2007 national championships". ABC News. December 22, 2006. Archived from the original on December 11, 2008. Retrieved December 23, 2006.
^ "Sasha Cohen planning a comeback for Vancouver Olympics". USA Today. May 7, 2009.
^ Hersh, Philip (May 6, 2009). "Cohen poised for comeback; '06 silver medalist eyes 2010 Vancouver Games". Chicago Tribune. p. 76.
^ "Cohen withdraws from Grand Prix event". Associated Press. ESPN. October 9, 2009.
^ "Lingering tendinitis shelves Cohen". Associated Press. ESPN. November 9, 2009.
^ Macur, Juliet (January 7, 2010). "Cohen Remains the Wild Card in Women's Skating". New York Times.
^ Ford, Bonnie D. (January 22, 2010). "Legends bring spark to nationals again". ESPN.
^ "Lysacek, Cohen lead five-member U.S. HOF class" (Press release). U.S. Figure Skating. December 25, 2015.
^ Rosewater, Amy (January 23, 2016). "Decorated U.S. skaters honored with HOF induction". IceNetwork.
^ "Yu-na, Kwan to do another show in July". The Korea Times. June 4, 2010.
^ "Sasha Does Hollywood!". SashaCohen.com. Archived from the original on April 12, 2006. Retrieved April 17, 2006.
^ "Sasha COHEN: 2004/2005". International Skating Union. Archived from the original on April 3, 2005.
^ "Sasha COHEN: 2003/2004". International Skating Union. Archived from the original on June 3, 2004.
^ "Sasha COHEN: 2002/2003". International Skating Union. Archived from the original on June 1, 2003.
^ "Sasha COHEN: 2001/2002". International Skating Union. Archived from the original on December 2, 2001.
^ a b "Competition Results: Sasha COHEN". International Skating Union. Archived from the original on November 5, 2012.
Wikimedia Commons has media related to Sasha Cohen.
|
0.966633 |
The trick to treating obesity may simply be teaching people how to eat their way to enlightenment, according to a study published in the International Journal of Behavioral Medicine.
Researchers from Brown University discovered that an inability to eat mindfully might be at the core of the obesity epidemic. They made this discovery after tracking 394 obese people between the years 1959 and 1974, all the while comparing how earlier experiences impacted the lives of participants as they years passed. Participants were also asked to fill out a 15-item questionnaire that measured for mindfulness, including questions like, "I find it difficult to stay focused on what's happening in the present," "I break or spill things because of carelessness, not paying attention, or thinking of something else," and "I could be experiencing some emotion and not be conscious of it until sometime later."
What do we mean when we say mindfulness, exactly? According to the University of California Berkeley's Greater Good Science Center, mindfulness is maintaining constant awareness of thoughts, feelings, bodily sensations, and surrounding environments. By practicing mindfulness, a person can learn to stay in tune with what they're sensing in the present moment, rather than rehashing the past or imagining the future.
When researchers reviewed the questionnaires, they compared the answers to each participant's weight and abdominal fat — the results showed the less mindful a person was, the more likely they were to be both obese and have higher levels of abdominal fat.
The Cornell Food Lab has dubbed "mindless eating" as the opposite of mindfulness. Unlike more mindful eating habits, mindlessness leads people to overeat based on surrounding environmental cues. Without self-awareness, people eat without regards to the quality and quantity of food that passing their lips. But if people can take control of their mindless habits with ritualistic mindfulness, they may be able to improve their overall health. Practicing an eating meditation is one of the tricks to help get the mind focused on the present, instead of the past or future.
Meditative eating is aimed at creating a greater appreciation for food, which creates a more conscious relationship with food. Here's how it works: First, choose a food item, like an apple, and find a comfortable and quiet place to eat it. Close your eyes and take a few slow, deep breaths. Use all of the senses to focus on the apple's smell, color, texture, and then think about how the food was brought to your hands, whether it was grown on a farm or in a factory. Think of the farmers, truck drivers, factory workers, storekeepers, and the dozens of steps the food took to reach you.
The meditator should then recognize if the apple is connected with any feelings, associations, or memories. After thinking about the negative or positive relationship you have with the food, begin to lick or eat the food slowly and resist the urge to swallow. Think about how the food will nourish your body and provide you with energy as it is digested. In doing so, it builds respect for the food and makes a person pause before taking another bite, as opposed to eating without thinking.
There are 78.6 million obese adults in America today, and researchers believe practicing meditation could be the answer to training a person to be healthier in the long run. However, it'll take more than just 20 minutes of nibbling on an apple to make a permanent change. Being mindful of every aspect of your day, not just your meals, is the foundation of a healthier lifestyle. And for more on those types of meditation, click here.
Source: Loucks EB, Britton WB, Howe CJ, et al. Associations of Dispositional Mindfulness with Obesity and Central Adiposity: the New England Family Study. International Journal of Behavioral Medicine. 2015.
|
0.96374 |
As I was drowning in overwhelming anxiety that was leading to depressive tendencies, my licensed professional counselor (LPC) said these four simple words: survival is a win. This phrase means everything to me. It means that no matter what I do, even if I struggle to calm down or can't process the situation or even the day successfully, that if I just continue to exist, endure, and persevere, I will have accomplished something.
Have you ever been exposed Cognitive Behavioral Therapy (CBT) in a counseling session? This, plus the proper medicine, is what is and has been crushing my anxiety and allowing me to do more than just simply survive (and miserably, at that). In short, CBT* is the method of taking distorted thoughts and providing evidence against those thoughts to change your thinking to hopefully decrease anxiety. Here's a simple example: Distorted Thought: A customer service representative on the phone thinks I am stupid for asking X question. The distortion is that I am mind reading. I am assuming I know what he is thinking-that he thinks that I am stupid because I asked X question. Evidence against this thought: 1) We will never know what another person is thinking 100% so I don't know if he thinks I am stupid for asking the question; 2) It is the person's job to help and answer questions about whatever you are inquiring about; 3) The person doesn't even know me. This technique is also very helpful with other mental health issues such as obsessive compulsion disorder (OCD) and depression. It helps you see reality, hopefully through a clearer filter.
Something that was very hard for me to grasp, especially as an impatient human and perfectionist, was that all of this, meaning dealing with my mental health in a productive and positive way via whatever means necessary, takes time. It takes time to: 1) understand how to use this technique and other tools; 2) implement them regularly in your everyday life; and 3) actually get started. The most difficult part, to me, is actually challenging the thoughts that are distorted. Why? Because, most likely, the old way that I was thinking was set in my brain for a LONG TIME. It is hard to completely CHANGE your thinking. We are stubborn and resistant to change. But time and persistence are the keys to maintaining and benefiting from this technique. There is a survival aspect of this in that you have to survive the tough part of transition between two different ways of thinking (old and distorted versus new and more closely resembling reality) in order to benefit from the results of CBT. I've been going to counseling for two years now, and I am STILL working on what I like to call "distortion busting". When I am too emotionally charged, I have to step back because I can't even find the distortion in my thoughts let alone try and challenge or "bust" it. But when I'm not in those emotionally charged states, I am able to process and find the distortion in under ten minutes. It used to take me HOURS, maybe even DAYS to find it. Sometimes I didn't even find it at all. And don't get me started on challenging those distortions. It just didn't happen. Hours to days of searching for the distortion and processing it down to ten minutes...it's amazing what the right help can do.
Another aspect of survival is knowing when to help yourself. After one and a half years of working extremely hard using the tools from CBT with the help of my counselor as well as countless other tools such as yoga, deep breathing, and meditation, I was still having debilitating anxiety that interfered with my everyday life. It meant that I needed additional help. I had to realize that I needed it. And thanks to my mom and the push from my counselor, I was able to recognize the need when it was right for me. CBT is enough for some people, but for others, they need an extra push to get over the hump. That's what fluoxetine does for me. It helps me get over the hump. I CANNOT stress enough that being able to be on the other side of anxiety is because of the symbiotic relationship between the medicine and CBT. I COULD NOT have made the progress that I have made with just the meds or just the counseling. I had to have both. Others may have a different success story with different tools and medicine, but this is my story.
I share this story with you to show that it is possible to overcome the obstacle that is anxiety in life. For some, it's a HUGE obstacle. For many, it is managing this huge obstacle to make life better. I invite you to challenge yourself to continue to survive. I invite you to take the necessary steps to continue to survive. If you find you need counseling, find a way to go. If you are in college, some schools have free counseling for students. If you are an adult and are fortunate enough to have health insurance, find a good counselor in your network. You can shop around. You are not bound to the first one you try. I even invite you to ask for help, whether it is financially to help fund this endeavor or just moral support. Having a support team is also crucial, but I will save that discussion for a future blog post. Do what it takes to put your mental health, physical health, and livelihood first.
I will always have anxiety. I believe it is in my genetic code. Even with these invaluable tools, I still experience times when I can barely move and breathe, when I can't do something because fears take over, or when I am too emotionally charged to use CBT and my other tools. But, even when I wasn't in counseling or on the meds, I was surviving. I was trying to make it to the next day, the next minute, even the next microsecond. Every moment of survival is a win. It's just a matter of HOW you want to survive. I changed the HOW by finding a counselor and getting the proper medical and pharmacological help. My survival is less of a fight and more of a pleasant friend. Yours can be, too.
*I am NOT a licensed professional counselor (LPC) OR a licensed medical professional. I am simply sharing a piece of my mental health story with you in hopes to inspire you to move forward. Please do NOT take this as medical advice, a diagnosis, or a cure.
|
0.999995 |
Righty Devern Hansack has somewhat miraculously been resigned by Boston. Hansack is great. I can't wait to see what he's up to in 2010.
I'm still stymied by my virus-detroyed home computer, so please enjoy these trade test transmissions from OPC's. I really want to do more work here, but I suppose it will have to wait.
How's that for a snappy post title?
1. From Mack's Mets: "In a mini-camp report for Mack’s Mets, Mack Ade writes of his time watching and talking with Carter, who, he says, ‘really, really wants to make it with the Mets.’ According to Rubin, 'Carter does have a minor-league option remaining, so there’s also a pretty good chance he’s with Triple-A Buffalo.' In regards to Carter’s swing, Ade writes, 'I haven’t seen a minor leaguer with a sweeter power swing since Ryan Zimmerman came to Savannah.'"
6. "Instead of keeping Billy Wagner, offering arbitration, and getting two first round picks when Wagner goes to chase the closer's job he wasn't getting in New York, the Mets trade him to the Red Sox for Chris Carter ... a AAAA power hitting first baseman ... and in the process save over two million bucks. Then, the Mets take most of that two million dollars and give it to Tatis to play first base. With Ike Davis most likely hitting Queens in 2011, they've basically insured that Carter, their big haul from the Wagner trade, will never spend any significant time with the New York Mets. They've also proven that their main concern with the Wagner trade was to save money ... and they didn't even do that right."
|
0.999577 |
Can I get an online bachelor’s degree in Florida?
Yes, you can! Whether you mean that you reside in the state of Florida, want to attend a college or university in Florida or both, this is absolutely an option. There are many options to choose from when it comes to Florida-based distance learning. You will have a broad range of institutions and programs to choose from to make your dreams a reality. Online degree programs don’t typically require you to reside in the state where the physical campus is headquartered, or near a satellite campus. From California to the Carolinas, if you’re accepted to a Florida college, you will be able to do your coursework from the comfort of your home state.
There are plenty of colleges that are based in the state of Florida where you could get an online degree, and many of them (if not all of them) won’t discriminate against applicants who don’t call the Sunshine State home. Additionally, if you do live in Florida, you will have just the same opportunity to complete your coursework online whether purely on the web or through a hybrid program where you would periodically commute to campus for any labs or lectures. There is no reason you can’t obtain your online bachelor’s degree in Florida.
The big name schools that polarize the state’s football fans are the University of Florida and Florida State University. Arguably the most well-known schools in the state, they both offer programs to online students. At the University of Florida, there is an excess of 200 degree program offered through the school’s 16 different colleges. U.S. News and World Report UF as the fourteenth best public university in the United States in their 2017 ranking, and it has placed as the top school with online programs in Florida. If you’ve always wanted to be a part of the Gator family, you can do so entirely online and at your own pace due to the asynchronous nature of the offerings at the school. FSU has also accrued a number of impressive accolades since its foundation in 1851. Students have the option of 360 different degree programs, and many of those are offered in their entirety online and asynchronously. Online degree programs in Florida are held to the same standards as that of their traditional on-campus counterparts and carry the same accreditation. This guarantees the rigor and the viability of the online degrees, ensuring that they will provide you with the education and the qualifications needed to secure the job of your dreams. Many of the online programs at Florida colleges are led by the same experienced and dedicated teachers that are in charge of the on-campus version of the course, like at the University of Tampa, Florida International University, and even UCF!
Can I get an online bachelor's degree in Florida?
|
0.947478 |
The Second Council of Nicaea, also known as the the Seventh Ecumenical Council, was a meeting of Christian bishops in 787 C.E. in Nicaea, present-day İznik, Turkey. The council acted to restore the veneration of icons, a practice which had been suppressed by in the Byzantine Empire during the reign of Leo III (717-741) and officially banned by his son, Constantine V (741-775). It overturned the earlier Council of Hieria, also known as the Iconoclast Council, which had earlier described itself as the "Seventh Ecumenical Council."
Iconoclasm developed in the context of the Muslim advance as Christians began to question whether the use of icons violated the Ten Commandments and emperors felt that their military setbacks against the Muslims were the result of God's displeasure. After the death of Emperor Leo IV Isaurian, his wife, Empress Irene, moved to restore icon veneration by appointing her former secretary as the new patriarch of Constantinople and summoning a new ecumenical council. The council was initially convened in the capital but was interrupted due to a violent outbreak of opposition. It was then moved to Nicaea, where it was concluded after eight sessions. It declared the propriety of "images of Jesus Christ, the Virgin Mary, the holy angels, as well as those of the saints, and other pious and holy men." It also deposed all bishops and clergy who refused to allow such things.
The council was later overturned by by Emperor Leo V, who instituted a second period of iconoclasm in 813. This would last until another empress, Theodora, came to power as regent in 843 and restored the use of images based on II Nicaea. The council is particularly important in Eastern Orthodoxy and is the last council to be recognized as ecumenical by both Catholic and Orthodox traditions.
Icon of the Seventh Ecumenical Council (seventeenth century, Novodevichy Convent, Moscow).
In Byzantine Christian history, iconoclasm developed in part as a reaction to Islam. The military threat from the expanding Muslim empire, coupled with its expanding cultural influence, created substantial opposition to the use of icons among certain factions in the Eastern Roman Empire. Some took the view that ions were offensive to God, a violation of one of the Ten Commandments: "You shall not make for yourself an idol in the form of anything in heaven above or on the earth beneath or in the waters below" (Ex. 20:4). Others argued that icons strengthened the Muslims in their claims that Islam was more pure than Christianity in its adherence to God's laws.
After Emperor Justinian II issued gold coins featuring a full-face image of Christ in 695, the accusation that these constituted "graven images" caused Patriarch Germanus I of Constantinople to write that "now whole towns and multitudes of people are in considerable agitation over this matter." Between 726 and 730 the Emperor Leo III Isaurian ordered the removal of an image of Jesus over the imperial palace gate in Constantinople, possibly believing that recent military setbacks against the Muslims was due to God's anger against Christian idolatry. Although the move was met with violent opposition, Leo forbade the veneration of icons in an edict 730, confiscating not only icons and statues, but also many other valuable decorated objects from the churches. Patriarch Germanus opposed the ban and either resigned or was deposed. In the West, Pope Gregory III condemned the emperor's actions, resulting in a new schism between Rome and Constantinople.
Leo's iconoclastic policy was strengthened during the reign of his son Constantine V (741-775). In 754, Constantine V summoned the "first" Seventh Ecumenical Council, also known as the "Iconoclast Council," in which 338 bishops participated and condemned the veneration of icons as heresy, declaring: "If anyone ventures to represent the divine image of the Word (Christ) after the Incarnation with material colors, let him be anathema! …If anyone shall endeavor to represent the forms of the saints in lifeless pictures… let him be anathema!"
Some monasteries, however, became strongholds of icon veneration. The Syrian monk John of Damascus emerged as the main opponent of iconoclasm, together with Theodore the Studite. Constantine V moved forcefully against those monasteries which did not comply with his iconclastic policy. His son, Leo IV (775-80), initially attempted to reconcile the pro- and anti-icon factions, but near the end of his life, took a more severe attitude in support of iconoclasm.
The Byzantine Empress Irene ended the first iconloclastic period by her support of the Second Council of Nicaea.
The council initially met in the Church of the Holy Apostles in Constantinople. However, soldiers in sympathy with the iconoclast cause entered the church and broke up the assembly. Irene's government, under the pretext of a military campaign, ordered the iconoclastic guard to be sent away from the capital, where it was then disarmed and disbanded.
The council was again summoned to meet, this time in Nicaea, since Constantinople was still thought to harbor too many iconoclasts for the council to be conducted in safety. It assembled on September 24, 787 with about 350 bishops present. In the end, 308 bishops or their representatives signed its acts. Patriarch Tarasios of Constantinople, who had formerly been Irene's imperial secretary and had earlier renounced iconoclasm, presided.
As the sacred and life-giving cross is everywhere set up as a symbol, so also should the images of Jesus Christ, the Virgin Mary, the holy angels, as well as those of the saints and other pious and holy men be embodied in the manufacture of sacred vessels, tapestries, vestments, etc., and exhibited on the walls of churches, in the homes, and in all conspicuous places, by the roadside and everywhere, to be revered by all who might see them. For the more they are contemplated, the more they move to fervent memory of their prototypes. Therefore, it is proper to accord to them a fervent and reverent adoration, not, however, the veritable worship which, according to our faith, belongs to the Divine Being alone — for the honor accorded to the image passes over to its prototype, and whoever adores the image adores in it the reality of what is there represented.
Canon 9 decrees that iconoclastic writings must be surrendered.
Canon 16 insists that clergy must not wear luxurious apparel.
Canon 18 commands that women are not to dwell in bishops' houses or in monasteries.
Canon 20 prohibits double monasteries (for both men and women).
Iconoclasm, however, was not dead yet. Emperor Leo V (reigned 813–820), after a series of military failures which he, too, saw as indicative of divine displeasure, instituted a second period of iconoclasm in 813. He was succeeded by Michael II, who confirmed the decrees of the Iconoclast Council of 754. As with the earlier iconoclastic age, this period would be brought to an end by the piety of a reigning queen. When Michael's son Theophilus died, his wife Theodora became regent for their minor heir, Michael III. Like Irene 50 years before, proclaimed the restoration of icons, with the support of the iconodule monks in 843.
This Second Council of Nicaea, together with Theodora's act of restoration, is celebrated in the Eastern Orthodox Church as "The Sunday of the Triumph of Orthodoxy" each year on the first Sunday of Great Lent—the fast that leads up to Easter—and again on the Sunday closest to October 11 (the Sunday on or after October 8). The council is the last ecumenical council accepted as such by both the Eastern Orthodox and Roman Catholic churches.
Davis, Leo Donald. The First Seven Ecumenical Councils (325-787): Their History and Theology. Theology and life series, v. 21. Collegeville, Minn: Liturgical Press, 1990. ISBN 9780814656167.
Martin, Edward James. A History of the Iconoclastic Controversy. New York: AMS Press, 1978. ISBN 9780404161170.
Ostrogorsky, George. History of the Byzantine State. New Brunswick: Rutgers University Press, 1969. ISBN 0813505992.
Pelikan, Jaroslav. Imago Dei: The Byzantine Apologia for Icons. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1990. ISBN 9780691099705.
This article includes content derived from the 1907 Catholic Encyclopedia and the 1914 Schaff-Herzog Encyclopedia of Religious Knowledge, both now in the public domain.
History of "Second Council of Nicaea"
This page was last modified on 26 August 2015, at 16:20.
|
0.999994 |
This article is about the company. For the channel owned by this company, see TBS (U.S. TV channel).
Turner Broadcasting System traces its roots to a billboard company in Savannah purchased by Robert Edward Turner II in the late 1940s. Turner grew the business, which later became known as Turner Advertising Company. Robert Edward Turner's son, Ted Turner, inherited the company when the elder Turner died in 1963. After taking over the company, Ted Turner expanded the business into radio and television.
Turner Broadcasting System as a formal entity was incorporated in Georgia in May 1965.
In 1970, Ted Turner purchased WJRJ-Atlanta, Channel 17, a small, Ultra High Frequency (UHF) station, and renamed it WTCG, for parent company Turner Communications Group. During December 1976, WTCG originated the "superstation" concept, transmitting via satellite to cable systems.
On December 17, 1976 at 1:00 pm, WTCG Channel 17's signal was beamed via satellite to its four cable systems in Grand Island, Nebraska; Newport News, Virginia; Troy, Alabama; and Newton, Kansas. All four cable systems started receiving the 1948 Dana Andrews - Cesar Romero film Deep Waters already in progress. The movie had started 30 minutes earlier. WTCG went from being a little television station to a major TV network that every one of the 24,000 households outside of the 675,000 in Atlanta was receiving coast-to-coast. WTCG became a so-called Superstation and created a precedent of today's basic cable television.
HBO had gone to satellite transmissions to distribute its signal nationally in 1975, but that was a service that cable subscribers were made to pay extra to receive. Ted Turner's innovation signaled the start of the basic cable revolution.
In 1979, the company changed its name to Turner Broadcasting System, Inc. (TBS, Inc.) and the call letters of its main entertainment channel to WTBS.
On June 1, 1980, Cable News Network (CNN) was launched at 5:00pm EDT becoming the first 24-hour news cable channel. The husband and wife team of Dave Walker and Lois Hart news anchored the first newscast, Burt Reinhardt the then executive vice president of CNN, hired most of the channel's first 200 employees & 25-member staff including Bernard Shaw, the network's first news anchor.
In 1981, Turner Broadcasting System acquired Brut Productions from Faberge Inc.
In 1984, Turner initiated Cable Music Channel, his competition for WASEC's MTV. The channel was short-lived but helped influence the original format of VH1.
In 1986, after a failed attempt to acquire CBS, Turner purchased the film studio MGM/UA Entertainment Co. from Kirk Kerkorian for $1.5 billion. Following the acquisition, Turner had an enormous debt and sold parts of the acquisition. MGM/UA Entertainment was sold back to Kirk Kerkorian. The MGM/UA Studio lot in Culver City was sold to Lorimar/Telepictures. Turner kept MGM's pre-May 1986 film and TV library as well as the Associated Artists Productions library (the pre-1950 Warner Bros. film library and the Fleischer Studios/Famous Studios Popeye cartoons originally released by Paramount Pictures), and the U.S./Canadian distribution rights to the RKO Pictures library. Turner Entertainment Co. was founded on August 4, 1986.
On October 3, 1988, the company launched Turner Network Television (TNT).
Turner expanded its presence in movie production and distribution, first with the 1991 purchase of the Hanna-Barbera animation studio. On December 22, 1993, Turner acquired Castle Rock Entertainment. Turner purchased New Line Cinema a month later.
Turner launched Cartoon Network on October 1, 1992, followed by Turner Classic Movies (TCM) on April 14, 1994.
On October 10, 1996, Turner merged with Time Warner, a company formed in 1990 by the merger of Time Inc. and Warner Communications. Through this merger, Warner Bros. had regained the rights to its pre-1950 library, while Turner gained access to the company's post-1950 library and other properties. The company also became a subsidiary of Time Warner since the acquisition.
In 2003, Philip I. Kent succeeded Jamie Kellner as chairman. Operational duties for The WB were transferred by Time Warner from Warner Bros. to Turner Broadcasting during 2001, while Kellner was chairman, but were returned to Warner Bros. in 2003 with the departure of Kellner.
On February 23, 2006, the company agreed to sell the regional entertainment channel Turner South to Fox Entertainment Group. Fox assumed control of the channel on May 1, and on October 13 relaunched it as SportSouth - coincidentally, the former name of Fox Sports South when Turner owned this channel in partnership with Liberty Media between 1990 and 1996.
In May 2006, Time Warner, which had owned 50% of Court TV since 1998, purchased the remaining 50% from Liberty Media and began running the channel as part of Turner Broadcasting. The channel was relaunched as TruTV on January 1, 2008.
Also in May 2006, Ted Turner attended his last meeting as a board member of Time Warner and officially parted with the company.
On August 26, 2010, Turner Broadcasting took full control of Chilevisión, a TV channel owned by the President of Chile Sebastián Piñera.
On September 8, 2011, Turner Broadcasting System acquired LazyTown Entertainment, the producer of the TV series LazyTown.
On January 1, 2014, John K. Martin succeeded Phil Kent as chairman and CEO of Turner Broadcasting.
In August 2014, The Wrap reported that Turner was preparing to offer buy-outs to 550 employees as part of plans to restructure the company heading into 2015. The ratings performance of CNN and HLN were cited as a factor, while CBSSports.com reported that the rising rights fees Turner pays for its NBA broadcasts on TNT may have also been a factor. It was further reported in October 2014 that the company planned to reduce its workforce by 10% (1,475 people) through layoffs across a wide set of units including corporate positions.
On August 14, 2015, it was announced that Turner Broadcasting had acquired a majority stake in iStreamPlanet, a Las Vegas-based video streaming services company, in an effort to bolster its over-the-top programming and shift its core technology infrastructure to the cloud. iStreamPlanet is a direct competitor of Major League Baseball Advanced Media. The deal was reported to be in the neighborhood of $200 million. On October 2015, Turner launched a streaming-video network named Great Big Story.
In April 2017, in order to expedite the sale of Time Warner to AT&T by shedding FCC-licensed properties, WPCH-TV was sold to Meredith Corporation, which had already been operating WPCH on its behalf since 2011 as a sister to its local station WGCL-TV.
On March 22, 2018, Six Flags and Riverside Group announced a partnership with Turner Asia Pacific to bring attractions based on Tuzki and other Turner-owned IPs to its theme parks in China.
On June 15, 2018, it was announced that John Martin would be leaving as CEO following AT&T's completed acquisition of Time Warner, which would later be renamed WarnerMedia once the acquisition was completed. By September, AT&T had transferred its Audience channel, a group of regional sports networks plus stakes in Game Show Network and MLB Network to Turner from AT&T Communications.
In December 2018, Turner Broadcasting sold the rights to the brand and programming library of defunct cable network Court TV (which relaunched as TruTV in 2008) to Katz, with plans to re-launch it as an over-the-air digital network in May 2019.
On March 4, 2019, AT&T announced a major reorganization of its broadcasting assets to effectively dissolve Turner Broadcasting System. Its assets are to be dispersed across multiple units of WarnerMedia, including the newly-created WarnerMedia Entertainment and WarnerMedia News & Sports. WarnerMedia Entertainment would consist of HBO, TBS, TNT, TruTV, and an upcoming direct-to-consumer video service (led by former NBC entertainment chief Robert Greenblatt), while WarnerMedia News & Sports would consist of CNN, Turner Sports, and the AT&T SportsNet regional networks (which would be led by CNN Worldwide president Jeff Zucker). Cartoon Network, Adult Swim, Boomerang, and Turner Classic Movies would be moved under Warner Bros. Entertainment via the new "Global Kids & Young Adults" business unit. Although AT&T did not specify any timetable for the changes, WarnerMedia had already begun to remove references to Turner Broadcasting in corporate communications, with press releases referring to its networks as being "divisions of WarnerMedia".
The channels in Latin America are controlled by Turner Broadcasting System Latin America, headquartered in Atlanta. It broadcasts Latin American versions of U.S. channels, and also channels that are exclusive for the region. TBS LA also handles advertising sales for Warner TV (owned by fellow WarnerMedia division Warner Bros. Entertainment Inc.) and for the Brazilian action sports channel Woohoo.
CNN Chile, a joint-venture between Turner Latin América and VTR Globalcom that is only aired in Chile.
CNN IBN, a joint-venture between Turner, TV18 and Global Broadcast News that is only aired in India.
CNN Türk, owned by Doğan Medya Grubu that is only aired in Turkey.
CNN+, a joint-venture between Turner (50%) and Sogecable that is only aired in Spain, closed down in late 2010.
Showtime Scandinavia through Turner NonStop Television in the Scandinavian countries.
Silver (TV channel), independent and international movies, through Turner NonStop Television in the Scandinavian countries.
Star, showbiz news programming, through Turner NonStop Television in the Scandinavian countries.
Note: (*) - Now owned or absorbed by sister company, Warner Bros.
Universal Wrestling Corporation - A professional wrestling promotion formerly known as World Championship Wrestling. Currently a non-operational company, select assets are now owned by WWE through WCW, Inc.
^ Stelter, Brian (15 June 2018). "Time Warner's new name: WarnerMedia". CNNMoney. Retrieved 14 December 2018.
^ a b c d Turner, Ted (2008). Call Me Ted. New York: Grand Central Publishing. ISBN 978-0-446-58189-9.
^ "Turner Broadcasting System, Inc". Georgia Corporations Division. Georgia Secretary of State. Retrieved 13 February 2018.
^ a b "Ted Turner's Former Superstation TBS Has Been Sold". adweek.it. Retrieved 2019-04-12.
^ Wu, Tim (2010-11-11). "Ted Turner, the Alexander the Great of Television". Slate Magazine. Retrieved 2019-04-12.
^ "Faberge Sells Brut's Assets". The New York Times. The New York Times Company. January 1, 1982. Retrieved September 28, 2017.
^ You Must Remember This: The Warner Bros. Story, (2008) p. 255.
^ "Media History Digital Library". Retrieved September 28, 2017.
^ Brennan, James E. (October 2, 1988). "NEW TNT CHANNEL BEGINS MONDAY ON CABLE SYSTEMS". The Buffalo News. Retrieved September 28, 2017.
^ Lippman, John (October 30, 1991). "Turner Is Buying Hanna-Barbera Film Library". Los Angeles Times. Times Mirror Company. Retrieved September 8, 2010.
^ Harris, Kathryn (August 7, 1993). "New Line Cinema holding merger talks with Turner".
^ Citron, Alan (August 18, 1993). "Turner gets nod to buy New Line and Castle Rock".
^ "Turner Broadcasting Company Report". U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission, Washington, D.C.
^ "FAQs - Time Warner - Investor Relations - Time Warner Inc".
^ "Time-TBS merger closed - Oct. 10, 1996". CNNMoney. Time Warner. CNN. October 10, 1996. Retrieved September 28, 2017.
^ Becker, Anne. "Time Warner Sells Turner South to Fox". Broadcasting & Cable. Reed Business Information. Retrieved September 28, 2017.
^ Grossman, Ben. "Turner South To Become SportSouth". Broadcasting & Cable. Reed Business Information. Retrieved September 28, 2017.
^ Weber, Harry (19 May 2006). "Ted Turner Bids Farewell to Time Warner". Washington Post. AP. Retrieved 13 February 2018.
^ "Claxson Interactive Group Inc (XSONF.PK)". Reuters. Retrieved September 28, 2017.
^ "Turner Broadcasting System, Inc. to Acquire Chilevisión". Time Warner. August 25, 2010. Retrieved September 28, 2017.
^ Turner, Mimi (September 8, 2011). "'Lazytown' Founder Sells To Turner Broadcasting For $25 Million". The Hollywood Reporter. Prometheus Global Media. Retrieved September 28, 2017.
^ "Turner". John Martin Bio. Retrieved September 28, 2017.
^ "550 Buyouts, Layoffs Imminent at Turner; HLN, CNN Among Cuts (Exclusive)". The Wrap. The Wrap News Inc. August 19, 2014. Retrieved September 28, 2017.
^ "Report: Turner to fire 550 people in advance of rising NBA rights deal". CBSSports.com. CBS Interactive. August 26, 2014. Retrieved September 28, 2017.
^ Friedman, Wayne (October 6, 2014). "Turner Broadcasting To Cut 10% Of Workforce". MediaDailyNews. New York: MediaPost Communications.
^ Ramachandran, Shalini (August 14, 2015). "Time Warner's Turner Cable Unit Acquires Majority Stake In iStreamPlanet". The Wall Street Journal. News Corp. Retrieved September 28, 2017.
^ "CNN, Turner Launch Great Big Story Streaming-Video Network". Deadline Hollywood. Penske Media Corporation. October 20, 2015. Retrieved January 24, 2018.
^ Shields, Todd (April 17, 2017). "Time Warner TV-Station Sale Approved, Easing AT&T Deal Path". Bloomberg. Retrieved September 28, 2017.
^ "Six Flags and Riverside Partner with Turner to Offer New Attractions". investors.sixflags.com. Retrieved 2018-11-22.
^ Chmielewski, Dawn C. (2018-06-15). "Turner CEO John Martin To Depart, Time Warner To Become WarnerMedia". Deadline. Retrieved 2018-11-22.
^ "SEC-Show". otp.tools.investis.com. Retrieved 2018-11-22.
^ Stephen Battaglio (December 10, 2018). "Court TV is coming back, thanks to E.W. Scripps decision". Los Angeles Times. Retrieved December 10, 2018.
^ Littleton, Cynthia; Littleton, Cynthia (2018-12-11). "Court TV Brand to Resurface as New Channel From Scripps Co". Variety. Retrieved 2018-12-11.
^ "AT&T to HBO, Turner: No More Fiefdoms". The Wall Street Journal. March 1, 2019. Retrieved March 3, 2019.
^ Schneider, Michael; Schneider, Michael (2019-03-12). "What the End of the Turner Brand Could Mean for Its Channels". Variety. Retrieved 2019-03-14.
^ "WCW: How It Died, and How WWE and Vince McMahon Made Sure It Never Rose Again". Bleacher Report. Turner Broadcasting System.
|
0.95105 |
What kind of wok should I get?
I saw the question on the site about preparing a wok, but I'm curious what kind I should get. I have heard of stainless steel, carbon steel, aluminum, etc. Also, there's a non-stick variety. I'm new to stir fry and will be cooking on an electric ceramic stovetop.
You should get a carbon steel wok with two short handles (not one long handle).
You want the steel to build up a patina of oxidized oils, which rules out stainless steel and aluminum and non-stick. You could conceivably get a cast-iron wok, but those are really heavy.
Your best bet is to go to an Asian grocery. You'll be assured of getting a product at a good price. Shouldn't cost more than $25, I don't think.
Oh, one other question is what sort of stove you have. If you have an electric stove, (a) I'm sorry, and (b) you have to get a flat-bottomed wok. If you have a gas stove, you can either get a flat-bottomed wok or a round-bottomed wok, but the latter only if you get a wok ring that holds the pan just above the flame. You want as much heat going into that pan as you possibly can manage!
The Cook's Illustrated/America's Test Kitchen testers argue forcefully that a wok on an electric stovetop is suboptimal -- they're designed to sit on top of a fire or gas burner with flames licking around the base, and a wok's small area of contact with the heat source when used on a conventional hob results in something more like stir-steaming than stir-frying. They recommend a 12" frying pan/skillet instead. Other people's experiences may vary, but I haven't bothered with a wok since university and I would definitely question the need for one to make great stir-fry.
The best and cheapest solution I've ever see is the one I have. It requires a deck, patio, or something though.
I went to Chinatown in Toronto and at a restaurant supply store bought a carbon steel wok. It was about $25. You can get them anywhere. The secret to wok cooking is temperature. In the US, burners are generally limited to 15k btu. You need much more for the authentic taste.
What you need is a wok burner. I bought one for one $100 at the same store. It's basically a 7 inch wide triple fire ring burner made of cast iron. It's enclosed in a 15x15 inch frame which the wok will properly rest on. It's very strong and pretty large so I also use my 20 quart pressure canner on it.
This burner hooks up to propane, but you can get ones that use natural gas. It's 66k btu. Absolutely the best and cheapest purchase I've made in years. It uses much less gas than grilling, is much faster, and I use it for a larger variety of food.
Note: these types of burners are not rated for indoor use. They are incredible though.
Woks CAN work great on an electric range. But you have to buy carbon steel, not non-stick.
Don't listen to the nay sayers. It works great. Try it!!
Supposing that you have a gas stove, a simple and cheap thin steel wok will stand you in great stead. They are tough, light and easy to shake about, and will take a wonderful seasoning with use.
(Seasoning refers to the layer of cooked in oil which gives the wok its "non-stickness". it is very important to avoid washing up liquid, just cleaning it with hot water and a brush or similar).
I personally like a long handle; but a wok ring is essential as Harlan says.
I've experimented with a few. As mentioned here non-stick woks get quickly ruined with the high heat you need and given that you pay extra it probably isn't worth it.
Probably my main advice would be to get a wok of the right size, for cooking at home I suggest tending towards smaller rather larger. Obviously a smaller wok is easier to heat up.
Personally, I would go for a cheap and cheerful steel wok which requires a bit of seasoning. Don't use heavy astringent chemicals or abrasives when cleaning it.
For an electric stove, I wouldn't even bother. Buy a good quality dutch oven and use that instead.
For a gas stove, carbon steel or just plain-old-steel is vastly preferable to aluminum, stainless, and especially to nonstick. According to Mrs. Chiang's cookbook, aluminum and stainless won't hold the heat right. According to me non-stick is a bad idea; the high heat will destroy the coating, and you will end up with non-stick stuff in your food.
Go to your local chinese grocery, and get it there. Prices will be cheaper and quality higher.
I would suggest a flat bottomed carbon steel wok, only due to your heat source of the ceramic/flat top range. Any other type of wok would probably not give you good results. Anything with a non-stick surface is going to be a limiting factor when it comes to high heat. And stir frying needs quite a bit of heat. A round bottom would also not be effective as it would not have the surface area to transfer heat.
If you were able to upgrade to a portable gas cooker, this would greatly improve your stir frying experience. I would still recommend a flat bottom wok, as western style gas ranges are made for flat bottom pans, and do not concentrate it in the center for a wok. Thin carbon steel, as to transfer the heat to the food easier. As for handles, I would suggest one handle, just to keep the flame/heat away from your hands. If you had a wok ring to keep things stable, then a round bottom would be better. The round bottom is easier to flip/move food.
I got an aluminum filled stainless steel wok. One short handle, one long. Gas range. Works quite well, even, fast heat distribution. No worries about having to season the thing or dry thoroughly to prevent rust. Wok temperatures frequently get too high for teflon to last more than a year. You might as well pour money down the drain on one of those. My Wok is 8 years old, and happy, shiny as the day I bought it. I use it a lot. Slightly flat bottom, so it doesn't go rolling everywhere.
Not the answer you're looking for? Browse other questions tagged equipment wok or ask your own question.
What is wok hai and how do I get it in my food?
What to look for in a pot?
What should I look for in a crepe pan?
Should I get a thin, flat bottomed wok to stir fry large amounts of veggies on an electric stove?
|
0.999999 |
Which of these is a run-on sentence? A. I went home and ate and ate. B. Before lunch, I played volleyball; after lunch I did again. C. You and I and the whole team will go. D. I thought about what he'd said soon I realized he was right.
I thought about what he'd said soon I realized he was right. This is a run-on sentence.
|
0.999998 |
Furniture and Furnishings supplied by the landlord or a managing agent must comply with the Fire Safety Regulations for furnishings and furniture. The furniture and furnishings fire safety regulations must be maintained so as to meet the relevant requirements regarding ignition and fire safety. This is intended to ensure proper fire resistance. Landlord fire safety is enforced is by local training standards. These are also requirements imposed in relation to furniture in houses in multiple occupation (HMOs).
1. Furnishings and upholstered furniture supplied by landlords must meet fire resistance requirements. These set levels of fire resistance to domestic upholstered furniture, furnishings and other products which contain upholstery. The relevant regulations are contained in the Furniture and Furnishings (Fire) (Safety) Regulations 1988 as amended by Regulations made in 1989 and 1993. These Regulations are made under consumer protection legislation under the Consumer Protection Act (CPA 87).
2.1. The Regulations apply to all persons in the business supply chain from the supply of materials for use in furniture and furnishings through to supply of the finished article.
2.2. The Regulations also apply to persons who hire out furniture in the course of a business of theirs. This embraces furniture included in accommodation let in the course of the business including residential furnished lettings (such as houses, flats and bed-sits). The Regulations therefore apply to landlords who let such accommodation during the course of a business.
2.3. All furniture (except furniture made before 1950) included in accommodation must meet all the fire resistance requirements.
2.4. Not all non-compliant furniture need necessarily have been replaced by 1st January 1997 when the full regulations come into effect. This is because Section 46(8) of the CPA 87 provides that where goods have at any time been supplied or hired out, a continuation or renewal of such hire or loan (which may be on different terms) with the same person shall not constitute a further supply or goods to that person. Therefore, furniture which has been supplied to tenants by landlords need not be replaced until a new agreement is made with a new tenant, since it is only in that case that a new supply will have taken place. In other words, furniture supplied in properties before 1st March 1993 need not be replaced until a new supply is made.
2.7. Managing agents as well as landlords can be regarded as suppliers.
2.8. The responsibility imposed by the Regulations applies to the actual supplier of furniture, if that supplier is acting in the course of a business of his. For a residential furnished let this may be the landlord (or the landlord's agent).
The rest of this Guide to Fire Safety for Furniture and Furnishings contains information regarding enforcement, regulations and HMO safety rules. Please sign in to access the whole guide. Alternatively if you're not already a guest member, you can join today for free!
|
0.997104 |
my friends would say.. I'm calm, honest, good-hearted, loyal.
a kind, spontanious person, understanding, who values honesty and trust.
|
0.958321 |
How do the Ghosts in Pac Man Move?
The ghosts in Pac-Man are among some of the most enduring enemies in video game history, thanks in part to their surprisingly difficult to predict movements which make the game a constant challenge for new and seasoned players alike. However, as it turns out, the ghost’s movements are defined by a deceptively simple set of algorithms thought up by the game’s designer, Toru Iwatani.
|
0.932379 |
The Phrygians (Greek: Φρύγες, Phruges or Phryges) were an ancient Indo-European people, initially dwelling in the southern Balkans – according to Herodotus – under the name of Bryges (Briges), changing it to Phryges after their final migration to Anatolia, via the Hellespont.
Meanwhile, the Phrygian Kingdom was overwhelmed by Cimmerian invaders around 690 BC, then briefly conquered by its neighbour Lydia, before it passed successively into the Persian Empire of Cyrus the Great and the empire of Alexander and his successors, was taken by the Attalids of Pergamon, and eventually became part of the Roman Empire. The last mention of the Phrygian language in literature dates to the fifth century AD and it was likely extinct by the seventh century.
The Phrygians spoke Phrygian, an Indo-European language. Some contemporary historians, among whom Strabo is the most known, considered the Phrygians to be a Thracian tribe, part of a wider "Thraco-Phrygian" group. Other linguists dismiss this hypothesis since Thracian (and hence Daco-Thracian) seems to belong to the Satem group of Indo-European languages, while Phrygian shared several similarities with other Indo-European languages of the Centum group (like Latin, Greek or the Anatolian languages). According to this second group of linguists, of all the Indo-European languages, Phrygian seems to have been most closely linked to Greek, suggesting that the two languages belonged to the same dialectal subgroup of early Indo-European. (See Phrygian language.) Although the Phrygians adopted the alphabet originated by the Phoenicians and ultimately from Ancient Egyptians, only a few dozen inscriptions in the Phrygian language have been found, primarily funereal, so much of what is thought to be known of Phrygia is second-hand information from Greek sources.
A conventional date of c. 1180 BC is often used for the influx (traditionally from Thrace) of the pre-Phrygian Bryges or Mushki, corresponding to the very end of the Hittite empire. Following this date, Phrygia retained a separate cultural identity. In classical Greek iconography the Trojan Paris is represented as non-Greek by his Phrygian cap, which was worn by Mithras and survived into modern imagery as the "Liberty cap" of the American and French revolutionaries.
It was the "Great Mother", Cybele, as the Greeks and Romans knew her, who was originally worshipped in the mountains of Phrygia, where she was known as "Mountain Mother". In her typical Phrygian form, she wears a long belted dress, a polos (a high cylindrical headdress), and a veil covering the whole body. The later version of Cybele was established by a pupil of Phidias, the sculptor Agoracritus, and became the image most widely adopted by Cybele's expanding following, both in the Aegean world and at Rome. It shows her humanized though still enthroned, her hand resting on an attendant lion and the other holding the tympanon, a circular frame drum, similar to a tambourine.
The name of the earliest known mythical king was Nannacus (aka Annacus). This king resided at Iconium, the most eastern city of the kingdom of Phrygia at that time, and after his death, at the age of 300 years, a great flood overwhelmed the country, as had been foretold by an ancient oracle. The next king mentioned in extant classical sources was called Manis or Masdes. According to Plutarch, because of his splendid exploits, great things were called "manic" in Phrygia. Thereafter the kingdom of Phrygia seems to have become fragmented among various kings. One of the kings was Tantalus who ruled over the north western region of Phrygia around Mount Sipylus. Tantalus was endlessly punished in Tartarus, because he allegedly killed his son Pelops and sacrificially offered him to the Olympians, a reference to the suppression of human sacrifice. Tantalus was also falsely accused of stealing from the lotteries he had invented. In the mythic age before the Trojan war, during a time of an interregnum, Gordius (or Gordias), a Phrygian farmer, became king, fulfilling an oracular prophecy. The kingless Phrygians had turned for guidance to the oracle of Sabazios ("Zeus" to the Greeks) at Telmissus, in the part of Phrygia that later became part of Galatia. They had been instructed by the oracle to acclaim as their king the first man who rode up to the god's temple in a cart. That man was Gordias (Gordios, Gordius), a farmer, who dedicated the ox-cart in question, tied to its shaft with the "Gordian Knot". Gordias refounded a capital at Gordium in west central Anatolia, situated on the old trackway through the heart of Anatolia that became Darius's Persian "Royal Road" from Pessinus to Ancyra, and not far from the River Sangarius.
Later mythic kings of Phrygia were alternately named Gordias and Midas. Myths surround the first king Midas. connecting him with a mythological tale concerning Attis. This shadowy figure resided at Pessinus and attempted to marry his daughter to the young Attis in spite of the opposition of his lover Agdestis and his mother, the goddess Cybele. When Agdestis or Cybele appear and cast madness upon the members of the wedding feast. Midas is said to have died in the ensuing chaos.
The famous king Midas was said to be a son of the kind Gordius mentioned above. He is said to have associated himself with Silenus and other satyrs and with Dionysus, who granted him the famous "golden touch".
The mythic Midas of Thrace, accompanied by a band of his people, traveled to Asia Minor to wash away the taint of his unwelcome "golden touch" in the river Pactolus. Leaving the gold in the river's sands, Midas found himself in Phrygia, where he was adopted by the childless king Gordias and taken under the protection of Cybele. Acting as the visible representative of Cybele, and under her authority, it would seem, a Phrygian king could designate his successor.
According to the Iliad, the Phrygians were Trojan allies during the Trojan War. The Phrygia of Homer's Iliad appears to be located in the area that embraced the Ascanian lake and the northern flow of the Sangarius river and so was much more limited in extent than classical Phrygia. Homer's Iliad also includes a reminiscence by the Trojan king Priam, who had in his youth come to aid the Phrygians against the Amazons (Iliad 3.189). During this episode (a generation before the Trojan War), the Phrygians were said to be led by Otreus and Mygdon. Both appear to be little more than eponyms: there was a place named Otrea on the Ascanian Lake, in the vicinity of the later Nicaea; and the Mygdones were a people of Asia Minor, who resided near Lake Dascylitis (there was also a Mygdonia in Macedonia). During the Trojan War, the Phrygians sent forces to aid Troy, led by Ascanius and Phorcys, the sons of Aretaon. Asius, son of Dymas and brother of Hecabe, is another Phrygian noble who fought before Troy. Quintus Smyrnaeus mentions another Phrygian prince, named Coroebus, son of Mygdon, who fought and died at Troy; he had sued for the hand of the Trojan princess Cassandra in marriage. King Priam's wife Hecabe is usually said to be of Phrygian birth, as a daughter of King Dymas.
Herodotus, claims the priests of Hephaestus told him a story that the Egyptian pharaoh Psammetichus had two children raised in isolation in order to find the original language. The children were reported to have uttered bekos meaning "bread" in Phrygian. It was then acknowledged by the Egyptians that the Phrygians were a nation older than the Egyptians.
Josephus claimed the Phrygians were founded by the biblical figure Togarmah, grandson of Japheth and son of Gomer: "and Thrugramma the Thrugrammeans, who, as the Greeks resolved, were named Phrygians".
After the collapse of the Hittite Empire at the beginning of the twelfth century BC, the political vacuum in central-western Anatolia was filled by a wave of Indo-European migrants and "Sea Peoples", including the Phrygians, who established their kingdom with a capital eventually at Gordium. It is presently unknown whether the Phrygians were actively involved in the collapse of the Hittite capital Hattusa or whether they simply moved into the vacuum left by the collapse of Hittite hegemony. The so-called Handmade Knobbed Ware was found by archaeologists at sites from this period in Western Anatolia. According to Greek mythographers, the first Phrygian Midas had been king of the Moschi (Mushki), also known as Bryges (Brigi) in the western part of archaic Thrace.
Though the migration theory is still defended by many modern historians, most archaeologists have abandoned the migration hypothesis regarding the origin of the Phrygians due to a lack substantial archeological evidence, with the migration theory resting only on the accounts of Herodotus and Xanthus.
The invasion of Anatolia in the late 8th century BC to early 7th century BC by the Cimmerians was to prove fatal to independent Phrygia. Cimmerian pressure and attacks culminated in the suicide of its last king, Midas, according to legend. Gordium fell to the Cimmerians in 696 BC and was sacked and burnt, as reported much later by Herodotus.
↑ Swain, Simon; Adams, J. Maxwell; Janse, Mark (2002). Bilingualism in ancient society: language contact and the written word. Oxford [Oxfordshire]: Oxford University Press. pp. 246–266. ISBN 0-199-24506-1.
↑ Claude Brixhe, Phrygian, in Roger D. Woodard (editor), The ancient Languages of Asia Minor, Cambridge University Press, 2008, p. 72.
↑ Suidas s. v. Νάννακος; Stephanus of Byzantium s.v. Ἰκόνιον; Both passages are translated in: "A New System: or, An Analysis of Antient Mythology" by Jacob Bryant (1807): 12-14.
↑ Plutarch, "On Isis and Osiris", chap. 24.
↑ JG MacQueen, The Hittites and their contemporaries in Asia Minor, 1986, p. 157.
↑ Drews, Robert (1995). The end of the Bronze Age: changes in warfare and the catastrophe ca. 1200 B.C. Princeton University Press. p. 65. ISBN 9780691025919.
|
0.999997 |
The Hartford Courant headline sums it up: The Republican budget hits UConn hard with a combined cut of $309 million for UConn and UConn Health Center over the biennium.
That includes $185 million for the Storrs and regional campuses and $124 million for UConn Health.
For Storrs and the regional campuses, a cut of $185 million would be beyond devastating....impacting both students and faculty.
It would also result in major tuition increases ....a back door tax increase on families.
UConn would also need to make drastic cuts in financial aid, making the cost of a UConn education unaffordable for many Connecticut families.
In short, the Republican budget is a recipe for disaster and would result in skyrocketing tuition rates for university schools across the state.
The cuts in this budget could also mean the closure of local UConn campuses and impact other state university schools, including Eastern Connecticut State University, Central Connecticut State University and community colleges as well.
Not stopping there, the GOP budget adds insult to injury by eliminating the Roberta B. Willis Scholarship program that helps middle class families afford to go to college. The resulting cuts in scholarship programs will mean diminished opportunities for middle-class families of Connecticut.
As advertised by our Republican colleagues, this budget is described as moving Connecticut forward. The sad truth is that this budget moves our state dramatically backward at a time when we're trying to make Connecticut more competitive with other states in attracting business.
Governor Malloy has said he will veto this budget. I hope my colleagues in the General Assembly will join me in working on a budget that does not destroy our flagship institution of higher learning or increase the burden on hardworking families.
|
0.999901 |
Where can I learn about benefits for the dependents of Veterans?
There are many benefits available to dependents of living and deceased Veterans. Please read through the Federal Benefits for Veterans, Dependents and Survivors handbook.
Further questions about eligibility may be directed to a VA benefits counselor electronically at http://www.va.gov/ext_redirect.asp?url=https://iris.custhelp.com. Click on the "Ask a Question" link and complete a web form that will deliver your question to a subject matter expert.
Or, you may contact a counselor via phone at 1-800-827-1000.
You may also visit a VA Regional Office at one of the many locations around the country: http://www.va.gov/directory/guide/division_flsh.asp?dnum=3.
|
0.997473 |
Distinguish, differentiate, compare and explain what is the difference between Dominance and Recessive. Comparison and Differences.
1. When a factor (allele) expresses itself in the presence or absence of its recessive factor called dominance. Recessive can only express itself in the absence of its dominant factor or allele.
2. Dominance forms a complete functional enzyme that perfectly express it. Recessive forms a incomplete defective enzyme which fails to express itself when present with its dominant allele, i.e., in heterozygous condition.
|
0.952407 |
In a study appearing in JAMA, Samuel Frank, M.D., of Harvard Medical School, Boston, and the Huntington Study Group, and colleagues evaluated the efficacy and safety of the drug deutetrabenazine to control a prominent symptom of Huntington disease, chorea, which is an involuntary, sudden movement that can affect any muscle and flow randomly across body regions. Chorea can interfere with daily functioning and increase the risk of injury.
The drug tetrabenazine is the only U.S. Food and Drug Administration-approved therapy for treating chorea associated with Huntington disease. Despite established efficacy, tetrabenazine often requires 3-times-a-day dosing, and there may be some peak concentration-related neuropsychiatric symptoms, such as sedation, fatigue, anxiety or nausea. For this study, 90 adults diagnosed with Huntington disease and a certain level of chorea were randomly assigned to receive deutetrabenazine (n = 45) or placebo (n = 45). Deutetrabenazine or placebo was titrated to optimal dose level over 8 weeks and maintained for 4 weeks.
The researchers found that deutetrabenazine treatment significantly improved chorea control as measured by a chorea score. Significant improvement was also observed on measures of impression of change and physical functioning, although no improvement was observed on a balance test. Adverse event rates were similar for deutetrabenazine and placebo, including depression, anxiety and akathisia (a movement disorder).
The authors note that the difference in total maximal chorea score associated with deutetrabenazine treatment that was observed in this study is notable given the progressive decline in total maximal chorea score and total motor score that has been previously described as part of the natural history of Huntington disease.
"Further research is needed to assess the clinical importance of the effect size and to determine longer-term efficacy and safety."
This study was supported by Auspex Pharmaceuticals, a wholly owned subsidiary of Teva Pharmaceutical Industries Ltd.
Article: Effect of Deutetrabenazine on Chorea Among Patients With Huntington Disease A Randomized Clinical Trial, Huntington Study Group, JAMA, doi:10.1001/jama.2016.8655, published 5 July 2016.
JAMA. "Drug helps control involuntary, sudden movements of Huntington disease." Medical News Today. MediLexicon, Intl., 6 Jul. 2016. Web.
|
0.94059 |
What role does technology have to play in our homes and our family relationships? Is it harmful or helpful? What rules should we have in place when it comes to screens and devices? Andy Crouch looks at all of these issues and more in The Tech-Wise Family: Everyday Steps for Putting Technology in Its Proper Place. Here's my review.
The Tech-Wise Family: Everyday Steps for Putting Technology in Its Proper Place by Andy Crouch, was recommended to me by my pastor when I asked him to recommend books about rest.
Honestly, I was a little skeptical at first glance; the use of technology in our homes seemed a bit of a stretch from the spiritual rest I was desperate to find, but my pastor’s a pretty smart and well-read guy, so I added the book to the pile he’d already stacked in front of me and decided to give it a try.
The Tech-Wise Family is about so much more than a set of household rules for when and where technology can or should be used. As Andy Crouch explains in the introduction, “It’s about how to live as full, flourishing human beings,” (pg. 40). Yes, my eyebrows peaked a little when I read that; can a book about technology really accomplish that much?
Crouch’s book is based on the premise that technology is in its proper place when its use promotes the establishment of healthy values and relationships in our families instead of detracting from these things. He posits that technology is useful in so much as it is used with proper intention and care and helps us bond with each other, start great conversations, take care of ourselves and each other, develop new skills, and cultivate a sense of awe for the created world.
When it inhibits authentic relationships, disassociates us from our physical bodies, replaces the development of skill with passive consumption, keeps us from engaging in the natural world, or takes over our lives in an uncontrollable way, it has lost its proper place.
Building rhythms of work and rest on a daily, weekly, and annual basis that allow us to build our relationships with each other and with God.
Once he has established these foundations, Crouch leads the reader through seven commitments that his family has made for regulating the use of technology in their home, such as no devices before double digits, sharing access of passwords and devices, and using screens intentionally. These commitments are not meant to be written in stone and each one is developed and explored, backed both by research and scripture.
Crouch intends his recommendations to serve more as starting points for conversations, rather than as commandments, per se. For this reason, after reading a few chapters, I decided this was something we needed to read together as a family. I think that rules established without discussion can come across as arbitrary, whether or not they are (and let’s face it, they often are!). Rules—or principles, let’s call them—that evolve out of natural conversation and understanding seem to hold more weight.
Thus, I used this book as a family read aloud. Each Sunday after church, we read a chapter and discussed it. Although the book did not include discussion questions, I found that the chapters were naturally conducive to reflection.
For example, after reading the chapter on creating creativity-infused spaces, we each took turns describing our vision for what our gathering space (our kitchen) would look like if it was designed with creativity in mind. Although we might not necessarily be able to act on all of the ideas (like setting up an art studio with enough easels for all of us to paint simultaneously), some of them were actually quite fun and doable.
I feel like involving children from a young age in conversations like this takes the emphasis off you aren’t allowed to have your own cell phone and puts it more on, how can we have more intentional quality time together as a family? This seems to be something we can all get on board with.
However, I should probably note that we’ve never been a heavily technology-dependant family. Like the Crouch’s, we went ten years without a TV and only purchased one when it became impractical for six people to gather around a laptop to watch a Netflix movie. I avoided getting a smartphone for years because I didn’t want to be constantly reachable, much to my husband’s chagrin. We’re a family full of people who would probably rather sit around reading all day than anything else.
All that to say, going on the type of technological diet prescribed in The Tech-Wise Family may be easier for our family than for others who have more of an affinity for technology. But after reading this book, I’m even more convinced that technology is something that we need to manage, lest it come to manage us first.
You can find The Tech-Wise Family on Amazon or Indigo.
|
0.999988 |
About the assassination of Alexander II Czar of Russia by a group of revolutionaries in an effort to begin an uprising, history of the event.
The Victim: ALEXANDER II, Czar of Russia.
The Date: March 1, 1881.
The Event: Sophia Perovskaya commanded the group of assassins. Armed with bombs, 4 men were deployed along the Czar's route (to and from the Winter Palace). Perovskaya stood at the site of a planned military parade. When they saw that the Czar was not going to drive over their mined street, they moved to alternate positions. The Czar's carriage was delayed, but at last it appeared. A 19-year-old student named Rysakov rushed forward and tossed a bomb. He was apprehended. The Czar alighted to determine the situation. A 2nd man charged the Czar and there was another explosion. Both the Czar and his assassin, Ignaty Grinevitsky, were mortally wounded, and died a few hours later.
The Assassins: In Russia in the late 1870s, social unrest had reached a full boil. Alexander's grandfather Paul I, the despotic son of Catherine the Great, had been assassinated in 1801. Enforced poverty and police persecution turned the populace against the Czars' regimes, and created a revolutionary movement advocating violence against the totalitarian monarchies because no other avenues of effective dissent were available.
A mood of wrath and rebellion swept across Russia. In January of 1878, Vera Zasulich, a young typesetter for the underground paper Land and Liberty, shot General Trepov, the St. Petersburg chief of police, in retaliation for his severe maltreatment of a political prisoner. According to one source, Trepov was gravely wounded, but ". . . he did not die, and the trial of his would-be assassin in March was turned by her defense lawyer into a vigorous indictment of police brutality. To the surprise of everyone, Zasulich was acquitted. The Czar immediately issued an order that she be arrested again, but an enthusiastic crowd-which had formed around her in the street after her release--spirited her away from the oncoming police. She left the country and settled in Germany amidst worldwide acclaim for her heroism."
Czar Alexander II was more liberal than his predecessors. He partially "emancipated" the serfs (offering them the opportunity to purchase their own lands and to pay crushing taxes), and he promoted various feeble reforms.
The Left, however, pushed hard for basic demands: freedom for the serfs, public education, free speech, jury trials. The Left--students, pre-communists, peasants--became extremely impatient with the continuing repression of the Czars, and upped the revolutionary ante by adopting a policy of violence directed at the Government. General Mezentzev, another high officer in the St. Petersburg police, was stabbed to death in broad daylight by Sergei Kravchinsky, the editor of Land and Liberty, who got away and escaped into exile. Harsh police reaction escalated.
The revolutionary movement was divided on the issue of violence. The nonviolent socialists were called Chornyi Peredel (Black Repartition; i.e. redivision of the soil), and the militants were called Narodnaya Volya (The Will of the People).
|
0.99789 |
The Hasmonean side of royal history is written from the perspective of Thebes/Jerusalem. When it came time for John Hyrcanus to pass the torch, the legalistic Pharisees would have immediately rejected Aristobulus because of his chronic skin (“leprosy”) problem. A leading Pharisee had earlier challenged the right of John Hyrcanus to be High Priest on an even lesser charge that his mother had once been taken captive. Antigonus may have also had a skin condition, which may have precluded him from the High Priesthood, however it was not a impediment to his career as a king, nor did it necessarily effect his eligibility to become Great King (in the absence of any other candidates).
Note: The Egyptian name Lathyros is synonymous with the contemporary Roman name Cicero. Both mean “chic pea” and evidently described the color and/or texture of the facial skin affected by the disease or condition. It is debatable then whether Sulla/Aristobulus or Cinna/Antigonus had the more severe skin problem, which may have precluded both from the High Priesthood and also must have been a factor in the favor of Jannaeus in the succession. Blotchy skin was a known physical trait of Alexander the Great, and one that he obviously passed down to some of his royal descendants.
The birth of Antigonus occurred about 128 BC, and can be linked to the elevation of Alexander “Zabinas” as king in Seleucia in that same year. This Alexander was either a representation of Alexander Balas (at the end of his life, see below) or his older royal son Alexander Jannaeus. The implication is that by virtue of siring Antigonus, Alexander Balas was allowed to renew his kingship in Seleucia or that his older son Alexander Jannaeus was appointed as a king in Seleucia. In retrospect, the birth of a second royal prince virtually guaranteed that the first son of Alexander Balas was going to gain the election as Great King. The story relating to the brotherly competition for the priesthood in Jerusalem (between Aristobulus, Antigonus and Alexander Jannaeus) was a compressed version of what played out in the greater empire over a much longer period. In other words, the scenario described at the Hasmonean court prefigured what was to take place in the larger empire over the following decades. Aristobulus and Antigonus were going to be eclipsed by Alexander Jannaeus, the oldest royal son of Alexander Balas, which signified the end of one dynasty and the renewal of an earlier one that was cut short, that of Ptolemy II.
The mother of Ptolemy XI (Aristobulus II) was Cleopatra-Selene. The mother of the younger prince was Selene’s daughter Berenice III. This second son not only secured the succession for Alexander Jannaeus, but also allowed Selene to pass her status as Great Queen to her own daughter. This was not a scenario that Ptolemy IX (Antigonus) was able to top, and therefore his son Ptolemy XII amounted to a dynastic dead-end, at least in retrospect. After Cleopatra III’s death, her daughter Cleopatra-Selene (Alexandra Salome) allowed Antigonus to reclaim the throne of Egypt, but this was more of a consolation prize rather than a career-builder by this time. Upon becoming Great Queen, Cleopatra-Selene upheld the favor of Alexander Jannaeus. The succession had already been decided upon Ptolemy IX’s return in 88 BC. It was now time for Ptolemy X to make his own Exodus from the burden of ruling Egypt to secure the greater kingship of the entire Empire and the future of his two sons after him.
The name of the Hasmonean prince known as Antigonus suggests that he was “born after” the death of his father. The death/murder of Scipio Aemilianus is considered to have been in 129 BC, which makes a 128 BC birthdate for Antigonus consistent with his name. Regardless of when Scipio actually died, Antigonus was certainly born to his father in his old age, and would have been adopted by other royal males in his youth. He suffered setbacks, but lived a full life and was a major player in last days of the so-called Roman Republic under such names as the optimate Catulus (Capitolinus) and the popularis Lucius Cornelius Cinna. He was the younger true son of Alexander Balas, whose line had now returned to power. He was far too important to kill off on that basis alone. However, Alexandra-Salome apparently did not consider her son by Antigonus, Hyrcanus II, to be fit for kingship based on physical and psychological factors, at least in comparison to her son by Alexander Jannaeus named Aristobulus II, as well as her daughter Berenice’s son by Alexander Jannaeus. Regardless, Hyrcanus II was certainly essential as a back-up should the more highly regarded princes fail to live up to expectations.
In Rome, the “changing of the royal guard” was reflected by a sudden rise to prominence of the “new man” Marius (Jannaeus, a military hero in a long line of distinguished military heroes), who was first sent to replace the complaisant Metellus (the aristocratic alias of Aristobulus) in the African campaign against Jugurtha (another royal bogeyman), and then to deal with marauding European tribes. In the process, he was elected consul in five consecutive years (104-100 BC). An attempt was also made to cultivate the reputation of Antigonus in Rome (under the aristocratic alias Catulus), however the young prince (still in his mid-20’s) was indecisive and Marius had to direct the military operations for him. Nevertheless, Marius was obligated to share a triumph with Catulus upon the successful completion of the “mission.” (While John Hyrcanus was still alive, Jannaeus had to defer to Antigonus.) Antigonus later became doubly famous under his populist identity of Cinna.
Note: Mithridates Sinax/Sinnakes of Parthia may represent Cinna the Elder rather than the more famous Cinna the Younger.
The fall of Aristobulus as a distinguished Metellus coincided with the rise of Aristobulus as Sulla/Sylla, a presumed louche from a down-and-out branch of the Cornelian clan. Representing the end-of-the-line for Epigone’s dynasty, Sulla was obliged to adopt the typecasting of a Noah-figure, that of an oppressor and prodigious copulater who renewed his kingship after an upheaval only to be disrespected. Sulla was a notorious drunk and womanizer, who completed his return to power as Dictator of Rome in 82/81 BC after the traumatic “Social War.” He died only a few years later in personal and political ruin. The entire system of patronage in Rome had to be dismantled, so that it could be rebuilt under the new regime. All the while, Sulla continued in his pursuit of another royal son, and found no lack of willing aristocratic ladies.
As a younger man, Sulla is said to have inspired awe with his blond hair and blue eyes, which flashed from his reddened skin and fiery disposition. However, the Roman name of Sulla/Sylla itself connotes “darkened” (tsilla) in Hebrew. It encoded the setting of his dynastic sun and the sinking of his health and skin condition, which became compared to an “oatmeal encrusted mulberry.” Sulla was not the political outsider (or protégé of Marius) he is believed to be, but the former leading “son” of a Great King now on the dynastic skids. Unlike other kings that were content to “pass the mantle” prior to their actual deaths, Sulla’s “retirement years” were lived out as himself and in full public view. Despite his morbidly deteriorating body,” Sulla continued to desire more heirs, and was accommodated, shockingly, by an aristocratic cougar that bore him a daughter posthumously. The dying and fatalistic Noah-figure Sulla wrote his memoirs and continued to dabble in politics, but was particularly known for “marrying and giving in marriage” and “eating, drinking and being merry” (even more than he was already famous for doing) until a plague of lice swept his life away.
The death or retirement of Jannaeus occurred only a couple of years later. Josephus reports that Alexander Jannaeus ruled for a total of 27 years, which reaches back either to the death of John Hyrcanus, the birth of Ptolemy XI or his election as pharaoh, depending upon chronological factors. However, Josephus makes him only 49 years at death, which raises a flag. It is unlikely that Josephus believed that Jannaeus had died quite that young, and again he is forcing his readers to think. Jannaeus cannot have been born (after Antigonus) in the 120’s and still have been the son of Cleopatra III. It was three daughters of Cleopatra III – Cleopatra IV, Cleopatra Selene and Tryphaena that were producing the royal children during that time period. Cleopatra Selene (Hasmonean Alexandra Salome) emerged as the dominant female of her generation, which meant that her sisters had to be disgraced. This took the form of another lurid murder and avengement tale, which we should know by now to dismiss as royal play acting. Royals simply were not in the habit of killing each other in this time period, but pretending to did have its benefits.
The number 49 (7 x 7) is highly significant in Jewish culture, as it represents the amount of time after which property returned to its original owner (in the “Year of Jubilee”). Alexander Jannaeus likewise symbolized the return of the throne to the line of Ptolemy II, who was its original “owner” after the Conquest of Alexander the Great. Jannaeus endured a number of high-profile deaths. Ptolemy Memphitis (130 BC), Alexander Zabinas (122 BC), Antiochus X Eusebes 90/83 BC , Ptolemy X (87 BC) and Marius (86 BC). Josephus relates that he was obese and in extremely poor health, but refused to retire from campaigning. His death is generally placed in 76 BC, which would have given him a typical lifespan of about 70 years if born around 145 BC (the approximate date of birth of Ptolemy Memphitis/Alexander Zabinas). However, as much as ten years need to be removed from the chronology of this time period. Therefore, it is probable that his kingly career ended prior to the expected and typical 70 years of age.
|
0.999998 |
With its vibrant green landscape, strong cultural identity and - south of the border, at least - the European single currency of the euro, Ireland could be almost anywhere on the continent, yet is only a short hop from England and Wales. The Republic of Ireland covers the majority of the island of Ireland, with about a sixth of the land area in the north-east remaining a part of the UK as Northern Ireland, and both are worthy destinations for a luxury holiday across the Irish Sea, whether you take a 'staycation' in the north, or cross the border into the Republic.
Ireland has a good number of historic landmarks in a variety of different styles, including very early churches like the Gallarus Oratory on the Dingle Peninsula. This translates as 'The Church of the Place of the Foreigners' and may have been a pilgrimage destination as long ago as the 6th Century. More recent is the 12th Century Trim Castle, Ireland's largest Norman castle located in County Meath. Further castles and churches can be found throughout Ireland, and carved stone crosses are also commonplace, early examples of Christian artwork on the island.
In recent years Ireland has found a new tourism market relating to its use as a backdrop for major film and television productions. The Inishowen Peninsula in Donegal features in the final trilogy of Star Wars films, while in Belfast you can take a tour to see some of the scenery featured in the television series Game of Thrones.
When should I visit Ireland?
March 17th is probably the single most iconic date you could choose to spend in either Northern Ireland or the Republic of Ireland. This marks the Feast of Saint Patrick, better known to many as St Patrick's Day (or Paddy's/Patty's Day) and is celebrated on both sides of the border, as well as in cities all over the world, wherever there is a local Irish population. The climate throughout the island is quite moderate, with mild winters but cooler summers, which may be welcomed if you prefer to escape the hottest days of July and August; with record highs in these months of over 30°C, it still has the potential to get very warm during a luxury summer break in Ireland.
Luxury holidays in Ireland are all about taking time out for yourself. If you want to sip champagne for breakfast, it's there waiting for you. If you want a room with a view over Ireland's glorious emerald hills, your luxury hotel will make it happen. The whole point of a luxury holiday is to provide you with everything you desire, so you can enjoy a one-in-a-lifetime experience. Paying that little extra for a luxury package is well worth it to guarantee an unforgettable holiday. Ireland offers an attentive yet non-invasive service that is so crucial to luxury holidays, and while you may not have palm trees waving in the wind, you will have views over Ireland's lush hills and rugged coast, and the impeccable attention to detail which the Irish are famous for.
|
0.999742 |
why antidepressants, antipsychotics, oral contraceptives, corticosteroids or beta blockers cause weight gain?
Nobody knows exactly why certain medicines make people gain weight. Patients who gain weight on such drugs often say they feel hungrier, or develop intense cravings for sweets or high-carbohydrate foods.
|
0.974561 |
How do I know if I’m a contributing or reimbursing employer?
If you have a tax rate with the state, you’re a contributing employer. If you receive a bill from the state for unemployment benefit charges, you’re a reimbursing employer.
|
0.936186 |
Rommel's asparagus (German: Rommelspargel - the German word Spargel means '"asparagus") were 13-to-16-foot (4 to 5 m) logs which the Axis placed in the fields and meadows of Normandy to cause damage to the expected invasion of Allied military gliders and paratroopers. Also known in German as Holzpfähle ("wooden poles"), the wooden defenses were placed in early 1944 in coastal areas of France and the Netherlands against airlanding infantry. Rommelspargel took their name from Field Marshal Erwin Rommel, who ordered their design and usage; Rommel himself called the defensive concept Luftlandehindernis ("air-landing obstacle").
Though Rommel's forces placed more than a million wooden poles in fields, their effect on the invasion of Normandy was inconsequential. Later, in the French Riviera, only about 300 Allied casualties were attributed[by whom?] to the tactic.
Rommel's asparagus refers specifically to wooden poles used against aerial invasion. The term has also been used[by whom?] to describe wooden logs set into the beaches of the English Channel and the Atlantic Ocean to disrupt amphibious landings of troops. Testing found these wooden defenses too weak to stop boats, and they were largely abandoned in favor of Hemmbalken ("obstruction beams") and other beach defenses.
To his subordinate commanders, Field Marshal Erwin Rommel sent plans for wooden log and wire defenses.
In November 1943, Rommel took command of the German Army Group B in occupied France. He also took control of the Atlantic Wall defenses on the French coasts facing the United Kingdom and during a tour of anti-invasion fortifications Rommel concluded that the defenses would have to be improved, and quickly. He ordered millions of wooden tree trunks and logs to be set against airborne forces. Barbed wire and tripwires were to be strung between the poles. On plans that Rommel sent to his subordinates, the complete system of wooden poles and interconnecting wires was called Luftlandehindernis.
Along inland fields and meadows where enemy gliders could land, Rommel specified that 6-to-12-inch (150 to 300 mm) diameter wooden poles were to be set into the ground with some 8–12 feet (3–4 m) of the pole projecting upward. In every 0.4 square miles (1 km2) there would be placed approximately 1,000 such defenses. The wooden poles were to be made from tree trunks or very thick tree branches. The tops of the poles were often connected by tripwires, and every third log carried a mine or hand grenade on top. Not only were tree trunks used as poles but steel rails were put to the same purpose in some locations.
Air-landing obstacles were not the only tactic Rommel used against aerial invaders. Rommel ordered the flooding of some fields so that glider troops and paratroops landing in the water would drown. He ordered machine gun crews to cover the exits of fields that were bounded by bocage—tall, dense hedgerows—so that glider infantry and paratroopers would come under fire as they moved out of their landing area. The bocage hedgerows themselves were the worse hazard to safe glider landings, and caused more glider casualties than Rommelspargel.
Rommel reported after an inspection tour in April 1944 that "The construction of anti-paratroop obstacles has made great progress in many divisions. For example, one division alone has erected almost 300,000 stakes, and one corps over 900,000." Rommel emphasized that "Erecting stakes alone does not make the obstacles complete; the stakes must be wired together and shells and mines attached to them... It will still be possible for tethered cattle to pasture underneath these mined obstacles."
From February 1944, Allied reconnaissance showed the growing presence of Rommelspargel in landing fields, placed about 75 to 100 feet (23 to 30 m) apart. Commander-in-Chief Trafford Leigh-Mallory, in charge of the Allied Expeditionary Air Force that would be conducting air operations during the invasion of Europe, studied the threat and projected glider troops taking as much as 70% casualties from all sources, primarily from the wooden poles. However, Allied leaders noticed that German planners appeared to expect airborne landings to be carried out relatively far from the beaches. In response, invasion plans concentrated most landings near the beaches where fewer fields were planted with Rommelspargel.
Most of the Allied contact with Rommelspargel in Normandy was by British airborne forces. During Operation Tonga, the British airborne invasion of Normandy, Airspeed Horsa gliders landed among the wooden poles and suffered casualties. Some gliders were wrecked near Sainte-Mère-Église where Americans parachutists had also landed. Where encountered, British forces blew up the logs with dynamite and cleared landing fields for reinforcements.
On June 6, 1944, and afterward, most of the American airborne landings in Normandy were flown into areas that were not studded with Rommelspargel. Some flights, however, came up hard against the defense. Accompanying the 82nd Airborne Division, Tito Moruza landed on D-Day with orders to don civilian clothing and make his way to Paris to seize Gestapo papers. His glider hit a wooden pole defense which tore into the three soldiers sitting next to him, mortally wounding them. More casualties were inflicted during delivery of glider infantry reinforcements when some 16–18 gliders landed in a field of Rommelspargel and the troops that crawled from the wrecked gliders were immediately targeted by German small arms fire. Of 250 troops landing, some 50–60 survived.
Once Allied troops were on the ground, some German units used the Rommelspargel for defense, by cutting them down and using the logs to reinforce impromptu positions. Sturmmann Karl Vasold of the 12th SS Panzer Division Hitlerjugend described how his unit dug in under fire in a tank trench and foxholes on the road from Buron to Villons-les-Buissons, and used cut-down Rommelspargel poles to cover their positions and protect them from enemy fire.
On June 29, 1944, German General of Infantry Friedrich Wiese was put in command of the French Riviera, where it was expected that the Allies would conduct an invasion of Vichy France. Wiese ordered Rommelspargel planted in vineyards and fields from Nice to Marseille. On August 15, Allied paratroopers and gliders of General Robert T. Frederick's mixed-nationality 1st Airborne Task Force landed in Operation Dragoon. One of the constituent units, the 551st Parachute Infantry Battalion, dropped on Draguignan, 26 miles (42 km) from the coast. Some gliders were wrecked by Rommelspargel but more were destroyed by other obstacles such as trees, and by gliders landing atop one another. An officer in the 551st, Major "Pappy" Herrmann, saw the damage inflicted upon the gliders by the wooden poles and concluded for himself "I'll stick to parachutes."
In total, the wooden stakes caused about 300 casualties in the 1st Airborne Task Force.
In 1943, troops used hydraulic pressure to emplace high wooden poles (Hochpfähle) in beach sand.
Before Rommel was assigned defense of the Atlantic Wall, obstacles to amphibious landing were being built upon the beaches of Belgium and France. On February 3, 1944 during a visit to the beach at Neufchâtel-Hardelot, Rommel was shown a method by which local troops employed a high pressure water hose to quickly create a hole in beach sand, one which could be used to set high wooden stakes (Hochpfähle) into the beach as an obstacle to landing craft. The water hose method took three minutes, fifteen times faster than using a pile driver. Rommel ordered such methods to be used to place wooden beams, metal rails and other obstructions along the beaches of Normandy. Nearly 11,000 were emplaced in the south part of Normandy's coastline where the Allies would eventually land.
However, a test against the wooden stakes in mid-February showed them to be too weak to stop a captured British landing craft. As a result, a stronger design was contrived using a larger beam set at an angle and reinforced with other thick beams, most topped with a Teller mine. The more robust obstacles were called Hemmbalken, or "obstruction beams". The original upright beams were left in place – some were topped with mines for greater effectiveness. The Hochpfähle have sometimes been called "Rommel's asparagus" or Rommelspargel for their close resemblance to the air-landing obstructions.
U.S. Navy Commander Edward Ellsberg said of the various Atlantic Wall obstacles, "Rommel had thoroughly muddled our plans. Attacking at high tide as we had intended, we'd never get enough troops in over those obstacles..." Instead the Allies landed at low tide, which increased the length of the beach to be crossed but uncovered and revealed the obstacles, greatly reducing their effectiveness.
^ a b Tour the Battlefields of Normandy. The Obstacles. Retrieved on November 28, 2009.
^ "Bild 101I-719-0240-35 (diagram of Luftlandehindernis, or airborne obstructions.)". Das Bundesarchiv, Picture database. April 18, 1944. Retrieved December 28, 2009.
^ a b c Masters, 1995, p. 40.
^ Masters, 1995, p. 48.
^ Devlin, 1979, p. 369.
^ a b Masters, 1995, p. 41.
^ Snapp, Martin (August 16, 2009). "Happy Day". The Montclarion. Alameda, California: Bay Area News Group. Retrieved July 5, 2010.
^ Orfalea, 1999, p. 132.
^ Orfalea, 1999, p. 146.
^ a b c d Zaloga, 2005, pp. 14–17.
^ Corbis images. Image number NA008708. "Rommel's asparagus." Retrieved on December 29, 2009.
This page was last edited on 31 January 2019, at 23:26 (UTC).
|
0.999976 |
What is the most fundamental, basic, elemental component to birding? That would have to be BIRDS. This design is the word birds spelled out using elements from the periodic table.
|
0.920221 |
Sumner Redstone was bornon 27 May 1923 in Beverly Hills, California, United States, is Chairman, Viacom. Sumner Redstone is #416 in List Billionaires People In The World. Redstone remains controlling shareholder of both CBS and the beleaguered Viacom, despite a 2016 marred by boardroom and courtroom drama. Redstone's father founded the cinema chain now known as National Amusements in 1936; Redstone took over in 1954. He acquired control of Viacom in 1987 and spun off CBS in 2006. Redstone's daughter Shari has been battling a couple of her dad's former companions who have been seeking a share of his inheritance. He has a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame.
Sumner Murray Redstone (born Sumner Murray Rothstein; May 27, 1923) is an American businessman and media magnate. He is the majority owner and chairman of the board of the National Amusements theater chain. Through National Amusements, Redstone and his family are majority owners of CBS Corporation and Viacom (itself the parent company of Viacom Media Networks, BET Networks, and the film studio Paramount Pictures). According to Forbes, as of September 2015, he was worth US$5 billion.Redstone was formerly the executive chairman of both CBS and Viacom. In February 2016, at age 92, Redstone resigned both chairmanships following a court-ordered examination by a geriatric psychiatrist. He was ultimately succeeded by Leslie Moonves at CBS and Philippe Dauman at Viacom, where he currently serves as chairman emeritus.Redstone was born to a Jewish family in Boston, Massachusetts, to Belle (née Ostrovsky) and Michael Rothstein. In 1940, at Sumner's behest, his father agreed to change the family surname from "Rothstein" to "Redstone" ("Red stone" is a literal translation of the German-Jewish name, "Rothstein"). Michael Rothstein owned Northeast Theater Corporation in Dedham, Massachusetts (the forerunner of National Amusements) and the Boston branch of the Latin Quarter Nightclub.Redstone attended the Boston Latin School, from which he graduated first in his class. In 1944, he graduated from Harvard College, where he completed the studies for his baccalaureate in three years. Later, Redstone served as First Lieutenant in the United States Army during World War II with a team that decoded Japanese messages. After his military service, he worked in Washington, D.C., and attended Georgetown University Law Center. He transferred to Harvard Law School and received his law degree in 1947.After completing law school, Redstone served as special assistant to U.S. Attorney General Tom C. Clark (who later served as Associate Justice of the Supreme Court of the United States from 1949 to 1967) and then worked for the United States Department of Justice Tax Division in Washington, D.C. and San Francisco, and thereafter entered private practice. In 1954, he joined his father's theater chain, National Amusements and in 1967, he became CEO of the company. As the company grew, Redstone came to believe that content would become more important than distribution mechanisms: channels of distribution (in varied forms) would always exist, but content would always be essential (Redstone coined the phrase, "Content is king!"). He invested in Columbia Pictures, Twentieth Century Fox, Orion Pictures, and Paramount Pictures (Redstone's Viacom would buy Paramount in the 1990s), all of which turned over huge profits when he chose to sell their stock in the early 1980s.In 1979, he suffered severe burns in a fire at the Copley Plaza hotel, in Boston, but survived after thirty hours of extensive surgery at Massachusetts General Hospital. Though he was warned that he might never be able to live a normal life again, eight years later he was fit enough to insist on playing tennis nearly every day and to launch a hostile takeover of Viacom. Redstone has discussed the story of surviving the fire as a reflection of his strong determination and will to live.Looking for a new business venture, he set his sights on Viacom International, a company which he had already been buying stock in as an investment and was a spin-off of CBS in 1971 after the FCC ruled that television networks could not syndicate programs following their network run. Viacom syndicated most of CBS's in-house productions (such as Hawaii Five-O and Gunsmoke, as well as the pre-1960 Desilu Productions library which CBS acquired in 1960, I Love Lucy being among the acquired programs), but also made a lot of money from syndicating other programs, including most of Carsey-Werner Productions' shows (The Cosby Show, Roseanne, and A Different World), as well as syndicating shows for other companies (Columbia Pictures Television's All in the Family was one notable example, as was MTM Enterprises' The Mary Tyler Moore Show), and cable channels (Nickelodeon's Double Dare and Finders Keepers (co-syndicated with 20th Television) were two examples).Viacom also owned MTV Networks (formerly known as Warner-AMEX Satellite Entertainment), which owned MTV and Nickelodeon. In addition, other properties included Showtime Networks (a pay-television network similar to HBO and Cinemax) and The Movie Channel. Viacom acquired MTV Networks in 1985 for $550 million from Steve Ross' Warner Communications. (WCI bought American Express' share and then sold the entire entity to Viacom, as they felt that they could not make a lot of money from the venture and the bias of a studio owning cable channels would be a conflict of interest. The studio's stance changed in 1995, when as Time Warner it bought Turner Broadcasting.)After a four-month hostile takeover in 1987, Redstone won voting control of Viacom and led a series of acquisitions to make Viacom one of the top players in modern media along with Bertelsmann, News Corporation, Time Warner, Sony, Disney, and NBC Universal (owned by Comcast).Redstone's next acquisition was the purchase of Paramount Communications (previously Gulf+Western), parent of Paramount Pictures in 1993. He engaged in a bidding war with Barry Diller (former board member of Vivendi Universal and CEO of IAC/InterActiveCorp) and John Malone (president of TCI/Liberty Media), and had to raise his bid three times. Some say that Redstone overpaid, but after he shed certain assets — the Madison Square Garden properties (which included the NBA's NY Knicks and the NHL's NY Rangers) to Charles Dolan's Cablevision and Simon & Schuster's educational publishing units to Pearson PLC — for almost $4 billion, Redstone turned Viacom's expenditure into a substantial profit. Under Redstone's leadership, Paramount went on an almost ten-year streak of record performance, producing such films as Saving Private Ryan, Titanic (one of the highest-grossing films of all time and Best Picture Academy Award winner), Braveheart (Best Picture Academy Award), and Forrest Gump (also a Best Picture winner) and the creation of the hugely successful Mission: Impossible series of pictures.Redstone replaced the team of Jonathan Dolgen and Sherry Lansing in 2004 after their nine-year winning streak ended. Along with the strong slate of films they oversaw, Dolgen and Lansing’s accomplishments included: doubling the size of Paramount's music publishing division, Famous Music; expanding UCI Cinemas into 13 foreign countries; creating the Digital Cinema Initiatives standards body for the new digital film technology; and launching the UPN Network (later part of CBS and now called the CW). The current Paramount Pictures consists only of the movie studio, the other groups having been sold or parceled out to other divisions.Since arriving at Paramount in 2005, Chairman and Chief Executive Officer Brad Grey has led a return to fortune at the box office. He has overseen the creation or revitalization of several major franchises, including Transformers, Star Trek and Paranormal Activity. Paramount has also forged productive relationships with top-tier filmmakers and talent including J.J. Abrams, Michael Bay and Martin Scorsese. The 2010 Paramount slate achieved much success with Shutter Island and a True Grit remake, reaching the biggest box office totals in the storied careers of Martin Scorsese and the Coen Brothers, respectively. In addition, during Grey’s tenure, Paramount launched its own worldwide releasing arm, Paramount Pictures International, and has released acclaimed films such as An Inconvenient Truth, Up in the Air, and There Will Be Blood.The Paramount acquisition was only the tip of the iceberg. He purchased Blockbuster Entertainment, which included Aaron Spelling's production company and a huge library of films, much of which has been merged into Paramount Pictures. Blockbuster has now been spun off into its own independent entity. Redstone acquired CBS Corporation in 2000 and then spun it off as a separate company in 2005, taking with it all of Paramount's television shows and catalog. Following the CBS and Blockbuster Spinoffs, Viacom consists of MTV Networks (MTV, Nickelodeon, VH1, Noggin etc.), music publishing (Famous Music) and Paramount Pictures.In December 2005, Redstone announced that Paramount had agreed to buy DreamWorks SKG for an estimated $1.6 billion. The acquisition was completed on February 1, 2006. A subsequent financing brought Viacom's investment down to $700 million. The animation studio, DreamWorks Animation, was not included in the deal as it has been its own company since late 2004. However, Paramount had the rights to distribute films by DreamWorks Animation until 2013.On June 1, 2012, Paramount Pictures renamed the Administration Building on the studio lot the Sumner Redstone Building in a dedication ceremony attended by employees of Paramount Pictures and Viacom.One of Redstone's largest acquisitions came in the form of Viacom's former parent, CBS. Former Viacom President and COO Mel Karmazin (who was then the President of CBS) proposed a merger to Redstone on favorable terms and after the merger completed in 2000, Viacom had some of the most diversified businesses imaginable. Viacom had assets in the form of broadcast networks (CBS and UPN), cable television networks (MTV, VH1, Nickelodeon, MTV2, Comedy Central, BET, Nick at Nite, Noggin/The N, TV Land, CMT, and Spike TV), pay television (Showtime and The Movie Channel), radio (Infinity Broadcasting, which produced the immensely popular Howard Stern radio shows), outdoor advertising, motion pictures (Paramount Pictures), and television production (Spelling Entertainment, Paramount Television, Big Ticket Entertainment, CBS Productions, and Viacom Productions), and King World Productions (a syndication unit, which notably syndicates the runaway daytime hit, The Oprah Winfrey Show, as well as Dr. Phil, Wheel of Fortune, and Jeopardy!), among others.After CBS and Viacom split in 2006, Redstone remained chairman of both companies but two separate CEOs were appointed for each company.Redstone's trusts made it clear that his daughter, Shari Redstone (Vice-Chairwoman of the Board of Viacom and CBS as well as President of National Amusements), was set to assume his role upon his death. However, a November 22, 2006, New York Times article indicated that Redstone was reconsidering his daughter's role. In 2007, they feuded publicly over issues of corporate governance and the future of the cinema chain.Documents were made public which verify that, as part of a settlement from Sumner's first divorce, all of Sumner's stock is in irrevocable trusts that will be left for his grandchildren. On March 1, 2010, Sumner publicly confirmed that all of his stock would be left for his five grandchildren (Brandon Korff, Kimberlee Korff, Tyler Korff, Keryn Redstone, and Lauren Redstone).Redstone made arrangements to step down as CEO of Viacom in 2006. After Mel Karmazin resigned in 2004, two heirs apparent were named: Co-President and Co-COO Leslie Moonves (who was number 2 to Karmazin at CBS; he was the former head of Warner Bros. Television and before that, Lorimar Television) and Co-President and Co-COO Tom Freston (who had been President and CEO of MTV Networks since 1987 and had been with the company since the formation of MTV Networks' precursor company, Warner-AMEX Satellite Entertainment). After the Viacom split was approved by the board on June 14, 2005, Moonves headed CBS, and Freston headed the new Viacom, Inc.On September 5, 2006, Redstone removed Freston as President and CEO of Viacom and replaced him with director and former Viacom counsel Philippe Dauman. Redstone also brought back former CFO Tom Dooley. This was surprising to many, as Freston had been seen by many as Redstone's heir apparent, and Redstone had touted that Freston would run the company after he retired. Redstone publicly stated that he let Freston go because of Viacom's lack of aggressiveness in the digital/online arena, lack of contact with investors, and a lackluster upfront (coupled with falling viewership) at MTV Networks.In February 2016, at age 92, after a court-ordered examination by a geriatric psychiatrist whose findings were not publicly disclosed, Redstone relinquished the chairmanship of CBS to Moonves and the chairmanship of Viacom to Dauman. In May 2016, Los Angeles Superior Court Judge David Cowan dismissed a lawsuit alleging that Redstone was mentally incompetent, although the judge stated it was "not in dispute that Redstone suffers from either mild or moderate dementia"; in addition to this, his speech is now severely impaired. Two weeks later, another such lawsuit was filed in Massachusetts.Currently, Redstone owns over seventy percent of the voting interest of Viacom. Viacom and CBS Corporation are both controlled by Redstone through National Amusements. Redstone sold his holdings of Midway Games, of over 89 percent, in December 2008.Redstone's autobiography, A Passion to Win (co-written with author Peter Knobler), was published in 2001 by Viacom's Simon & Schuster. This book details everything from Redstone's life as a young boy in Boston to the difficult takeover of Viacom and the problems he overcame in purchasing and managing both Blockbuster Video and Paramount Pictures. The book also recounts the legendary CBS merger (Viacom was a spin-off company of CBS to syndicate its programs, and the subsidiary bought the parent almost 30 years later).Viacom's broadcasting properties at the time of A Passion to Win's release included several radio stations and two TV stations: WBZ CBS 4, which had just become a CBS O&O through a merger with Westinghouse four years before Viacom and CBS merged, and WSBK UPN 38 in Redstone's hometown, Boston.A longtime Democratic supporter, with a history of donating to many Democratic campaigns, including regular donations to Ted Kennedy, John Kerry, and former Senate Majority Leader Tom Daschle, Redstone endorsed Republican George W. Bush over Kerry in the 2004 Presidential election, allegedly because he argued that Bush would be better for his company and the economy. Despite this public endorsement, he donated money to Kerry during the primaries and was involved in the Rathergate scandal meant to hurt Bush's reelection.Sumner Redstone has contributed over $150 million to various philanthropic causes.In 1947, he married Phyllis Gloria Raphael. In 1999, they divorced. They had two children: Brent Redstone and Shari Redstone. Three years after his divorce, he married Paula Fortunato, a former primary school teacher 39 years his junior. Sumner Redstone filed for divorce from her on October 17, 2008. Their divorce was finalized on January 22, 2009. Redstone owns a house in the Beverly Park area of Beverly Hills, California, which he purchased in 2002 for $14,500,000.In July 2010, Redstone was caught on tape trying to find the source of an apparently embarrassing leak within his own MTV. Redstone offered money and protection to a journalist if he would give up his source. Redstone had been pushing the MTV management to give more airtime to the band the Electric Barbarellas. On the message, Redstone tells the reporter that "we're not going to kill" the source, adding "We just want to talk to him". The 87-year-old Redstone also tells the reporter he will be "well rewarded and well protected" if he would reveal the source. Peter Lauria told NBC's Today show he would not do it. Viacom Inc. spokesman, Carl Folta confirmed to Today that it was Redstone's voice on the message and said the mogul had made a mistake. A Viacom source told the New York Post, "Sumner wants to be consequential. Sumner is really proud of what he did. This guy is loving it… He likes people to know he's still alive".In August 2015, Redstone split with his live-in girlfriend, Sydney Holland, after five years together.
|
Subsets and Splits
No community queries yet
The top public SQL queries from the community will appear here once available.