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Looking for a job? Create one!
For many college graduates, and many men and women across America, it has been challenging to find employment that utilizes their expertise and training. Many graduates, burdened by major college debt, are questioning what they should do next. Some are now thinking about creating their own business.
Recently, I met a young woman who created a new line of high-fashion women's accessories. She received rave reviews from fashion magazines and orders from many of the most sought after boutiques at the major trade shows. The large chains love the product line and said that after she proves herself, they will happily place orders.
So, the challenge is, how does she, or any of you with an idea and a dream, get the training and funding needed to start your business and prove yourselves?
Form a team and make a plan
Before risking your time and money, create a team, talk to potential customers and develop a business plan. A team can assist you to develop your product, marketing plans and a sound financial forecast. The financial forecast will provide you with an estimate of the amount of money you will need to carry you through to where your business is generating a profit from your sales. In life and in business it usually takes more time and more money than expected so prepare for this and have a reserve in your budget.
The team can consist of advisors, consultants, mentors and friends. Take advantage of the free counseling and classes offered through groups such as SCORE, the Small Business Development Center (SBDC), the Small Business Association (SBA) and many local colleges. These resources are available to help you succeed and are good sources for advisors.
Getting the combined experience of a team helps the founders make good decisions and provides a broader base of contacts when needed for advice or funding. When you start talking to banks and investors for funding, having a team makes your company much stronger and more attractive.
After arming yourself with a good business plan and customer references, where do you go to get the necessary funds your business will need?
Sources to fund your new business
Let's take a look at the climate in this country for getting funds for a new business. Due to the financial crisis, banks are ultra conservative. To make a loan banks want to see a proven track record, profitability, and assets to use for collateral. Entrepreneurs usually have little or no track record or collateral and may have used up their savings and credit cards to get to where they currently are. The banks are most likely going to say no.
The Small Business Administration (SBA) guaranteed loan programs, minority loans or loans for women owned businesses are not much different. The loans still come from banks and unless you have the collateral to cover the loan or can get another person to co-sign or guarantee the loan, the answer will generally be no. In these difficult times asking family and friends to pledge their home to the bank for your business is going to be challenging.
Now, how about the angel investors? Angel investors, like their bigger brothers the venture capitalists, are looking for that billion-dollar home run that they can achieve in the next three to five years through an exit strategy of selling the business or taking the business public. That leaves out most of our small business entrepreneurs and 99 percent of all other startups and small businesses across America. Yet, many of these businesses will grow, thrive and create many new jobs.
Now let's look at the private investors. Who is going to invest in a startup or a small business and why would they do it? It is usually family, friends and what some writers in the press like to characterize as "fools", acknowledging the very risky nature of small businesses. In 2010, however, family and friends funded nearly three times as much money into startups and small business as did angel investors. It is a group that needs to receive much more recognition and support. Let's call them family, friends and the faithful!
To increase your chances of success in getting the support of family and friends, be prepared with a compelling concept and business plan, just like you would do if you were approaching a bank. You need to show that you have researched your market, talked to potential customers, received positive testimonials, and have prepared a plan to accomplish your objectives. Remember, create a team and get the help you need.
To help college grads and many others across this country get the funding needed for their new businesses, new programs need to be created. One option is the new JOBS Act that includes a provision for Crowd Funding. This new type of funding will allow businesses to go online and raise small amounts of money from a large number of people. Until the Securities and Exchange Commission works out the final details of implementing the new law, the rules and costs for a new business to take advantage of this program and potential legal issues are still unclear.
Another option is to offer tax credit incentives to those investors who fund new businesses. Twenty-two states now have various laws offering tax credits to startups and small businesses. Most of these however, focus on promoting high-growth and high-tech startups. One solution is to help promote one of the grass roots Initiatives championing legislation for a national tax incentive plan for the investors that fund all types of startups and small businesses. Startups and small businesses create the new jobs and provide opportunities for many Americans to live a better life.
Your best solution?
For now, your best option may be to create a well-prepared plan and present it with enthusiasm to your family, friends and the faithful. Let them know how much money you need, what you will do with it, what sales you expect and how you will repay their loan or how they will get a return on their investment.
Your family may be there for you because they love you and want to see you succeed, but they and other investors will feel much more confident when they see that you have worked through the details of your business. They will also appreciate that you recognize the value of their money and have a plan to get it back to them.
For all the Family, Friends and the Faithful who support these startups and small businesses, often our college grads, I say Cheers! And thanks for helping revive the American Dream. | <urn:uuid:4646ad92-149b-4ff8-b467-d3b08016bd26> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.huffingtonpost.com/nick-bassill/recent-grads-business-startups_b_1579564.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368699273641/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516101433-00002-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.969042 | 1,281 | 1.96875 | 2 |
What exactly are partial reps?
A partial rep is anything less than a full rep so if you do pushup without coming all the way down and touching your chest to the floor then that's a partial rep and you can play the video below to see various examples of partial reps being done…
1. Use partial reps to do more reps
You can use partial reps to help you do more reps on a set so you can extend the set helping you increase the intensity of a set to help you build more muscle so for example…
2. You can do heavy partial reps
You can also do heavy partial reps where you use 90% or more of your 1-rep max (or the most weight you can lift one time) and do multiple reps with that weight so for example…
Doing lots of partial reps using heavier weights that are 90% or more of your 1-rep max is a good way to increase the intensity of your muscle building workouts to help you build muscle faster and it'll also help you break out of a muscle building plateau so…
You can take your regular workout and replace it with nothing but heavier partial reps just to give you something new in your workouts but heavy partial reps should only be done in a rack or smith machine if you're by yourself or make sure you get a partner or spotter if no rack or smith machine is available.
You don't advise a sets and reps scheme, nor specific exercises, nor do you even outline any examples of a training routine. So . . . why did you even write this small, uninformative article that doesn't explain much of anything useful at all???
March 14, 2013
When I was younger late teens to earlier 20's I used to workout but I didn't have any knowledge about locking out or anything I seemed to have better results then then now because everyone in prison and jail was telling me to lockout when I wasn't used to it. To make a long story short, not locking out and partial reps in my opinion, give better results.
February 12, 2013
For upper body 2 times a week I started doing 3 sets of bench press with pull-ups in between sets, then 3 sets of incline bench with rows in between sets, 2 sets of dips with dumbbell push-up rows in between, and two sets of tricep pull downs with curls in between sets. Is that working the muscle groups too hard in a day?
June 04, 2012
that does not seem like it's too much but as you get stronger you will need to go to 1-2x per week
June 05, 2012 | <urn:uuid:94879e8d-3364-4186-bf27-7cd3d7ac40bf> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.nowloss.com/partial-reps.htm | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368705195219/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516115315-00068-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.962323 | 536 | 2.109375 | 2 |
Who remembers Arkady Gaidar? At some point in my childhood, when the sky was full of stars, I happened to read the adventures of Chuck and Geck, their long journey on the Trans-Siberian railway and on a sledge across the hoary taiga in search of their adventuring father.
It was probably the best children's book from the Soviet era: it found a readership across continents, and touched the hearts of many eight-year-old kids who lived in cramped Indian cities. Alongside heroes and villains of Indian and British-American persuasions, their good friends were the brave Chuck and Geck, Vasilisa the beautiful, Ivan the dragon-slayer, and Makar the unlucky Yakut. They dreamed endlessly as they stared across muddy roads and dusty alleys that they knew led to exotic lands filled with adventures: they talked to their friends in their dreams. It was such a good book written in wonderful prose, and beautifully illustrated in black and white.
Now that's all far, far away, and the eight-year-old children have all grown up. For those of them who are still alive, the Soviet Union has become a dull and disturbing subject filling many history books while the publishers of these wonderful books (Mir, Vostok, Raduga) have ceased to exist. Most of these children live like old people now: their adult selves uneasy with the horrors perpetrated in the name of communism; uneasier still, witnessing the way commodities nastily distort the dreams of the children they see around them.
But in the middle of the night, in the strangest moments of reminiscing childhood, those older children--the readers of Arkady Gaidar-- have curious dreams.
They dream of a thousand lives, they dream of lonely death. From the darkened hovels where they live in, from the smoggiest zones of some Indian city lit with a thousand neon signs, they dream of strange loud bells ringing in faraway Moscow on a Christmas night. On a hot sweaty summer night, they smell the snow falling on the fir trees of the endless Taiga, and breathe at ease. They see the bear and the wold leap across their windows: they are not afraid. But as they drift off to sleep, they wonder: what do children read now?
For those like me still searching for the works of Arkady Gaider in the ether, here are the download links to three pdf files: three books from the forgotten master. It's still a great pleasure to read them, but ah, the pictures and wonderful illustrations, the dog-eared pages of a book thumbed breathlessly a thousand times, and the eight-year-old mind are badly missed:
Chuck and Geck
Timur and his Squad | <urn:uuid:c27299b8-3417-4acc-9f7c-1acd01beedad> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://buroangla.blogspot.com/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368698924319/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516100844-00000-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.956875 | 569 | 1.820313 | 2 |
KnowThis Blog Postings
- Published on October 21, 2010
- Posted by Paul Christ
Going Where CPGs Do Research (Shopper Marketing)
At KnowThis.com, we are firm believers in the need for organizations to regularly undertake marketing research. In fact, we go as far as to call marketing research the Foundation of Marketing. As we observe in our Marketing Research tutorial, “Just as a well-built house requires a strong foundation to remain sturdy, marketing decisions need the support of research in order to be viewed favorably by customers and to stand up to competition and other external pressures.” The need to support marketing decisions with research can be seen in our recent post covering Gap’s decision to reinstate their old logo.
Just how valuable an organization views marketing research can often be determined by looking at the resources directed toward this important function. However, for competitive reasons, most companies prefer to keep such details secret and do not often share their research techniques in a public way. Though, occasionally information does leak out, mostly through articles in the trade press.
For example, this story explains methods used by several leading companies for measuring customers’ response to marketing decisions. Most methods are employed within an internal research laboratory where qualitative research is collected. These labs include mock-ups of retail store aisles, product demonstration and usage areas (including one company's research facility that contains a house), and advanced focus groups facilities.
Hewlett-Packard's lab is designed to mock the aisles of many major big box stores selling its products. The company tests many of its campaigns as it receives the first prototypes, approximately three to six months before launch. "It's the ideal store for shoppers based on their insights and what they want," Stermitz says.
What are the key advantages and disadvantages with operating an in-house marketing research laboratory?
Image by asmythie | <urn:uuid:07cea0b0-3e7b-4a3e-8e40-16c95944d136> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.knowthis.com/blog/postings/examples-of-marketing-research-laboratories/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368701852492/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516105732-00057-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.967766 | 391 | 2.15625 | 2 |
§ Lord Kennet
asked Her Majesty's Government:
Whether a second list of London Underground stations of special architectural and/or historic interest has been drawn up; if so, whether it has been submitted to the Secretary of State for the Environment; and, if so, whether it is yet in operation.
The Minister of State, Department of the Environment (The Earl of Caithness)
The Historic Buildings and Monuments Commission for England has recommended that 26 London Underground stations should be added to the relevant lists of buildings of special architectural or historic interest. Thirty-five stations are already listed, including many of the most widely admired examples. My right honourable friend the Secretary of State will not be taking decisions on these further proposals until after the inquiry into the King's Cross fire has been completed. | <urn:uuid:a3d3032d-3a23-44bb-9c43-bee259d317bf> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://hansard.millbanksystems.com/written_answers/1988/jan/27/london-underground-stations-listing | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368700958435/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516104238-00070-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.948073 | 163 | 1.78125 | 2 |
Best way to describe the stat:
The number of putts in comparison to the Tour average computed by the average number of strokes based on the distance relative to the hole (simple explanation - HAHA).
The new "strokes gained-putting" stat measures the number of putts a golfer takes relative to the PGA Tour average, taking into account the initial putt distance on each green. In 2010 Luke Donald led the Tour with 0.871 strokes gained. That means in each round, he gained an average of 0.871 strokes on the field just from his superior putting ability. Here's how the stat is computed. Suppose, for example, a golfer one-putts from 33 feet. The Tour average to hole-out from that distance is 2.0 putts, so a one-putt gains one putt on the field. A two-putt neither gains nor loses, but a three-putt represents a loss of one putt (or stroke) against the field.
From other distances, the strokes gained or lost are typically fractional. For example, suppose a golfer one-putts from eight feet. The Tour average from that distance is 1.5, so a one-putt gains 0.5 strokes, but a two-putt loses 0.5 strokes. If the golfer started from eight feet 10 times in the round and made half of them, his strokes gained would be zero—he gained 0.5 on five holes and lost 0.5 on the other five holes
Read more: www.golf.com/.../strokes-gained-putting-behind-newest-pga-tour-stat
-ICONs for All | <urn:uuid:3768c2e2-5a87-4772-9a18-68a511e123fd> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.footjoy.com/community/discussions/f/23/p/10488/3552171.aspx | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368697380733/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516094300-00046-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.947107 | 360 | 2.296875 | 2 |
The Tower of Babel: David Gauntlett’s “Making is Connecting”
I have a strategy when it comes to books and reading that can best be described as “hoard and aspire to read all of…eventually.” During my senior year of college, I wrote a thesis for my major in anthropology and stockpiled library books like a fiend; some, I never even opened, but it was so satisfying to amass the musty old books into a stack of possibility and ideas on my drafting table. I started to casually refer to the behemoth as the “Tower of Babel.” While the reference was definitely off, my roommate (who is Hindu and actually knows Bible stories; I was raised heathen) didn’t want to burst my bubble, and the moniker stuck.
What I do know about the Tower of Babel as it appears in Genesis is that it has everything to do with human arrogance and the confounding of languages – both things relevant to the numpie take on life. So, I’ll be using this tagline to head up posts containing thoughts on the things I’ve been reading. But in a further twist on the original meaning, I’d like to suggest that perhaps much of the hubris in our contemporary American cultural milieu has to do with privileging language over action. We’ll never reach the heavens by talking about it, y’know?
Making is Connecting by David Gauntlett
In the summer after I graduated, I read Making is Connecting: the social meaning of creativity, from DIY and knitting to YouTube and Web 2.0 by David Gauntlett (Polity, 2011). Of the stash of books I got to celebrate my ability to suddenly read whatever the hell I wanted, I was most excited about this one. Truthfully, it was kind of a let down, but still good and relevant thinking when I step back and consider the gist of the whole thing. It’s an important project and group of ideas to take on together, even if the execution is lacking.
Gauntlett (a professor of media and communications at the University of Westminster, UK) uses the book to connect theorists John Ruskin and William Morris of the Arts & Crafts Movement with contemporary creativity and its place in today’s world. This includes current crafting, as well as online creative projects (especially those made with easy-to-use platforms such as YouTube, Flickr, and WordPress). An optimistic and affirming take on the possibilities of Web 2.0, in which content is often user-created (if not open-source), Gauntlett highlights the active and engaged nature of exchanging information online, as opposed to the passive manner in which we get news and entertainment from television. Online networking capabilities, he notes, also often facilitate groups of people to join together in the real world in an unprecedented way. These activities, argues Gauntlett, are akin to the democratic ethos of the “art of everyday life” that Ruskin and Morris called for more than a century ago. He also says that this sense of connectivity is essential to our very well-being, even today. Bravo!
However, I had a hard time getting through the book. Gauntlett tries to be talkative and colloquial, and the result not only violates some basic creative writing “don’t’s” about redundancy and clarity, but in the section on Ruskin and Morris, oversimplifies the information to the point of almost misrepresenting it. His discussion of using YouTube and other information-sharing platforms rings true for anyone that’s seen their development and used such sites over the last several years, but lacks a substantive basis other than Gauntlett’s own impressions and experience, even though he cites a long list of stats regarding site visitors, profits, etc.
Overall, I have mixed feelings about the book. I discovered it courtesy of one of my professors, who sent me a link to this BBC Podcast featuring Gauntlett, as well as Richard Sennett (author of The Craftsman; more on that later…). Linking craft to contemporary sustainability and other reasons for the popularity of DIY was part of the idea for my thesis project as I came to envision it, but I was never able to execute that full scope. So for that reason, this is still an important book for me, even if it wasn’t the “clarion call” I was hoping for. | <urn:uuid:98b24f32-b9ea-4f33-b87a-84caee3ba1dd> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://thenumpie.wordpress.com/2012/12/09/the-tower-of-babel-david-gauntletts-making-is-connecting/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368699881956/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516102441-00007-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.966983 | 944 | 1.53125 | 2 |
WINDMILL EXPERIMENTAL PATTERNS AND PLANS TO SIZE
Private worksheets for prototype experiments.
Plans are sideways in inches. June 29th., 2001by Ray Auxillou, TRUSTEE and Project Director, the BELIZE DEVELOPMENT TRUST.
SIDE VIEW OF WINDMILL WITH CORRECT HEIGHT for a small battery charger d.c. motor
Construction using aluminum.
This windmill on location in the Tyrol of Europe is a bigger one than the plan here, which is intended for the back stern rail of a 30 ft sailboat as a small battery charger.
(a) On the motor. A.C. is better than D.C. because you can run a longer distance with A.C. The higher the A.C. voltage the further you can go in distance with a line.
(b) The number of poles in a generator indicate the number of rpm necessary. For example: a 2 pole is 3600 rpm, a 4 pole is 1800 rpm, and a 6 pole a.c. generator would be 1200 rpm.
(c) The higher the cycles, the smaller the wire. A high cycles would mean a smaller generator. But the rpm would go up also. Necessitating a bigger reduction gear.
(d) Tax Incentives Florida provides a variety of tax incentives including: No sales and use tax on co-generation of electricity. Use tax exemption for research and development labor costs.
(e) One gallon of diesel fuel is saved for each 14 kwh produced by wind.
(f) 10 turbines of 66kw will produce about 1.2 million kwh a year.
(g) One 50 kw turbine will produce about 120,000 kwh each year. Or $6000 at .05 cents USA per kwh. One 10 KW windmill turbine did 32,000 kwh's in Wisconsin one year to earn $1600 USA. You need a windmill that is self regulating and needs no people intervention maintainance to make it pay.
(h) Generator motors are usually 480 volt, 60 cycle, 3 phase. Some people use 240 volt, 60 cycle, single phase motors.
(i) COSTS & FINANCES of windmills. Operating costs average 5 cents US per kwh. To be profitable, a windmill has to earn 3.5 cents to 5 cents above the operating cost. Or get paid for the electricity produced or substituted at 8.5 cents to 10 cents per kwh. This is for small windmill systems under 300 KW. New technology now being financed by the US Government is expected to reduce windmill electrical producing costs to 3 cents to 4 cents per kwh by the year 2003.
(j) Wind and speed control for horizontal axis propeller windmills can be done with small boat, trim tab modifications to the wind vane. Tilt the rotor up, or sideways by wind vane secondary trim tabs.
(k) The Fortis wind turbines were low speed permanent magnet alternators. Maintainance free system.
(l) PRICING CO-GENERATED ELECTRICITY for government regulators. Because utility monopolies have the expense of maintaining the transmission lines and losses of electricity along them; wind farms and pv solar farms cannot expect to receive the same price as production cost of utility monopolies. About half the price of the utility monopoly production cost, can be expected to be the price paid to co-generator electrical farm remote distant producers. In a system of co-generation within a village however, line losses and transmission line maintance may only be worth 10% less than production cost of the monopoly diesel generator utility system. Where co-generation is desired by local governments for a variety of reasons, such as; diversification, saving of foreign exchange, competition, etc. If this makes co-generation uneconomic, but the advantages are perceived by local governments to be high, then co-generation suppliers to the grid will get higher prices for their electricity, adjusted by tax free status, rebates, and other imaginative methods of raising the price for co-generator small suppliers to make additional producing systems cost effective.
(m) Windmills usually produce a.c. voltage around 480 volts a.c.. Transformers are used to raise the voltage to match the transmission line grid voltage. e.g.: from 480 volts a.c. to 7200 volts a.c. D.C. systems use synchronous inverters to match the cycles and phase to the transmission grid. Household 500 watt to 2 k.w home windmill, or pv solar systems use synchronous inverters. The price of home systems electricity is usually half the cost of the utility monopoly production cost. There is no advantage from utility monopolies to buy electricity back at the same retail price they sell it to the customer. A two bedroom house, with one bathroom can save 75% of the monthly utility bill with a 500 watt windmill. Bigger houses require bigger systems to achieve the same. The major utility however, must make a profit off the household co-generation savings also, as they have the major constant investment.
(n) Third world countries have a problem and must import. This increases cost for alternative energy systems by 70 % on average, due to freight, customs duties, bank fees, foreign exchange conversion commissions, and other hidden costs. This additional cost can push an imported system from Denmark, or the USA over feasability. By the time you install the system, amortization costs would take too many years. For an investment, a windmill should be paid off in one to two years, at least the cash outlay. A 10 KW windmill should cost no more than $2,500 USA for cash outlay in manufactured parts. The manufacturing labor may be as high as $30,000 USA. The labor however, should be input as investment capital and issued stock in the enterprise. So, the cash outlay stays below $2,500 USA. A windmill can earn back the cash materials outlay in two years. But not the manufacturing labor costs. This makes buying refurbished old windmills, or new windmills uneconomic, as the imported cost losses and labor costs with retail purchase markup from industrialized nations, makes the number of years necessary to be profitable as an investment unrealistic. Home manufacture, or foreign purchase of parts and local manufacture with labor costs being paid in stock certificates in the enterprise can make a marginal operation into a solid investment in co-generation.
(o) Improvements in windmill cost efficiencies are coming in the shape of better designed airfoils for horizontal axis types. More solid state electronics in inverters and better designed generators/alternator motors.
(p) The major problems with windmills is over speed. Controlling rotation of the blades. Several mechanical, hydraulic and electrical braking systems are required for redundancy to shut down a malfunctioning, or overspeeding in high winds of a windmill. Regulating the speed of the windmill for voltage and cycle control and being able to stop the windmill are the major concerns in windmill co-generation designs. Murphys Law says if things can go wrong, they will. In windmills this is too true. Having several speed control and braking/stopping systems is imperative.
(q) NET METERING LEGISLATIVE REGULATIONS: There is a lot of controversy over net metering. Usually, net metering is passed in the USA in states where there are problems with brownouts, blackouts, or high electricity prices. As I understand the term, net metering is where a home, or business owner runs a windmill, solar panel, etc. d.c. voltage system in conjunction with using the regular utility. The d.c. goes through a SYNCHRONOUS inverter, to produce a matching 115 volt a.c., 60 cycle. Due to non-production of electricity from the Mollejon Hydro Dam in Belize during the dry season, with blackouts and brownouts, Belize would be a net metering type country. The connection is made from the small business, or house to the house side of the regular utility meter. You then supplement your utility electricity with what you produce. Presume you have a 500 watt, or 1 kw d.c. windmill, and your daily consumption of electricity ran around 3 kwh a.c.. You would produce 500 watts from your small home windmill unit, that much and cut your electric bill at the end of the month. During the day, when everything was drawing, like air-conditioning, ironing, lights, stove, refrigerator, you would simply burn your 500 watts alongside the extra you needed from the utility. But at night, when everything was turned off, but perhaps an intermittent refrigerator, your home 500 watt windmill would turn the utility meter backward as it fed street light demand. Utilities do not like this, because they are in effect buying back electricity at retail prices which includes their profit. But the amounts are so small usually, that separate utility meters are impractical, nor cost effective for a separate buy-back pricing structure. The nature of rural Belize and the need for backup and supplementry systems argues for household co-generation systems and net metering. In theory, if every house in the country of Belize had a supplementry co-generating system alongside the grid supply they use, the government foreign exchange savings could be more than 50%. There are many arguments for co-generation and household net metering, but all electricity in Belize is expensive scarce foreign exchange. This makes the issue of net metering and co-generation a top priority policy issue. For a larger windmill, or hybrid solar farm, as an entrepreneurial investment company, then net metering would not apply, but be calculated more on the distance your supply is from nearby consumers at some comfort negotiable level below the utility production cost. In either case, whether house systems, or co-generation companies, you need an automatic fuse breaker, to shut down the system if the primary utility goes off line, or has a downed powerline.
(r) In the convoluted world of high government finance, it is strange to note that while electricity in Belize sells for 21 cents USA per kwh roughly speaking, the production of electricity by private entrepreneurial alternative energy producers, actually saves the Government of Belize $3.50 USA per kwh in foreign exchange exports, to pay fuel suppliers and Fortis the foreign electrical utility owner for each kwh that independent small operator co-generators produce. Without any other arguments and there are a few very viable reasonable ones, the foreign exchange savings for the Government of Belize is alone sufficient to warrant privately owned co-generation electricity projects, by law. These may annoy any government sponsored quasi-government private monopoly, electrical management, but in reality in the long run, any co-generation projects probably would never exceed 10% of the overall electrical needs of the country of Belize. At the moment, 1 % electrical co-generation would be a big improvement for a variety of reasons.
(s) As of July 5th, 2001, we have entered the Florida Government merry-go-round of pass the buck for responsibility and information. Jim Tatum of the Florida State Energy Program, kindly answered my query and referred me to Public Service Commission, Lee Colson. ( e-mail: [email protected] State Energy Program and Lee Colson, e-mail: [email protected] ) Let's see where the reality check goes? The difference between rhetoric and application? Jim says, that they don't see enough wind in Florida to make wind turbines pay. I never considered the wind a problem, but am concerned about FPL controlling the government process and wondering what kind of price FPL would pay on co-generation? Presuming one could actually get that far, that is?
REFERENCE URL LINKS ON THE SUBJECT OF CO-GENERATION ELECTRICITY PROJECTS
(Click here! ) THE PROBLEMS WITH DIFFERENT LEVEL GOVERNMENTS AND BUREAUCRATS IN DOING BUSINESS IN FLORIDA! THESE ARE EXTENSIVE & EXPECT EXPENSIVE TIME CONSUMING DELAYS FROM BUREAUCRACIES. On average, a small business ( less than four people ) can expect an outlay in man hour labor and financial costs, of anywhere from $20,000 to $40,000 a year. (Licenses & Taxes, etc.)
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How about electricity for 2 cents per kilowatt hour? | <urn:uuid:9c908ddd-2ac4-4857-9257-7a2caa75b0ee> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://belizeone.com/BzLibrary/trust410.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368708142388/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516124222-00004-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.929779 | 2,669 | 3.0625 | 3 |
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For the first time ever, Rolling Stone published an article written about what the magazine called the top 50 songs that have influenced hip hop history. The song selections were made by a staff panel organized by the magazine, as well as outside experts. One of the outside experts was Questlove of legendary hip hop group The Roots. The song with the number one spot was “The Message” by Grandmaster Flash & The Furious Five.
The pioneering South Bronx-based hip hop group released the hit song in 1982. The social commentary in the song was a rift from the dancing, partying, and good times themes present in contemporary hip hop music at the time. | <urn:uuid:1445ada7-d59b-46f0-bc6c-e53bc7464396> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.yourblackworld.net/2012/12/uncategorized/rolling-stone-magazine-names-the-message-greatest-hip-hip-song-of-all-time/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368700958435/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516104238-00059-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.970552 | 158 | 1.523438 | 2 |
By Verena Dobnik, Associated Press Writer
NEW YORK A man so fascinated with the city's public transit system that he's turned his life into a train wreck is in trouble again.
Darius McCollum, who became a New York sensation when he commandeered a subway at age 15, was arrested Saturday after police found him in a secure area of Manhattan's Columbus Circle station wearing clothing that resembled a transit worker's uniform.
The arrest marked the 23rd time the 43-year-old was arrested on charges of pretending to be a transit worker.
Over the years, he has donned MTA uniforms and cheerfully collected fares, cleared trash from tracks, put out underground fires.
But he's also driven MTA buses and trains, including a time in 1981 when he made headlines as a teenager by taking the controls of a subway full of passengers and piloting it to the World Trade Center.
Hardly just a youthful prank, it was the first of many forbidden rides. By the mid-1990s, frustrated Transit Authority officials posted thousands of wanted posters in trains and stations so riders could report McCollum sightings. But most riders who ran into him found him simply friendly and helpful.
On Saturday, officers of the NYPD's Transit Queens Task Force spotted McCollum as he entered a secure area. He was wearing a hardhat and the typical blue T-shirt and pants of track workers, and carried a flashlight and gloves with a Transit Authority logo.
Police said he also had "written material containing knowledge of the transit system." McCollum was charged with criminal impersonation, criminal trespassing and criminal possession of burglar tools.
He was awaiting arraignment on Saturday. Calls to Manhattan Criminal Court went unanswered.
In a statement, the New York Transit Authority thanked the officers who made the arrest, saying, "It is not difficult to imagine how much harm could be caused by someone impersonating a New York City Transit worker."
Copyright 2008 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed. | <urn:uuid:6d1465e5-d733-4b47-b3c5-424c3c8fee76> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://usatoday30.usatoday.com/news/nation/2008-06-14-3877913040_x.htm | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368704132298/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516113532-00068-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.970209 | 423 | 1.75 | 2 |
The Meredith March, it's your first on the national scene but really it begins to capture the words Black Power and Black Power gets turned into Black Only, by bad media and some other things. During those years you were in Mississippi.
I was in Mississippi. And Stokely was in Mississippi and again most of the SNCC kids were struggling on and off plantations trying to register to vote. And my dominant feeling about snow, Stokely, I mean, goes back to the earlier days of how he would come off plantations where he had been shot at and he could laugh about how close the call was, ah, and if I remember back to the Meredith March, ah, I guess I have two dominant memories, ah, it was at the end of each day, Dr. King, listening to Stokely and other young people, who by that time, had been so frustrated about the slow response of the country, ah, on voter registration and on implementing, ah, the new civil rights laws and who saw the continuing poverty and saw the continuing violence, that they were really saying to Dr. King that it was time for us all to be more aggressive and I used to remember how Martin would listen to the frustration, particularly after Meredith got shot, they wanted to do something. And he keep, he would keep asking, "Stokely what is it that you want to do?" And "Oh, Stokely is it really so bad?" But the patience, ah, of, of listening in the middle of the pressures of the day to day marches with the, with the police and the state troopers and the, and the, and the tear gas, I remember the tear gas and I remember Canton, Mississippi, particularly of the tear gas. But I also remember the houses with Stokely haranguing about the need to sort of be more assertive, to have Black Power, to push the Whites out, to have more leadership and more strong leadership come and Martin not really understanding it or understanding how and why Stokely was so angry, because he was coming from a very different point of view. | <urn:uuid:dee4b750-5fde-41d1-ba14-9c52c88f1d7c> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://digital.wustl.edu/cgi/t/text/text-idx?c=eop;cc=eop;rgn=div2;view=text;idno=ede5427.0676.044;node=ede5427.0676.044%3A1.39 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368699273641/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516101433-00010-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.982033 | 426 | 1.695313 | 2 |
ATI is a leading producer of Grain Oriented Electrical Steel (GOES) for power transformers, as well as a full line of stainless steel and superalloys for power distribution applications.
As States and Nations look to make electrical systems stronger, smarter and greener, ATI's GOES is used for transformers and substations for distributing power more efficiently.
GOES is processed by ATI Allegheny Ludlum at two plants in Brackenridge and Bagdad, Pennsylvania, USA. In Brackenridge, GOES is melted, hot-rolled to coil, and cold rolled to an intermediate thickness. It is then shipped to the Bagdad plant for final rolling to thickness, recrystalization, annealing, measurement, testing, packaging and shipment to customers.
ATI is a leading producer of the premium-grade GOES required to make highly efficient transformers. | <urn:uuid:3105c9c3-7160-4570-b75c-c91f89f4cc8c> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.atimetals.com/markets/Power-Distribution/Pages/default.aspx | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368697974692/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516095254-00007-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.928582 | 183 | 1.59375 | 2 |
"If you had them, the [overall] survival was 94.6 percent; if not, 95.8. There's only a 1.2 percent difference between the two," Weaver said.
While the difference was significant from a statistical point of view, it was slight from a clinical point of view, he noted.
For women, Weaver said, the take-home message is not to be concerned about metastases being missed, provided the sentinel lymph node biopsy was done.
"Enough is enough as long as you find the macrometastases, the ones over 2 millimeters," he said.
As for the smaller spreads? "They are probably being treated by whatever cancer treatment is recommended [for the primary tumor]," he said, such as chemotherapy, endocrine therapy or radiation.
The new information "kind of solidifies an idea that we know," said Dr. Laura Kruper, an assistant professor of oncology and a breast cancer surgeon at the City of Hope Comprehensive Cancer Center in Duarte, Calif.
What the findings suggest, she said, is that the standard procedure followed by many -- do the sentinel lymph node biopsy alone if it's negative -- seems to be effective.
She added, however, that "we really do need to continue to follow these patients long-term" to see if the differences remain small.
To learn more about sentinel lymph node biopsy, visit the U.S. National Cancer Institute.
SOURCES: Donald L. Weaver, M.D., professor, pathology, University of Vermont College of Medicine and Vermont Cancer Center, Burlington, Vt.; Laura Kruper, M.D., assistant professor, oncology, and breast cancer surgeon, City of Hope Comprehensive Cancer Center,
All rights reserved | <urn:uuid:0bd0b9b4-c2f4-4c59-8676-bcf714e105d0> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://bio-medicine.org/medicine-news-1/Small-Spreads-of-Breast-Cancer-May-Not-Affect-Survival--78566-2/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368705953421/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516120553-00016-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.950693 | 369 | 2.234375 | 2 |
Acute tubular necrosis is damage to the tubule cells (tiny tube-shaped cells) in the kidney that results in acute kidney failure. This is a potentially serious condition that requires care from your doctor.
Copyright © Nucleus Medical Media, Inc.
Talk with your doctor about the best treatment plan for you. In addition to good nutritional support, treatment options include the following:
, in which a machine does the work of your kidneys by purging waste from your body.
Certain medications (eg, furosemide, bumetanide, mannitol, fenoldopam, auriculin anaritide, and synthetic atrial natriuretic peptide) may reduce the need for
in certain people with acute tubular necrosis. | <urn:uuid:540e79ad-0c46-48c5-837b-8d29705baf96> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.bidmc.org/YourHealth/ConditionsAZ/Hypoparathyroidism.aspx?ChunkID=179628 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368706499548/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516121459-00031-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.905585 | 161 | 2.03125 | 2 |
February 21st, 2011 by United Nations Environment Programme
Marine Plastics—A New Toxic Time Bomb?
One of the two main emerging issues highlighted in the Year Book 2011 is a need for more intensified research on the impact of plastics entering the oceans.
There is growing concern over the impact of billions of pieces of plastic, both large and small, on the health of the global marine environment.
New research suggests that the plastic broken down in the oceans into small fragments —alongside pellets discharged by industry—may absorb a range of toxic chemicals linked to cancer and impacts the reproductive processes of humans and wildlife.
Scientists are becoming concerned not only about the direct damage to wildlife, but the potential toxicity of some kinds of materials called microplastics.
These are tiny pieces smaller than five millimeters in length discharged as pellets by industry or formed as a result of bigger pieces of plastic broken down by, for example, wave action and sunlight.
The exact quantities of plastics, including microplastics entering or forming in the oceans from the land-based discharge—but also from shipping and fishing boats— is unknown.
What is known is that per capita consumption of plastics, from packaging to plastic bags and from industry to consumer goods, has been rising sharply.
Currently recycling and re-use rates vary enormously even among developed countries.
In Europe recycling rates of plastics for energy generation ranged from 25 per cent or less in several European countries to over 80 per cent in Norway and Switzerland.
Previous concerns about plastics included damage and death of wildlife after becoming entangled.
There is also concern about wildlife eating plastics often in mistake for food. Albatrosses, for example, may mistake red plastic for squid, similarly turtles confuse plastic bags for jellyfish. Young sea birds of some species may suffer poor nutrition if they feed on too much plastic, mistaken as food.
But the Year Book flags a new and emerging concern termed “persistent, bio-accumulating and toxic substances” associated with plastic marine waste.
Research indicates that the small and tiny pieces of plastic are adsorbing and concentrating from the seawater and sediments a wide range of chemicals from polychlorinated biphenols (PCBs) to the pesticide DDT.
“Many of these pollutants including PCBs cause chronic effects such as endocrine disruption, mutagenicity and carcinogenicity,” reports the Year Book.
“Some scientists are concerned that these persistent contaminants could eventually end up in the food chain, although there is great uncertainty about the degree to which this poses a threat to human health and ecosystem health,” it adds.
Species such as swordfish and seals—which are at the top of the food chain—are cited as potentially vulnerable. These are also species consumed by humans.
A recent survey of PCB concentrations in pellets washed ashore has been carried out at 56 beaches in nearly 30 countries.
The Year Book chronicles a range of existing and new initiatives, guidelines and laws aimed at reducing plastic and other waste discharges.
These range from the UN’s International Convention for the Prevention of Pollution from Ships to UNEP’s Global Programme of Action for the Protection of the Marine Environment from Land-based Activities.
The Year Book calls for better enforcement of such rules, better consumer awareness and behavioral changes and improved support for national and community-based initiatives.
There is also an urgent need for improved and more innovative monitoring of plastic throughout the marine environment given that real gaps remain in understanding the ultimate fate of these materials.
There is evidence that some plastics are not floating but sinking and piling up on the seabed.
“Plastic debris has been observed on the ocean floor from the depths of the Fram Strait in the North Atlantic to deepwater canyons off the Mediterranean coast—much of the plastic that has entered the North Sea is thought to reside on the seabed,” says the Year Book.
It also calls for phasing in changes in the collection, recycling and re-use of plastics. “If plastic is treated as a valuable resource, rather than just a waste product, any opportunities to create a secondary value for the material will provide economic incentives for collection and reprocessing,” the Year Book points out. | <urn:uuid:ec66cd02-2641-4e22-bc65-394adef3d36e> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.sustainableguernsey.info/blog/2011/02/plastic-pollution-is-a-main-emerging-issue-in-the-2011-unep-year-book/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368711005985/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516133005-00021-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.945117 | 875 | 3.453125 | 3 |
The building envelope of your home is by far the largest contributing factor to your home’s energy consumption. It consists of the foundation, walls, ceiling, roof, doors and windows, and is affected by any place that a pipe, wire or duct passes through them. It is what goes on inside the walls that matters, and design and construction of this part of the home determines how much energy you will use to keep your home heated and cooled. It will also dictate how quiet it will be and, along with the ventilation system and choice of finishing materials, determine air quality.
INNOVA BUILDERS’ Efficient Building System Method ensures your home will:
» Consume far less energy
» Consume less water
» Be quiet (significant reduction in exterior noise transmission)
» Be comfortable all year (warm in winter / cool in summer)
» Enjoy improved air quality by preventing exterior pollutants from entering the home
» Require little purchased energy to provide heat
» Be safer with no fuel burning of any kind
» Significantly reduce your future environmental impact
» Have a higher-than-average future re-sale value
DOES IT COST MORE?
Actually, it will save you money.
When determining “cost”, remember that operating expenses account for a significant percentage of the monthly total. The investment you make up front to use the EBS method will be a small fixed one that will reduce your energy consumption to the point that you spend far less on your energy and water bills, lowering your overall costs, and make your home far more attractive and valuable to future buyers.
According to Conserve Nova Scotia, “Energy efficiency improvements are a solid investment. The up-front costs of energy upgrades are fixed when you build. Savings, however, continue to rise each time energy prices increase. Homes that use less energy insulate their owners from future price increases.”
You will be doing your part to significantly reduce water consumption, energy consumption and greenhouse gas emissions. In fact, considering energy and water costs are projected to increase 15-50% in the next 1-5 years, you will quickly start seeing a return on your investment.
As an added bonus, you have no fuel burning going on in your home – no smells; no spills; no hazards; no carbon monoxide issues; no insurance issues; no tanks, chimneys or furnaces to maintain - and given that the future of electricity in Nova Scotia is heading toward renewable forms such as wind, tidal and solar, you can be confident that you are minimizing the impact of your home on the environment.
Extensive effort has been put into finding the right group of suppliers and skilled trades. From concept design to choice of finishes; from the excavation of the foundation to the final touches of paint and landscaping, every trade and craftsperson has been chosen because they share our philosophy that “Good enough” is simply not good enough.
Our passion is doing things the right way and being mindful of the impact we have on our surroundings. We take great pride in working with you to create something you and your family will call home.
You should be completely happy with the final result; and you will be, because | <urn:uuid:d57b4b10-e76c-4b08-bdc9-03e74be612c5> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.innovabuilders.ca/EBS.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368707435344/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516123035-00023-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.932734 | 660 | 2.421875 | 2 |
One man suffered several injuries after being attacked by a tiger at the Bronx Zoo on September 21st. David Villalobos from Mahopac, N.Y., was riding the Wild Asia Monorail at the Zoo when he leapt out of the last rail car and into the tiger habitat, according to the New York Times.
Zoo officials said that Villalobos jumped over a 16-foot-high protective fence before landing in the tiger habitat. Once inside, Villalobos came face-to-face with Bachuta, the 11-year-old tiger weighing over 400 pounds. James Breheny, the zoo’s director, told the Times that Bachuta left “puncture wounds” on Villalobos’s legs, shoulder, and back.
Villalobos was transported to Jacobi Medical Center late Friday night, where he was treated for a broken arm, a broken leg, and other injuries, including deep cuts on his back. According to Breheny, the zoo keepers were able to secure the tiger by holding him in an off-exhibit area. When Villalobos was taken to the hospital after the incident, he was still conscious and talking.
This was the first time a passenger jumped from the monorail into an animal enclosure in the 35 years of the monorail’s operation, Breheny also told the Times. The zoo will not handle Bachuta or the other tigers any differently since “the tiger did nothing wrong.”
By Tatiana Baez
Trackback from your site. | <urn:uuid:876196eb-41d7-40bc-8a85-55a0cbf90d06> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://nypress.com/man-attacked-by-tiger-at-bronx-zoo-after-jumping-from-monorail/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368704132298/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516113532-00072-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.970584 | 320 | 1.796875 | 2 |
Highlights of the important and interesting in the world of healthcare:
Stanford docs too cozy with drug companies? As medical schools wrestle with how to keep drug companies from corrupting their faculties, Stanford University often is lauded for its tough stance. But a ProPublica investigation found that more than a dozen of the school’s doctors were paid speakers in apparent violation of its policy — two of them earning six figures since last year.
Spinal fusion (and Medtronic payments) put Kentucky hospital on map. Five senior spine surgeons have helped put Norton Hospital in Louisville, Kentucky, on the map in at least one category: From 2004 to 2008, Norton performed the third-most spinal fusions on Medicare patients in the country, reports the Wall Street Journal. The five surgeons are also among the largest recipients nationwide of payments from medical-device giant Medtronic Inc.
Aastrom raises $22.5M for stem cell therapy. Aastrom Biosciences Inc. (NASDAQ:ASTM) in Ann Arbor, Michigan, has raised $22.5 million for general corporate purposes, including research and development expenses for its Phase 3 program for critical limb ischemia, a severe, chronic cardiovascular disease in the legs.
Supreme Court’s vote on health reform tough to peg. As the “individual mandate” provision in President Obama’s healthcare reform heads to the Supreme Court, the votes of the nine court justices may be tough to divine, according to a New York Times analysis.
Abbott, EpiTherapeutics work toward cancer drugs. Illinois drug maker Abbott Laboratories has agreed to work with Danish biotech company EpiTherapeutics to develop anti-cancer drugs by making small-molecule inhibitors against selected epigenetic oncology targets. Terms of the three-year research and development program were not disclosed.
Healthcare adds jobs; doctor offices shed jobs. Healthcare continued to add jobs even as the unemployment rate went up in November, according to a report in American Medical News. However, doctor offices shed employees during the month. There were 500 fewer jobs in that setting in November. | <urn:uuid:65ca8088-34a0-40b9-96b8-2f5feb2ebdb3> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://medcitynews.com/2010/12/stanford-docs-may-be-too-cosy-with-drug-companies-morning-read/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368700958435/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516104238-00027-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.957361 | 437 | 1.875 | 2 |
Updated 05/08/2012 04:49 PM
Lucky few get rare inside look inside Air Force One
Part of the excitement of President Obama's visit was the chance to see Air Force One, so on Tuesday, a select few got to be on the tarmac as the president touched down. But an even smaller group got an even bigger opportunity - and that's a rare tour of the inside of Air Force One. Megan Cruz has more.
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COLONIE, N.Y. -- "Are you going to brag about this to all your friends?" asked the YNN reporter.
"Yea!" said Daniel Battista, 7.
The reporter then asked, "What are you going to tell them?"
"That I got to go on the plane and meet the president," he said.
You guessed it - THE plane, or Air Force One. Daniel and his family were a lucky few who got an inside look at President Obama's White House with wings.
"I hope it's something they always remember," said Daniel's mom, Robin. "It's quite an experience, to see that you can run the country from up in the air if need be."
"We got to see the president's bathroom," said Daniel's sister, Julia.
YNN wanted the special tour as well, but you needed to know someone. And the Battista family did.
"Uncle Danny!" said Daniel's sister Olivia.
"My son is Daniel Jacobs, born and raised in Kingston, New York. Chief of presidential security on Air Force One."
They say the rare opportunity to tour the plane and meet the staff was a moment of pride for the family that the soggy weather couldn't spoil.
"No, I like the rain," said Julia. "I think it's cool because it just adds to it. It makes it more memorable." | <urn:uuid:c934bf3f-4878-4639-8171-65f25b0980f8> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://saratoga-north.ynn.com/content/top_stories/583461/lucky-few-get-rare-inside-look-inside-air-force-one/?ap=1&MP4 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368698207393/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516095647-00027-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.968741 | 416 | 1.53125 | 2 |
New York Governor Andrew Cuomo reached agreement with top lawmakers on a property-tax cap, leaving gay marriage as the only unresolved issue on his three- part agenda as the 2011 legislative session winds down.
The tax cap was packaged with an extension of rent-control laws in New York City and so-called mandate relief for municipalities a day after the Legislature was scheduled to end, Assembly Speaker Sheldon Silver told reporters today in Albany. Silver, a Manhattan Democrat, spoke following a meeting with Cuomo and Republican Senate Majority Leader Dean Skelos.
“There are still details that have to be worked out,” Silver said. Both parties planned to confer with their members to work out those details, on which he declined to comment further. Michael Whyland, a spokesman for Silver, didn’t immediately return a request seeking elaboration.
Josh Vlasto, a spokesman for the Democratic governor, confirmed in an e-mail that a “tentative agreement” had been reached. Cuomo, 53, made the cap, a new ethics law and legalizing same-sex marriage the top priorities in his first six months in office.
The bill to allow gay couples to wed remains stalled in the Senate after passing the Assembly last week because Skelos hasn’t brought it to a vote. Thirty-one of 62 senators, including three Democrats and two Republicans who helped defeat a similar measure in 2009, have publicly declared their intention to vote in favor. It needs one more vote to pass.
The tax cap prohibits any annual increase above 2 percent or the rate of inflation, whichever is less, unless it is endorsed by 60 percent of voters in an election. It is similar to one successfully championed last year in New Jersey by Governor Chris Christie, a Republican. The New York Senate passed a version of the bill in January.
The tax cap has a five-year expiration date, the Albany Times-Union reported on its website, citing unidentified Assembly members. An extension of rent regulations will last four years, the newspaper said.
The rent-control laws, which Silver and his colleagues have sought to strengthen, are designed to protect the more than 1 million New Yorkers who live in rent-stabilized apartments from rent increases.
The “framework” also includes mandate relief, which relaxes state-required spending, Skelos told reporters.
The New York State School Boards Association, which represents about 680 school boards statewide, has been among those pushing to tie the relief to a property tax cap. The group says the relief is needed to help avert the staff and funding cuts that limits on taxation would cause.
Three of the five counties with the highest annual property taxes in the U.S. are in the state, according to the Tax Foundation in Washington. Topping the New York list is Nassau County on Long Island, where the median levy was $8,206 in 2009.
Lawmakers approved an ethics law for public officials June 3. It obligates legislators and public officials to name their business associates and requires lawyers such as Silver to reveal their clients.
© Copyright 2013 Bloomberg News. All rights reserved. | <urn:uuid:ec05787d-3619-4e03-814f-fc37c6f42088> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.newsmax.com/Newsfront/AMERICAME-BBEXCLUDE-BNALL-BNSTAFF/2011/06/21/id/400898 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368700264179/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516103104-00036-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.9657 | 638 | 1.5625 | 2 |
Wash Your Hands the Right Way
Posted Nov 1, 2012
Washing your hands after using the bathroom - not to mention after touching any number of public surfaces, from doorknobs to subway handrails to oh-so-disgusting toilet flush levers - is a basic rule of hygiene. Yet we don't always do it properly, if at all, which is particularly ill-advised behavior during flu season, when germy hands are common gateways to infection.
Respondents to a recent survey said they washed their hands an average of 87 percent of the time after using a public restroom, and 62 percent said they have rinsed their hands post-bathroom without using soap. The survey of more than 1,000 people in the U.S. was conducted by Bradley Corp., manufacturer of washroom accessories. Women are significantly better hand washers than men.
Those self-reported findings echo habits observed in an a 2010 study from the American Society for Microbiology and the American Cleaning Institute, a trade association for the soap and detergent industry, which sent observers into public restrooms to record people's hand-washing habits. They saw 85 percent of people wash their hands, an improvement from 77 percent in 2007. In a survey that was part of that same study, 77 percent of respondents said they always clean their hands before handling or eating food. Only 39 percent said they always wash their hands after coughing or sneezing.
Considering that people absent-mindedly touch their faces an average of 16 times an hour, according to a 2008 study by researchers at the University of California at Berkeley School of Public Health, and risk transferring germs from their dirty hands to their eyes, noses and mouths, lazy hand washers could use a refresher.
"The big mistake people make is that they just rub their palms together and they don't get to the dirtiest parts of the hands" - under and around the fingernails," said Elaine Larson, associate dean for research at Columbia University School of Nursing. The key is to cover all surfaces of the hands, including between the fingers and in the crevices around fingernails, with a good amount of friction, Larson said. Using soap is important, not because it kills bacteria, but because it acts as an emulsifier to slip the germs off the hands, she said.
The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention says washing your hands should take about 20 seconds, or about two rounds of singing "Happy Birthday." The temperature of the water doesn't matter. It's best to dry your hands with a paper towel so you don't just rub them on your dirty pants, but better to let them air dry than use a shared towel, Larson said.
Hand sanitizers are a convenient alternative to hand-washing. Pick one that is at least 60 percent alcohol, and use enough so that your hands are wet for 10 seconds so it has enough time to kill the bacteria, Larson said. Alcohol sanitizers only work when they're wet, she said.
Hand sanitizers can't kill all germs, however, such as the norovirus, a highly contagious stomach virus. Washing with lots of friction and then applying hand sanitizer can help against such resistant bugs, Larson suggests.
Hand-washing vigilance is especially important in health care settings. Hospital patients in the U.S. get nearly 2 million infections each year, which can be life-threatening and hard to treat, according to the CDC. The agency recommends patients ask their health care providers to wash their hands if they don't see them do so.
After all, the Joint Commission, an independent nonprofit that accredits health care organization in the U.S., has found hand hygiene compliance among hospital staff to be about 50 percent.
©2012 Chicago Tribune Distributed by Mclatchy-Tribune News Service. | <urn:uuid:52dc6d67-eca8-447c-b202-e250659a64b9> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.rootsnatural.ca/common/news/news_results.asp?task=Headline&id=14058&StoreID=78C9EF178E3444EB9B6F021801B7A508 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368710006682/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516131326-00010-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.962314 | 794 | 2.9375 | 3 |
Most churches do a pretty lousy job at wayfinding. Because many churches are built as add-ons over time, sometimes many years, buildings tend to be mazes of corridors and stairwells with little rhyme or reason. Many churches suffer from poor layout, people-traffic control, and wayfinding.
Wayfinding is the process of using spatial and environmental cues to navigate through an environment. In its most literal sense, wayfinding is the ability of a person to find his or her way to a destination. It can also be defined from the standpoint of the designer or owner who is seeking to improve the function of a particular environment.
Wayfinding is not separate from traditional signage design, but is a broader, more inclusive way of assessing all of the environmental issues that affect our ability to find our way to a given destination.
A comprehensive wayfinding system can greatly improve your congregation’s ability to not only find areas of the church campus they are seeking, but to direct guests and others to these areas as well. A clear wayfinding system can add to the accessibility and friendliness of the church buildings. Here are a few tips on wayfinding:
- Focus people on buildings by labeling them
- Avoid long directional signs that slow people down
- Divide the campus into distinct zones
- Use color and monuments to create bread-crumbs
- Make room numbers make sense
- Develop a simple campus map
After all, how can anyone really connect with your church if they can't find the front door? | <urn:uuid:1818cf32-63c9-4cc3-bb7f-524eae1a454f> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://27gen.blogspot.com/2011/03/wayfinding-more-than-just-signs.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368700264179/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516103104-00060-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.955286 | 310 | 2.390625 | 2 |
What Is a Normal Blood Oxygen Level during Exercise?
A healthy person’s, blood oxygen level normally ranges between 95% – 100%. This number tells you what percentage of hemoglobin in your blood is currently carrying oxygen and is able to deliver oxygen to your brain, organs and muscles. For smokers, their normal blood oxygen level is generally lower, around 90%. Medically speaking, 90% is the breakpoint for what is considered normal blood oxygen levels. Anything below 90% is considered hypoxemia. Being in a state of hypoxemia for a prolonged period can make you hypoxic, which means your body is being deprived of adequate oxygen to maintain function. Hypoxia can produce symptoms such as headaches, nausea, fatigue, shortness of breath, and in severe cases, can be fatal.
Temporary Hypoxemia During Exercise
When you do any type of strenuous exercise, you will notice that your breath is quickened, your pulse becomes faster, and your lungs expand. All of these are physiological responses that your body makes to meet the much higher demand for oxygen from the muscles, and to prevent you from feeling hypoxic. When you workout, muscles utilize more oxygen and need to draw more oxygen from the blood, creating an oxygen debt which puts you into a temporary state of hypoxemia. Your body will then self-adjust its respiratory and circulatory systems so that it can maximize the oxygen intake and transport abilities to make up for the low blood oxygen saturation.
Getting More Oxygen from the Air
With every inhale, your lungs draw in a volume of air – only 21% of which is oxygen. On every exhale, 80% of the oxygen you breathe in is breathed out. Therefore, only 1/25 of the air you breathe in is actually available as supply for the blood. When the blood oxygen level drops during exercise, the work load on the lung is multiplied 25 times, so in addition to faster intake of air, your lungs have to expand wider to allow in more air. A larger lung capacity will naturally hold more oxygen to be exchanged with the blood, and is an integral contributor to an efficient respiratory system which will enable you to maintain higher blood oxygen concentration with less effort. This is one of the reasons why a better trained athlete can stay in strenuous activities for a longer time.
More Efficient Delivery of Oxygen
Your blood oxygen level is also affected by how well your body can deliver and utilize the oxygen in your blood. This ability is measured by your maximum oxygen consumption (VO2 max). With better trained athletes, VO2 max is higher, and their muscles are more efficient in acquiring oxygen from the blood and metabolizing oxygen, giving them better stamina and better performance.
- What Is a Normal Resting Blood Oxygen Level?
- Understanding the Body’s Use of Oxygen during Exercise
- What's A Normal Blood Lipid Level For My Lifestyle?
- What Is Oxygen Debt after Vigorous Exercise?
- What Is Oxygen Recovery? | <urn:uuid:ed3e06db-8eea-42f4-ab9f-b54651363b63> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.3fatchicks.com/what-is-a-normal-blood-oxygen-level-during-exercise/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368699881956/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516102441-00021-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.9391 | 618 | 3.640625 | 4 |
Deacon was snooping for one of the three pigeons that had been planted in the brush.
When Balyeat, of Constantine, pointed the puppy in the direction of the prey, Deacon perked up.
A bird flew into the air. Balyeat shot. And Deacon came running back with the carcass in his mouth. Training for grouse season.
Balyeat was one of eight hunters and Deacon one of five dogs at the first bird-dog event hosted by the Southwestern Michigan Chapter of the Ruffed Grouse Society at the Willow Lake Sportsman Club near Three Rivers on Saturday.
The event provided a place for hunters and their dogs to train before the fall hunting season begins.
Saturday’s itinerary involved four different stages in the 256-acre reserve. The first was clay shooting, for the hunters to practice their skills, said Jim Altman, president of the chapter.
The second was a field shooting, which helps train the dog for pheasant hunting. The third, a wooded hunt, where they would hunt grouse, And the final section was water retrieval in the lake to simulate duck hunting.
“It’s a mini-decathlon for the dogs,” said Bruce Wojcik, regional director for the Ruffed Grouse Society in Michigan and Northwest Indiana.
The society does not just aim to hunt, but are concerned with habitat conservation as well.
Every year, chapters across the world raise money for conservation work, including cutting down older sections of the forest so new growth can develop, providing lower branches and nutrients for the birds.
Wojcik said they are the only group trying to save early forests. Every year, the society receives about $10,000 from different regional offices of the state Department of National Resources and Environment to help with woodcock conservation work in state forests.
Michigan has the most woodcocks in the world and the third most grouse.
Their work doesn’t just help the birds they hunt, but all different species who live in the habitat, Wojcik said.
Since the season is five weeks long, hunting grouse isn’t about how many birds you bag, Wojcik said.
“You judge your success by what you saw.”
Balyeat said grouse hunting is the perfect sport because it allows him to be outside with his dogs in the fall. He said he sees different kinds of fungus and plant species which he wouldn’t see if he wasn’t hunting.
At home, the dogs are wonderful pets, Balyeat said. “When you get them out in the field, they are a totally different dog.”
Going out and hunting like they did on Saturday lets the dog do what comes naturally.
“Their chase instinct is so strong, it takes over his mind,” he said.
“Their enthusiasm to work with a human is strong,” he said. “It’s a partnership.”
The money raised from Saturday’s event will help fund a kids day at the Kalamazoo Rod & Gun Club on 7533 N. Sprinkle St. The free event will go from 9 a.m. to 5 p.m. on Sept. 11. For more information, contact Jon Mitchell at 269-629-9529.
Contact Fritz Klug at [email protected] or 269-388-8553. | <urn:uuid:6af76cfc-f462-4073-8431-b38717efd3e4> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.mlive.com/news/kalamazoo/index.ssf/2010/08/grouse_hunters_get_in_some_pre.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368697380733/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516094300-00025-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.953494 | 731 | 1.851563 | 2 |
View from the Chair
I welcome you to the Fall 2011 issue of the FIP Newsletter and hope you will enjoy its scope and depth, which reflects FIP's engagement with a broad range of international issues, in cooperation with the APS Office of International Affairs, other APS units engaged in these issues including CIFS, FPS, DPF and many others, and sister organizations around the world. Through these newsletters, and our annual sessions at the March and April meetings, we seek to inform FIP members on many issues and current events from an international perspective, particularly where physicists can potentially help.
Perspective and FIP Activities
This has been a very proactive year for members of FIP, as you can see from this as well as the last newsletter. Focus areas of FIP range from the problems and issues faced by young physicists and women in academia and physics research, to the role of science in the advancement of nations, to the views of science and scientists in many countries, to natural and politically generated disasters and their effects on science and society, to scientific aspects of key issues in science society, to the physicist's role as citizen scientist, innovator on the ground, and diplomat. These themes are reflected in FIP's sessions at the 2011 March and April meetings, most of which are summarized in this newsletter, and they will continue as we continue to plan our 2012 sessions, led by Chair-Elect Bill Barletta.
From my point of view, there are two strong themes that stand out on FIP's agenda this year: the international character of science and APS' membership, which also is a central theme of the APS as a whole initiated by President Barry Barish, and the role of the citizen scientist at home and abroad. We are working with the APS to help expand its programs serving or enabling the research and training of our colleagues outside the U.S, whether non-U.S. citizens or U.S. physicists working overseas far from their home university or laboratory.
We have worked with CISA Chair Karsten Heeger and the APS meeting staff to make the March and April meetings more accessible to those who cannot travel to them, by posting selected presentations online using the Indico system widely used by the high energy physics community and increasingly by other fields of physics. As reported by Heeger in this newsletter, the pilot this April-May (see http://www.physics.wisc.edu/apsapril2011) has been successful, and eagerly received by physicists for whom this sort of access is already part of their daily lives. We look forward to more general availability of the presentations, and the future inclusion of video and audio recordings of the plenaries and some other major talks (and perhaps also interactive access) that will make them a lasting resource for the physics community.
The Role of the Citizen Scientist
The role of the citizen scientist has never been more important than this year. Physicists pursuing their science internationally, with colleagues overseas and in some cases throughout the globe, are privileged to pursue common goals as a world community, both in the pursuit of fundamental knowledge and for the betterment of mankind. The understanding of common aims and human needs, without borders, is a living reality for many of us, that remains rare in other sectors of society. Equally rare is the commitment by many of us to use our training and expertise to benefit our sister communities in other nations, as well as the nations themselves, even as we train the next generation of physicists in a global context. It is this experience that makes us natural spokespeople for, and promoters of international cooperation and peace, based on mutual understanding and trust among nations, founded in our everyday experience.
Why is the role of the citizen scientist so important, and why this year ? While there are no continental wars underway in the classical historical sense, 2010-11 has been a period of abrupt and ongoing change and unrest, marked by the convergence of economic, political, and cultural factors leading to rising tensions, instability, unexpected crimes, and both real and potential crises. The last year has been punctuated by: the ongoing “Arab Spring” across North Africa and the Middle East as peoples struggle for democracy and self-determination; the stark polarization of U.S. politics leading to the threat of default; the possible default of Greece and other nations in the Eurozone; the aftermath and challenging lessons of the Fukushima Daichi disaster in Japan; the lingering wars in Iraq and Afghanistan and their human and economic toll; the continued decline of many nations in sub-Saharan Africa beset by drought, disease, lack of infrastructure or energy, political corruption, or all of the above; the push to regional power and continued rights violations in Iran and elsewhere; and the rise of China as a likely superpower and the challenge of the geopolitical changes it will bring. Never has the role of the physicist as citizen scientist, able to cross borders and bridge divides with a sense of common purpose and unflagging optimism, based on a commitment to advance fundamental knowledge and the hope of addressing key current issues from climate to hunger to energy, been more important.
What is the source of our community‟s unrelenting optimism, and the driver of growing mutual understanding in the international scientific community? It is our common mission to advance the frontiers of knowledge, while solving many problems that also advance or create new technologies, triggered in the service of our science. We are inspired by our progress, amidst or poised on the cusp of a new generation of discoveries: at the frontier of high energies and energy densities at the LHC; in the understanding and harnessing of quantum information leading to the dawn of quantum computing; in the understanding of new states of matter, quantum systems and emerging technologies on the nanoscale and mesoscale; in the search for the dark matter in space and on Earth; in the proliferating number and knowledge of exoplanets; in the emergence of a precise picture of the early moments and evolution of our universe, captured in a “standard model” of cosmology; and in theoretical developments driven by a worldwide quest for a quantum theory of gravity. We are pursuing all these aims in a spirit of international cooperation, collaboration and hope for the next round of breakthroughs, convinced that they lie just over the horizon.
Overseas Physics GroupsIn its work on international issues, FIP greatly appreciates its continuing partnership, begun in 2006 under then-FIP Chair Irving Lerch, with several overseas physics groups, including:
- American Chapter of the Indian Physics Association (ACIPA), India; Surajit Sen, President.
- Association of Korean Physicists in America (AKPA), Korea; Ho Jung Paik.
- Overseas Chinese Physics Association (OCPA), China; Bill Weng, President.
- Iranian-American Physicists (IrAP) Network Group; Hamid Javadi (JPL).
We meet with the leadership of these groups annually at the FIP Reception, which was held this year during the March meeting in Dallas, where we presented the citation to Penger Tong, one of our FIP Fellows for 2011, and where AKPA and OCPA who co-sponsored the reception presented awards to their members. FIP Past Chair Koller, OIA Director Flatten and I also at-tended OCPA's meeting nearby, where one topic of discussion was a possible joint meeting co-sponsored by the APS and the Physical Society of the Republic of China in 2012, to celebrate the 100th anniversary of Mme. C.S. Wu and her role in the discovery of parity violation.
Promoting and Defending International Science and Human Rights
Building on its traditions, FIP will continue to work with Amy Flatten and Michele Irwin of the Office of International Affairs and the APS leadership to uphold the principles of open communication and cooperation without borders, to promote equality of access globally to the knowledge of physics, to defend human rights both within and beyond the bounds of the scientific community, and to inform our members of these issues and to raise awareness whenever violations occur.
Harvey Newman is a Professor at Caltech, a high-energy physics experimentalist and Chair of the FIP. He is also engaged in work on Digital Divide issues in many regions of the world.
Disclaimer- The articles and opinion pieces found in this issue of the APS Forum on International Physics Newsletter are not peer refereed and represent solely the views of the authors and not necessarily the views of the APS. | <urn:uuid:cbaec057-1b4c-43e1-bf4f-5a6eba5d0734> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.aps.org/units/fip/newsletters/201109/chair.cfm?renderforprint=1 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368705195219/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516115315-00020-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.950175 | 1,743 | 1.640625 | 2 |
Obama campaign attacks Romney over Bain Capital record
Mitt Romney’s record as an executive at Bain Capital, a firm that bought and restructured companies sometimes resulting in a loss of jobs, was a hotly debated topic during Romney’s Republican primary battle against Newt Gingrich, Rick Santorum and a host of other conservative alternatives.
WASHINGTON—President Barack Obama’s re-election campaign opened an assault on Mitt Romney’s background as a private equity executive on Monday with a video that seeks to undermine the Republican’s central argument for why he is qualified for the White House.
Romney’s record as an executive at Bain Capital, a firm that bought and restructured companies sometimes resulting in a loss of jobs, was a hotly debated topic during Romney’s Republican primary battle against Newt Gingrich, Rick Santorum and a host of other conservative alternatives.
Romney’s rivals mounted their attack after Reuters published a January special report examining a Kansas City, Missouri, steel mill that went bankrupt under Bain’s ownership.
Now the Obama campaign is telling the story of the GS Technologies mill to argue that the brand of capitalism Romney practiced at Bain benefited wealthy investors at the expense of workers.
The Democratic incumbent’s campaign released a six-minute video that featured the demise of the company, which Bain bought in 1993.
Less than a decade later, the mill was padlocked, and 750 people lost their jobs. Bain profited on the deal, receiving $12 million on its $8 million initial investment and at least $4.5 million in consulting fees, according to the Reuters special report.
The Obama video was featured on a website it created, RomneyEconomics.com.
“In a career of buying and selling companies, Romney’s pattern was to reap quick profits for himself and his investors at the expense of workers and communities,” the Obama campaign said in a statement releasing the video. “Sometimes it meant sending American jobs overseas. Other times, it meant cutting wages and benefits.”
Romney has used his Bain experience as proof that he has the business acumen to restore robust growth to the U.S. economy and says Obama’s attempts to help the economy have failed.
The Romney campaign believes Obama is attacking Romney on Bain and a variety of other subjects to distract voters’ attention from his economic record. The U.S. economy has had unemployment over 8 percent throughout Obama’s more than three years as president.
“We welcome the Obama campaign’s attempt to pivot back to jobs and a discussion of their failed record. Mitt Romney helped create more jobs in his private sector experience and more jobs as governor of Massachusetts than President Obama has for the entire nation,” said Romney campaign spokeswoman Andrea Saul.
She said Obama has many questions to answer about why his administration used money from a $787 billion stimulus passed early in his tenure “to reward wealthy campaign donors with taxpayer money for bad ideas” like Solyndra, a solar panel company that went bankrupt despite receiving $535 million in loan guarantees from the stimulus.
“If the Obama administration was less concerned about pleasing their wealthy donors and more concerned about creating jobs, America would be much better off,” she said.
- Updated Montreal Mayor Michael Applebaum resigns amid corruption charges
- NEW Toronto Mayor Rob Ford reveals his love of astrology
- Google challenges NSA gag order citing First Amendment
- NEW TTC announces Spadina as first line for new streetcars
- New drug to prevent cancer growth
- ‘Standing man’ inspires silent protest in Turkey
- Updated Many reasons to delete documents, says former McGuinty chief of staff
- Updated Rob Ford’s alleged attacker will have her day in court, lawyer says | <urn:uuid:96ae1b84-0434-42e6-8b94-9f6dd59b3dcd> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.thestar.com/news/world/uselection/2012/05/14/obama_campaign_attacks_romney_over_bain_capital_record.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368707435344/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516123035-00056-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.969651 | 779 | 1.5625 | 2 |
MINISTER FOR EUROPEAN AFFAIRS INVITES APPICATIONS FOR FUNDING TO BOOST PUBLIC KNOWLEDGE OF THE EU
Communicating Europe Initiative vital tool in promoting awareness says Minister of State Treacy
Mr. Noel Treacy, T.D., Minister for European Affairs, has again underlined the Government's commitment to boosting public knowledge of the European Union.
Inviting applications to the Department of Foreign Affairs from groups and individuals interested in promoting greater awareness of the European Union, under the Communicating Europe Initiative, Minister Treacy said:
“It is vital that we make every effort to foster more informed debate about the European Union. I urge groups and individuals - particularly those not normally involved with EU issues - to submit proposals for projects under the Communicating Europe Initiative.”
“It is a priority of this Government to encourage greater public awareness of developments within the European Union and the fruits of Ireland's EU membership. This is particularly important as Europe now reflects on how it can best meet the economic and political challenges of the 21st century. Debate about the future of Europe will no doubt gain added momentum next year from the 50th anniversary of the Treaty of Rome, which was signed on 25 March 1957. I look forward to receiving a broad range of proposals for projects that will raise the profile of the EU in Ireland and promote an enhanced understanding of key EU issues and activities,” concluded Minister Treacy.
Funding is available for projects aimed at raising wider public awareness about the European Union and at explaining how the EU affects the lives of citizens, in a real and tangible way. Particular emphasis is placed on improving the quality and accessibility of public information on European issues.
Since 1995, the Department of Foreign Affairs have provided funding to a wide range of groups, including the European Youth Parliament, the Irish Countrywoman's Association, the National Agency for Adult Literacy, European Anti-Poverty Network, SIPTU and others as well as to projects organised in schools, colleges, and universities.
Interested parties should contact the Department of Foreign Affairs at: [email protected] or at 01 4082470.
Note for Editors:
The total 2006 funding for the Communicating Europe Initiative, which is administered by the Department of Foreign Affairs, is €205,000, part of which has already been committed.
4 August 2006 | <urn:uuid:08779566-d58b-425a-8f50-bafef4e6f0c9> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.irelandunnewyork.org/home/index.aspx?id=25183 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368704392896/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516113952-00034-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.932321 | 488 | 1.757813 | 2 |
(AP) Some Russian activists have sued Madonna for millions of dollars, claiming they were offended by her support for gay rights during a recent concert in St. Petersburg.
Anti-gay sentiment is strong in Russia, particularly in St. Petersburg, where a law passed in February makes it illegal to promote homosexuality to minors. The author of that law has pointed to the presence of children as young as 12 at Madonna's concert on Aug. 9.
Russian news agencies quote Alexander Pochuyev, a lawyer representing the nine activists, as saying the suit was filed Friday against Madonna, the organizer of her concert, and the hall where it was held, asking for damages totaling 333 million rubles, or nearly $10.5 million.
During her concert, the American singer called for solidarity with gays and lesbians. | <urn:uuid:a6257092-4d00-4c9c-9ca0-66c67931bccf> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.timesleader.com/stories/Madonna-sued-in-Russia-for-supporting-gays,193656 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368704132298/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516113532-00056-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.979344 | 164 | 1.601563 | 2 |
Gov. Phil Bredesen is taking the lead among the nation’s governors in warning Congress against forcing states to pay a significant chunk of the cost of health care reform.
Bredesen, co-chair for health care policy for the National Governor’s Association, is objecting to a provision in House and Senate bills to expand Medicaid to cover anyone with incomes less than 133 percent of the poverty level, or $29,327 for a family of four.
Since states pay roughly one third of Medicaid, the provision could add billions of dollars in costs to state governments. Bredesen calls it “the mother of all unfunded mandates,” and he’s been making his case to reporters for weeks now at every opportunity.
“We can’t print money,” he says. “We can’t borrow money. A lot of staffers in Congress really don’t understand this idea of a balanced budget.”
The governor, a former HMO executive, says he favors universal health care, but not if that means added expense to Tennessee’s state government, which already is saddled with a $1 billion annual revenue loss because of the economic meltdown.
“This couldn't come at a worse time for the states,” he says.
The federal government would pick up the new Medicaid costs for two years under bills before Congress. But after that, states would have to pay some of the cost of newly eligible Medicaid recipients.
Governors from both political parties are complaining.
In a letter to the Senate, Indiana Republican Gov. Mitch Daniels said: “States will likely have to pick up the tab for this extension of Medicaid. We have estimated that the price for Indiana could reach upwards of $724 million annually.
“These additional costs will overwhelm our resources and obliterate the reserves we have fought so hard to protect.”
For Tennessee, the extra cost could reach $1.2 billion, according to Sen. Lamar Alexander. To raise that money, he said the state would either have to cut education and health care programs or impose an income tax.
“The discussion has been that the federal government will take that over for a few years and then will shift that back to the states,” Alexander said in a speech on the Senate floor. “Well, my response is that every senator who votes for such a thing ought to be sentenced to go home and serve as governor of his or her state for eight years and figure out how to pay for it or manage a program like that.
“In our state, we talk about money. Up here, a trillion here, a trillion there,” he added. “But $1.2 billion in the state of Tennessee equals to about a 10 percent income tax on what the people of Tennessee would bring in. We do not have an income tax. So that would be a new 10 percent income tax.”
Health care reform advocates say critics are unduly alarmed and exaggerating the actual costs to the states. Even if states are required to pay more for Medicaid, advocates say, they will ultimately save money if reform lowers health care costs.
“Health care is far too important an issue for our elected representatives to be demagoguing about it,” says Tony Garr, director of the Tennessee Health Care Campaign. “There are currently four different versions of health care reform legislation. Some keep all the cost at the federal level. Some would require states to take responsibility for the cost.
“No health care is free. Everyone is paying for health care, but not in a rational way.”
Garr said the most efficient way to improve health care is for everyone to get care in the right place, at the right time and in the right quantity.
“Forcing uninsured working people to go to the emergency room is not the right place, time or quantity,” he said. “Ultimately, health care reform will save Tennesseans hundreds of millions of dollars every year.” | <urn:uuid:9b35c89f-1726-40cd-9812-2f4acb90374b> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.nashvillecitypaper.com/content/city-news/bredesen-criticizes-obamas-health-care-plan | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368704713110/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516114513-00072-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.963774 | 846 | 1.695313 | 2 |
AUDIE CORNISH, HOST:
From NPR News, it's ALL THINGS CONSIDERED. I'm Audie Cornish.
MELISSA BLOCK, HOST:
And I'm Melissa Block.
Congress has now agreed to give some $60 billion to states damaged by Hurricane Sandy. One of the hardest hit areas is Long Island. The storm not only destroyed homes and businesses there but also washed away part of the system of protective barrier islands and beaches.
As NPR's Christopher Joyce reports, scientists are now trying to find out where that sand and sediment went, and whether it can be used to rebuild Long Island's defenses.
CHRISTOPHER JOYCE, BYLINE: January's hardly a time to go boating on Long Island's south shore. But to ocean scientists, this is a crime scene - if you want fingerprints, you got to move fast.
(SOUNDBITE OF CAR DOORS)
JOYCE: That's why a team of them has driven an SUV all the way from the University of Texas to this snow-covered dock. As boats bob in the waves, the team unpacks gear. A 25-knot wind blows across the water.
Beth Christensen is a local with the team. She's from Long Island's Adelphi University. She's huddled inside her car with a map.
BETH CHRISTENSEN: We're looking for the sand that got removed both by the wash-over as the surge moved through, but also the extended period of time that that storm was sitting here.
JOYCE: Long Island juts out into the Atlantic like New York City's thumb. On the south shore, sand dunes and barrier islands protect it. Sandy robbed those islands of sand and sediment. That makes Long Island more vulnerable. If that sand lies just offshore, it could wash back up and restore beaches on its own. If not, someone will have to either dredge it up or replace it - a very expensive prospect.
And the team is also searching for sediment that picked up toxic chemicals during the storm.
CHRISTENSEN: This is a power plant. Here's sewage treatment. Here's another sewage treatment plant, another sewage treatment plant. Here's runoff coming in from the streets through all of those creeks. And so, all of that combined ends up in these sediments.
JOYCE: Out on the dock, the 27-foot work-boat idles in a slip. Its sonar instruments capture images of the sea floor, images so clear you can tell the difference between sand and mud and rock, even the type of sand grain. That's important if that sand gets put back on the beaches.
CHRISTENSEN: If you can't find the right grain size, you're going to change the whole character of your beach. So if you walk the beach and you find piles of, you know, stinking, rotting organic rich mud on the beach, that's not really going to enhance tourism.
JOYCE: Once we're out in the bay, chief scientist John Goff turns on one of its sonar scanners called a CHIRP.
(SOUNDBITE OF A CHIRPING SOUND)
JOHN GOFF: That's the CHIRP.
GOFF: That's what you get to listen to all...
JOYCE: We drive back and forth in the sound. Goff calls it mowing the lawn.
(SOUNDBITE OF RADIO TRANSMISSION)
JOYCE: He admits this part of sea-floor mapping is boring. What's interesting is the interaction between the shore and the sea floor.
GOFF: They feed off each other. You know, the sea floor sand could be a source for replenishing the beach, you know, naturally as well as artificially. Or the beach can be sending sediment to the ocean. So it goes back and forth.
JOYCE: Goff learned to do this in the Gulf of Mexico after Hurricane Ike in 2008. He's trying to perfect the method.
GOFF: And we're going to expect more storms in the future if global warming continues. And so, understanding the impact of these storms is really important.
JOYCE: Not long into the day, though, things start to go awry. The gear shift breaks. The team fixes that but then the sonar computers mysteriously quit. We call it a day finally and swing into the dock. A stiff breeze pushes the boat around like a cork until we run into another docked boat.
(SOUNDBITE OF A BANG)
JOYCE: No damage, just part of doing seat-of-the-pants research in a freezing windstorm on an unfamiliar boat.
GOFF: Frustrating, we got a little bit of data. It's not a great morning, but in the scheme of things it wasn't too bad.
JOYCE: A lot of that data ends up at Beth Christensen's lab at Adelphi University. The team is here to help figure out how to rebuild these barrier islands and what that will cost. But they're also a bit dubious that anything will be able to protect people living right on the shore.
Christensen says it's clear that the coastline here is dangerous. But how do you convince people to move?
CHRISTENSEN: That's a different story...
CHRISTENSEN: ...whether or not politicians are as interested in understanding the science behind the problem as they are in getting reelected. And, in order to do that, pleasing a constituency that probably doesn't really want a lot to change.
JOYCE: And that bothers Midwesterner Cassandra Browne, another team member. Browne grew up with tornados in Missouri. She says a tornado can hit anywhere but hurricanes hit coastlines.
CASSANDRA BROWNE: I have very little sympathy for people who...
BROWNE: ...choose to go out there and rebuild and then get smashed and then use taxpayer's money from all over the nation to rebuild and put more sand on their beaches, when we're sitting here telling them, look, that's a stupid idea.
JOYCE: Someone who knows what it's like to get smashed is Rob Weltner, a retired builder, electrician and lifelong Long Islander. He shows me around the echoing hulk of a maritime museum he runs in the coastal town of Freeport. The museum was damaged by Hurricane Irene in 2011. Then, Sandy hit it again a year later.
ROB WELTNER: And here's the high water mark from Sandy.
JOYCE: Whoa, chest high on me.
WELTNER: Chest high, yep.
JOYCE: Most everything - exhibits, furniture, walls - is ruined. He says peoples' attitudes here are different now like, whether the climate is really changing.
WELTNER: Man, like overnight they went from hell no to hell yes. That's the surprise that I saw was all these people who used to give me a lot of grief for even mentioning, you know, sea level rise and climate change, are now asking me what they can do.
JOYCE: And they really don't know what to do.
WELTNER: They're completely freaked out. Nobody seems to have real a good grip on what to do and how to fix this. Because people think it's going to happen again - should they rebuild - but they don't have any other place to go.
JOYCE: This is where science should have answers, like what's the best way to prepare for the next one. At least, that's the view of Jamie Austin, the senior member of the Texas team who's thawing out in a motel room after a cold day on the water.
JAMIE AUSTIN: We need to show society they can use science to help them prepare for what will inevitably be the next cataclysm.
JOYCE: Austin says teams like this one need to parachute in after a big storm to figure out what happened - fast.
AUSTIN: The notion that the coast is a constant is a lie. It's a myth. This coastline is the frontline. It's the battleground.
JOYCE: Christopher Joyce, NPR News. Transcript provided by NPR, Copyright NPR. | <urn:uuid:939c78f7-7ce7-45cc-b64f-f87f5e73c858> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.kqed.org/news/story/2013/01/29/115331/sand_after_sandy_scientists_map_seafloor_for_sediment?category=science | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368705195219/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516115315-00010-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.946867 | 1,747 | 2.578125 | 3 |
All bedwetting questions here, as well as the Wikipedia article deal with treating the problem when it occurs, after it already started.
In that aritlce is says:
Bedwetting has a strong genetic component. Children whose parents were not enuretic have only a 15% incidence of bedwetting. When one or both parents were bedwetters, the rates jump to 44% and 77% respectively
So my daughter has high chance to become a bedwetter - still didn't discuss it with my wife, so it might even be 77%.
I would like to know if there is anything I can do as parent to help my daughter "in advance"? I won't go for medical treatment of course, was thinking maybe giving more focus when potty training her on certain things and explain. This is all pretty far in the horizon as we still did not start potty training her, but better be prepared in my opinion.
If anyone has same experience or some good advice, it will be welcome. | <urn:uuid:c23cdd58-dc8d-49d2-ad5e-1399053b761c> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://parenting.stackexchange.com/questions/5825/any-way-to-prevent-bedwetting-before-its-actually-starting/5835 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368709037764/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516125717-00040-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.986004 | 210 | 1.953125 | 2 |
9 February 2012
Twenty-first century Europe is home to a mixture of ethnicities, religions and cultures. Alongside this diversity is a fear of and hostility towards immigrants – to Muslims in particular – and an unresolved debate on how and to what extent the individuals and groups in question should integrate within society.
Here Tariq Modood presents four different options for integration and equality of opportunity for all citizens. Some ethnic minorities may wish to assimilate; some to have the equal rights of integrated citizens; some to maintain the cultural differences of their group identities; and some to be free to choose cosmopolitan mixed identities.
Professor Modood argues that all of these approaches have value, and if citizens are to have not just rights but a sense of belonging to society the government should not seek to impose one particular option. No one approach fits all and none should be dismissed.Download the paper (pdf, 760 pdf). | <urn:uuid:790cfdbe-8142-4d27-847f-76a0ab19f5e0> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.bris.ac.uk/ethnicity/news/31.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368704132298/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516113532-00028-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.929105 | 184 | 2.40625 | 2 |
Information for Parents
Common Sense Media says OK for kids 14+
Edgy, teen-friendly musical comedy uplifts with song, heart.
What Parents Need to Know
Parents need to know that Pitch Perfect -- a winning musical comedy about a fiercely independent college student -- will give teens (and adults) plenty to like. Expect some strong language ("s--t," "bitch," "d--k," and one use of "f--k"), drug references, and underage drinking (though it's not heavily emphasized). There's also some kissing and lots of sexual innuendo and some sexual discussion, plus several jokes about a lesbian character's attraction to other women in the group. Although the young women portrayed here are, for the most part, strong and confident, sometimes a shaming word, "slut," is used to refer to them.
- Families can talk about why Beca seems so jaded when she first steps on campus. Is her position -- that she doesn't need to be in college to pursue her dream -- defensible?
- Fat Amy calls herself "fat" as a way to get ahead of any possible bullying and because she's proud of herself just the way she is. What do you think of this approach? (Also, talk to your kids about bullying and how to handle it if it happens.)
- Are college campuses really rife with this much competition among student groups? Are a cappella groups this cutthroat? What's the realistic take on this?
The good stuff
Positive messages: Find your passion, and don't be afraid to take risks. Also: Open your heart to love, and it might find you. Joining groups may require you to overcome your skepticism and fears, but it may also lead you to even greater happiness.
Positive role models: Beca's individualistic streak extends to the rest of the Bellas in a positive way, though it does take them a while to learn how to be supportive of one another. Lots of emphasis on teamwork and how sometimes in the pursuit of the good of the team, a member has to be flexible and unselfish. Many jokes at the expense of the overweight, but the main overweight character also embraces her appearance to try to defuse bullying before it starts.
What to watch for
Violence: A melee breaks out -- though viewers don't really see any of the blows -- and a window winds up shattered. A sprinkling of verbal skirmishes, with name-calling.
Sexy stuff: Some kissing, plus plenty of sexual innuendoes about a few of the characters' sex lives. Some suggestive dancing during musical numbers. A couple's feet are shown sharing one shower, suggesting they're in the middle of intimate alone time. Characters use the word "slut" to refer to women who have non-serious sex partners.
Language: "Bitch" is frequent and casual (and "pitch," which sounds like it, is used as a stand-in). Also one "f--k," "s--t," "t--s," "slutbags," "ass," "crap," "hell," "d--k," and "Jesus" (as an exclamation).
Consumerism: With so many Apple products everywhere, it might as well be an ad. Also: Ping, Mad Libs.
Drinking, drugs and smoking: Some scenes at college parties show freshmen drinking beer (and whatever else) from tell-tale red cups. Drug references. | <urn:uuid:16837c44-4abd-4cda-b130-e89b33905e52> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.fandango.com/pitchperfect_156075/criticreviews?date=10/23/2012 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368704713110/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516114513-00025-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.962395 | 720 | 2.25 | 2 |
Edward Kienholz’ testimony on the effects of learning art history from books and journals can be helpful in understanding how isolation could affect artists’ conceptions of their own work:
“If you take a mediocre painting and take a picture of it, reduce the scale, and condense the experience of the painting down to a smaller scale, it becomes much richer. And that rich look was the criterion that I always looked toward. I was working toward a picture reproduction.”
Helen Lundeberg (b.1908) thought that isolation in California had stimulated rather than dampened her imagination. She painted things that she wanted to bring into the world, rather than reproductions of other paintings or existing objects.
“There is art in everything…when you buy a lamp or a two-tone car, whether you realize it or not, you are showing an artistic sense within you.”
Poetry, philosophy, religion, and sexuality are each a potential light of wisdom upon the mystery of nothing transforming into something.
Against the ruin of the world there is only one defense–the creative act.
Helen Lundeberg (United States, 1908-1999), 1934-35, Oil on Celotex
David Meltzer lamented that somehow the original project that artists and poets had embarked upon in the 1950′s had gone awry. They had ceased to sing “true songs,” coming from the heart in one-on-one communication with reader and viewer so that their work would begin a process of conversion, saying to themselves, “Oh, I never thought of it that way. I never saw it quite like that. Yes, now I see.” This art was to create a revolution, to replace the babble of destructive, contentious voices with harmony and productivity. Their generation had the change to do this, he thought, because creative people had separated from commerce and formed a community. Their ideal of artistic communication was dialogue, the exchange of viewpoints with the goal of achieving some form of higher truth.
The works of Michael McClure and Ed Kienholz revolved directly and explicitly around sexuality. They presented images that argued that repression of sexual instincts was the most basic source of violence in American society. This source could not be addressed politically because the repressed by definition was unavailable to the conscious state. It always appeared in deflected, symbolic forms. Their work echoed a psychoanalytic paradigm by attempting to bring to the surface infantile sexual desires so they could turn toward mature forms of satisfaction. Artists functioned as the collection psychoanalyst of society, absolutely essential to its health and reform.
detail of: Walter Hopps Hopps Hopps by Edward Kienholz
The art community (in LA) had died when it joined the pursuit of glamour and money. He (Connor Everts) had not sacrificed several years of his life to the fight against censorship, he thought, just so artists could make a lot of money. He had been after something very different: an egalitarian society where men and women could express themselves in painting, poetry, music, not to make money, but to communicate their concerns and their dreams…He left California to teach at the Cranbrook Academy in Michigan because he could not stand to watch the celebrity-posturing he felt had devoured Los Angeles artists. | <urn:uuid:532dedbf-70c3-4a6a-be1e-b7a663a97ef6> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.kathycrabbe.com/2012/08/utopia-and-dissent-art-poetry-and-politics-in-california/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368701852492/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516105732-00016-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.973637 | 685 | 2.625 | 3 |
Clift Music Library
Located in the music building, Graves Hall, the William B. Clift Music Library has an extensive circulating collection of about 6000 CDs and 1500 LPs available for students, faculty, and staff. Among the music reference materials held by the library are the complete critical editions of Bach, Haydn, and Mozart, as well as the New Grove Dictionary of Music and a variety of music periodicals. The facility is open for listening, quiet study, and assignments related to the music curriculum as well as other departments. View new music online. | <urn:uuid:ea98b350-f0cd-4df4-af6c-9e77e0c696b9> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.andover.edu/library/About/SatelliteLibraries/Pages/CliftMusicLibrary.aspx | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368696382584/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516092622-00038-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.953194 | 113 | 1.5 | 2 |
The role of the International Curriculum Advisory Board (ICAB) is to provide advice, counsel and critical-friendship to the Executive Management Team of the IPC.
This advice includes comments on:
- The structure, design and impact of the curriculum and associated materials to ensure that they contribute to the highest possible developments in academic, personal and international learning.
- Maintaining the quality and integrity of the IPC through reviewing and advising on:
- the self-review and accreditation protocol
- IPC Professional Development strategy
- the implementation support provided to member schools.
- Commissioned and non-commissioned academic research into the IPC.
- Changes taking place within the wider educational arena that may have impact on the IPC.
- Possible extensions of the IPC into Middle Years curriculum provision.
The Advisory Board also provides advice on strategic academic alliances and partnerships useful to further the overall objectives of the IPC.
Advisory Board Members
Professor Jeff Thompson (chair)Professor Emeritus of Education
Research Interests: International education - Developing country education - Teacher education - Evaluation - Assessment/curriculum. Teaching Programmes - MA in Education, Doctor of Education (EdD) Doctor of Philosophy (MPhil/PhD).
Chair, Examinations Appeal Board (England, Wales, N. Ireland) Founding Editor and Book Reviews Editor, Journal of Research in International Education Editorial Board, International Schools Journal Senior Consultant, Welsh Baccalaureate Qualification Internal Evaluation Project Immediate Past Chair, Alliance for International Education Director, International Board, United World Colleges
Dr Mary HaydenSenior Lecturer in Education
Director of the Centre for the Study of Education in an International Context (CEIC), Director of Studies, Research Students (EdD), Director Summer School (MA).
International schools - International education - Assessment - Research methods - Research Programme - Educational policy, globalisation and organisation. Teaching Programmes - MA in Education, Doctor of Philosophy (PhD), Doctor of Education (EdD). Editor, Journal of Research in International Education Director, Welsh Baccalaureate Qualification Internal Evaluation Project.
Henk van HoutHead of Education Services, Shell international BV
Henk started working in Education in 1979. After teaching in secondary, special needs and for a longer period of time in primary education, he accepted his first Headship at the Netherlands School in Lagos Nigeria in 1991. After three years he became Head of the Shell School in Heliopolis, Cairo and started to work for Shell Egypt BV. In 2003 he repatriated to the Netherlands and accepted a post as Director of the primary school of the Haagsche School Vereeniging.
In 2004 he became General Director of the Foundation and was leading the senior management team of two Dutch primary schools. On the 1st April 2007 Henk rejoined Shell as Head of Education Services. His office is in Central HR in Shell Headquarters, the Hague. Henk also holds a master’s degree in Educational Superintendence, and a bachelor’s degree in education. | <urn:uuid:ad7fc549-eade-4e74-94f8-e9304c2e7b92> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.greatlearning.com/ipc/about/advisory-board | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368703682988/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516112802-00028-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.912184 | 633 | 1.96875 | 2 |
New research has shed light on arsenic's ability to work as a cancer treatment in patients with leukaemia.
Arsenic is known to be effective in patients with a type of cancer called acute promyelocytic leukaemia, but the reasons for its effect had remained unclear.
Now, scientists from Cancer Research UK have discovered that arsenic helps molecules called SUMO to stick onto leukaemia-related proteins, enabling the cancer-causing proteins to be identified by enzymes and broken down.
The finding is of particular interest as, ironically, arsenic is one of the chemicals found in cigarettes that causes lung cancer.
Dr Lesley Walker, director of cancer information at the charity, commented: "Discovering which molecules are involved in this process is an exciting step forward in understanding this complex paradox - how can a chemical that causes cancer also cure it?
"It's a great piece of science that will hopefully lead to the development of drugs that home in on specific cancer-causing proteins to beat the disease."
The findings are published in the journal Nature Cell Biology.
© Adfero Ltd
Cancer treatment news : 22/04/08 | <urn:uuid:67b1ddf8-db9f-442a-b97d-cc4b263dd9bb> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.privatehealth.co.uk/news/april-2008/study-shows-arsenics-role-as-cancer-treatment-1005/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368706890813/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516122130-00049-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.954856 | 237 | 2.859375 | 3 |
At the Modelica 2009 conference, we introduced the Buildings library, a freely available Modelica library for building energy and control systems . This paper reports the updates of the library and presents example applications for a range of heating, ventilation and air conditioning (HVAC) systems. Over the past two years, the library has been further developed. The number of HVAC components models has been doubled and various components have been revised to increase numerical robustness. The paper starts with an overview of the library architecture and a description of the main packages. To demonstrate the features of the Buildings library, applications that include multizone airow simulation as well as supervisory and local loop control of a variable air volume (VAV) system are briey described. The paper closes with a discussion of the current development. | <urn:uuid:eb673c58-a3b7-4ba6-8e6b-4a556d9fdd28> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://eetd.lbl.gov/node/52028 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368704713110/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516114513-00002-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.928481 | 163 | 1.695313 | 2 |
I have some questions regarding SATA:
Since original ATA is not Host/Device dependent, why does a SATA interface require different Host and Device controllers? Why is there a difference between the Host and Device controllers when both use the same ATA Command Set?
Also, what is the difference between the Host Controller PHY layer and the Device controller PHY? Can I use Atmel's AT78C5091 PHY Interface for both? | <urn:uuid:dad1070e-0026-4959-aeaf-7ffc604d4f67> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://forums.xbox-scene.com/index.php?s=bbc0be76269e2416f89b37db20fcfefb&showtopic=729391&st=0&p=4786272 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368704713110/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516114513-00042-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.900187 | 90 | 1.914063 | 2 |
The 411 on this body contouring treatment
The weather is mild and we’re brimming with excitement, which can only mean one thing: the warm season is finally here! It is then that we shed our layers of fabric, only to realize that winter has left a layer of reserve fat stuck to our skin. We then become sensitive to images of perfectly sculpted bodies, and to all the miracle reshaping promises.
But wait a minute! Health being our number one concern, we decided to explore the world of lipomassage. And to help us see more clearly, we called on Daniele Henkel. President and Founder of Daniele Henkel Inc., this grand dame of the wonderful world of beauty has a wellness message she would like to spread. Here goes!
Before we begin, let’s define lipomassage. It is a non-surgical mechanical stimulation procedure that acts on fat and sagging skin in order to refine and reshape the body. The treatment is performed in clinic, with a machine called LPG. The latter mechanically stimulates the skin in a non-invasive and targeted way.
How did this technology come about?
“It was invented for burn victims, and remains at surgeons’ disposal for pre- and post-surgical care, given that mechanizing the cells stimulates blood circulation, and makes the skin suppler, softer and more flexible. Moreover, this is the only procedure scientifically proven to promote weight loss and to reduce cellulite.”
How does the shaping effect take place?
“The body is not a block of cement, but is more like wood; it’s a living thing. As we get older, our metabolism slows down, so we have to stimulate it to counter sagging skin. We mechanically work beyond the surface to boost the body’s circulatory processes (blood that nourishes our entire body) and lymphs (which purify toxins). We don’t overheat or burn the skin; we simply non-invasively tell the cells to get to work! By combining this treatment with a balanced diet and taking small steps to remain active, like taking a walk in the park and parking the car a little farther from our destination, we sculpt our body. It isn’t a miracle cure, but the results are absolutely delightful! We notice them right away and, for two days, we feel our blood circulation activating itself.”
Apart from esthetic benefits, what are other advantages proffered by this type of treatment?
“Lipomassage relieves those who suffer from diabetes (which affects blood circulation) and fybromyalgia (a disorder which attacks connective tissue), among others. By acting on nerve centers, muscles and blood circulation, it also helps hyperactive children relax. Lipomassage is the only technology in the world that works on the entire body to relieve tension. During the treatment, we enjoy complete relaxation. What’s more, when the brain and the body are in peaceful mode, we get better results.”
Does this treatment pose any health risks?
“There are almost no contraindications to lipomassage. However, the treatment is not recommended for those who suffer from arthritis, to prevent further inflammation. Unless one is in remission, people afflicted with cancer should also abstain. Pregnant women can undergo the treatment on the neck, shoulders and legs to relieve pain. However, they should avoid the rest of the body given that the latter is already under significant stress.”
How much should we expect to pay?
“Depending on the individual, a shock treatment can include approximately 20 sessions. Sessions then occur on a monthly basis. Sessions spread over many months can cost between $2500 and $3500. A session costs between $120 and $150. Note that lipomassage is the only mechanical body treatment that can be reimbursed by some insurance providers.”
|find out more about the Vileda ViROBi Robot Sweeper!|
|Win a CLARISONIC REVOLUTIONARY SPA EXPERIENCE for you and 3 of your friends, valued at $2,000!| | <urn:uuid:d3742128-05e6-4897-a5a5-6ec75df423cc> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.divine.ca/en/health/articles/c_11_i_4882/all-about-lipomassage-1.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368700958435/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516104238-00061-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.931284 | 875 | 1.53125 | 2 |
Author Flowers's Book
Sir Arthur Sullivan: His Life, Letters and Diaries
At the age of eight, Arthur Sullivan composed his first anthem,"By the Waters of Babylon." He so impressed his father that he was sent to a private school to encourage his musical talent. He went on to study at the Royal Academy and was sent to Leipzig on a scholarship. He discovered with George Grove the lost opera, "Rosamunde," of Schubert, one of his favorite composers. The largest part of the book concerns his work in light opera and his partn...
View these reviews in summary mode
Herbert Sullivan and Newman Flowers Message Board
Talk about the novels, new and used books that Flowers has written! | <urn:uuid:ee269ba3-4986-4fba-8400-620ff41c987a> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://allreaders.com/Topics/Topic_11552.asp | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368707435344/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516123035-00027-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.964326 | 150 | 2.109375 | 2 |
National Women’s Health Week encourages and empowers all women to make health and wellness their top priority this week. This year’s theme is “It’s your time!” Take the pledge to get all of your annual check ups and be a wellness warrior! Are you in for the challenge?
Receive regular check ups and preventative screenings. Get active. Eat well. Manage stress. Avoid unhealthy habits. There are just a few of the simple steps that you can take now that will have a major impact on your health in the long run.
Old habits die hard. Are you looking to end an unhealthy behavior? Journey to Joyful author, yoga instructor, and wellness coach Dashama Konah recommends the following three keys for eliminating addictive behavior in the following excerpt:
Meditation and the Observation of Thought | Fundamentally, this is where it all begins. When you quit something, whether it is drinking, smoking, overeating, laziness, or letting go of a codependent relationship, to name a few examples, you reprogram your subconscious mind to no longer need or want that thing, activity, or person in your life or at least not allow it to control your life. On a physical level, we crave what we are addicted to. We have emotional cords tied to these things, and spiritually, we are bonded as well. It is a process of cutting the cords on all levels and this begins in the mind. It is essential that you have a good journal to write down your thoughts as they arise for you. This will help when you feel drawn to relapse. Also, even if you do have a temporary relapse, keep coming back to your thoughts. Observe: is it a specific time of day, or is there a trigger that sends you into a relapse?
Find an accountability partner | When I quit drinking, it was easy, because I was really ready. Additionally, I was with a man who was in the same place in his life and we both did it together. We had had enough. It was clear that it was doing us more harm than good. We had both had run-ins with the law, jail time (only a few hours), and now we were committed to experiencing a higher vibration. We both wanted to create something real and impactful with our lives, and this bonded us in a powerful way. It was a process of eliminating the negative influences/friends and environments that were drawing us into the trap of habituation that led to the negative patterning we were ready to release. We had to reprogram our entire lifestyles, and it was easier to do this since we had each other. It is ideal if you are married, if your accountability partner is your spouse, or even your lover or best friend, since they are often the number-one influence upon your lifestyle choices. If this is not your situation, then ask those to whom you are close to please support you in your new lifestyle choices. I guarantee you will get overwhelming responses of positivity and encouragement.
Replace the Habits | This is key. If you typically find yourself drinking at a bar on a Friday night, or even having drinks at home, or whatever your issue is that you’re ready to let go of, you must find another activity that is equally enjoyable for you to replace the other. I recommend exercise, yoga, meditation, singing, dancing, and connecting with nature in various ways like camping, hiking, walking on the beach—anything that gets your body moving and away from what’s sucking you into the trap. If your old friends are not interested or ready to let go of these negative habits, just find other ways in which you can connect with them. This happened to me. When I decided to quit drinking, it led to a complete transition in friends. This was hard at first. There was a period of time when my only friends were my sisters and my boyfriend. That was fine, however, since I was so excited about the new level of energy, enthusiasm, and excitement about life and my future that I was ready to move on and up from the old habits, thus I was grateful to let them go. Embrace releasing of the old to welcome in the new. It will serve you richly for the entirety of your life.
The fastest way to freedom is to feel your feelings. | <urn:uuid:88411c9b-2017-491b-b612-c8e5611ae691> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://nabcommunities.com/2012/05/16/wellness-take-action-national-womens-health-week/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368708142388/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516124222-00023-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.97777 | 897 | 1.65625 | 2 |
Competitive and Organizational Strategy
Competitive and Organizational Strategy is designed to develop economists skilled in doing research on a broad variety of firm-related topics. The curriculum is appropriate for students interested in, for example, how relative firm performance is affected by dynamic strategic decisions. Economics and management faculty are actively engaged in theoretical and empirical research on these issues. Weekly economics and management seminars provide students with early access to novel research by both Simon School faculty and world-class speakers from other institutions. Students concentrating in Competitive and Organizational Strategy anticipate employment in the business economics or strategy group at other top tier business schools.
Faculty and Research Interests
James A. Brickley, Area Coordinator
Corporate control, compensation policy, corporate finance, franchising, and banking.
Michael A. Raith
Pricing strategies in the presence of market uncertainty, effects of financial constraints on firms behavior in product markets, performance evaluation in organizations, competition among firms and optimal compensation policies, and organizational structure within firms.
Other Simon School faculty who do research and sometimes teach in Competitive and Organizational Strategy include: Gregg A. Jarrell, John B. Long Jr., Greg E. Shaffer, Clifford W. Smith Jr., and Jerold L. Zimmerman. | <urn:uuid:de41b429-4bb9-4cf3-9cd1-610600ed5b01> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.simon.rochester.edu/programs/phd/academic-overview/competitive--organizational-strategy/index.aspx | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368709037764/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516125717-00053-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.921863 | 253 | 1.554688 | 2 |
President Thomas S. Monson; his wife, Francis and their daughter, Sister Ann M. Dibb, leave the Sunday morning session of General Conference of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints in Salt Lake City.
- Filed Under
Two apostles of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints used the same New Testament story to illustrate their messages Sunday during the final sessions of the church's 182nd Semiannual General Conference.
In the LDS Church, the Quorum of Twelve Apostles is patterned after the similar body of disciples that Christ gathered during his ministry.
The LDS Church teaches that these modern apostles, like the ancient apostles, are to be "special witnesses of the name of Christ." ... | <urn:uuid:c079ee6c-279d-4ebf-99dc-d9f21c3d38c0> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.thespectrum.com/proart/20121007/faith/310070006?pagerestricted=1 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368706890813/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516122130-00038-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.948809 | 149 | 2.09375 | 2 |
Self-Defense for the Slasher Lifestyle
Do you ever find yourself on a client call, while simultaneously organizing basketball practice, brainstorming a blog post and daydreaming about lunch? You might be a slasher in need of some serious self-defense.
The lifestyle of a slasher – a term popularized by Marci Alboher in her book One Person/Multiple Careers – can be invigorating. As a guest lecturer / researcher / translator / web designer / writer, I love playing many roles and connecting with people from many industries and countries.
But it can also be stressful. When you work with people who have committed a larger part of their own “pie” to a certain task, sometimes they demand more than you have to give. Deadlines can overlap. Weekends can disappear. And the slashes that let you use your diverse skills and interests can become slashes that slice into your sanity, stability and mental health.
The word “ninja” gets used a lot in discussions about working independently – and it makes complete sense. To successfully sustain a slasher lifestyle, you must take self-defense seriously, just like a martial arts pro. But here, self-defense doesn’t mean preparing for physical attacks. It means building and maintaining a strong core, to give you the agility and flexibility to rise to the slasher challenge.
Give these slasher self-defense techniques a try:
Create a day-righting ritual
As someone who might work on several projects in one day, how do you start your morning on the right foot?
Try “day-righting,” a term coined by Keith Ferrazzi, author of Never Eat Alone. He says it’s “The 15-Minute Secret for Individual Effectiveness:”
Almost all of you, I’m willing to bet, have a “morning ritual.” But how many of you have created one by design? This is so important for individual effectiveness, for everyone but especially for entrepreneurs who work independently or at home.
I first became aware of this idea when interviewing a pair of salesman for Who’s Got Your Back. Together, they did an early morning gym session followed by a brainstorm, a process they called “day-righting.” After about a month of this routine, the team told me they saw dramatic improvements in their business and their lives.
Ferrazzi goes on to suggest exercise, journaling, meditation and breathing as day-righting options.
My day-righting ritual has consisted of coffee and newspaper reading with my partner, followed by a quick gym workout, a hearty home-cooked breakfast, and then going into the office to start the workday. In the days when I’ve followed at least part of this ritual, I’ve been able to balance my slashes. The days when I’ve skipped the newspaper, workout and breakfast to immediately sit down in front of my computer, a few hours later I realize that my neck is sore and I’ve been clicking around on the computer without getting much done.
Be conscious of stressors in your environment
Is your office filled with the sounds of colleagues talking on the phone, other people’s music, or buses and honking outside? Even low-level noise has a subtle but insidious effect on our health and well-being. The best solutions can be the simplest: earplugs, headphones, and, if possible, choosing a quieter place to work.
Do one thing at a time
If you’re a surgeon / violinist, you obviously cannot pursue both slashes at the same time (at least not if you want to have any success at either!) But if you’re an event coordinator / editor, the distinction between might be less obvious.
When your slashes involve the same tools, you might find yourself trying to reserve a room and edit a blog post at the same time, perhaps while also reading the news and chatting with a friend. This makes each task take longer, and you’re more likely to make mistakes.
There are dozens of tools to help. For writing, I like OmmWriter, Microsoft Word’s Full Screen mode, and Gmail pop-outs, which let me write an email without having to look at all my other emails or all my friends who might want to chat.
The main reason to pursue a slasher lifestyle is to do what you love. But if you’re overwhelmed with commitments, it’s time to scale back. Once a week or so, perhaps as part of your day-righting ritual, make a list of your priorities and consider whether the way you have been spending your time fits with those priorities. There will always be more events and projects than you can possibly commit yourself to. Learning to say no is perhaps the most important self-defense tactic of all.
What about you? What self-defense tactics work best for your slasher lifestyle?
Brazen Life is a lifestyle and career blog for ambitious young professionals. Hosted by Brazen Careerist, we offer edgy and fun ideas for navigating the changing world of work. Be Brazen! | <urn:uuid:7545f7e1-6ff9-40e2-9652-fc46deb0ff41> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://blog.brazencareerist.com/2012/01/12/self-defense-for-the-slasher-lifestyle/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368704713110/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516114513-00040-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.952547 | 1,080 | 1.570313 | 2 |
Jupiter is the fifth planet from the sun. It is also the largest of all planets, including the Jovian planets. It contains more than twice the mass of all the other planets combined. Saturn, which is the second largest planet and comparable in radius with Jupiter holds less than one third of Jupiter's mass (Mass of Jupiter: 318 x Earth's, Saturn's mass: 95 x Earth).
Even through a small amateur telescope its four prominent companions, the Galilean moons or the Jovian moons Io, Europa, Callisto and Ganymede are visible,
which are one of the things Jupiter is known for. Another feature is the great red spot orbiting below the equator of Jupiter. It orbits in the opposite direction of Jupiter and is large enough to contain the Earth. It also has a very faint ringsystem.
Jupiter is known to share its orbit with a few asteroids (though they are located at another place in the orbit), they're called the Trojans.
The planet is so large that its gravity pulls many nearby passing objects to itself, not only asteroids, but also comets. That is what happened in 1994, when the comet Shoemaker-Levy 9 struck Jupiter with mindboggling force. It had been broken up, into 21 fragments by Jupiter's tidal forces in the previous orbit. This fierce attack on Jupiter opened astronomers' eyes on what could happen to Earth.
Jupiter's Interior and Atmosphere - Illustration 1
- Io - Illustration 2
- Europa - Illustration 3
- Callisto - Illustration 4
- Ganymede - Illustration 5
Jupiter's Interior and Atmosphere
Jupiter is the largest planet in the known solarsystem. It is a gas giant, and as such, it does not have a solid surface. At the center of Jupiter there may be a rocky core, which might contain as much as 10-15 times more mass then Earth (6x10^26 Kg) and is about 50 000 K hot, surrounded by a layer ices of water, ammonia and methane. Above this layer is yet another layer, where the pressure is so large that hydrogen starts acting like a metal, hence the layer is composed of liquid metallic hydrogen.
To enter such a state where hydrogen becomes a liquid metal, a pressure of 1 million bars and a temperature of 6 000 K is needed, which we (by comparison, the pressure at the surface of Earth's surface is about 1 000 bars, but the gases exerting this pressure are different).
These conditions are found about 10 000 km below Jupiter's cloud tops. It should be noted that we cannot know for sure the exact conditions in Jupiter's interior, as much of it is veiled.
As we move further out from the planet's core, we will find gaseous material that decrease in density and pressure.
Jupiter consists of about 90% hydrogen and 10% helium, with traces of ammonia, water ices and methane.
Jupiter's appearance is characterized by colourful horizontal bands of clouds. One particular weather system is especially prominent: The Great Red Spot, located below Jupiter's equator. It is so large that it could engulf the whole Earth! Winds are much stronger on Jupiter than on Earth.
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Jupiter has atleast 63 known moons. Many are small in size and others, like the largest moon in our known solarsystem, Ganymede are so large that if it would have been discovered orbiting the sun for itself, it would be considered as a planet. Among all these moons are four prominent moons, the Galilean moons or the Jovian moons, which are Io, Europa, Callisto and Ganymede. They are visible through a small amateur astronomer telescope and were discovered by Galileo Galilei on January 7, 1610.
They orbit relatively quickly around the planet and changes in their location can be observed within hours or few days.
Io is the innermost and smallest of the jovian moons. It orbits at an average distance of 421 700 km from Jupiter. It is locked in a Laplace-resonant orbit with Europa and Ganymede in such a way that for each orbit Ganymede completes around Jupiter, Europa will complete two. While Europa has completed those two orbits, Io will have completed four orbits.
This process, where the moons interact gravitationally, along with strong gravitational forces exerted by Jupiter is probably the cause of Io's volcanic surface. Io's "body" is bent and stretched about 100m in this process, which causes it to heat up.
The surface is never completely solid (about 2000 K hot), but it is continuously resurfaced. Io is the most volcanic active body in the known solarsystem. It will never have a solid surface, but always be scarred with volcanoes and liquid sulphur, unless something dramatical happens, like significantly altered orbit.
Volcanoes have been detected to spew out gas and dust at heights of 400 km. But Io's orbit happens to lay where Jupiter's magnetic field is particularly strong. When material is ejected from the volcanoes it is to an extent carried on by Jupiter's magnetic field which also accelerates it to an amazing speed of 300km/s.
Some of the matter that is accelerated by Jupiter might actually reach Jupiter's poles, producing the most spectacular and powerful aurorae ("nothern lights").
The matter that isnt picked up by the magnetic field crystallizes to suplhurous flakes falls back as snow. Astronomers have even managed to find NaCl on Io, which is ordinary "table salt".
Studies show that Io has a magnetic field of its own, along with an atmosphere consisting of sulphur compunds.
Io reminds astronomers of how the Earth might have looked like at a primordial state.
Europa is closely associated with the possibility of finding life elsewhere in the solarsystem. It orbits Jupiter at a distance of 671 034 km and is slightly smaller than our moon in size. Its composition is similar to that of the terrestrial planets and has a rocky core. Europa has a thick layer of water ice that might be as thick as 100 km, though recent studies show it might be less than 20 km deep.
The thickness of this crust is important to know in order to measure how much tidal heating Europa is getting, which in turn is important to know when calculating how much liquid water could exist. During the spacecraft Galileo's mission, impact craters were discovered which after a while were filled up again, by water from lower levels.
Europa's surface is extremely smooth, there are very few features higher than a few hundred meters that have been detected.
Remarkable streaks have been seen on Europa, suggesting cracks on the surface.
Callisto is the fourth galilean moon and the theird largest moon in our solarsystem (the largest are Ganymede and Saturn's Titan). Its size rivals that of Mercury. Callisto is among the heaviest cratered objects in the solarsystem. It also has a very thin atmosphere, which was discovered by studying its magnetic field. Like Europa, Callisto also has a significantly thick ice crust which harbors a salty ocean at the bottom.
Ganymede is larger than the planets Mercury and Pluto. It is also the largest moon in our solarsystem (diamater is 5 262 km). It orbits Jupiter at a distance of about 1.1 million kilometres and is the third of the four galilean moons. Like Callisto it is also heavily cratered, but there are features such as mountains, valleys, lavaflows.
Some areas of the surface are particularly dark, which are really old. The lighter areas are newer, but still very old. Ganymede is most likely composed of a rocky core with a water/ice mantle and a crust of rock and ice.
The density of cratering indicates an age of 3 to 3.5 billion years, similar to the Moon.
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Jupiter has been visited by many spacecraft, like Voyager 1 and 2, Pioneer 10 and 11, Ulysses and Galileo, which have contributed to the majority of the knowledge we have about Jupiter and its moons. Though some studies have also been made by both earth-based and space-based telescopes orbiting the Earth, such as the Hubble Space Telescope, which in particular helped us view the giant comet collision with Shoemaker-Levy 9 in 1994.
NASA is planning on sending a new probe, Juno to Jupiter, to study it from a polar orbit. The probe is scheduled to be launched in 2010. In 2007 Jupiter will be briefly visited by the probe New Horizons for a gravity assist.
There is an interest for a mission to study the ice of three of the galilean moons, but the project has been cancelled.
Back to Top.
Previous: The Asteroid Belt.
Moons: 63. Ganymede, Callisto, Europa and Io are the most known.
Average distance from sun:
778 412 020 km.
Equatorial Radius: 71 492 km.
Mass: 1.8987 x 10^27 kg, about 317 times the mass of the earth.
Density: 1.33 g/cm^3.
Escape Velocity: 59.540 km/s.
Length of day: 9.925 hours.
Length of year: 11.8565 Earth years.
Mean Orbit Velocity: 13.069.7 km/s.
Equatorial Inclination to Orbit: 3.12 degrees.
Effective Temperature: -148 °C.
Atmosphere: Hydrogen 90%, Helium 10%.
Misc: Has four moons that were discovered by Galileo Galilei. They are called the "Galilean moons", or the "Jovian moons".
Above: Jupiter as seen from the sulphur covered surface of Io, the innermost of the Galilean Moons. It is located at roughly the same distance (cirka 400 000 km) our moon is from Earth, and it is slightly larger (3 600 km diam.) than our moon. The proximity to Jupiter, and the tidal pull from the other
three Galilean Moons Europa, Ganymede and Callisto create immense tidal forces on Io. They are so strong that there is enormous geological activity on the moon, and it has more than 400 active volcanoes.
This illustration is available upon request, as a Print (6000x3750 pixels, 300 dpi).
Above: Again, Jupiter is seen in the background along with two of it's Galilean moons. In the background of the moon, you see a large ejection of sulphur from a volcano. Sulphuric ejections are coloured blue and have been seen to rise as high as 300 km above the surface.
This illustration is available upon request, as a Print (4500x6000 pixels, 300 dpi). | <urn:uuid:eab55b6d-d621-4490-9c29-93851acf597c> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.novacelestia.com/space_art_solar_system/jupiter.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368704132298/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516113532-00033-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.950754 | 2,272 | 3.515625 | 4 |
On Monday night, I took my first ever copyediting class. The Mediabistro’s website offers many classes to provide useful skills for writers and anybody in the media industry.
The class had sixteen people, primarily composed of women. The instructor was witty, intelligent, and supportive with our dreams of entering the wide world of copyediting.
I learned there is a difference between being a Proofreader, Copyeditor, and Line Editor.
We spent a huge portion of the class understanding the nuances and crossover of these three titles.
A Proofreader is in charge of spelling, grammar, punctuation, the layout, and structure of print.
A Copyeditor looks at word choice, tense consistency, jargon, overwrought prose, wordiness and fact checking.
A Line editor goes through the copy for context, tone, clarity, and stereotypes/clichés if by that part in the editing process it has not been looked at.
I thought that a Copyeditor did all these three jobs but apparently not; if a company wants a Copyeditor, now I know that I have to ask about the other positions because then my rate will go up accordingly! (Even though I don’t know what my rate is just yet.)
We did an in class exercise which was really fun and we also have homework. With practice and resources, I’ll be a bona fide Copyeditor in no time!
This class is going to be a blast. | <urn:uuid:1b847f92-4c5a-4b81-920c-9f037b541776> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://bkwriter4life.wordpress.com/tag/book-publishing/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368702448584/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516110728-00039-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.965343 | 303 | 1.578125 | 2 |
|Published 595 days ago|
Fiery end to a very good water year
The mountains around Scofield Reservoir are ablaze with autumn color at the end of September. The reservoir itself was at more than 85 percent of capacity as of Sept. 30, the end of the water year, according to the Natural Resources Conservation Service. Precipitation for the entire water year was 136 percent of normal. December 2010 was measured` at 280 percent of normal.
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Best viewed with Firefox | <urn:uuid:77b42ed3-09cc-4434-819c-04d844a2a1fe> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.sunadvocate.com/index.php?tier=1&article_id=23112&poll=271&vote=results | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368703298047/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516112138-00049-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.970838 | 104 | 1.820313 | 2 |
Everyone wants to live healthier, if only to avoid the distress and danger of having serious problems like diabetes and blocked arteries. Unfortunately that's not always enough to get Americans to eat better, even when they know what's at stake. Last month a much publicized study in the New England Journal of Medicine confirmed that a "Mediterranean diet" is a clear winner for heart health, but try wrestling a steak away from a Texan with the lure of olive oil, nuts, and fruit instead. That's why University of Texas Health Science Center San Antonio (UTHSCSA) research scientist Reto Asmis is studying the biochemical basis of the Mediterranean diet with the aim of producing a food supplement that does what the healthy diet does without a wholesale change in our eating behavior.
[Ingredients in a Mediterranean, heart smart diet, courtesy of the California Walnut Commission, which donated all of the walnuts for the European study] | <urn:uuid:ec39812d-cf8c-44b9-9d8a-76a1640420d6> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://info.biotech-calendar.com/?Tag=Texas | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368697380733/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516094300-00015-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.93384 | 184 | 2.3125 | 2 |
One of the greatest strengths of the Firefox Web browser is its powerful extension system, which gives third-party developers the ability to expand the browser's capabilities. Although this extensibility delivers a lot of value to Firefox users, it also creates some thorny problems. The darker side of Firefox add-ons was exposed last week when a conflict between the developers of the two popular extensions got out of hand. The situation has compelled Mozilla to propose a policy change aimed at curbing bad behavior in add-ons.
Firefox's extension system is really just an officially supported mechanism for monkey-patching the browser. Extensions are not isolated or sandboxed. They are broadly permitted to manipulate the browser's behavior and user interface at will and can easily tamper with the functionality of other extensions. This approach to extensibility is a double-edged sword. Although it allows developers to create extremely useful extensions that can deeply integrate with virtually any aspect of Firefox, it simultaneously opens the door for troubling security problems and compatibility issues.
Mozilla goes to great lengths to mitigate the symptoms of this problem by establishing all kinds of protective barriers that help users avoid unwanted and unsafe extensions, but little can be done to address the problem itself. Extensions still regularly break each other by accident and mess up the browser in all kinds of unintended ways. This is a well-known problem that has been explored elsewhere in detail. A more pernicious problem emerges when extensions break each other intentionally as a result of conflicting interests and ideologies.
Maone funds the development of NoScript by placing advertisements on the extension's official website and by receiving donations from end-users. In order to prevent AdBlock Plus from undermining the financial sustainability of his project, Maone modified the NoScript website and circumvented the block. Palant responded by instructing the AdBlock Plus filter list maintainer—an individual known as Ares2—to add a filter that would specifically block ads on Maone's domain. Maone found new ways to work around the filters, but Ares2 consistently retaliated by adding increasingly draconian rules to the filter list.
Eventually, Ares2 added rules that fundamentally broke the NoScript website. Maone lost patience and decided to use his own extension to fight back. He added a feature to NoScript that surreptitiously disrupted AdBlock Plus. He used encoded strings so that the hack would not be immediately discernible to other developers who inspect NoScript's internals. Users were furious that this change was made without any warning or notification. They brought the matter to the attention of Palant who responded by writing a scathing blog entry that excoriates NoScript. The blog entry attracted an enormous amount of attention and significantly increased the visibility of the conflict.
Mozilla personnel tasked with maintaining order in the add-ons ecosystem were not happy with the situation. They responded by proposing a new policy that describes some basic principles which define boundaries for appropriate extension behavior. According to the proposed policy, extensions should not arbitrarily modify user settings without proper disclosure. It says that major changes should be opt-in only and that the original settings should be fully restored when an extension is uninstalled.
Maone decided to agree to these principles and has issued an updated version of NoScript to completely revert the controversial changes. In an apologetic blog entry published on Monday, he expressed deep regret for his conduct and acknowledged that his attempt to surreptitiously disrupt AdBlock Plus with his own extension was inappropriate.
"I had this crazy idea of retaliating against EasyList 'from the inside', and in my blindness I did not grasp that I was really retaliating against my own users and the Mozilla community at large," he wrote. "I beg you to accept my most sincere apologies and believe in my shame and contrition."
Although Maone has received most of the criticism and scrutiny in this conflict, the actions taken by Ares2 are also troubling. The overzealous filter updates that were pushed to AdBlock Plus users made it impossible for them to download the NoScript extension from the NoScript website. That looks like a breach of user trust that is at least as egregious as what Maone did.
The conflict is over, but it raises a lot of really tough questions about the implications of the extension system and whether developers can be trusted with the level of access to the program's internals that it affords them. As always, users need to exercise caution and be mindful of how deep extensions can reach into their browsing experience. | <urn:uuid:9888b9af-fd92-4cf3-bb89-fd4883c0aaf5> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://arstechnica.com/information-technology/2009/05/mozilla-ponders-policy-change-after-firefox-extension-battle/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368705953421/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516120553-00001-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.957033 | 912 | 2.1875 | 2 |
POSTED ON DECEMBER 19, 2012:
Why voices of dissent may save the scene
Despite the recent recession, Tulsa has maintained enough affluence not only to fund massive overhauls of once derelict neighborhoods, but also has found room enough in its pockets to give the arts a boost.
Not all art is flourishing in Tulsa though. According to some entrenched in the industry, Tulsa music has stagnated. Despite Tulsa's commitment to music and the arts, why would some say that city's music has ceased to diversify and flourish?
In general, there are four areas which must be scrutinized when delving deeper into Tulsa's music: the fans, the bands, the venues, and the publicity.
A veteran of Tulsa music, Anthony "PDA" Jenkins has witnessed the scene both as an audience member and an artist, both experiences existing in stark contrast to one another.
"I started performing when I was around 19," Jenkins said. "I didn't know much about the music scene at that age. I didn't even know there was a such thing as local bands because I never went out to see shows unless it was a bigger act like Kottonmouth Kings or Bone Thugs or events like Edgefest and Birthday Bash."
Awareness of local music is indeed half the battle according to Gary "Turbo" Webb, host of RSU Radio's Metal Meltdown.
"I keep reiterating this to bands: they need to get merchandise, make hand fliers, make posters. They need to street team and DIY the hell out of promotion. You can't rely on the promoters to make the show successful. You have to take the ball into your own court," Webb said.
The promotional aspect of local music may be in the hands of the artists, but the availability of space in which to perform is an essential aspect of the equation beyond their control.
In the last year alone, downtown Tulsa has seen the Guthrie Green and the Henry Zarrow Center for Arts and Education built in record time. Another development that has contributed to Tulsa's local music is the renovation of The Marquis and its reopening as the Vanguard.
More venues can make a world of difference in the scene, as it is up to each establishment's discretion to decide who they allow to play.
Local metal artists initially had a difficult time getting booked at the Vanguard, but in the interest of profit the venue now has no such prohibitions, according to Justin Espinales of Two Minutes Hate.
This example serves to highlight the important role economics plays in the fashioning of a music scene, as it is not only the taste of those funding the construction of new venues but the complex interactions of musical cliques that determine who plays where and why.
As guitarist for punk band The Brave Boys and drummer for garage rock project The Levitators, Cameron Clouser has witnessed the ins and outs of pitching your band to a prospective venue.
"I know people who can play anywhere and are totally acknowledged as being some of the best players in Tulsa," Clouser said. "Yet maybe the best bar doesn't want them because it isn't their cup of tea. Venues and bars can be very opinionated. To them it's just business. At times politics have been known to play key roles in who gets to play where."
Unlike other art forms flourishing in the Tulsa area, such as independent film helped greatly by the Circle Cinema, and the local performance and visual arts supported by the Tulsa Artists Coalition and Living Arts of Tulsa, the primary support local music has is a local following.
This aspect of music is a void often filled by youth, Jenkins explained.
"Any smart musician will tell you that they want to play for the youth. Once you have a young fan, you have a fan forever. No smart musician every underestimates the power of the youth," he said. "We try to control the power."
A vibrant music scene is essential to both the cultural and socioeconomic foundations of a community, and T-Town has had many incarnations in its lifetime as a city. It can often be difficult to nail down the crucial point upon which musical success hinges, and even more difficult to define its stumbling blocks.
Some such as Webb see the partisan approach to local music as one such obstacle.
"Fans really need to stop being so elitist about music and stop being afraid to experience something new and different," he said.
Further highlighting the ebb and flow of popular music, Jenkins believes that a resurgence for local bands is in the cards for Tulsa.
"After this DJ/club trend is over, you will see more kids picking up guitars and starting up bands and maybe a new music scene will emerge," he said.
With enough new construction and older venues available, it is musicians who bear the weight of business and promotion, and the population of T-Town who bear the weight, in significant part, of the success or failure of their city's music.
"Whatever brings in thirsty customers or is good, that's what they will keep," Clouser said.
The hard-line, business oriented nature of the auditory arts is a sobering reality. It is important to grasp the transient nature of live music and cast it in contrast to a more stable reality, evaluating comparatively the importance of community involvement.
"You have to get up off the couch and get to a live show," Webb said. "Facebook and the television will be there when you get home."
Send all comments and feedback regarding Music to [email protected].
URL for this story: http://www.urbantulsa.comhttp://www.urbantulsa.com/gyrobase/Content?oid=oid%3A55381 | <urn:uuid:7837db61-5694-4b9f-8f45-5855ae0a5fda> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.urbantulsa.com/gyrobase/PrintFriendly?oid=oid%3A55381 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368699881956/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516102441-00071-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.973355 | 1,182 | 1.664063 | 2 |
Here's a new way to try to get your kids to eat their broccoli: Wrap it in the golden arches packaging of McDonald's (NYSE: MCD ) . Very funny, you might be thinking. Har, har. Well, wait a second -- this wasn't a silly suggestion I just made up. It's based on the results of a recently reported study.
Researchers presented several dozen children with a taste test, offering them various foods such as carrots, milk, and apple juice in both unmarked and McDonald's-branded wrappers. As you might expect, the McDonald's-branded foods received uniformly higher marks.
Think about what this means. It shows how powerful brands can be in our minds. A mere brand label can affect how we perceive something. According to the study, the children's perception of taste was "physically altered by the branding."
Keep this study in mind the next time you consider a purchase. If you find your eyes drawn to a Lexus, ask yourself whether it's really a better car for you than, say, a Toyota. Both car brands come from the same company, Toyota. But one might be trading more than the other on its brand value.
Marketing to kids
Also at issue here is how powerfully food and drink companies can attract young eaters and imbibers via their brands and advertising. If you find yourself worried about this, take some comfort in the fact that 11 leading food and drink companies recently announced new, self-imposed restrictions on marketing to children under age 12. Coincidentally (wink, wink), that announcement was made shortly before the Federal Trade Commission met to discuss limits on marketing food and drinks to children.
Makers of a variety of products have agreed to these restrictions. Beverage companies Coca-Cola (NYSE: KO ) and PepsiCo (NYSE: PEP ) will participate, as will cereal maker General Mills (NYSE: GIS ) , candy company Hershey (NYSE: HSY ) . Campbell Soup (NYSE: CPB ) and Unilever (NYSE: UN ) are also part of the agreement. Their plans include offering more healthful fare to youngsters and reining in the use of cartoon characters to sell unhealthful products, while employing them to promote more nutritious foods.
Here are some other Fool articles that focus on the power of branding:
If you'd like to invest in companies with powerful brands, check out our Motley Fool Stock Advisor newsletter (you can try it for free). In it, Fool co-founders David and Tom Gardner recommend several impressive companies each month. For help in discovering some of tomorrow's big brands, consider test-driving (for free) our Rule Breakers newsletter.
Longtime Fool contributor Selena Maranjian owns shares of Coca-Cola, PepsiCo, and McDonald's. She was surprised to learn recently that lions have oily fur. Coca-Cola is a Motley Fool Inside Value recommendation. Try any of our investing services free for 30 days. The Motley Fool is Fools writing for Fools. | <urn:uuid:b0dac291-9f24-4f7c-9c3c-84bb5d633b4e> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.fool.com/personal-finance/general/2007/08/22/the-power-of-branding.aspx | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368705953421/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516120553-00014-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.961568 | 624 | 2.046875 | 2 |
Written on the DNA of many a gamer, especially those who are now married and with families of their own, is a bright red logo: Nintendo. Regardless of the Atari's place in the world at the time, it was the original Nintendo Entertainment System that truly made gaming a viable industry and home hobby. Fast forward 30 years, after countless Super Mario Bros. adventures, and Hyrule dungeons, and you arrive to the modern age of gaming.
The post-2000s have been somewhat rocky for the Big N. The Gamecube was a mild success at best, and the Wii remains something of an anomaly; a gaming system that was embraced by everyone, including those who’d never played a game in their life. Even now I recall stories about retirement homes purchasing Wiis to entertain their residents. The popularity of the DS and the 3DS may have indeed helped Nintendo quite a bit, but the fact remains that a lot is riding on the Wii U.
For all its sales figures, the failures of the Wii were many. A victim of its own hype, many saw the motion controls as a clear sign of innovation, and the next 'big thing' in gaming. But it took the eventual release of an additional peripheral – the Wii Motion Plus - to get the system to where many all thought it would be right out of the gate. And by then the gaming community had largely moved on, and looked to industry giants Sony and Microsoft for fresh takes on motion controls.
Now, no launch is perfect; there are the expected rushed titles and ports that are hardly able to drive sales forward. But amidst its lackluster start, there are signs that Nintendo has indeed learned from past mistakes.
For starters, the Nintendo Wii U has met our expectations in terms of what it can do. Admittedly the secondary screen in the controller is less of a gamble than motion controls, but Nintendo is attempting just as much of a paradigm shift in what to expect from a gameplay experience. Personally, I’m looking forward to some of the bizarre mini-games that will be featured in the inevitable Mario Party game. Having one or two separate, private screens will allow them to leverage unusual control schemes and asynchronous setups that are fairly uncommon in modern gaming. Some of the ports show what can be added to more traditional styles of games; incorporating various hot keys, mini maps and menu options to the lower screen, allowing for a less cluttered HUD and more screen space for the actual gameplay. Some games are trying to use it to add tension; Zombie U doesn’t pause gameplay while you’re rummaging through your inventory on the game pad, simulating the real-life experience of digging through a bag while danger looms all around you. The upcoming Wii U version of Aliens: Colonial Marines will do a similar thing, turning the second screen into the iconic motion tracker.
A big concern with consoles from the buyer’s perspective is always “what can I play?” Wii owners were confronted with relatively slim pickings. A few ports of older games weren’t enough to pull the ‘hardcore’ crowd in and the few new games weren’t advertised or marketed well enough to take off. This time marketing went in strong from the start; if nothing else, Zombie U was heavily advertised. Backed up by some of the strongest titles to release this year they’re putting a lot out for gamers to play while they wait for the next round of quality titles.
Ultimately, the smartest decision Nintendo made with the Wii U was to scale back a little on their ambitions. Innovation is undoubtedly a key to success as most industries show, but you need the right innovation at the right time. The success of the Wii is down to timing rather than the quality of the technology. If it wasn’t for the console becoming a highly desired item amongst the masses, it may have been a serious blow to Nintendo. While gamers were extremely excited, the system was left to gather dust on shelves with the exception of first party titles. Much of this comes down to just how much they hoped to accomplish with the motion controls. Even with the addition of the nunchuck, there were an extremely limited number of control schemes.
To be fair, even on a standard dual-analog controller there are only so many possible interface setups, but a single analog stick and six buttons sharply limited their possibilities. Nintendo has remedied this with the gamepad and the pro controller; double analog sticks along with multiple buttons and the endless customizability of the touch screen interface make it a console that can handle any type of game. There is of course the question of processing power; it may be that simple ports may not be possible once the next generation of Microsoft and Sony consoles are released, but with those releases being a year off or more, there’s plenty of time for the Wii U to start amassing its own fanbase.
If there are significant missteps, the Wii U could turn out to be another albatross, but so far Nintendo has taken some solid steps in both design and execution. It may come down at this point to the self-identifying ‘hardcore gamer’ crowd and whether or not they’re willing to give the system an honest try, rather than assuming it’s going to be more of the same. | <urn:uuid:aacddf58-896c-4c1b-9960-d63d8f7030eb> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.gamesabyss.com/wii-u-what-nintendo-got-right/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368697974692/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516095254-00038-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.961591 | 1,091 | 1.53125 | 2 |
As numerous problems arose between landowner/lessors and the oil and gas companies in the development of the Hugoton Gas Fields in the 1930's and 1940's, A. E. "Gus" Kramer, a practicing lawyer of Hugoton (now deceased), and longtime Stevens County resident, recognized the need for an organization to protect the rights of landowners in the Field.
In late 1947 and early 1948, Kramer arranged for meetings with landowners in the the nine southwest Kansas counties then encompassing the Hugoton Field. Following those meetings and a meeting in Hugoton with all of the 27 county commissioners of the nine southwest Kansas counties, (the original nine counties included: Finney, Grant, Hamilton, Haskell, Kearny, Morton, Seward, Stanton & Stevens. Greely County was added in1982.) a group of landowners formed a nonprofit corporation designed as the Southwest Kansas Royalty Owners Association.
Articles of Incorporation were filed in February, 1948, with the Kansas Secretary of State. The stated purpose of the corporation is "to foster, protect and further in all proper respects the rights and interests of the mineral owners."
The following persons, all highly respected farmers or business leaders in Southwest Kansas, were the SWKROA incorporators: A. E. Kramer, Harry L. Lightcap, and John Persinger of Hugoton, Stanley Julian of Johnson, Fred Shore of Big Bow, I.C. Wiatt and Cecil Tate of Lakin, Frank G. Boles and Oliver S. Brown of Liberal, Claude F. Wright and F. S. Williams of Garden City, L. O. Stanley and John C. Jones of Satanta, R. H. Joyce and Dan C. Sullivan of Ulysses, A. W. DesMarteau of Syracuse, Neil Bishop of Kendall, and Delmas Littell and Howard Drew of Rolla, Kansas. All of the SWKROA incorporators are deceased with the exception of Oliver S. Brown formerly of Liberal, now residing in Amarillo.
Activities and Achievements
SWKROA is the strongest landowner organization in Kansas and one of the most successful mineral owner groups in the United States. SWKROA is totally devoted to representing mineral and royalty owner rights by the oil and gas industry, the Kansas legislature, and the news media as the authority on subjects dealing with mineral owners.
SWKROA is a nonprofit membership corporation existing under the laws of the State of Kansas and is recognized by the Internal Revenue Service as a business league. Members of the Association are owners of mineral interests and of royalty payable to them as oil and gas lessors. The purpose of the Association is to promote the common business interests of such members.
SWKROA members are kept informed of matters of general interest and concern to mineral owners through timely newsletters and special bulletins throughout the year. The Executive Secretary's office is also available to respond to inquiries of SWKROA members, either by telephone or by correspondence.
The Association has established guidelines for payment of compensation for pipeline easements and for wellsite damages. It also has available for its members pipeline easement and seismograph permit forms, the terms of which are generally accepted by the oil and gas companies operating in the Hugoton Fields.
Shortly following its formation in 1948, the Association filed proceedings with the Kansas Corporation Commission requesting the Commission to establish a uniform minimum price at which gas may be taken in the Hugoton Field as a conservation measure. As a result of the proceedings, the Commission established a minimum wellhead price for natural gas at 8 cents per Mcf, followed by a subsequent order which established a minimum price of 11 cents per Mcf. The KCC order was later struck down by the United State Supreme Court in 1958, but by that time, most of the gas producers in the Hugoton Field had adjusted their prices upward, benefiting all royalty owners in the Field through higher royalty prices.
The Association successfully opposed a state severance tax for 35 years, thus saving royalty owners millions of dollars in taxes. SWKROA was the first mineral owners organization in the United States to fight the windfall profit tax placed on royalty owners on oil production.
The Association actively participated in the support of infill drilling in the Hugoton Field in proceedings had before the Kansas Corporation Commission in 1986. The KCC issued an order permitting the drilling of infill wells (second wells) in the shallow Hugoton pay formation. The courts affirmed the KCC's right to make such an order. There are presently over 5,600 gas wells in the Hugoton Field including 1,400 infill wells.
During the natural gas shortage in the mid-1970's, the Federal Power Commission (FPC) (predecessor to the Federal Energy Commission (FERC) issued a curtailment order and classified natural gas used for irrigation as an industrial use, thus placing its use on an interruptible basis. Shortly after issuance of the order, SWKROA protested such action to the President, all Congressional members, and governors of the states located within the affected area. The Association also alerted its member irrigation gas users and irrigation associations in Kansas, Oklahoma and Texas about the problem. Through their concerted efforts, the FPC changed its order, thus protecting irrigation gas users from any interruptible service.
In 1977, SWKROA officials learned that producers selling gas in the Hugoton Field in interstate commerce were passing on their share of local ad valorem taxes to their pipeline purchases and in turn to the consumers but were not seeking reimbursement for such taxes on behalf of their royalty owners. The Association successfully applied pressure on the producers to seek such reimbursement for royalty owners. This action resulted in a benefit of almost four million dollars each year for the royalty owners, for a total tax savings of over 40 million dollars over a 11-year period.
Recognizing the need for exploration and development of the nonproducing deeper zones underlying the Hugoton Field, the Association approached the Kansas Legislature, beginning in 1976 to secure the passage of a "deep horizons" bill confirming the implied covenants required of the lessee under an oil and gas lease to reasonably explore and develop nonproducing zones. Through efforts of the Association, the bill became law in 1983, putting pressure on lessees operating in the Hugoton Field to explore and develop the deeper zones underlying the field.
In 1991, the Association was successful in its efforts to obtain passage by the Kansas Legislature of a bill requiring payment of interest on royalties held in suspense and a bill providing a security lien for royalty owners in the event of bankruptcy by a producer or oil or gas purchaser.
In the 1992 Kansas legislative session, the Association valiantly fought against the statewide school tax levy on the grounds of loss of local control and the already heavy tax burden on royalty owners and producers operating in the Hugoton Field. SWKROA is presently participating in hearings pending before the Kansas Corporation Commission to determine the need, if any, to change the Basic Proration Order of the Hugoton Field.
In 1997, the Association successively lobbied for a bill referred to as the "Truth in Royalty" bill. The bill specifies information to be included with royalty remittance statements. The bill further requires the payor upon request, to submit to the interest owner a listing and explanation of the amount and purpose of other deductions or adjustments. The information sought to be obtained would have to be requested by certified mail and the company must respond in writing within 60days of receipt of the request.
Also in 1997, the Association in conjunction with irrigators and a coalition of independent producers fought valiently to achieve "price transparency" on the rates charged for the gathering of natural gas in Kansas.
Board of Directors | <urn:uuid:28d6e373-a011-40f9-adde-298957e90a61> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.swkroa.com/aboutus.htm | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368709037764/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516125717-00075-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.944552 | 1,576 | 1.671875 | 2 |
Category: Social Video
An in-depth look at how Google+ Hangouts and Hangouts On Air have evolved from a closed experience to livestreaming to creating a mobile network. The class will focus on people who already have a moderate level of understanding with Google+ & Hangouts to take the discussion in a more detailed and forward-looking direction.
Learn how Google+ Hangouts are being used by media around the world and how to take the experience to another level of interaction and engagement. Topics include mobile, broadcast integration, audience development, content/workflow recommendations and ideal technical specifications.
Will be of appeal to media, marketers, analysts, and many others across verticals who are looking to engage an online audience through video.
What you’ll walk away with:
Students will gain a deeper understanding of how to produce a successful Hangout, ideal ways to focus on content/participants, production values, mobile features, audience engagement across Google properties, and insights from previous hosts of Google+ Hangouts that worked in places all over the world.
Class Format: The class will showcase plenty of high-profile and successful examples of Google+ Hangouts and insights into how they made it happen. In addition, we’ll generate a Hangout during the class and get folks demonstrating the latest features in real time.
- Online demos, examples
- Pro tips on production and quality
- Real-time showcase of best practices to involve audience
- Q&A at the end
Prerequisites: Understanding of Google+ and Hangouts will be beneficial to quickly advance the conversation. Participants are encouraged to bring mobile devices to participate in live Hangouts and therefore should already have a Google+ Profile.
Project Prompt: Producing the ideal Hangout and engaging your audience. Students should come armed with questions about Google+ Hangouts, their own examples/questions, and an interest in amping up production. There will also be some coverage on analytics and connections to the YouTube world.
Daniel Sieberg is Google’s head of media outreach across services like Google+, Google Earth/Maps, Google Trends and more. He is also Google spokesperson on a variety of products and initiatives. Dating back to 2000, the Emmy-nominated Sieberg was previously a tech contributor at ABC News and MSNBC, the CBS News science and technology correspondent, and the technology correspondent for CNN. His written work has appeared in several publications including Time, Salon and Details. He started his journalism career as a daily reporter at the Vancouver Sun covering tech/business/civics in 1998.
His first book titled, The Digital Diet: the four-step plan to break your tech addiction and regain balance in your life, was published in May 2011 with additional printings in the UK, Japan and Korea. It’s about nurturing a healthy relationship with technology.
Sieberg has a bachelor’s degree in writing/communications (UVic, ’98) and master’s degree in journalism with a focus in technology (UBC, ’00). He lives in New York City with his wife and daughter. | <urn:uuid:73fcbcc9-a4a4-405d-8dd4-e351a228a6e9> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://socialmediaweek.org/newyork/events/?id=65135 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368702448584/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516110728-00010-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.929338 | 635 | 2.15625 | 2 |
Vicki Myron, author of the best-seller Dewey: The Small-Town Library Cat Who Touched the World (Grand Central, $19.99), didn't plan on getting a new pet right away, but a little orange and white tabby changed her mind. "I fell in love instantly," Myron says of the kitten that was found by the side of a road. Myron, who retired after 20 years as director of the Spencer Public Library in Iowa, has named the kitten Page.
Just in time for Christmas, Karl Marx is finding a new audience among Japanese comic book fans.
The manga edition of his masterpiece, Das Kapital, hit Japanese bookstores this month and sold about 6,000 copies in its first few days, said Yusuke Maruo of EastPress Co.
"I think people are looking to Marx for answers to the problems with the capitalist society," Maruo said. "Obviously, the recent global crisis suggests that the system isn't working properly."
Maruo said he hoped the comic version would provide an enjoyable introduction to the German socialist's original work, written in 1867. The targeted readers are office workers in their 30s. Christmas and New Years are a prime time for publishers, as many people have vacations and more time to read.
The cover sheet of a manga edition of Karl Marx's Das Kapital (AP)
The fictionalized Vol. 1 of Das Kapital chronicles a cheese factory run by protagonist Robin, who rebels against his father's socialist principles and becomes a slave driver after teaming up with a cold-blooded capitalist investor. But Robin struggles between his capitalist ambitions and his sense of guilt over the exploitation of his workers.
Maruo said the comic Das Kapital had been planned earlier this year after a revival hit of the 1929 communist novel The Crab Factory Ship, which portrays a ship's crew forced into harsh labor under a sadistic captain.
The book is being translated into English, Korean and Chinese for its upcoming manga debut in the U.S., Asia and Europe. Comic editions of the subsequent volumes are also under way.
Manga, a name used for Japanese-syle comic books, often combine complex stories with drawing styles that differ from their Western superhero counterparts, particularly in their frequent emphasis on cuteness.
It would seem that David Wroblewski is taking a cue from the film industry. After seeing such wild success with his debut novel, The Story of Edgar Sawtelle, the author plans to write a prequel. A third installment also is planned, which will make the story of the mute boy and his dog a trilogy.
Oprah declared The Story of Edgar
Sawtelle the "best novel I've read in
a long, long, long time" when she
announced it would be her book club
selection last September. (AP/Harpo
Productions, Inc., George Burns)
First there was buzz all over the industry last fall, which brought on heaps of praise from reviewers. Then Oprah laid her golden "O" on the cover when she chose it for her book club, and it's been on the best seller list ever since.
Wroblewski issued a statement through his publisher Ecco, an imprint of HarperCollins: "My fascination with the Sawtelles and the Sawtelle dogs is far from over. This new novel is a chance to look more deeply into their story, and a tremendously exciting project to me."
A host of celebrities have put out a public service announcement of sorts: "Books make great gifts" (booksmakegreatgifts.com).
The video was produced by Random House but features authors from several publishing houses. Of course, all of the celebrities involved are authors themselves and certainly could gain financially if their message is able to boost sales. That said, I happen to agree with the overall message. Books are certainly a way to get some maximum bang for you buck when it comes to entertainment in these tough economic times.
Frank McCourt says books are great because you can reach for one after making love. Jon Stewart says books are a "good way to kill time while your Web site is buffering." Deidre Imus has perhaps my favorite reason why books are great: they're like movies playing in your head.
Also featured on the video are Martha Stewart, Maya Angelou, Nora Ephron,
Julie Andrews, Dean Koontz, Mary Higgins Clark, Elmo, Kathie Lee Gifford, Christopher Paolini, Arianna Huffington, Deepak Chopra, Alec Baldwin, Judy Blume, Rachael Ray and many others.
Kids everywhere will be rejoicing this holiday season -- J.K. Rowling's long-awaited The Tales of Beedle the Bard is finally on store shelves. Parents will rejoice, too. The standard copy costs a mere $12.99.
The book -- a collection of five fables mentioned in Rowling's Harry Potter series of books -- launched in 20 countries with a global print run of about 8 million. (I did not get a copy in the book room, but then again, Rowling doesn't really need the help of newspaper reviews to make sales.)
The author celebrated by attending a tea party with 200 schoolchildren in Edinburgh, Scotland, where she lives.
Author JK Rowling reads passages from her new
book to schoolchildren at a tea party in the
Parliament Hall Edinburgh. (David Cheskin/AP)
"We expect it to come straight in at No. 1 and is very likely to be our No. 1 book this Christmas," Jon Howells of Britain's Waterstone's book store chain told the Associated Press. "It's in with a fighting chance of being the best-selling book of the year, even though there are only a few weeks to go.
"This is J.K. Rowling. None of the usual rules apply."
Rowling is donating her royalties to the Children's High Level Group, which helps institutionalized children in Eastern Europe.
Often I get books sent to me that I glance at and say, "Who is the audience for this book?" or "Who would buy this?" I almost said that about The Order of Things: Hierarchies, Structures, and Pecking Orders (Workman Publishing, 615 pages, $9.95) by Barbara Ann Kipfer. But I had to stop myself.
This little stocking-stuffer -- it measures 4-by-6 inches and is an inch and a half thick -- is full of great information for people in my profession (editors and writers), so I intend to leave it on my desk, next to my dictionary. But I may go out and buy a few more -- one for my 11-year-old nephew, perhaps, who loves lists. He'll have a field day, learning not only the names of the British monarchy, in order, but also the rulers of many other countries. Plus, he can learn about Braille, sign language and Morse code.
It'll also tell you what birthstone corresponds with each month; the order of winning poker hands; military rankings, tornado and hurricane scales and much more.
A random opening of the book shows me a diagram of how a proper place setting should look, plus a dozen different types of glassware. Another random opening gives me the Twelve Days of Christmas, in order. I'd like to say that I shall never mix up days 9-12 again, but alas, the entry implies that days 10 and 12 are interchangeable. No wonder I get confused. So, it's either 12 drummers drumming and 10 lords a leaping; or vice-versa. | <urn:uuid:2765040c-4a80-4a9c-81b8-ce9f0e3d33f3> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://blogs.suntimes.com/bookroom/2008/12/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368700264179/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516103104-00052-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.962668 | 1,583 | 1.578125 | 2 |
The first bird was a small alternate-plumaged Dunlin that immediately caught my eye. Especially after having just seen a couple of typical hudsonia Dunlin, this bird’s small size and short bill were striking. In addition to the size and structure, a few other things stood out as well. It’s scapulars seemed to lack any trace of red. Instead they showed a golden-buff. The bird’s face was also decidedly brownish and not very pale, and the upper breast was very heavily streaked, nearly all the way down to the upper border of the black belly patch. It had a dark-headed and dark-breasted look…obviously darker than your typical hudsonia.
I caught up with a group of birders and got them on the Dunlin, which we watched for quite some time. One of them mentioned that the bird almost had a Least Sandpiper feel/giss to it, which I thought was an interesting observation. This sort of impression was likely due to the bird’s small size, short down-curved bill, short-ish legs, and brownish upperparts/head/upper breast.
I’m having some trouble finding in-depth coverage of separation of the Old World Dunlin subspecies, but this bird seems to match C. a. arctica in many respects. I have zero experience with arctica and schinzii, so any comments from experienced observers would be especially welcome.
Interestingly, a small-billed Dunlin has been seen for three summers now at South Beach. In 2006 Blair Nikula photographed a first-summer bird, photos HERE.
Last summer, Marshall Iliff found an alternate-plumaged arctica Dunlin here. Could this be the same bird 3 years in a row?
Here are some photos including a couple showing size comparison. It appeared to be the same size as Sanderling in the field, and this shows up in the photos as well. The images have not been altered in any way other than being cropped (no sharpening, no color alterations, etc). Click them for larger views.
The other interesting bird was one of the two presumed hybrids photographed by Cameron Cox, Blair Nikula and others over the past two summers. There has been a rash of sightings of similar birds in the eastern US recently, proposed as potential White-rumpedXDunlin hybrids.
I snapped some photos of that bird, which are posted below. I cannot currently offer a better suggestion than probable White-rumpedXDunlin, but the complete lack of a black belly patch in all of these similar eastern US birds makes me scratch my head a bit. In flight, the uppertail showed a diffuse line up its center, as if intermediate between White-rumped Sandpiper and a dark-rumped bird.
HERE is a link to Blair’s fantastic set of images from earlier this summer. | <urn:uuid:4d977db8-ea67-4004-83cd-b495cf9e7446> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.shorebirder.com/2008_08_01_archive.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368705953421/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516120553-00006-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.970501 | 616 | 1.953125 | 2 |
Mar 08 Reblogged
The cochlea, pictured super-magnified, is a spiralling tunnel that leads deep inside our ear. It acts as a funnel, feeding sound from the outside world through a ‘lawn’ of sensory hair cells which line the organ of corti, highlighted here in red. As noise floods in, the sensory hairs wave around, opening up electrical channels that take speedy messages to the brain. Our auditory hair cells are intricate and fragile, making them prone to damage by diseases and infections. The World Health Organization (WHO), promoting today as International Day for Ear and Hearing, supports immunization schemes worldwide in efforts to prevent hearing loss. They also advise on safety for people with noisy jobs – after all, constant exposure to loud noises can rip out our sensitive ear hair cells. Such damage is irreparable; we are born with just 30,000 of these precious hairs and once they’re gone, they’re gone for good.
Written by John Ankers
Ahh, Golden spiral, nice of you to drop by again.
Feb 25 Reblogged
Spiral Jetty & Great Salt Lake
As shown above, nature and art merge on the remote northern shores of Utah’s Great Salt Lake. Forty years ago the groundbreaking landscape artist Robert Smithson created his masterwork, “Spiral Jetty,” at Rozel Point, about 15 mi (24 km) from where America’s first Transcontinental Railroad was completed with a Golden Spike ceremony in 1869.
Photography & Summary: Ray Boren
May 11 Reblogged
how the ear processes sound | <urn:uuid:a6565292-5ef6-4e9d-81c6-586b31f04d4b> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://exogenerian.tumblr.com/tagged/cochlea | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368706890813/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516122130-00026-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.927649 | 340 | 3.15625 | 3 |
Drill #3 in Level 2 of my How to Play Table Tennis series continues to use alternate backhand and forehand strokes but now incorporates a slightly more advanced movement pattern, with forehand being played both from the middle of the table and the wide forehand.
I love this drill because it keeps you constantly moving and on your toes, allows you to naturally cover the whole table (as you would in a game) and teaches the importance of getting your forehand in on any balls to the middle of the table. Personally, I think this is a great warm-up drill for advanced players to use either at the beginning of a practice session or as a knock-up at a tournament.
Today’s drill is the popular backhand, middle, backhand, wide.
The aim of the drill is to continue developing your side-step quick movement, making large and small adjustments with your feet to ensure you are in the correct position to play your shots, and to develop your ability to quickly switch between backhand and forehand strokes keeping the quality of your technique.
Today’s drill really builds on ‘2 Backhands, 2 Forehands‘ drill covered in Level 2.1. We’ll be cutting down the number of strokes played on each wing from two to one and that’ll means you’ll need to be much better at your side-step movement. If you movement isn’t up to scratch you’ll very quickly end up one step behind the ball and struggling to keep up with the rally.
If you’ve stumbled across this page by chance then let me briefly explain what’s going on. Today’s drill is part of my ‘How to Play Table Tennis‘ series, a step-by-step guide that will take you all the way from a complete beginner to a competent allround player. You might like to head over to that page and start from the beginning if you’re new to table tennis.
Back to today’s drill which is; one backhand and one forehand.
The aim of this drill is again to get you comfortable moving from side to side and making quick changes between your backhand and forehand strokes. We are also trying to improve our feeling and control of the ball.
Hello and welcome to the first lesson of Level 2 from my How to Play Table Tennis series.
You should now be able to play 100 forehand drives, 100 backhand drives, 100 forehand pushes and 100 backhand pushes with correct technique and without a mistake. You should also have an understanding and application of the correct table tennis grip and stance (that was all covered in level one).
Level 2 is all about regular movement drills. We’ll be combining the shots we learnt during level one with the side-step footwork to be able to cover the whole table.
Today’s drill is a simple one; two backhands and two forehands.
The aim of this drill is to become comfortable moving side-to-side and switching between backhand and forehand drive. We will play two shots before moving so that we have move time to get ourselves into the correct position and are less likely to end up one step behind the ball.
A very short post today… I was recently sent a free pair of table tennis cufflinks by online retailer TiesPlanet.com. I guess that’s a “perk of the blog”.
I wouldn’t normally dedicate a post to something like this and I don’t want Expert Table Tennis to become a blog full of product recommendations and the like but after opening the package I found that I really liked the cufflinks! They look smart (rather than tacky) and would definitely act as a good conversation starter.
Some of you may know that I’m getting married in July (if you didn’t, you do now) and I might even try and get away with wearing them on the big day.
If you would like to check out the cufflinks in more detail then head over to TiesPlanet.com, where they can be bought for just £9.99.
Normal blog service will be resumed tomorrow as I begin to tackle Level 2 (regular movement) in my How to Play Table Tennis series.
See you tomorrow!
My most popular post to date has been The Best Table Tennis Bat for Beginners, one of the first posts I wrote for the site. Every week I receive several comments and messages from players asking for advice regarding which bat to buy and I have seen a particular need in India.
It seems that good table tennis bats are hard to find in India (at least online) and therefore a lot of players are having to play with the cheap dead bats, produced by the big brands, and their games are suffering. I have spent a good amount of time searching through the various online retailers and hand-picked a couple of recommendations for my friends in India.
Before you buy a bat (in India or anywhere else) I strongly recommend you read my post The Best Table Tennis Bat for Beginners. I cover what not to buy in great detail and after reading that you should be well informed as to the types of things you should be looking for when buying a table tennis bat.
The bats I have chosen are available on Flipkart which seems to be a well-known and professional outfit in India (something similar to Amazon in the UK and US). | <urn:uuid:7a4c4da8-1781-46a7-8fc5-255c804d30b9> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.experttabletennis.com/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368707435344/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516123035-00009-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.962555 | 1,132 | 1.851563 | 2 |
PHILADELPHIA – A new study conducted at the Jefferson Headache Center at Thomas Jefferson University Hospital in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania shows an investigational, orally-inhaled therapy is effective in treating migraines. The multi-center, phase three FREEDOM-301 trial for the orally-inhaled migraine therapy, LEVADEX™, shows study participants had significant relief from symptoms such as pain, nausea and light and sound sensitivity when compared to placebo treatment. According to trial results, this therapy provided pain relief in 30 minutes and sustained relief for 48 hours after dosing in patients with moderate or severe migraine attacks. The drug was generally very well tolerated and there were no drug-related, serious adverse events reported.
According to the American Headache Society (AHS), migraine is a common, debilitating neurological disorder that affects approximately 30 million people in the United States. The AHS also states that most migraines last between four and 24 hours, but some may last as long as three days. Common associated symptoms of migraine include nausea, vomiting, photophobia (sensitivity to light) and phonophobia (sensitivity to sound).
"The major advantage of LEVADEX is that it has the efficacy of intravenous DHE (dihydroergotamine) with a side-effect profile similar to placebo and better than oral triptans," said Stephen Silberstein, M.D., F.A.C.P, a clinical study investigator, director of the Jefferson Headache Center, and professor in the Department of Neurology at Jefferson Medical College of Thomas Jefferson University.
About the FREEDOM-301 Study
FREEDOM-301 is a multi-center, randomized, double-blind, placebo-controlled Phase 3 trial designed to evaluate the safety and efficacy of LEVADEX as a potential treatment for acute migraine. Primary efficacy measures include pain relief, and being free from phonophobia, photophobia and nausea at two hours after dosing. Patients enrolled in the trial were evaluated for the treatment of a single moderate or severe migraine attack and then were given the option to continue in an open label, long-term safety study. This safety study is targeting 300 patients for six months and 150 patients for 12 months, and over 500 patients are continuing in this arm of the trial. FREEDOM-301, the first Phase 3 study of LEVADEX therapy, was conducted pursuant to a Special Protocol Assessment with the U.S. Food and Drug Administration. The FREEDOM-301 trial is sponsored by MAP Pharmaceuticals, Inc.
LEVADEX orally inhaled migraine therapy is a novel migraine therapy in Phase 3 development. Patients administer LEVADEX themselves using MAP Pharmaceuticals' proprietary TEMPO® inhaler. LEVADEX has been designed to be differentiated from existing migraine treatments. It is a novel formulation of dihydroergotamine (DHE), a drug used intravenously in clinical settings for many years to effectively and safely treat migraines. Based on clinical results, MAP Pharmaceuticals believes that LEVADEX has the potential to provide both fast onset of action and sustained pain relief and other migraine symptom relief in an easy-to-use and non-invasive at-home therapy.
Based on research to date, including the FREEDOM-301 trial, MAP Pharmaceuticals believes the unique pharmacokinetic profile of LEVADEX has the potential to effectively treat migraines, while minimizing the side effects commonly seen with DHE and other currently available medicines.
About the Jefferson Headache Center
The Jefferson Headache Center is one of a very few academic headache centers in the country. The Center, founded in 1982, specializes in the treatment of patients with all types of headache pain. In addition to treating patients, the Jefferson Headache Center is a teaching facility that gives trainees the highest quality of preparation so that they can make contributions to patient care and advance the level of knowledge of headache medicine. The Fellowship program prepares Fellows for a career in clinical headache practice or academic headache medicine and/or research. The Jefferson Headache Center is also deeply involved in research. The Clinical Research team is made up of the Clinical Research Manager, several Research Coordinators, and a Clinical Trials Assistant. For more information, visit http://www.jefferson.edu/headache.
Editor's Notes: LEVADEX and TEMPO are trademarks of MAP Pharmaceuticals, Inc.
Dr. Silberstein serves on the Advisory Board for MAP Pharmaceuticals.
AAAS and EurekAlert! are not responsible for the accuracy of news releases posted to EurekAlert! by contributing institutions or for the use of any information through the EurekAlert! system. | <urn:uuid:a381cb2b-1bb5-4bba-914b-bb8fe799c4c7> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.eurekalert.org/pub_releases/2009-08/tju-jhc081109.php | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368706499548/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516121459-00049-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.935797 | 973 | 1.976563 | 2 |
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© 2013 The University of Houston, 114 University Libraries, Houston, TX 77204-2000 (713) 743-1050
State of Texas | <urn:uuid:61651c32-8e4d-47ff-8fb1-17499104f6b7> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://digital.lib.uh.edu/cdm4/results.php?CISOOP1=exact&CISOFIELD1=CISOSEARCHALL&CISOROOT=/p15195coll17&CISOBOX1=group+portraits&CISOSTART=1,21 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368701459211/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516105059-00028-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.952982 | 965 | 2.5625 | 3 |
It was August 1998, and Washington was embroiled in President Clinton’s adultery scandals. Chuck Hagel, though, had his eye on the next president. So he asked George W. Bush if he could meet with him at the governor’s mansion in Austin, Texas. Karl Rove, then a top adviser to the governor, says he remembers Hagel flying to Austin after Rove politely tried to dissuade him from the trip because the governor’s schedule was crowded.
Hagel flew to Austin anyway. In a meeting with Bush, Rove says, the freshman Nebraska senator gave the governor his personal endorsement for the 2000 election cycle. Bush said he appreciated the senator’s endorsement, but asked him to keep it quiet for the time being, according to Rove, because the governor had not yet announced he was running. After the meeting, Hagel flew to Omaha and told a group of agricultural executives that he was urging Bush to run. The story was covered in the Aug. 10 edition of the Omaha World-Herald, and Hagel briefly became one of the first major politicians to endorse George W. Bush for the presidency.
But the Hagel endorsement didn’t last long. A few months later, when fellow Vietnam War veteran Sen. John McCain announced his own run for the presidency, Hagel gave his endorsement to McCain. “He wanted to be a big guy and talk to the paper,” Rove said. “Then when McCain became a credible candidate he just flipped. That’s Hagel: mercurial, focused on doing it his way.”
For Hagel’s supporters, the former senator’s willingness to change his mind is praised as independent thinking. But for many Republicans today, this quality makes him something of a turncoat. And while Hagel has been attacked for his views on Iran and Israel, it may end up being the former senator’s “mercurial” temperament that will turn Obama’s nomination of a Republican to head the Pentagon into a full-on battle with the party of Lincoln.
Already a number of conservative groups and Republican lawmakers have spoken out against him. The Republican National Committee has come out against Hagel, as have conservative talk-radio hosts, evangelical Christian groups, and right-leaning pro-Israel groups.
It may end up being the former senator’s “mercurial” temperament that will turn Obama’s nomination of a Republican into a full-on battle with the party of Lincoln.
There are 45 Republicans in the Senate, and it would take 41 senators to prevent a floor vote on Hagel under current filibuster rules. While activists and staffers opposed to Hagel’s nomination say they hope to persuade Democrats and Republicans to oppose Obama’s nominee, no Democrat has yet said he or she will vote against Hagel, while three Republicans have pledged a no vote.
On Tuesday, the man Hagel endorsed in 2000, John McCain, expressed his concerns about Hagel in an interview on CNN. “I’ve noticed over the years that our views on the United States of America and what we should be doing in the world have diverged,” he said.
Indeed they have. Back in 2000, when Hagel was on the stump for McCain at a meeting with Arab-Americans in Michigan, Hagel offended the group when he referred to the Lebanese political party and paramilitary organization Hezbollah as a “terrorist organization.” A write-up of the event in the Washington Report on Middle East Affairs said, “While all attendees were clearly put off by the senator’s comments, a few took the opportunity to inform Senator Hagel in less than tactful terms.” One of the grievances expressed today by some of Hagel’s critics is that he declined to sign a letter to the European Union urging the designation of Hezbollah as a terrorist group.
McCain eventually lost the primary to Bush, who went on to become president. When the White House urged Congress to pass a resolution authorizing war against Saddam Hussein’s regime in Iraq, Hagel delivered a speech that warned of the difficulties of imposing democracy on a complex foreign country. But at the end of the day, he voted for the resolution despite his reservations.
Hagel’s approach to the Iraq war was similar to his approach to the 1998 Iraq Liberation Act, legislation supported by both Republicans and Democrats that made regime change official U.S. policy for Iraq. Francis Brooke, an adviser to Iraqi politician Ahmed Chalabi who lobbied Hagel at the time, said, “Senator Hagel saw the popular case against Saddam Hussein’s actively hostile dictatorship and was willing give it rhetorical legislative voice by supporting the Iraq Liberation Act.” But, Brooke added, “when it came to implementation of the act to aid Iraqi Democrats fighting to overthrow Saddam, he balked, fearing any concrete action that might lead to greater U.S. involvement.”
Randy Scheunemann, who was McCain’s foreign-policy adviser in both the 2000 and 2008 campaigns, said Hagel came to endorse McCain at a moment when the senator supported the option of sending ground troops to Kosovo in 1999. President Clinton only waged an air war in Kosovo in response to Slobodan Milosevic’s efforts to cleanse the Serbian province of ethnic Albanians.
“Hagel, who is now the über-realist about not committing ground troops, had no compunction about endorsing the guy who wanted all options on the table [in Kosovo]. His endorsement made—to put it mildly—no difference in the campaign,” said Scheunemann.
While Hagel flirted with positions out of the GOP mainstream throughout his career, it was in 2005 that he began to break with his party. The key event then was the nomination of a former lawyer for Sen. Jesse Helms named John Bolton to be the U.S. ambassador to the United Nations. The Bolton hearings became a drawn-out fight in Washington that dredged up personal details about the nominee’s treatment of staff members including a Hagel staffer, Rexon Ryu. In an interview with CNN at the time, Hagel said, “I have been troubled with more and more allegations, revelations, coming about his style, his method of operation.”
Nonetheless, Hagel had promised to vote for Bolton, and he eventually did.
Steve Clemons, who got to know Hagel in this period as he was leading a campaign from his blog to stop the Bolton nomination, said he knew from the beginning that Hagel would end up voting for Bolton. “Even though I knew Chuck Hagel was immovable,” Clemons said, “I really respected the methodology that he brought to these questions. It made me an admirer of him, even though he voted for Bolton in the end.”
After the Bolton hearings, Hagel emerged as one of the toughest critics of the Bush administration’s foreign policy. By 2007, Hagel was giving speeches on the floor of the Senate opposing the counterinsurgency strategy and surge of troops in Iraq. Hagel said the troop surge was the worst U.S. military debacle since the Vietnam War. Clemons said in this period Hagel “played the role that J. William Fulbright played in the past. He blew the whistle on his party.”
While Hagel did not endorse Obama in 2008, he did at times advise the campaign on foreign policy. He also traveled with the candidate on a trip to the Middle East. In 2007 and 2008 in the Senate, Hagel also declined to support unilateral sanctions against Iran.
In 2009 Hagel retired from the Senate and was named a co-chairman of the President’s Foreign Intelligence Advisory Board. He also became chairman of the Atlantic Council, a perch he used to speak out in favor of engagement with Iran, and he signed a letter urging President Obama to encourage Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas to form a unity government with Hamas, which the U.S. has designated a terrorist group and which is the de facto sovereign of Gaza.
It’s these positions that have earned Hagel praise from his new friends and criticism from many in his old party. But just as the Vietnam War veteran was able to adjust his worldview in 2005 and 2006, he appears to be adjusting it again in 2013. On Wednesday the Associated Press reported that Hagel, in private meetings with senior Pentagon officials, expressed his support for strong international sanctions against Iran as well as for leaving the option of military strikes on the table.
It remains to be seen whether these new positions are enough to persuade his old colleagues like McCain to confirm his nomination as secretary of defense. The one thing his old party does know, however, is that Chuck Hagel is a man who is not afraid to change his mind.
Eric Nordstrom, who worked at the Benghazi consulate on the day it was attacked, choked up during Wednesday's hearings. 'It matters,' he said, that the committee investigate what happened before, during, and after the siege.
Corry Booker’s the hero mayor of Newark, and, yes, he’s running for Senate. By Lloyd Grove
The president’s push for $9 an hour has the GOP on the defensive. Eleanor Clift on the strategy behind the move. But this push could take the politics out of the perennial argument.
Meet the new Treasury secretary, same as the old Treasury secretary. Lloyd Green on nominee Jack Lew.
For John Kael Weston and other men on the frontlines of Iraq and Afghanistan drone strikes raise many uncomfortable questions. He writes on why we need clearer policy and guidelines for these silent killers. | <urn:uuid:f51b663c-84b4-4f61-8208-27fd92e7b7f5> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.thedailybeast.com/articles/2013/01/10/chuck-hagel-s-career-shows-he-s-not-afraid-to-change-his-mind.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368704132298/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516113532-00016-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.97435 | 2,018 | 1.570313 | 2 |
Content Standards and Instruction
Juneau Awards $2 Million to Improve Math and Science InstructionFriday, September 28, 2012, 10:24 am
Helena, MT – On September 18,Superintendent Denise Juneau announced two competitive grant awards through the Mathematics and Science Partnerships Program--one for mathematics and one for science. Each program will receive $335,178 per year for three years.
"We know that many of the jobs of tomorrow are going to require our students to have a solid background in science, technology, engineering and math, and we need to make sure their education in our public schools is preparing them for higher education and to compete for jobs in a global economy," said Superintendent Juneau. "Providing Montana teachers with high quality training and the skills they need to engage students in science and math is critical to improving the skills of our students."
The two projects will improve K-12 students'math and science skills and the instructional skills of math and science teachers by: providing high-quality training for teachers; collaborating and coordinating with the Montana Regional Education Service Area (RESA) network, and supporting the Montana Science Technology Engineering and Mathematics(STEM) Initiative. Additionally, these partnerships will give school districts and higher education faculty joint responsibility for improving Montana's math and science instruction.
Math Project Grantee:
Montana Common Core Standards for Mathematics (MCCSM)
Bozeman Public Schools and Montana State University, Dr. Jennifer Luebeck, Director
This project will create a model for statewide training of K-12 teachers implementing the Montana Common Core Standards for Mathematics. In the first year of the project, MCCSM will prepare training materials for middle school teachers (grades 4-8) and train its first group of teachers through an in-person workshop, online trainings and a summer academy. In year two of the grant, those teachers trained in year one will provide training to their colleagues with the support of mentor teachers, the RESAs and MCCSM staff. In years two and three, the project will expand to more communities, new grade levels and add an assessment component. The goal for the three years of the grant is 150 teachers trained and supporting the implementation of the Montana Common Core Standards for Math.
Partners: Montana State University, University of Montana, Bozeman Public Schools, Montana Learning Center, Montana Council Teachers of Mathematics, Anaconda School District, Arlee School District, Box Elder Public Schools, Charlo School District, Conrad Public Schools, East Glacier Park Grade School, Hot Springs School District, Kalispell Public Schools, Target Range School District, Terry School District, and the five Montana Regional Education Service Areas
Montana Partnership with Regions for Excellence in STEM (MPRES)
Montana Tech of the University of Montana and Montana State University-Billings, Rayelynn Connole and Dr. Ken Miller,Co-Directors
The Montana Partnership with Regions for Excellence in STEM (MPRES) is designed to build upon two previous successful Montana Science Partnership grant projects to improve K-12 science student achievement and teacher instruction and incorporate the Framework for K-12 Science Education. The project aims to develop Teacher Trainers who will work across the state through face-to-face and online trainings. Twelve teachers who have previously participated in Math Science partnerships projects will be recruited as trainers and will complete a year-long program of professional development in the first year of the grant. During the second year, the 12 trainers will each recruit five teachers to receive professional development with four of these teachers becoming trainers for their region, additional teachers will be trained in year three. The goal for the three years of the grant is a total of 152 teachers provided with high-quality professional development in science.
Partners: Montana Tech of the University of Montana, Montana State University-Billings, Montana Education Consortium, Alliance for Curriculum Enhancement, Billings Public Schools, Butte School District #1 and the five Montana Regional Education Service Areas.
For more information, contact Jael Prezeau, 406-444-3128 | <urn:uuid:13eff133-d7c1-44cc-9fea-d30a255c7a36> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.opi.mt.gov/OPI_Summary/CSI/2012-09-28_102454.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368696383156/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516092623-00026-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.92587 | 826 | 2.390625 | 2 |
After Your Fieldwork
Page 4 of 5
Completing the Walkabout Generator
The Walkabout Generator is an electronic version of the image logbook. All you have to do is transfer the information from your logbook into the form. In addition, there are a few boxes requesting general information about your walkabout, e.g. where your images are stored (there is a default setting here), or what you want to call your own walkabout.
- Image Name. In the far left hand box enter the filename of your first image, e.g. in the example here our first photograph is labelled 'a1' (you do not need to include the file extension (e.g. gif or jpg)
- Image Details. The five boxes to the right of the 'image filename' box (named 'step left', 'turn left' etc.) are the same as those in your image logbook. Just copy your entries into the form. Remember, you don't have to enter a filename in all the cells. IMPORTANT: if you need more boxes just click on the + sign at the bottom of the table
- Image Caption. In this box you can enter any notes relating to the image that you recorded in the 'caption' column of your image logbook. They will appear in the Caption Box on the left-hand side of the walkabout
- File paths. The next four questions ask you to enter the location of the various copies of the images you have made. If you followed the instructions in the section called Downloading your images, the location will already be filled in for you and you need not enter anything else in these four boxes. If you have called your folders something else, delete the default name and enter your folder names in the appropriate box
- File extensions. Again, if you followed the advice given in the hints section of the Downloading Your Images page, the JPG file extension will already be filled in for you and you need not enter anything in this box. If your files have GIF extensions, delete the default name and change setting to GIF
- Starting Image Name. Enter the file name of the first photograph in your walkabout (in our example it is 'a1')
- Blank Thumbnail Name. If you followed the advice given in the section called Resizing your images, the thumbnail image name (named 'blank') will already be filled in for you and you need not enter anything in this box
- Name of file.. This is the computer file name for your walkabout. The default is set at 'myfile'. You can assign a file name of your own, but make sure it has no spaces and is not more than eight characters long
- Title of Walkabout. Enter the name of your walkabout (e.g. the name of the monument)
- Descriptive Text. You can add a small amount of text describing your walkabout, or perhaps, adding your names to the front page
If you are uncertain what information to supply there is addition help under the ? at the top of each section. | <urn:uuid:b007524f-1cef-4f9c-8a58-fe18536a07c5> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://ads.ahds.ac.uk/learning/walkabout/postex4.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368704713110/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516114513-00034-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.90257 | 633 | 1.78125 | 2 |
Sustainable Solutions to Common Problems
Whatever the problem, we likely have a solution. Here's a list of products, organized by the problems they conquer. If you don't find what you're looking for, we'll be happy to consult by phone.
For quick reference, click on your area of interest in the list to the right.
AFM Safecoat Sealers for Off-Gassing
Wherever possible and appropriate, we incorporate surface sealing properties into AFM Safecoat products such as paints and clear finishes. Many chemically sensitive individuals have successfully controlled off-gassing materials using Safecoat, to the extent that they can tolerate environments that were intolerable before.
Every indoor air quality problem, and every surface, is different, so there are no guarantees. But follow these basic rules and critical steps for the best chance of success:
Wool: A Pet's Best Friend
Did you know that 71 million U.S. homeowners have dogs, with most owning two? Even more noteworthy is the fact that 50% of these pet owners consider their dogs to be family members, which means they spend time and money to make sure their pet is happy, healthy and comfortable.
How to Avoid Problems with Bamboo Flooring
Bamboo is a reliable flooring product, but only if it's well made by an experienced manufacturer who uses quality stalks, adhesives and milling equipment.
The bamboo flooring market has been flooded in recent years with poorly manufactured material. Here's what to look for in order to locate quality bamboo flooring:
Cork is the outer bark of the cork oak tree, quercus suber, which grows mainly in the Mediterranean region. The bark is a vegetal tissue composed of an agglomeration of cells filled with a gaseous mixture similar to air and lined with alternating layers of cellulose and suberin.
Cork's elasticity, combined with its near-impermeability, makes it the perfect material for making bottle stoppers, floor tiles, insulation sheets, bulletin boards and other similar products. | <urn:uuid:bc586cdb-fde8-44c5-8ae6-5337fa47d998> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.greenbuildingsupply.com/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368710006682/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516131326-00034-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.95662 | 427 | 1.609375 | 2 |
To protect our environment we regularly assess the whole life-cycle of our production with focus on the type of raw material used, production processes, waste, use and disposal. The latest initiative has been our focus on water usage says President and CEO Nils Gunnar Hjellegjerde. We have found out that we can reduce our water consumption with 24% if we invest in recycling and reusing facilities. Basically implement a smarter way to use water more than one time!. We have just invested in new water saving equipments for our foam department in our Vietnam plant says Nils Gunnar Hjellegjerde. This is a win-win situation. We save water costs as well as protecting the environment.
Creating sustainable products by using eco-friendly wood and raw materials, reducing waste factor and the energy consumption in our production processes as well as extending the useful lifetime of our products and recyclability are always in the mind set of the senior Management of IMG.
But one of the best thing to do out of the respect of both our customers and the environment, is to make furniture that is long lasting says Nils Gunnar Hjellegjerde. | <urn:uuid:da38c35a-5e05-485f-ad73-b57d5bc61eaf> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.imgcomfort.com/News/Phasellus_enim_erat_dictum_id_pharetra_id_dapibus_a_ipsum.aspx | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368704713110/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516114513-00050-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.943803 | 239 | 1.796875 | 2 |
Aon Benfield, the global reinsurance intermediary and capital advisor of Aon plc, has released its latest edition of its Global Catastrophe Recap report, which reviews the natural disaster perils that occurred worldwide during the month of May.
Published by Impact Forecasting, the firm’s catastrophe model development center of excellence, the report notes that two earthquakes and subsequent aftershocks struck northern Italy within a nine-day period, killing 25 people, injuring more than 400 others and causing extensive damage to the cultural heritage throughout the Emilia-Romagna region of Italy, in addition to businesses and personal property.
An initial, combined economic loss estimate from both tremors stood at €5 billion ($6.25 billion), following significant damage in the provinces of Modena, Ferrara, Reggio Emilia, Rovigo and Mantua.
In Asia, severe and prolonged periods of rain impacted China throughout the month, affecting at least 22 provinces and killing at least 102 people. “According to China’s Ministry of Civil Affairs (MCA), at least 143,000 homes were damaged or destroyed during one prolonged event. More than 949,400 hectares (2.34 million acres) of cropland were also affected, contributing to a total economic loss listed at CNY16.88 billion ($2.68 billion),” said the report.
It also noted that “powerful thunderstorms struck eastern Japan, resulting in high winds and tornadoes that killed at least three people, injured 59 others, and damaged more than 1,845 buildings in six separate prefectures.”
Steve Jakubowski, President of Impact Forecasting, commented: “The Italian earthquakes resulted in the largest natural disaster loss for the country since the L’Aquila earthquake event in 2009. The seismic activity was not unexpected, as Italy has long been recognized as a region exposed to the possibility of significant earthquake activity.
“Given the level of insurance coverage in the region, it is anticipated that insured losses would reach minimally into the hundreds of millions of dollars. However, it remains too early to determine how negligible re/insurance losses may be from this event.”
The U.S. experienced two periods of severe weather, which impacted central and eastern sections of the country; the first causing widespread hail and wind damage from the Dakotas to Maryland, “resulting in an economic loss estimated at $275 million, and more than 30,000 insurance claims valued at $150 million.
“A secondary severe weather outbreak across the central and eastern U.S. at the end of the month spawned significant damage as well. According to a preliminary report from the South-western Insurance Information Service, insured losses in Oklahoma alone were estimated at $400 million.”
In addition Tropical Storm Beryl made landfall near Jacksonville Beach, Florida at peak intensity with 70 mph (110 kph) winds, “but did not cause any significant damage, injuries or fatalities.” Wildfires burned in several U.S. states during the month, including the largest fire ever recorded in New Mexico.
Excessive rainfall affected areas of the Canadian provinces of Ontario and Quebec in May. In Thunder Bay, at least 1,100 homes were damaged as well as businesses and infrastructure, and flood damage with a 100-year return period was recorded in Montreal, where personal property and infrastructure were widely affected.
Additional flood events were recorded in Nepal, Afghanistan, Indonesia, Nicaragua, Cuba, Georgia, Brazil and Venezuela.
Source: Aon Benfield | <urn:uuid:d2a20f4d-44f8-4bea-ab75-31024f4cfde2> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.insurancejournal.com/news/international/2012/06/08/250605.htm | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368702448584/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516110728-00001-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.964527 | 732 | 1.734375 | 2 |
Redirected from Monothelite
Monothelitism was the christological doctrine that Christ had one will but two natures (divine and human). Under the influence of the Patriach Sergios (of Constantinople), monothelitism was developed during the reign of Heraclius as a response to Monoenergism and as an attempt to reconcile the Monophysites with the Chalcedonians. However, it was rejected by the Catholic and Eastern Orthodox churches, and was never accepted by most of the monophysites either. One prominent opponent of the doctrine was Maximus the Confessor. | <urn:uuid:f22eb069-7126-4ed4-802a-8f5b6b03c255> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.ebroadcast.com.au/lookup/encyclopedia/mo/Monothelite.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368704713110/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516114513-00012-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.982445 | 124 | 3.140625 | 3 |
COLUMBUS (AP) - A Texas-based company wants to use river barges to move its potentially toxic wastewater in Ohio, but federal officials must first decide whether it's safe.
Grapevine, Texas-based GreenHunter Water has its plan on hold as authorities investigate environmental questions regarding the wastewater from the gas drilling industry.
The industry uses water and chemicals to stimulate production of natural gas locked in shale. Some of that water comes back to the surface. It gets recycled or is taken by truck to industrial treatment plants or deep injection wells for treatment or disposal.
GreenHunter Water has bought liquid-storage tanks at an Ohio River terminal in New Matamoras in southeastern Ohio. The terminal could serve as a transfer point to truck the waste.
The U.S. Coast Guard also is looking into the matter.
"It may be hazardous," said Commander Michael Roldan, chief of the Coast Guard's Hazardous Material Division, stressing the word "may."
He said that the waste can't currently be shipped by barge.
The Coast Guard regulates the nation's waterways, and Roldan couldn't say when the agency would decide whether drilling wastewater can be shipped by barge. That's partly because experts from the Environmental Protection Agency and the Transportation and Energy departments have weighed in, and a committee established by the White House will likely review the draft proposal.
The waste is mostly water, but can also contain ultra-salty brines, heavy metals, natural radioactivity, and some of the chemicals used to free gas.
Roldan said the Coast Guard has a process in place for requests to transport chemicals or other substances by barge, but that the shale wastewater issue is undergoing "a higher level of review" since there are some unusual aspects to the issue. For example, many requests involve a specific chemical or liquid, but shale wastewater can contain a mix of natural and manmade compounds, and the mix varies by well.
Environmentalists said the possibility of a spill that could contaminate area rivers isn't worth the risk. A barge accident would be a "massive catastrophe," said Steve Hvozdovich, Marcellus campaign coordinator for Clean Water Action, a national environmental advocacy organization.
But industry officials who advocate waterway transport said barges are the safest, and cheapest, way to move the wastewater.
They counter that other industrial materials, some toxic, are already moved on barges and question why the drilling industry should be treated differently.
The Coast Guard plans to publish its proposal on transporting wastewater in the Federal Register.
Then, the public and the industry will have an opportunity to weigh in. | <urn:uuid:d3a0f3e2-eb66-491a-9ea7-61b4d68e561b> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.shaleplayohiovalley.com/page/content.detail/id/500460/Plan-to-ship-wastewater-into-Ohio-is-put-on-hold.html?nav=5024 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368706153698/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516120913-00047-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.953873 | 541 | 2.203125 | 2 |
Graphic Design part-time
The part-time Graphic Design Bachelor’s degree course is a representative reflection of the full-time course. The objectives of the course are the same but the teaching is offered in a concentrated form.
As with the full-time course, students follow an integral educational programme in the initial two study years. During the final two years of the course, students can select one of the two graduation specialisations, Editorial Design or Typography. These specialisations are by no means curtailments, but rather differentiations within the Graphic Design course. Students gain the necessary qualifications to prepare them for the broad professional perspective of the graphic designer in two and three-dimensional media and select a specialisation for their graduation project based on personal interest and/or affinity with the subject matter.
The distinctive features of the course are explicitly expressed in the collection of lessons which is geared towards exploring the interaction between information, identity and editing. In other words, the majority of the design questions that students will face during the course are focused on styling information, the visualisation of identity and editing and developing visual communications strategies.
Students that decide to follow the part-time course are often already employed in the field of graphic design, communications, public relations, ICT or a related field. Their decision to begin this course is usually based on the desire to achieve a Bachelor’s qualification.
As with the full-time programme, students receive the skills required to independently practice the skilled profession of graphic designer. Instruction stems from the notion that graphic designers are essentially applied visual artists who use their expressive, editorial and design capacities for the visual representation, arrangement, editing and styling of information and fulfil an intermediary role in the process.
Study timetable and teaching locations
Lessons are held on three evenings and one day in Arnhem. Wherever possible, the lessons will be held at the same time throughout the four years of the course.
Bachelor of Design
Length of study
4 years, part-time
Year 1/2: 3 evenings + 1 day
Year 3/4: 2 evenings + 1 day
Dutch, go to languagerequirements
Higher secondary (havo), pre-university (vwo) or intermediate vocational (mbo level 4) diploma or equivalent and selection procedure.
Minors (optional subjects)
Choose for interdisciplinary or subject-specific minors.
Read the brochure | <urn:uuid:85366903-eb63-4f3e-9216-cd08f2cc1b43> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://artez.nl/design/Graphic_Design_part-time | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368698924319/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516100844-00056-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.910514 | 492 | 1.9375 | 2 |
DES MOINES - There is little hope Congress will act quickly to extend a federal energy tax credit for building wind turbines, despite the likelihood that letting the program expire could lead to the loss of thousands of jobs.
The issue is especially important in Iowa, where 20 percent of electricity is generated by wind turbines and the state ranks second behind only Texas for installed wind capacity. An estimated 7,000 workers in Iowa are employed in more than 250 businesses associated with the wind industry.
Extension of the tax credit is caught up in deep differences over spending in Congress, where fiscal conservatives in the Republican Party are fighting renewal even as other GOP members push to have the program continued. The issue also has spilled into the presidential race, with Democratic President Barack Obama supporting the credit and Republican Mitt Romney opposing it, angering Iowa Republican Sen. Chuck Grassley and Gov. Terry Branstad.
T-R FILE PHOTO
Pictured is a wind turbine at the Laurel wind farm. Congress seems unlikely to extend a federal energy tax credit for building wind turbines, which would be trouble for Iowa where 20 percent of electricity is generated by wind turbines.
Grassley said at a forum in Burlington in August that Romney's stance "was just like a knife in my back."
Branstad spokesman Tim Albrecht said Friday that the governor supports extending the tax credit and that he has spoken with Romney's policy advisers on the issue. Albrecht said the conversations were private and he declined to elaborate.
Grassley, the author of the original tax credit in 1992, introduced a bill that would extend it for a year. Grassley said he fought to get wind energy reinserted in a Senate bill after it had been earlier removed. The wind tax credit is among 50 or 60 other tax extensions in the bill.
"The wind-energy production tax credit is designed to level the playing field for this renewable resource against coal-fired and nuclear electricity generation," he said.
The Senate Finance Committee approved a bill, but Grassley doubts the measure will come up for a vote before the November election. He hopes for a Senate vote later in November or December, but its fate in the Republican-controlled House is uncertain.
The policy uncertainty has already caused job cuts as wind energy producers delay new projects until it's clear whether the credits will be renewed.
The American Wind Energy Association, a trade group, has estimated that as many as 27,000 jobs could be lost next year if the credit expires, about 3,000 in Iowa.
Katana Summit, a Columbus, Neb.-based wind tower manufacturer, will close plants in Columbus and Washington around Nov. 1, laying off nearly 300 workers, said CEO Kevin Strudthoff, who blamed his company's problems on uncertainty about tax credits.
"Business has completely fallen off. Developers are not placing orders until they know what happens with the policy," he said.
It's frustrating that politics is hurting an industry that is bringing production into the United States from other countries, creating new jobs for U.S workers, Strudthoff said. | <urn:uuid:495c9d21-c252-481c-aa39-18a10b745e32> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://timesrepublican.com/page/content.detail/id/552782/Congress-not-acting-on-credits-despite-job-fears.html?nav=5005 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368698924319/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516100844-00002-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.969152 | 625 | 1.773438 | 2 |
Pan-genomic studies aim, for instance, at defining the core, dispensable and unique genes within a species. A pan-genomics study for vaccine design tries to assess the best candidates for a vaccine against a specific pathogen. In this context, rather than studying genes predicted to be exported in a single genome, with pan-genomics it is possible to study genes present in different strains within the same species, such as virulence factors. The target organism of this pan-genomic work here presented is Corynebacterium pseudotuberculosis, the etiologic agent of caseous lymphadenitis (CLA) in goat and sheep, which causes significant economic losses in those herds around the world. Currently, only a few antigens against CLA are known as being the basis of commercial and still ineffective vaccines. In this regard, the here presented work analyses, in silico, five C. pseudotuberculosis genomes and gathers data to predict common exported proteins in all five genomes. These candidates were also compared to two recent C. pseudotuberculosis in vitro exoproteome results.
The complete genome of five C. pseudotuberculosis strains (1002, C231, I19, FRC41 and PAT10) were submitted to pan-genomics analysis, yielding 306, 59 and 12 gene sets, respectively, representing the core, dispensable and unique in silico predicted exported pan-genomes. These sets bear 150 genes classified as secreted (SEC) and 227 as potentially surface exposed (PSE). Our findings suggest that the main C. pseudotuberculosis in vitro exoproteome could be greater, appended by a fraction of the 35 proteins formerly predicted as making part of the variant in vitro exoproteome. These genomes were manually curated for correct methionine initiation and redeposited with a total of 1885 homogenized genes.
The in silico prediction of exported proteins has allowed to define a list of putative vaccine candidate genes present in all five complete C. pseudotuberculosis genomes. Moreover, it has also been possible to define the in silico predicted dispensable and unique C. pseudotuberculosis exported proteins. These results provide in silico evidence to further guide experiments in the areas of vaccines, diagnosis and drugs. The work here presented is the first whole C. pseudotuberculosis in silico predicted pan-exoproteome completed till today. | <urn:uuid:b755c85e-92dd-4299-a4a7-776191803411> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://pubmedcentralcanada.ca/pmcc/solr/reg?pageSize=25&term=jtitle_s%3A(%22BMC+Genomics%22)&sortby=score+desc&filterAuthor=author%3A(%22Barh%2C+Debmalya%22) | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368699881956/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516102441-00049-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.921592 | 498 | 2.484375 | 2 |
Summary: Once users reject a design technique due to repeated bad experiences it's almost impossible to use it for good because people will avoid it every time.
Users detest many Web design ideas. For some of the worst, see:
In our Fundamental Guidelines for Web Usability seminar, people often ask me whether these problematic designs are all bad. Couldn't something that often causes usability problems have a positive use as well?
Yes, this does happen.
PDF presents a clear example. Usually, PDF files torment users on websites and intranets. Posting a sales brochure, annual shareholder report, or the HR manual online as a single, lumpy PDF file is a sure prescription for usability problems. Much better to convert the content into a navigable information space and rewrite it according to the guidelines for writing for the Web.
That said, PDF has its uses — they're just not in the realm of interactive information access. When people want to download a report for later reference, PDF shines. Indeed, I use it myself for this purpose. (As an example, see our report on social media usability, which is available for free download. And also note how the report link follows the guideline to direct users to a gateway page where they can download the document, as opposed to linking directly to the PDF file and causing "PDF shock.")
Unfortunately, even good uses of bad design techniques are usually doomed. Users hate these designs so much that they can't overcome their negative first impressions in the fraction of a second they allocate to stuff they think they don't need.
Take splash screens. Yes, they're universally condemned, and we all know that users' only reaction is to go straight for the "skip intro" button. However, a usability study we did with Chinese users earlier this month included a very nice splash screen for the Shanghai Peninsula hotel:
Technically, this might not qualify as a splash screen because the page does offer some navigation options. Still, in practice, a page with no content except a huge photo serves the same function as a splash screen — and sure enough, the user immediately clicked away.
This user reaction is exactly what I'd typically expect; it's not news that people detest splash screens.
In this case, however, the user was planning a business trip to Shanghai and was particularly interested in learning the hotel's location: was it convenient for her meetings? The splash screen answers this question in a single look: You can see immediately that the hotel is right on the Bund. (The most prestigious address in Shanghai, though on the opposite side of the Huangpu River from the Pudong business district.)
Unfortunately, the test participant didn't allocate any attention to the splash screen even though it could have offered her high usability by addressing one of her top concerns.
Bad experiences with many previous splash screens made the user dismiss this one. Instead, she went immediately for the navigation menus, trying to find a "location" link. (See separate guidelines for location finders.)
It's almost impossible for any single website to overcome the cumulative effect of users' visits to countless other sites. (Remember Jakob's Law of the Internet user experience: users spend most of their time on other sites.)
Would I advise the Peninsula to remove the photo? No, I actually think it's a clever illustration. But ironically, it would have more impact if it were smaller and combined with a bulleted list highlighting hotel features — including a bullet for something like "right on the Bund (see photo)."
Lightbox Overlay Dialog Boxes
A few years ago, I named lightboxes the interaction design technique of the year. In a test we did in Australia last week, a lightbox helped a user looking for flights on the Webjet site:
Note the design's usability features:
- It's contextual : shown only to Australian users.
- It's simple: only two choices and one button, and the most likely choice is preselected as the default value.
- It clearly highlights the customer benefits of going to the Australian site, even though the user typed in the URL for the American site.
In last week's study, this design worked well, just as many other lightbox designs have performed swimmingly in our previous usability studies.
Sadly, later in the week, we came across this repugnant perversion of an overlay dialog box on another Australian site:
Although implemented differently, this is no better than a pop-up , which is the #1 most hated advertising design. Just as we saw with the Chinese splash screen, our Australian test user aggressively dismissed the pop-up-like overlay. One of the lessons of these two weeks of testing is that people are the same all around the world: when they despise a Web design they immediately get rid of it.
(See separate guidelines for usable subscription interfaces for email newsletters.)
Obnoxious abuse of a Web design element will ultimately poison the well for decent websites as users start shunning that design element, even when it's well intentioned.
Annoying blinking banner ads were probably the first design approach to go south and destroy a website's ability to include any design elements of a similar shape. In 1999, I declared "anything that looks like advertising" to be #10 on my list of top Web design mistakes. Every year since, studies have shown ever-stronger banner blindness.
For now, the lightbox overlay remains a useful design technique. Please don't destroy it for all of us by abusing it. | <urn:uuid:2757153b-9ec9-4288-a738-b1fc96f5785f> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.nngroup.com/articles/making-hated-design-elements-work/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368704713110/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516114513-00011-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.955179 | 1,129 | 1.789063 | 2 |
and Indians Advocate
Wednesday, July 1, 1829
Vol. II no. 13
Pg. 1 col. 5a
The Indians. A correspondent of the Georgia Journal, Wiley Thompson, has given to the public the substance of a conversation he had with President Jackson soon after his inauguration, on the subject of the Indians in Georgia. He stated to the President that Georgia had looked with great anxiety to the political change which had placed him, in the federal Executive chair, under the confident hope and expectation that she would at last have justice extended to her; and he was anxious to have it in his power to inform the people of Georgia, when he arrived at home, what course would be pursued in reference to this subject. The President promptly and with apparent pleasure gave him every assurance that the expectations of Georgia would be realized: He had already addressed a talk to the Creek Indians, urging them to emigrate west of the Mississippi, by arguments drawn from the impracticability of their remaining a separate people, within the limits of a sovereign State, and a proper view of their best interests in reference to their future welfare. He had also told the Cherokee delegation, when they called on him, that the United States had entered into a contract with Georgia, by which they solemnly promised to extinguish for her use the Indian title to all territory within her limits: (No notice was taken of the important qualifying clause, "as soon as it can be done peaceably and on fair terms:"). He told the Cherokees that the claims of Georgia had been too long postponed; that she would make an effort to force justice; that she possessed a right (when and how did she obtain it?) to extend her municipal jurisdiction over them, and to subject them to the control of such rules of action as she might think proper to prescribe to them, provided they be not violative of the constitution of the United States; and the General Government could not constitutionally protect them against her exercise of that right; that Georgia was irritated by delay and frequent disappointment, and also by the recent attempt of the Cherokees to adopt a constitution and erect a separate government, which they could not be permitted to do; he repeated to them, what he had told them in 1817, that they might emigrate to the country west of the Mississippi, which they and their children should possess forever, and enjoy the friendship and protection of the United States Government, but if they remained in Georgia they must abide the consequences of such rules of action, as she might prescribe for their government. The President suggested to Mr. Thompson that it would be good policy for the Georgians to admit their competency as witnesses in courts of justice, and guard against the evil which might result from it, by questioning the credibility of their evidence. He had no doubt of their emigration, and such a course would leave them without cause of complaint.
All this would sound very well, if the Indian lands in Georgia had even been legally ceded to that State; but the circumstance of their always having been the property of the Indians, makes quite a material difference. The tenure by which they would hold the lands west of the Mississippi, if they should remove there, would be a very flimsy one compared with that of having forever been in possession of them; and as flimsy a pretext would be all sufficient to drive them from their new possessions, if a new state starting up in that quarter should find it convenient to occupy them.
The present prospect is, that the Indian tribes inhabiting those territories claimed by the States of Georgia and Alabama, are destined, soon, either to be driven off to the country allotted to them beyond the Mississippi, or their situation rendered so uncomfortable as to induce them to retire of their own accord. The Alabama papers state that Col. Crowell, late Agent in the Creek Nation, has already been directed to remove the Agency west of the Mississippi; that the President has made known to the Creeks his determination to have their lands surveyed, and informed them that, inasmuch as the State of Alabama has extended her jurisdiction over them, they will be thrown without the protection of the General Government, and their only course will be to remove. It was thought by some that they would emigrate en masse. It appears, however, that a party of the Creeks who a short time ago went to settle upon the lands designated for them, have returned to their old country. What will be the end of this barbarous and unjust undertaking to drive our fellow beings from their lands (after they have become in a great measure civilized and Christianized) like so many wild beasts, into the wilderness, it is impossible for us to foresee. If General Jackson continue the same spirit respecting it with which he has begun, he will incur a most fearful responsibility. We can never think on this species of nation I wrong without recurring to the forcible language used by Jefferson in reference to it: "Indeed, I tremble of my country, when I reflect that God is just, and that his vengeance cannot always sleep." | <urn:uuid:df3dfd5c-be61-464a-8db5-c38319141f85> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.wcu.edu/library/DigitalCollections/CherokeePhoenix/Vol2/no13/pg1col5a.htm | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368699273641/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516101433-00031-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.986305 | 1,024 | 2.59375 | 3 |
Darby and Joan
An archetypal elderly couple.
The term Darby and Joan used to be use in common use in the UK to denote a devoted old couple who are living out their retirement years in quiet, if impoverished, contentment. The use declined somewhat toward s the end of the 20th century but is still used, notably in the name of the numerous Darby and Joan old people's social clubs which still flourish.
It has long been wondered whether Darby and Joan were fictitious or real people and various attempts to link the term to actual individuals have been made. Darby isn't a common surname in England, which gives some credence to the idea that the couple were real - if an author were inventing an archetype, why not choose a name that was more redolent of what was being conveyed? (like Hardy's Gabriel Oak or Langland's Piers Plowman).
The most frequently repeated attribution is that Darby and Joan was coined by the English printer Henry Woodfall (circa 1686–1747) whose employer John Darby was married to Joan Darby. No fully accurate records of the birth and death of the couple remain but it is likely that they both died when they were about eighty - which would give them the right credentials as an elderly married couple.
The song The Joys of Love never forgot, of which Woodfall has been suggested as the author, was printed in The Gentleman's Magazine in 1735 and includes the lines:
Old Darby, with Joan by his side,
You’ve often regarded with wonder:
He’s dropsical, she is sore-eyed,
Yet they’re never happy asunder.
There doesn't appear to be any real evidence linking either Darby or Woodfall to the phrase, apart from the coincidence of the names of Darby and his wife.
Whatever the origin, the imagery of a devoted old couple, living out their twilight years, has survived. It is probably best known via the classic Hammerstein and Kern song The Folks Who Live on the Hill, 1937:
We'll sit and look at the same old view,
Just we two.
Darby and Joan who used to be Jack and Jill,
The folks who like to be called,
What they have always been called,
"The folks who live on the hill".
In Peggy Lee's classic recording of this song, in 1957, 'Baby and Joe' is substituted for 'Darby and Joan'. Perhaps the old couple weren't known in the US at the time? | <urn:uuid:ddf0b958-12c1-4739-946c-7153d2a00213> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://phrases.org.uk/meanings/darby-and-joan.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368711005985/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516133005-00061-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.976675 | 530 | 2.140625 | 2 |
Eurocopter recently took the wraps off its developmental X3 helicopter. What's unique is it's configured with two forward-facing propellers on stub wings. At higher airspeeds, the lifting and thrusting duties are progressively shifted to the wings and props. This arrangement is meant to compensate for lost lift on the side of the retreating main rotor blade disk. The X3's main engines drive the propellers and the main rotor.
The basic physics of the so-called "retreating blade stall" have always capped the cruise speed of conventional helicopters. As the forward speed of the helicopter approaches that of the retreating blades of the spinning main-rotor disk, the blades confront little or no "relative wind" and, therefore, can't generate lift on that side of their rotational arc. On conventional helicopters, flexible rotor hubs are designed to compensate for this as much as possible by "lagging" the forward moving blades and accelerating the retreating blades to maintain balance. But that design strategy can go only so far.
With its new configuration, the X3 is said to have a top speed of 220 knots, about 80 knots better than that of traditional helicopters. The Eurocopter design seems to be competing with Sikorsky's developmental X2, which has been flying since 2008. The Sikorsky configuration combats retreating blade stall by incorporating two main rotor disks on the same axis rotating in opposite directions. The X2 has reportedly reached forward speeds of 250 knots. Both developmental helicopters contrast with the Bell-Agusta BA609 civil tiltrotor — a smaller version of the military Osprey. The tiltrotor concept incorporates a pair of engines and hybrid "proprotors" that swing to a copter-like horizontal configuration for takeoff and landing, then rotate forward to a vertical position for high-speed cruise flight. The circa $10 million BA609 has a top speed of about 275 knots and is scheduled for certification next year. | <urn:uuid:d3158d59-4f2b-4e4d-8a4a-2bc884ae47ee> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.flyingmag.com/aircraft/helicopters/eurocopter-x3 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368696382584/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516092622-00006-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.939855 | 396 | 2.359375 | 2 |
It's not been a easy time to be a moderate Muslim, especially one who's either accommodating to local secular rulers or who's not part of the normal Sunni-Shia paradigm. Sufis have taken it in the neck twice recently. The most recent one happened in southern Russia, in the Dagestan area near the Caspian Sea. There, a female autoboomer took out a Sufi leader, Sheikh Said Afandi.
On Friday, a Sufi mosque and adjoining library were vandalized in Zliten. The mosque's dome collapsed and hundreds of books were destroyed.
And, on Saturday, in broad daylight, Salafist activists brought in a bulldozer to flatten the Sidi Al-Sha'ab shrine, which was centuries old and contained 50 graves considered sacred by Sufi Muslims.
The Sufis are among the more mystic-oriented of Islam's flavors, making the attractive to spiritual seekers from the West, something of a halfway house between Catholic monasticism and Eastern meditative thought; theistic but without the Christian doctrine that intellectuals often run from.
The shrine bulldozed was in the capital, Tripoli. The nearest Christian analogy I could think of would be militant Baptists storming downtown Houston and demolishing Joel Osteen's stadium-church for preaching a false gospel. Sufi=Pentecostal isn't a great fit here, especially when the Sufis go back a millennium and the Pentecostals are just getting a second century going in their modern form, but they both lean towards the experiential and are often seen as theological outliers by the more textual-oriented folks in their faith.
The fact that a fledgling Libyan government had to essentially stand back and let the mob have its way is not a good sign for other new democracies in the area, especially Egypt and their good-sized Coptic community.
The bombing in Dagestan is a part of a ongoing string of attacks on traditional religious leaders in the ethnically-Muslim areas of southern Russia; Tartarstan was the previous site of anti-establishment violence in the far domestic (since they call their old USSR neighbors "the near abroad", that would fit those minority sections of Russia). That's been a problem since the USSR broke up, and won't be stopping anytime soon; this might be one main reason why the Russians veto stuff on Syria; they don't want any of these scuffles becoming UN material in the future. | <urn:uuid:c414d624-ff78-4ee6-83f6-636c190f9b4c> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://markbyron.typepad.com/main/2012/08/uncle-toms-mosque-part-iii-wake-up-little-sufi.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368701852492/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516105732-00025-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.965474 | 505 | 1.65625 | 2 |
Millennium Relief and Development Services has served the poor in various parts of the world for over a decade. Born out of the heart of its founders, Bill Koops and James Clark, Millennium is looking forward to continued service to the poor, suffering and disenfranchised through a network of teams dedicated to the people they serve.
In delivering intelligent compassion to those in complex situations, Millennium takes a simple, effective approach to meaningful relief and development. Ours is an agile approach that strives to avoid cumbersome bureaucracy, centralized control and costly administration.
Millennium’s Houston and Canadian headquarters support programs conceived and implemented by field workers who live and work among the people they serve. Millennium field workers and staff represent a diversity of backgrounds including medicine, science, education, engineering, technology, and business.
Field workers design projects that solve human problems at the local level. This is intelligent compassion in action.
Last Updated on Thursday, 11 February 2010 20:19 | <urn:uuid:c67fe2d7-d608-4855-b86c-acdb7428fc31> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.mrds.org/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=1&Itemid=2 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368701459211/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516105059-00037-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.936608 | 194 | 1.578125 | 2 |
2010 Eisner Award Nominee: Best Archival Collection — Strips; Best Publication Design (Adam Grano)
2010 Harvey Award Nominee: Special Award for Excellence in Presentation
For over thirty years Nell Brinkley’s beautiful girls pirouetted, waltzed, Charlestoned, vamped and shimmied their way through the pages of William Randolph Hearst’s newspapers, captivating the American public with their innocent sexuality. This sumptuously designed oversized hardcover collects Brinkley’s breathtakingly spectacular, exquisitely colored full page art from 1913 to 1940. Here are her earliest silent movie serial-inspired adventure series, “Golden Eyes and Her Hero, Bill;” her almost too romantic series, “Betty and Billy and Their Love Through the Ages;” her snappy flapper comics from the 1920s; her 1937 pulp magazine-inspired “Heroines of Today.” Included are photos of Nell, reproductions of her hitherto unpublished paintings, and an informative introduction by the book’s editor, Trina Robbins.
In 1907, at the tender age of 22, Nell Brinkley came to New York to draw for the Hearst syndicate. Within a year, she had become a household name. Flo Ziegfeld dressed his dancers as “Brinkley Girls,” in the Ziegfeld Follies. Three popular songs were written about her. Women, aspiring to the masses of curly hair with which Nell adorned her fetching and idealized creations, could buy Nell Brinkley Hair Curlers for ten cents a card. Young girls cut out and saved her drawings, copied them, colored them, and pasted them in scrapbooks. The Brinkley Girls took over from the Gibson Girls.
Nell Brinkley widened her scope to include pen and ink depictions of working women. Brinkley used her fame to campaign for better working conditions and higher pay for women who had joined in the war effort, and who were suffering economic and social dislocation due to acting on their patriotism. Unlike most of her contemporaries, she drew women of different races and cultures.
Except among a small group of avid collectors, she has been unjustly forgotten... until now.
#10, Best Archival/Reprints of 2009, The Comics Reporter | <urn:uuid:6995a3b2-59c1-44d8-aeca-826525db4752> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.fantagraphics.com/browse-shop/the-brinkley-girls-the-best-of-nell-brinkley-s-cartoons-1913-1940-4.html?vmcchk=1 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368697380733/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516094300-00024-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.956448 | 490 | 1.9375 | 2 |
From time to time, we take on clients at Civic Commons, and when we do, one of our first, most important jobs is properly setting expectations about what can and can't be accomplished. A lot of people still have a Facebook-and-Twitter-inspired "if I build it, they will engage with it, right?" sense about how online engagement happens. So, once we disabuse them of that notion and they realize that engagement only happens when the opportunity is authentic, meaningful and consequential, and only when the community knows of the opportunity, then our next job is to train people to do this well. We're always interested in transparency, so here's the Best Practices stuff we've developed and share with our partners. (If you have feedback on this--perhaps something you think should be added or rephrased--email me).
You get to set the tone When you launch the conversation, use language that’s authentic and informal. The people you’re hoping to engage want to know they’re talking to a human, not an institution. When Ohio State Rep Mike Foley started a conversation about public education funding, he called it “How the heck should we fund education?” and he explained in the simplest terms why he wanted feedback (he’s on the finance committee and wanted to be able to tell his colleagues what constituents were thinking).
You can maintain the tone by staying a part of the conversation and being interested in what others are saying. It helps, too, to keep the Civic Commons principles in mind: we strive to be diverse, credible, transparent, civil, participatory, entrepreneurial, and optimistic.
Rate stuff The ratings are a great way to let people know you appreciate their contribution. After you've rated a comment as Inspiring, Informative or Persuasive, go ahead and reply to the comment, if you like, to explain what you found persuasive or informative or inspiring.
Follow up People love to be asked meaningful follow up questions. Sometimes it's as simple as "tell me more about that," or "why did you say such and so?" Other times you might need to be a little more pointed in your question, by examining a particular point?
Be credible Facts are really important and a conversation is much better when the facts are correct. Credibility is one of our principles, and the community expects you to be a model of credibility. Plus, when you do treat facts with care, it makes it a lot easier to call out someone who isn’t. Just comment with something like: "Jamie just said _________. Does anyone know where we can verify that?" Then anyone can respond with a link right in the conversation.
Give people a reason to participate The most successful conversations attract participation because people in the community understand that their input matters. Engagement is a two-way street. It’s not enough to say you want to engage the public because you know it’s the right thing to do and will burnish your image. What the public tells you when you’ve engaged them has to actually have an impact on the work of your institution. The important thing here is to make sure you’re communicating to community members why their input matters.
Let people know this is happening Opening your work to two-way communication is a big deal. The mere fact of your doing it puts you in a class of organizational pioneers. Let people know that you’re doing this by mentioning it in newsletters and presentations. Also, use the “embed” button on the conversations to place the activity stream from the conversation right on your own website.
Invite people We’re all super busy, and sometimes, the people you really want to hear from don’t know how easy it is to contribute even a little time to an important civic conversation like the one you’ve started. Use every tool you have to let people know about the opportunity to engage. Tweet @ members of your network, inviting them to share and participate. Use Facebook posts and tags to do the same. Use your own email lists and marketing tools are very important, too. All that stuff above about using a warm, informal and authentic tone is important here, too.
Be intentional with your invitations Really successful conversations involve people you may not already know. So give some thought to who’s missing and invite them. For instance, if you’re talking about economic development, and you don’t have any business owners, you might invite them. Not sure how to do that? Just tell them what you’re doing and why you think their voice is important.
Don’t be afraid of your critics We’ve designed Civic Commons to handle conversation with everyone, even your toughest critics. Remember, we set the table with everyone has agreeing to be civil and transparent, so even your toughest critics have to maintain that tone. If someone in your community brings up a point of criticism, you have a few of options. You can
--thank them for making the point
--ask them about what’s informing their criticism (for instance, “Was there something you read or heard that influenced how you feel about this?”)
--ask them a completely other question
Sometimes, though, engaging with certain critics can be an unending back and forth. If it ever gets to that and doesn’t end with a “Maybe on this we can agree to disagree,” let us know and we’ll step in. That said, part of your job is to have a thick skin (or at least pretend like you have one).
Lastly, and most importantly, be present. True engagement isn’t something you can outsource. We give you the tools, but no one outside your organization can be present for your organization. When you do that, it starts to look very transparently inauthentic. You’ll get email notification once a day when there’s activity on your conversations, but make it a practice to check in at least once a day to see if there’s new comments or questions you should respond to.
Copyright © 2013 Dan Moulthrop; available under the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike License.
Related to the post
It's your Civic Commons, so you get to start a conversation about Successful Online EngagementStart a Conversation from this Blog Post | <urn:uuid:a4c447a4-d094-4c18-8dbb-d6f83e25ef51> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://theciviccommons.com/blog/successful-online-engagement | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368704132298/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516113532-00069-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.948576 | 1,324 | 1.882813 | 2 |
EDEN Hot Pepper Sesame Oil is a delightful combination of the nutty flavor of toasted sesame seeds and hot spicy flavor of chili peppers. Whole sesame seeds are cleaned, slowly roasted in a rotary kiln to unlock their flavor and aroma, and placed in a screw press called an 'expeller' to extract the oil. The oil is gently filtered then infused with red hot chili peppers that soak in the oil for 24 hours. The peppers are then removed.
Most of the fat in EDEN Hot Pepper Sesame Oil is monounsaturated and polyunsaturated. Sesamol and sesamin, naturally occurring antioxidants found in sesame seeds and sesame oil, make unrefined sesame oil especially nourishing, and they act as a natural preservative in the oil. One of the most shelf stable unrefined vegetable oils.
In the tropical and semitropical areas of Asia where spices and peppers are frequently used, it was discovered that hot chili peppers could be infused into sesame oil to create a delightfully hot and spicy oil. Spices cause capillaries at the surface of the body to dilate, releasing internal heat and inducing perspiration so they have a cooling effect on the body and make it easier to adapt to hot climates. Japanese often use red pepper as a condiment for this purpose, especially during the hot summer months.
Sesame Sesamum indicum is a treasured herb native to Indonesia and Africa. It has been widely grown in tropical and subtropical Asia and in the Mediterranean region for thousands of years. The first known cultivation of sesame occurred around 3000 B.C. in the Middle East and 1600 B.C. in Egypt. The Egyptians are credited with being the inventors of sesame oil. Sesame seeds were introduced to Japan around 645 to 793 A.D. by Buddhist priests from Korea and China. Sesame oil production in Japan was recorded during the Heian Period (794 to 1191 A.D.).
Sesame plants grow about two to five feet and produce pretty purple cone shaped flowers. There are several varieties of the sesame plant that produce creamy white, brown, black, and red seeds. When ready for harvest the seeds are encased in a protective hard shell that rattles with its precious contents. The entire plant is cut off at the base of the stem and stacked in an upright position against racks and allowed to dry. While drying the capsules that hold the seed split open. The plant is turned upside down, shaken and the seeds drop onto a cloth.
It's best to avoid commercial vegetable oil that's heated above its smoke point, treated with the solvent hexane, washed with sodium hydroxide, and chemically bleached and deodorized at 400 degrees F. For delicious and nutritious unrefined oils, choose EDEN. | <urn:uuid:f1a6a269-ea21-4dac-8f7e-f664673baa78> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.edenfoods.com/store/product_details.php?products_id=109500&eID=erik26u6prdglahqgecd0e3tq4 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368711005985/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516133005-00000-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.956776 | 584 | 2.640625 | 3 |
Dear, you too, are to seize this opportunity for supplication, as available and according to the possible measure, and apply its cordial disciplines, informing your heart that the origin [mayah] of the eternal Hereafter life, the source of the spiritual virtues and the capital of the unlimited generosities are in the Proximity to and Intimacy with Allah, the Exalted, and in supplication to Him, especially in the Salat which is a spiritual mixture [ma'jun] prepared by the hand of Allah's Beauty and Majesty. It is the most comprehensive and perfect worship among all types of servitude. So, take care, at your best, to keep its times, and select its virtuous times, for in them is a sort of luminosity not found in other times. In those times you are to lessen, or even sever, your heart's engagements, and this can be achieved by arranging your times and assigning special times for the Salat, which guarantees the eternal Hereafter life for you, such that in those assigned times you would have nothing else to do, and the heart could have no other attachments that might rival the Salat, and the heart can be prepared and made present with ease.
Now I am going to relate some of the hadiths about the conditions of the infallibles (the Imams) (AS), as needs be, so that contemplating their conditions may lead to being awake, and perhaps the importance of the situation and seriousness of the state can be recognized by the heart and it be awakened from its sleep of negligence.
Some wives of the Messenger of Allah (SA) were quoted to have said that "The Messenger of Allah (SA) used to talk to us and we used to talk to him. But when the time for the salat arrived he appeared as if he did not know us and we did not know him, as his attention was completely directed to Allah." It is said that Amirul Mu'minin ' Ali (AS), when it was time for the salat, used to writhe and tremble. Asked once about his uncommon state, he said: "The time has come for the trust which Allah, the Exalted, offered to the heavens and the earth and the mountains, but they refused to carry it and were afraid of it". Sayyid Ibn Tawus (may his spirit be sanctified) says, in Falahus sa'il, that when Imam Husayn (AS) used to perform the Wu'du, he changed colours and his joints trembled. Asked about the reason, the Imam said: "When one is going to stand before the Owner of the arsh, his colour is ought to turn pale and his joints to tremble". Imam Hasan had a similar condition. It is narrated that Imam as-Sajjad (the fourth Imam) (AS) used to get pale at the arrival of the time of the wudu '. He was once asked: "What is this state which happens to you whenever you want to perform the wudu '?" He said: " Do you not know before whose presence I am to stand '?
If we, too, think a little and tell our veiled and discarded heart that the times of the salats are the times of being present at the Holy Threshold of the Owner of Majesty, the times in which Allah, the Exalted, the Master of the Kings and the Absolute Great, invites His helpless and worthless servant to supplication, admitting him to His House of Generosity, so that he may win the eternal happiness and permanent pleasures and cheerfulness, we will have pleasure and cheerfulness, according to our level of knowledge when the time of the salat arrives. If the heart understands the greatness and the importance of the situation, there will be fear and dread in proportion to the extent of its understanding of the greatness. But as the hearts of the holy men [auliya'] and their conditions are different, according to the gracious and the overpowering manifestations and feeling the greatness and mercy, sometimes their longing for the meeting, and their feeling the mercy and beauty excite them to display pleasure and cheerfulness, and they hail: "Relieve us, O Bilal!" And sometimes (divine) manifestations of Greatness, Power and Sovereignty, drive them to ecstasy, trembling and shivering.
In short, O you helpless! The cordial disciplines of the times are in preparing yourself for entering into the Presence of the Master of this world and the Hereafter, for conversing with Allah, the Almighty and Most High. So, cast a glance at your weakness, helplessness, humility and indigence, and at the Greatness, Glory and Majesty of the Sanctified Essence, Glorified be His Majesty, in Whose court of Greatness the prophetic Messengers and the favourite angels go into rapture, and confess their incapability, humility and wretchedness. Having so looked, and taught your heart, it would feel afraid and you regard yourself and your worship trivial and worthless. Then, contemplate the extent of the mercy, complete kindness and all-embracing affection of His Sacred Essence, to realize that such a helpless servant, with all his impurities and wretchedness, is invited to His Sacred Court, received by the ceremonies of sending down of angels, heavenly Books and Prophets and Messengers (AS), who call him to the meeting of intimacy, without this helpless possible servant having any previous aptitude, or there being imaginable, in this invitation to His Presence, any benefit for Him -we take refuge with Allah -or for the angels of Allah and the Prophets (AS). It is natural, however, that the heart is pleased with this contemplation, and it is filled with hope and expectancy. Therefore, with steps of fear and hope, desire and dread, prepare yourself for the Presence and have ready the required provisions for the Attendance, the most important of which is to attend the Meeting [mahdar] with a shy and fearing heart, feeling broken, humiliated, weak and helpless, and believing yourself unworthy to worship and servitude and to be admitted into the Presence, and regarding that giving you permission to enter into worship and servitude was only because of the general mercy and the all-inclusive kindness of the One, the Almighty and Glorified. If you put your humility before your eyes, and humbly and heartily submitted to the Sacred Essence of Allah, and if you considered yourself and your worship worthless and trivial, Allah, the Exalted, would be kind to you, raise you and bestow upon you of His graces.
. Mustadarkul Wasa'il, "Book of as-Salat" , chs. on "The Acts of the salat", ch. 2, Hadith 17.
. Ibid., Hadiths 5 and 14.
. Sayyid Ibn Tawus (may his spirit be sanctified) has stated this point in his Falahus Sa'il, quoting al Lulu'iyat, concerning the conditions of Imam Hasan ibn 'Ali (AS)
. Biharul Anwar, vol. 77, p. 346, "Book of purification", chs. on "Wudu"', ch. 34, Hadith 34, quoting Falahus Sa'il.
. Mustadarkul Wasa'il, "Book of as-Salat", chs .On "The Acts of the salat, ch. 2, Hadith 35.
. al Mahajjatul Bayda fi Tahdhibil ahya " val. 1, p. 377. (Bilal was the Prophet's mu'adhdhim, or the caller for the salat), Maulawi, in a couplet, says: The soul is perfect and perfect is its call, The Chosen One said: "Relieve us, O Bilal!" | <urn:uuid:ae2caacd-0d7d-473e-a5b7-74faaeabb4f8> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.al-islam.org/adab/31.htm | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368704132298/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516113532-00015-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.958505 | 1,625 | 1.671875 | 2 |
The Hidden Power In Lightning
One Bolt Of Lightning Produces
More Electricity Than The USA
At night, in heavy rain, the sky is suddenly lit up, followed shortly after by a violent noise. Do you know how the magnificent lightning that so illuminates the sky comes about? Do you know how much light it emits? Or how much heat it gives off?
A flash of lightning is the bright light which forms during the release of the electricity in the atmosphere during rainstorms. But when does this bright light form? Lightning can happen when electrical tension in two separate points in the atmosphere—within a single cloud, or between a cloud and the ground, or between two grounds—reaches a high level.
Light bolts happen in the form of at least two strikes. In the first release a negative (-) charge flows from the cloud to the ground. This is not a particularly bright flash. A number of branches can generally be seen spreading out from the main channel. As this first strike reaches the ground, an opposite charge forms at the point it will hit and a second positive charge-bearing current forms from within that same channel directly to the cloud. The two flashes generally meet about 50 metres above the ground. A short circuit forms at the conjunction between the cloud and the ground, as a result of which a very bright strong electric current heads from inside the channel to the cloud. The potential difference in this current between the cloud and the ground is greater than several million volts.
More Electricity Production
Than Thousands of Generating Stations
The energy given off by a single bolt of lightning is greater than that produced in all the electricity generating stations in America. The temperature in the channel where the lightning forms can be as high as 10,000 degrees Celsius. The temperature in kilns for melting iron is between 1,050 and 1,100 degrees. The heat given off by the smallest bolt of lightning is ten times this. This terrible heat means that lightning can easily burn and destroy all the elements on Earth. To make another comparison, the surface temperature of the Sun is as much as 700,000 degrees. In other words, the temperature of lightning is 1/70th of that of the surface of the Sun. The light emitted by lightning is greater than that given off by 10 million 100-watt bulbs. For purposes of comparison, a single lightning bolt illuminates its surroundings more than if one bulb is lit in every house in Istanbul. Allah draws attention to this wondrous brightness of lightning in the Qur'an,
. . . The brightness of His lightning almost blinds the sight. (Surat an-Nur: 43)
Splendour Which Arises
In Half A Second
•An average streak of lightning can power a 100-watt bulb for more than 3 months.
•The air temperature where lightning strikes rises by as much as 25,000 degrees.
•It travels at 150,000 km/second. Lightning's average thickness is 2.5-5 cm.
•Lightning produces nitrogen molecules, which are important for the survival of the Earth's vegetation cover.
•An average lightning strike contains an electrical force of 20,000 amps. A welder uses 250-400 amps to weld steel.
•Lightning moves at 150,000 km/second, or half the speed of light, and 100,000 times faster than sound.
The bolt which forms descends to earth very rapidly, at 96,000 kmph. The first strike reaches the conjunction or surface in 20 milliseconds, and the return strike returns to the cloud in 70 microseconds. Lightning lasts a total of up to half a second. The reason for the thunder which accompanies it stems from the sudden heating of the air around the channel. As a result of this, the air expands at a speed greater than that of sound, although the shock wave returns to being a normal sound wave within a few metres. The sound waves are formed according to the later atmospheric air and surface shapes. That is the reason for consecutive thunder and lightning.
When we bear all of these properties of lightning in mind we can see that this phenomenon is a miraculous one. The way that such a tremendous force emerges from positively and negatively charged particles, invisible to the naked eye, shows that lightning is consciously created. Furthermore, the fact that nitrogen molecules, so beneficial to plants, emerge from this force again proves that lightning was created with a particular wisdom. (For details see Harun Yahya, Design in Nature, Taha Publishers, UK, 2001.)
Allah specifically draws our attention to lightning in the Qur'an. The meaning of Surat ar-Rad, one of the Suras of the Qur'an, is actually 'Thunder.' In those verses regarding lightning Allah reveals that He presents lightning to people as a source of fear and hope. Indeed, a lightning strike is a sign that it is about to rain, and rain either brings hope, in the form of plentiful crops, or else frightens people by causing such disasters as flooding or landslides. In Surat ar-Rum Allah reveals that,
Among His Signs is that He shows you lightning, a source of fear and eager hope, and sends down water from the sky, bringing the dead earth back to life by it. There are certainly Signs in that for people who use their intellect. (Surat ar-Rum: 24)
Allah has also revealed that the thunder which arises when lightning strikes glorifies His praise. In that same verse He warns people by stating that when He so wishes He sends lightning to punish unbelievers:
The thunder glorifies His praise, as do the angels, out of fear of Him. He discharges the thunderbolts, striking with them anyone He wills. Yet still they argue about Allah when He is inexorable in His power! (Surat ar-Ra'd:13)
Allah has created a number of signs for us in lightning. We must think and give thanks that thunder, which many people have perhaps never considered in this much detail and which inspires such feelings of fear and hope in man, is a means by which fear of Allah increases and is sent down by Him for specific purposes when He so chooses. | <urn:uuid:3711b6f0-0c4d-4931-9b75-057102c81bd8> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://harunyahya.com/en/books/1627/Articles--II-/chapter/1055/The-Hidden-Power-In-Lightning%C2%A0 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368706499548/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516121459-00053-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.940163 | 1,265 | 3.5 | 4 |
2. Name of school/organisation:
3. Event / activity title:
5. Event or activity description (max 300 words):
Primary pupils complete practical investigations leading up to Science Week. During science week they will display their work to other pupils, parents and Shire Oak Academy teachers as a Science Showcase Evening. The primary school pupils will also take part in a competition which will be judged during science week.
10. Your organisation/event website:
11. Venue of the event/activity: | <urn:uuid:ec0401a1-e5f7-4ef2-a0a3-a4295b95ad18> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.britishscienceassociation.org/print/5971?qt-popular_pages_in_this_section=0 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368698207393/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516095647-00024-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.939973 | 106 | 2.5 | 2 |
What is Go Red For Women?
In 2004, the American Heart Association (AHA) faced a challenge. Cardiovascular disease claimed the lives of nearly 500,000 American women each year, yet women were not paying attention. In fact, many even dismissed it as an older man’s disease. To dispel the myths and raise awareness of heart disease as the number one killer of women, the American Heart Association created Go Red For Women, a passionate, emotional, social initiative designed to empower women to take charge of their heart health.
What is the goal of Go Red For Women?
Go Red For Women encourages awareness of the issue of women and heart disease, and also action to save more lives. The movement harnesses the energy, passion and power women have to band together and collectively wipe out heart disease. It challenges them to know their risk for heart disease and take action to reduce their personal risk. It also gives them the tools they need to lead a heart healthy life.
In 2010, the AHA set a strategic goal of reducing death and disability from cardiovascular disease and strokes by 20 percent while improving the cardiovascular health of all Americans by 20 percent by the year 2020.
Why is the red dress the symbol of women and heart disease?
In 2003, the National Heart, Lung and Blood Institute (NHLBI), the AHA and other organizations committed to women’s health joined together to raise awareness of women and heart disease. The NHLBI introduced the red dress as a national symbol for women and heart disease awareness and the AHA adopted this symbol to create synergy among all organizations committed to fighting this cause.
By working together to advance this important cause, the AHA, NHLBI, and other women’s health groups will have a greater impact than any one group could have alone.
Be sure to register to get your red dress pin.
Why do Go Red For Women and other red dress campaigns target women instead of men and women?
In the past, heart disease and heart attack have been predominantly associated with men. Historically, men have been the subjects of the research done to understand heart disease and stroke, which has been the basis for treatment guidelines and programs. This led to an oversimplified, distorted view of heart disease and risk, which has worked to the detriment of women.
Because women have been largely ignored as a specific group, their awareness of their risk of this often-preventable disease has suffered. Only 55 percent of women realize heart disease is their No. 1 killer and less than half know what are considered healthy levels for cardiovascular risk factors like blood pressure and cholesterol. The Go Red For Women movement works to make sure women know they are at risk so they can take action to protect their health.
How does the AHA use funds raised from Go Red For Women activities?
The AHA uses all revenues from local and National Go Red For Women activities to support awareness, research, education and community programs to benefit women.
These funds allow us to help women by offering educational programs, advancing women’s understanding about their risk for heart disease and providing tools and motivation to help women reduce their risk to protect their health. For example, the Go Red Heart CheckUp has engaged over 2 million women to learn their risk of heart disease. Based on our own research, a woman who Goes Red follows an exercise routine, eats healthier diet, visits her doctor for important tests and influences others by talking about heart health.
Funds raised by Go Red For Women activities also support research to discover scientific knowledge about heart health. We turn this science into materials and tools that healthcare providers and decision- makers can use to help women. Scientific guidelines on women and healthcare providers receive the most up-to-date strategies and treatments tailored to a woman’s individual risk. Toolkits, pocket versions of guidelines for women, and special reports, and continuing medical education give healthcare providers the tools to ensure that women are being treated according to the guidelines. Through our national sponsor, Merck & Co., over 200,000 healthcare provider offices have received Go Red For Women educational tools to use with patients.
We value the trust placed in us by our donors, supporters and general public. We make the association’s finance as transparent as possible. In fact, the AHA has consistently met the high standards of the Better Business Bureau’s Wise giving Alliance (WGA), the premier organization for evaluating charitable organizations.
How do corporate sponsorships help support Go Red For Women?
Financial support from corporations helps fund the AHA programs and initiatives to advance the mission to build healthier lives, free of cardiovascular diseases and stroke. The AHA is always seeking ways to increase communication with the public and to create tools and resources to help them manage and prevent heart disease.
Sponsorship dollars allow us to improve our educational resources like our website and other materials in order to deliver the information in a way that men, women and children find useful. All corporate relationships must comply with the associations corporate relations policies and receive approval from two committees representing executive staff and volunteers. Compliance is required in areas such as sponsors’ commercial messages, advertising and brand messages so that no endorsement of a company product is implied.
Funds donated to Go Red For Women have impacted women across the nation.
- Over 2 million women have learned their personal risk of developing heart disease by taking the Go Red Heart CheckUp
- Over 200,000 healthcare provider offices have received critical patient information on women and heart disease
- Over 900,000 women have joined the fight. Women who join Go Red For Women receive important information that allows them to take action to improve their health:
- Women involved in Go Red For Women eat a healthy diet
- Go Red women are more likely to follow their doctors’ advice – from losing weight to taking medications.
- 91% of women involved in Go Red For Women visited their doctor in the last 12 months (compared to 73% of all U.S. women)
- 64% follow a regular exercise routine
- 84% have talked to friends about their heart health
- 90% have had their blood pressure checked in the last year
- 75% have had their cholesterol checked in the last year | <urn:uuid:d379768d-af84-4f33-a070-fd2e79b28d5a> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.goredforwomen.org/home/about-go-red/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368699273641/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516101433-00014-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.952916 | 1,271 | 2.828125 | 3 |
Families of Carmel fire victims boycott official memorial ceremony
At an alternative ceremony, families expressed fury that 21 months after the tragedy, none of the officials found responsible by Israel's state comptroller have resigned or even admitted wrongdoing.
Families who lost loved ones in the December 2010 Carmel Forest fire boycotted Sunday's Israel Prison Service ceremony in memory of employees who fell in the line of duty and held an alternative ceremony instead.
The official ceremony took place in Ramle, while the fire victims' families met in the Carmel Forest, at the monument memorializing the tragedy that took the lives of 44 people. Among the dead were 37 Israel Prison Service cadets who were incinerated when the bus transporting them to evacuate a prison went up in flames.
Family members at the alternative ceremony expressed fury that 21 months after the tragedy, none of the ministers or police or prison service officers who were found responsible by the state comptroller had resigned or even admitted wrongdoing.
The ceremony was the initiative of David Dayan, whose son Yochai was killed on the bus. He boycotted the official ceremony to protest the fact that prison service commanders and officers who were involved in sending out the ill-fated bus had been promoted. One example is Deputy Israel Prison Service Commissioner Micky Halfon, who was commander of the prison service's northern district at the time of the blaze, and recently led a prison service delegation to Poland.
"It's hard for us to see these officers still serving and even getting promoted," said Ze'ev Even Hen, whose daughter, Topaz, also died on the bus.
He blamed Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu for this general shirking of responsibility, noting that he never conducted a single cabinet debate on the State Comptroller's Report on the Carmel fire. | <urn:uuid:b3f6dab4-3f2a-4f3b-9187-ba28abcc59a2> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.haaretz.com/news/national/families-of-carmel-fire-victims-boycott-official-memorial-ceremony-1.466437 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368700264179/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516103104-00017-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.974861 | 368 | 1.585938 | 2 |
|UFDC Home | Howe||| Help ||
P-D-H : THE BOOK COLLECTOR AT HOME
Charles A. Rheault, Jr.
Having thoughtfully foreseen the possibility that some users of this catalogue might inquire what sort of man had collected all these books, Sidney Ives (rare book librarian at the University of Florida at the time of the Parkman Dexter Howe Library's acquisition) kindly suggested that I might provide some background information about Parkman Dexter Howe, a man of great scope, widely Varied interests, and remarkable energy.
As one who was fortunate enough to have known him as my father-in-law for a third of a century, I find on recollection that one of the most astonishing aspects of Mr. Howe's life is that he could have collected even a few hundred — never mind several thousand — books, for he was so continuously busy in so many varied pursuits that there would hardly be the time, the interest, and the perseverance to do it all.
First and foremost, Parkman Howe was a family man, fond of his children and grandchildren, and devoted to his wife. His other great passion was sailing, whether in a Herreshoff twelve-footer or in a ten-metre racing sloop; he was a first-rate navigator in cruising the farthest shores of down-east Maine; he was a highly competitive helmsman in the often stormy waters of Buzzards Bay; and he was even a noted cook in the galley when called upon. He was also a considerable collector of silverware, and would sweep up several trophies each summer.
When the sailing season was over, Mr. Howe's chief weekend delight was in pruning and clearing the woods and flowering shrubs surrounding his Needham home; he was an ardent and skillful woodsman and, beyond that, a self-taught horticulturist who was equally adept in the art of establishing espaliered fruit trees, or in the planting and cultivating of an extensive rose garden. As yet another hobby, he took up woodcarving, and then the making of fine furniture; his skill can still be attested by four superior pieces which have been passed on to his children.
In business, Parkman Howe was involved for most of his life with the manufacture of textile machinery, and it is fair to say that he was eminently successful: in each of three firms he became either treasurer or president. During this strenuous period, he still found time to take an active part in civic affairs: he was a selectman for three years; he was chairman of the local draft board during World War II; he was a Vestryman and senior warden for his church for nine years; and after leaving business affairs, he became first treasurer and then president of the Children's Hospital in Boston, for a ten-year period.
Collecting books was not one of Mr. Howe's interests until he was in his early forties, when he became seriously involved. Later, he would find it hard to describe the process by which he began to collect; he would usually shrug his shoulders, give a sheepish grin, and admit that it had become an "addiction." From what I have learned from various fragments of family history, I venture to offer a reasonable hypothesis for the addiction.
First, he grew up in a book-collecting environment where his father, Henry Saltonstall Howe, accumulated a truly vast library; the senior Howe collected notable association and presentation copies, first editions of Austen, Hardy, and Eliot, over one hundred books about Napoleon and his times, one book each from the libraries of the presidents of the United States, many multi-volume sets in fine bindings, and a host of other items. Parkman was the youngest of five children, and I dare say he was the closest to his father, and especially so in his book-collecting period; certainly he was the only one of the children who went on to collect seriously.
Second, when Henry S. Howe died in 1931, the huge library was divided up by his five heirs and the individual collections were dismantled. Except for the association copies and the presidential library books, which were bequeathed to Harvard, the rest of the books were widely dispersed, with children taking by turns individual books out of an author collection. This, Parkman Howe mentioned to me much later, was a great pity.
With his share of his father's library, Mr. Howe received a number of books by New England authors, and particularly interesting were those by John Greenleaf Whittier, who was a friend and neighbor of his grandfather in the Haverhill days. Parkman Howe felt the pull of his father's interest, and after some reflection, decided to collect a few more books in the New England field. From Whittier it was an easy leap to Longfellow and Holmes; and soon Hawthorne, Emerson, and Thoreau; eventually, his interests went all the way back to the literary beginnings of New England history. He began first by trying to fill some evident gaps, and would try to exchange or purchase books which his brothers or sister had. Then he began to inquire where other needed titles could be found, and by a rather happy coincidence there was, readily at hand in Boston, Goodspeed's Book Shop — where he began an active and cordial association that persisted for almost fifty years.
Mr. Howe's "addiction" grew apace in the nineteen thirties. Although much of his correspondence was not preserved, he did decide to keep three large letter-files for the years 1933-1936, years during which he was a selectman; the files were full of town affairs, of course, but when I went through the attic after his death in 1980, I found at the end of each file a thick folder of correspondence about books. It was astonishing to see that hardly a week went by without one or two letters being written — to booksellers, to fellow collectors, to scholars, to descendants of New England authors who might have a clue as to where a long-lost eight-page pamphlet might be hidden.
As the trickle of books became a steady stream, Mr. Howe's den in Needham began to overflow; to make shelf space available for New England authors, other books were moved to the living room and the bedrooms; then even some of the New Englanders had to be relegated to the attic and, by the nineteen fifties, even to the basement. He bought a summer cottage in Wellfleet whose shelves were soon filled; now in retirement and busily gardening eight hours a day, he still could not resist temptation when he dropped into a bookstore and found that a Cape Cod author had written some forty novels. Over several years, he found them all, first editions, of course, and was delighted with his finds, even though he did not consider them as properly part of his collection of New England authors.
A recurring theme in Mr. Howe's conversation about books was always "the sheer fun of it." He enjoyed pursuing an elusive title, finding a previously unknown publication, discovering by chance an autograph letter tucked into an old book. He derived an immense amount of pleasure from talking and writing to fellow collectors, booksellers, bibliographers, and anyone who shared his love for books. He would never, though, force his own interest upon a general conversation, and he was so modest in everything that very few people knew him as a book collector. Mr. Howe was extremely diffident about the size and quality of his collection, insisting that other collectors had done a much better job. It was only with some reluctance that he was willing to write a short article for The Book Collector, and he brought the first draft to Sidney Ives (then working at the Houghton Library) only with the most grievous misgivings.
As did his father before him, Parkman Howe derived a special kind of thrill from association copies. He never claimed to be a scholar, nor did he ever claim to be deeply read in the literature of the authors whom he collected, but nonetheless the possession of a book once held in hand by its author, who had then inscribed his name, gave him an immediacy, a feeling that he had met the author himself. For almost all of the New England authors whom he collected, the association copy was the closest he could get to the author; but in the case of Robert Frost, there was a living poet not very far away and, one day in the late nineteen fifties, Mr. Frost was invited to Sunday luncheon in Needham. At that time, Frost was almost at the crest of his fame and popularity; Mr. Howe had been collecting his books for many years, had often corresponded with him, and had a very complete collection of the works, and most of the ephemera as well.
The usual Sunday luncheon, as practiced by Mr. and Mrs. Howe, was a considerable event which included not only children but numerous grandchildren. Matters would begin with the insidious Howe cocktail, shaken up in a large silver milk pitcher (a trophy awarded to Henry S. Howe in his days as an eminent breeder of dairy herds). Luncheon was of formidable size; while the patriarch carved the roast of beef, a succession of enticing dishes were passed until all the plates were full to the brim. Afterwards, the ladies retired to the living room and the gentlemen, in the book-lined den, sipped coffee and lit up excellent cigars.
What Robert Frost made of all this, I cannot say, except that he was gracious, affable, and voluble. I wish I could report that I had written down every word uttered by the poet, but I cannot; I do vividly remember Frost's often unusual choice of words and the cadences of his speech, so markedly different from ordinary small talk. The whole event was memorable in every way, and the host remarked that night that it was the high spot in his love affair with books.
As time rolled on into the nineteen sixties, Parkman Howe had to face a problem which eventually besets all collectors: what to do with the collection after he has gone. Although he had been a member of the Overseer’s Visiting Committee to the Harvard University Library, he felt that he would not leave his books to Harvard; as he told me, "Harvard already has most of what I have, and perhaps some college far from New England, which has not widely collected New England authors, would be more interested." His decision, finally, was to leave the entire collection to his children in his will.
The four children in turn had to decide: would the large collection be divided into four collections, with each author's work kept intact, to be treasured by succeeding generations? Or were the books to be sold separately over a period of time for a new generation of collectors? Or should the collection be kept intact and made available to an institution which could care for it? There was, as can be imagined, considerable discussion, but with three generations' vivid memories of book collecting, a strong undercurrent developed towards keeping the collection intact. When the University of Florida evinced a strong interest, Sidney made an excellent presentation of its real need for the Howe Library, of its concern for the careful conservation of the books, and of the scholarly use to which the books would be put.
A final decision was soon reached, and the heirs unanimously accepted the proposal by the University of Florida, where the Howe collection has now found a good home, not only to be treasured but also to be well utilized; and now, many, many others may share the inspiration and enjoyment which were those of Parkman Dexter Howe.
(Reprinted from: The Parkman Dexter Howe Library: a descriptive catalogue, Gainesville, FL : University of Florida Libraries, 1983-)
For more collection information, consult one of the following: | <urn:uuid:05ff7ece-cba3-4fa1-979e-d118424f3f87> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://ufdc.ufl.edu/howe1/car | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368702448584/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516110728-00020-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.989145 | 2,456 | 1.5 | 2 |
Pody's column: Learning to cook takes timeI find cooking for one is harder than cooking for a family. Even the smallest recipe makes two or three meals.
By: Pody Corcoran, Rosemount Town Pages
Over the years, I’ve always enjoyed meal planning and cooking. First it was cooking with roommates, then, after we were married, learning to cook for a diabetic and now for one person.
Learning to cook and getting my husband to like fresh vegetables and fruit was the challenge. He wanted meat, potatoes and gravy. Getting him to appreciate vegetables was a challenge but after I disguised them, he developed a liking and didn’t fight it.
Lettuce, carrots, cabbage, celery, pepper and onion and added them to either lemon or lime jello. With a little bit of salad dressing on a square, I called it perfection salad.
Cauliflower and broccoli were used in cream soups. I added one pint of shredded zucchini to every pound of ground beef, whether it was a patty, chili, sloppy Joes, meatloaf or meatballs. The two vegetables he liked, peas and corn, were not good for him.
He never objected to corned beef and cabbage on St. Patrick’s Day.
When I baked I used 1/2 shortening and 1/2 apple sauce. Another thing was cooking with raw honey instead of processed honey or sugar. Processed honey we buy in the store has white syrup in most brands.
I find cooking for one is harder than cooking for a family. Even the smallest recipe makes two or three meals. I prefer fresh vegetables and fruit and learned to share with a friend. If I keep a whole stalk of celery or cantaloupe I end up throwing some out. I tried putting some in the freezer but went back to sharing. This goes for a bag of oranges, apples, etc.
The day before I go shopping, I clean the refrigerator out and make a beef vegetable soup.
Also, I make juice from left over fruits and vegetables. With fresh berries I make a smoothie for breakfast. In the winter, I miss the farmer’s markets but I know it won’t be long before they sprout up again.
I was talking with my sister, whose husband recently went in the nursing home. She agreed that cooking for one was the most difficult stage of her life. When we are older, our bodies require a lot less food, especially sugar, salt and fat. It just seems to go in the mouth and stop in the midsection or on the hips. I’d rather cook and eat at home than do fast food or eat out. Maybe it’s me but it just seems healthier and you can be more selective and eat better meals. | <urn:uuid:825883df-b89e-480d-9114-b760aaea38d7> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.rosemounttownpages.com/event/article/id/29939/publisher_ID/26/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368706153698/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516120913-00015-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.975808 | 583 | 1.804688 | 2 |
With the presidential and legislative elections just eight months away, Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) legislators are pushing for legal amendments that would allow the elections to be held on a Sunday rather than a Saturday, and for polling stations to stay open later because of the anticipated high voter turnout.
The Central Election Commission (CEC) has traditionally set polling day on the second or the fourth Saturday of the month in which an election was held, with voting taking place from 8am until 4pm.
DPP legislators, including Twu Shiing-jer (涂醒哲) and Kuan Bi-ling (管碧玲), have proposed amendments to the Presidential and Vice Presidential Election and Recall Act (總統副總統選舉罷免法) and the Civil Servants Election and Recall Act (公職人員選舉罷免法) that would make election day the first Sunday of the election month instead.
Central Election Commission Secretary-General Teng Tien-yu (鄧天祐) said that while he was neutral on the proposal, any delay in ballot counting would have a direct impact on the following workday
DPP Legislator Chai Trong-rong (蔡同榮) has also proposed amending the laws to increase the time that polling stations are open to no less than 10 hours.
The proposal said that voting stations in other countries are already open for longer periods of time, with 10 hours in Germany and Australia, 11 in New Zealand, 12 in Canada, France, South Korea, Hong Kong and Singapore, and 13 hours in the US and Japan.
Eight hours is insufficient and should be extended to at least 10 hours so that workers can vote after leaving work, they said.
However, the commission said it opposed extending the voting hours because no significant increase in voter turnout was observed in the Dec. 5, 2009, county and city mayor elections, despite the fact that polling stations were open from 7am until 5pm.
TRANSLATED BY JAKE CHUNG, STAFF WRITER | <urn:uuid:10b99802-e125-4cdd-a972-fc0d54022e51> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.taipeitimes.com/News/taiwan/archives/2011/05/17/2003503452 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368696383156/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516092623-00053-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.966688 | 462 | 1.828125 | 2 |
DANTE’S PEAK VOLCANIC REVIEW
Attention Student Vulcanologists! The movie, Dante’s Peak, dramatizes some real-world concerns faced by communities located near an active volcano in Washington. The movie portrays the roles of U.S. Geological Survey (USGS) scientists and local public officials during the re-awakening and eruption of this fictional volcano. Can you guess (a very educated guess, of course!) what mountain range Dante’s Peak would be a part of? Can you guess what type of volcano it is? What process would have created a mountain located in this area?
As you watch this action-packed movie, use your vast knowledge of volcanoes and make detailed observations to determine what is represented accurately (and not so accurately) by the filmmakers. Your job is to separate fact from fiction!
Assignment: A major California newspaper has asked you, as an expert vulcanologist, to write a review of the movie, Dante’s Peak. Your aim is to point out the scientifically related plot elements that you think are accurate and realistic, and those where the writers stretched things a bit to make the movie more exciting. This review is due on _______________ and should be presented appropriately for this genre (a newspaper movie review). | <urn:uuid:cbe8525f-ced9-41c5-ad7a-e450b5ed8cc0> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.windows2universe.org/teacher_resources/dantes_peak_student.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368706499548/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516121459-00068-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.968423 | 266 | 2.890625 | 3 |
This week's New York Times Magazine includes a fascinating article about the flaws in the research on the determinants of intelligence.
Previously, as the article points out, studies had shown that "a person's I.Q. is remarkably stable and that about three-quarters of I.Q. differences between individuals are attributable to heredity" -- a depressing finding for social reformers. But the article shows that this conclusion was based on a flawed methodological approach that is being overturned in new research that includes twins from poor families:
A new generation of studies shows that genes and environment don't occupy separate spheres — that much of what is labeled "hereditary" becomes meaningful only in the context of experience... If heredity defines the limits of intelligence, the research shows, experience largely determines whether those limits will be reached. And if this is so, the prospects for remedying social inequalities may be better than we thought.
...In combing through the research [on IQ], [UVA's Eric Turkheimer] noticed that the twins being studied had middle-class backgrounds. The explanation was simple — poor people don't volunteer for research projects — but he wondered whether this omission mattered.
Together with several colleagues, Turkheimer searched for data on twins from a wider range of families. He found what he needed in a sample from the 1970's of more than 50,000 American infants, many from poor families, who had taken I.Q. tests at age 7. In a widely-discussed 2003 article, he found that, as anticipated, virtually all the variation in I.Q. scores for twins in the sample with wealthy parents can be attributed to genetics. The big surprise is among the poorest families. Contrary to what you might expect, for those children, the I.Q.'s of identical twins vary just as much as the I.Q.'s of fraternal twins. The impact of growing up impoverished overwhelms these children's genetic capacities. In other words, home life is the critical factor for youngsters at the bottom of the economic barrel. "If you have a chaotic environment, kids' genetic potential doesn't have a chance to be expressed," Turkheimer explains. "Well-off families can provide the mental stimulation needed for genes to build the brain circuitry for intelligence."
This provocative finding was confirmed in a study published last year. An analysis of the reading ability of middle-aged twins showed that even half a century after childhood, family background still has a big effect — but only for children who grew up poor. Meanwhile, Turkheimer is studying a sample of twins who took the National Merit Scholarship exam, and the results are the same. Although these are the academic elite, who mostly come from well-off homes, variations in family circumstances still matter: children in the wealthiest households have the greatest opportunity to develop all their genetic capacities. The better-off the family, the more a child's genetic potential is likely to be, as Turkheimer puts it, "maxed out."
In addition, studies of the effect of environment on adopted twins placed in different homes used a skewed sample as well:
...[R]esearchers in France noted a shortcoming in these adoption studies and set out to correct it. Since poor families rarely adopt, those investigations have had to focus only on youngsters placed in well-to-do homes. What's more, because most adopted children come from poor homes, almost nothing is known about adopted youngsters whose biological parents are well-off.
What happens in these rare instances of riches-to-rags adoption? To answer that question, two psychologists, Christiane Capron and Michel Duyme, combed through thousands of records from French public and private adoption agencies. "It was slow, dusty work," Duyme recalls. Their natural experiment mimics animal studies in which, for instance, a newborn rhesus monkey is taken from its nurturing biological mother and handed over to an uncaring foster mother. The findings are also consistent: how genes are expressed depends on the social context.
Regardless of whether the adopting families were rich or poor, Capron and Duyme learned, children whose biological parents were well-off had I.Q. scores averaging 16 points higher than those from working-class parents. Yet what is really remarkable is how big a difference the adopting families' backgrounds made all the same. The average I.Q. of children from well-to-do parents who were placed with families from the same social stratum was 119.6. But when such infants were adopted by poor families, their average I.Q. was 107.5 — 12 points lower. The same holds true for children born into impoverished families: youngsters adopted by parents of similarly modest means had average I.Q.'s of 92.4, while the I.Q.'s of those placed with well-off parents averaged 103.6. These studies confirm that environment matters — the only, and crucial, difference between these children is the lives they have led. | <urn:uuid:6a82a354-983e-4b2b-bcb1-42f25d0e44ed> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.brendan-nyhan.com/blog/2006/07/revisiting_the_.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368710006682/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516131326-00021-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.970126 | 1,018 | 2.703125 | 3 |
Whether accurate or not, most people have a mental picture of what a drug abuser might look like —that image is rarely their grandma or grandpa.
According to research by the National Institute on Drug Abuse (NIDA), the percentage of Americans age 50 to 59 who reported abusing illicit or prescription drugs doubled from 2002 to 2009 from 2.7 percent to 6.2 percent.
Dr. David Lott, medical director of the Addiction Treatment Program at Linden Oaks at Edward in Naperville, says they see older adults with prescription drug addictions often.
"I want to emphasize that this is a growing problem," Lott says of prescription drug abuse among all ages. "It's alarming and staggering how much it's going up."
The problem, according to projections by NIDA, is expected to grow as the number of people 50 and older increases.
"It is our experience and experience around the country and epidemiologic studies show there will be a significant increase in the next one to two decades," Lott says.
How did this happen?
Dr. Martin Gorbien, director of Geriatrics and Palliative Medicine at Rush University Medical Center, points out that a prescription for a narcotic or opioid pain medication does not make someone a drug abuser.
"Is it OK to take narcotic drug medications? Yes it is. It's not just acceptable, for some it is necessary," he explains. There are any number of conditions that cause severe and chronic pain that may require the help of narcotics or for some it is a short-term need following surgery.
But for more and more older adults the relief and even euphoria offered by the medication can be alluring.
While narcotic pain medications can have positive effects for someone in pain, they are depressants and can cause depression, Gorbien says.
Older adults are more likely to be on more than one prescription medication as well.
When a person has a history of long standing use of narcotic pain medication a physician should always dig deeper, Gorbien suggests.
"Often there's more to the story," he says.
Lott says dynamics associated with aging, such as retirement or an empty nest, can contribute to the problem. Additional time to focus on pain or depression coupled with a lack of supervision, create a dangerous situation.
Is there a problem?
Drug abuse and the behaviors associated with it, Gorbien says, have commonalities across all age groups.
"The difference is we are less suspicious of older people," he says.
There are signs to look for, Gorbien says, such as a change in the person's character or that they are always looking for their medication. Other indicators can be fatigue, memory loss or the medication tolerance.
"Often the problem is very insidious," Gorbien says. "(These narcotics) have a dulling effect. They're not necessarily drunk or high. They may think other people around them can't see anything." | <urn:uuid:303d91df-8a89-4588-8201-52c64905af32> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.wsbt.com/topic/chi-primetime-medicalmanagement-071312,0,1522462.story | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368701852492/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516105732-00022-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.95608 | 610 | 2.203125 | 2 |
This group of pictures from Saturday’s New York Times showed Zimbabweans on their election day where they were forced to vote for the only candidate, President Robert Mugabe, for fear of punishment unless they could produce a finger colored by red ink as evidence they had cast their ballot.
According to the newspaper, the subjects agreed to be photographed and interviewed on the condition that their faces not be fully visible while the pictures ran uncredited for fear of reprisal against the photographer.
Given the information provided - the first name and age of each subject as well as in many cases, enough of the person pictured to make them identifiable - I'm not sure the story holds together in quite the way the front page treatment suggests. However, as testimonial to the freedom we often take for granted, as well as a creative use of photography, they were a striking group of pictures.
"I put an X on both candidates to spoil my ballot because the result will be the same. M.D.C. has withdrawn, so the result is obvious: ZANU will win. I just wanted ink for security reasons. I fear victimization from the ZANU-PF militia. It is obvious they will come door to door. If they see you don't have ink, they will know you are M.D.C." --MacDonald, 33 | <urn:uuid:0c82e4ba-609f-4459-bde3-65ed8a996d48> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://pictureyear.blogspot.com/2008/06/zimbabwe-election.html?showComment=1214838660000 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368702810651/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516111330-00017-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.982714 | 274 | 1.609375 | 2 |
|Area:||78,864 sq. km|
|Population:||10, 230, 060 (according to the March 2001 census)|
|Political system:||Parliamentary republic|
|Currency unit:||1 Czech crown (Kc)|
|Administrative divisions:||14 regions|
|Religions:||predominantly Roman-Catholic (39.2%), a large proportion of the population are atheists (39.7%)|
|State holidays:||January 1 - the anniversary of the reinstatement of an independent Czech state
May 8 - Liberation Anniversary
July 5 - Anniversary of the Slavonic missionaries Cyril (Konstantin) and Methodius
July 6 - Anniversary when John Huss was burned at the stake
September 28 - Anniversary of Czech statehood
October 28 - Anniversary of the establishment of the independent Czechoslovak state
November 17 - Anniversary of the fight for freedom and democracy
|Other holidays:||January 1 - New Year's Day
May 1 - Labour Day
December 24 - Christmas Eve
December 25 - Christmas Day
December 26 - Boxing Day
The Czech Republic is a land-locked country which is situated in the centre of a temperate zone of the northern hemisphere in the central part of Europe and covers the territory of the historic lands of Bohemia, Moravia and a part of Silesia. The state frontiers border on Poland (761.8 km), Germany (810.3 km), Austria (466.3 km) and Slovakia (251.8 km).
From the physical-geographical point of view the Czech Republic is situated on the divide of two mountain systems of the Bohemian massive and the Western Carpathians. The main European watersheds dividing the river basins of the North, Baltic and Black Seas pass through the territory of the Czech Republic.
The earliest historic evidence of ethnic groups who settled in the Czech basin at the beginning of 4th century B.C. were the Celtic Boii tribes according to whom the territory gained its name Boiohaemum (Home of the Boii), Bohemia in Latin. At the turn of the century the Celts were forced out by Germanic tribes. As of 6th century various Slavonic tribes settled here, who in the 7th century joined forces in the face of Avar expansion (so-called Samo's realm). After 820 the first proven state, the Great Moravian Empire, which is connected with the conversion to Christianity in the region, was established on the territory of the present Republic. Following its decline at the beginning of 10th century the mainstay of the people who created a state moved west to Bohemia.
The Premyslide dynasty finally succeeded in uniting the state. The borders of the main historic countries (Bohemia and Moravia) have essentially not changed since the Middle Ages, the other territories of the Czech state always existed only temporarily.
As of 1526 the land of the Czech Crown formed a part of the Habsburg monarchy. But at all times there were efforts to maintain independence.
After the disintegration of the monarchy the historic Czech lands were united with parts of the Hungarian kingdom (Slovakia and Carpathian Ruthenia) to form Czechoslovakia as one of the states of the post Austro-Hungarian Empire.
In 1938 neighbouring Germany claimed as its own part of the territory of the Republic (the Sudeten Land). As of March 1939 the rest of the Czech Lands were occupied by the Germans (the Protectorate of Bohemia and Moravia) whereas Slovakia was declared an independent state.
In 1945 Czechoslovakia regained its status (without Carpathian Ruthenia) and simultaneously the three-million German minority was forcibly transferred. After the coup in 1948 the Communist Party took over the government and introduced a totalitarian regime in the country. The sixties saw developments leading to a slight relaxation of totalitarian rule, which however was cut short in August 1968 by a military intervention on the part of the Soviet Union and member countries of the Warsaw Pact.
The fall of the Communist regime in November 1989 facilitated a renewal of a pluralistic democracy. In subsequent years the Soviet occupation units were withdrawn (1990-91) and many reforms within the state were enacted. At the beginning of the nineties leaders of both Federal republics engaged in a mutual dialogue whose outcome was an agreement to divide the common state into two independent states. The Czech Republic came into being on January 1, 1993 following the division of the Czech and Slovak Federative Republic (CSFR).
The Czech Republic joined NATO (1999) and on May 1, 2004 it became a full member of the European Union.
Thanks to its position in the heart of Europe the country has been confronted with various cultural influences and architectural styles in the course of its history. Since the country suffered little damage during the World War II, nor destruction due to redevelopment projects, a rich cultural heritage has been preserved. In the Czech Republic there are a total of 12 listed heritage reservations recognized by the international organization UNESCO: Prague - the historic centre, Cesky Krumlov - the historic centre, Telc - the historic centre, Zdar nad Sazavou - the pilgrimage church of St. Jan Nepomucky on Zelena Hora, Kutna Hora - the historic centre, Lednice - the Lednicko-Valticky grounds, Holasovice - the village reservation, Kromeriz - the gardens and palace, Litomysl - the palace and its grounds, Olomouc - the column of the Holy Trinity, Brno - Villa Tugendhat, Trebic - the Jewish quarter and St. Procopus Basilica.
The natural wealth in the Czech Republic is protected in many areas which have officially been declared nature reserves. On the territory of the Czech Republic there are four national parks (Krkonose, Sumava, Podyji and Czech Switzerland) which are subject to the strictest rules to assure their protection.
On the territory of the Czech Republic there are numerous cold and hot natural mineral water springs which are used for curative and convalescent treatments in areas where there are also spas. Many of these sources also serve for the production of mineral and table water.
The Czech Republic has a long-standing tradition in industrial production. The composition of its industries is being restructured to typically correspond to a small but mature market economy. In recent years the share of food production has increased, while there has been a decline in the engineering segment, which, however, continues to be the most important industrial branch in the Czech Republic. The most developed areas in consumer goods production are the traditional branches manufacturing textiles and clothing, shoes, porcelain, ceramics and costume jewellery.
The most significant areas in food production are industries processing flour, sugar, meat and brewing beer. There is a long prevailing tradition in breeding freshwater fish and in this connection fish-farming in the numerous man-made lakes is well developed. Hops are an important export article. | <urn:uuid:e053d09f-d772-4e78-a39f-9fafc91e8917> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.hrad.cz/en/czech-republic/index.shtml | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368700958435/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516104238-00064-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.947537 | 1,453 | 3.03125 | 3 |
The second month of 2012 is finally here! And I've listed some special days for this month
(Only those I've remembered)
Explanation of these holidays:
1. Federal Territory Day (Malaysia) - was a public holiday at Malaysia to celebrate the 3 territories (Namely Kuala Lumpur(West Malaysia), Putrajaya(West Malaysia) and Labuan (East Malaysia))
2. Prophet Muhammad's birthday (Malaysia and other parts of the world) - A day to celebrate the birth of the most influential man in the Islamic world- The Prophet Muhammad.
3. Chap Goh Mei (Malaysia and other parts of the world)- The last day of Chinese New Year (Falls on the 15th Day of the first lunar month).
4. Thaipusam (Malaysia and other parts of the world) - A Hindu festival celebrated mostly by the Tamil community on the full moon in the Tamil month of Thai (January or February). It is celebrated not only in countries where the Tamil community constitutes a majority.
5. National Foundation Day (Japan and some parts of the world) - A national holiday in Japan celebrated annually on February 11.On this day, Japanese celebrate the founding of the nation and the imperial line by its legendary first emperor, Jimmu. Japanese overseas also celebrated this event in a smaller scale.
6. Valentines Day - It is traditionally a day on which lovers express their love for each other by presenting flowers, offering confectionery, and sending greeting cards (known as "valentines").
Facts about the month of February:
1. February is the second month of the year in the Julian and Gregorian calendars. It is the shortest month and the only month with fewer than 30 days. The month has 29 days in leap years, when the year number is divisible by four (except for years that are divisible by 100 and not by 400 in the Gregorian calendar). In common years the month has 28 days.
2. February is the month of the astrology sign Aquarius and Pieces.
3. The common February stone is Amethyst - meaning Sincerity.
Wanted to share more but...time to stop here, any questions? Just reply below! ~ Happy February everyone! | <urn:uuid:facabfc0-196c-4aae-baaa-0069bf78cf99> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://kendylife.blogspot.com/2012/02/february-is-here.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368698924319/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516100844-00050-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.92708 | 470 | 2.59375 | 3 |
SCORE Celebrates Small Business Owners During National Entrepreneurship Month and National Entrepreneurs' Day
WASHINGTON, Nov. 15, 2012 /PRNewswire-USNewswire/ -- SCORE – www.score.org – mentors to America's small businesses, is proud to honor its entrepreneurial clients during National Entrepreneurship Month and all year round. As proclaimed by President Barack Obama , November is National Entrepreneurship Month and Friday, November 16th shall be celebrated as National Entrepreneurs' Day. Nurturing the American entrepreneurial spirit is something that SCORE does every day and nationwide. With the assistance of SCORE, 40,537 new small businesses were started by American entrepreneurs in the last year. By providing a wide array of options for new and growing small businesses, from the 12,000+ volunteer mentors lending their years of business knowledge in 340+ chapters nationwide to SCORE's ongoing webinars built to help businesses succeed, entrepreneurs are always supported by SCORE.
"America is known around the world as a country that empowers the inventor and the innovator. Ours is a Nation where men and women can take a chance on a dream -- where they can take an idea that starts around a kitchen table or in a garage and turn it into a new business or a new industry," said President Barack Obama in his official proclamation. "Because the new businesses created by entrepreneurs are responsible for most of the new jobs in our country, helping them succeed is essential to helping our economy grow."
SCORE has used proven methodologies to improve the outcomes of small business entrepreneurs with a variety of workshop series like Simple Steps for Starting Your Business and Simple Steps for Growing Your Business. SCORE workshops have also become the foundation for nationally recognized programs like the Veterans Fast Launch initiative – www.vetsfastlaunch.org. With these tools and the sound advice of SCORE mentors, 77,732 SCORE clients have seen increased revenues over the past year putting SCORE on track to achieve its goal of growing 1,000,000 small businesses by 2017.
"SCORE is proud to assist the hundreds of thousands of entrepreneurs that have come to us for FREE help with starting or growing their small businesses. With our face-to-face and online mentoring sessions, multiple workshop series, and small business tools, SCORE continues to expand the ways that entrepreneurs can turn their small business ideas into American success stories," said Bridget Weston Pollack , SCORE's Director of Marketing and Communications.
National Entrepreneurship Month and specifically National Entrepreneurship Day (November 16th, 2012) is a time that will be celebrated and recognized by SCORE's nationwide network as it highlights the work of the organization year round. Small Business Entrepreneurs fuel the Nation's job creation engine. Working with SCORE, these entrepreneurs have created 67,098 jobs last year and saved another 5,591 jobs in the process. SCORE proudly continues to work with entrepreneurs in putting America back to work.
Since 1964, SCORE has helped more than 9 million aspiring entrepreneurs. Each year SCORE helps launch 58,000 new businesses and create 71,000 jobs. SCORE provides small business mentoring and workshops to more than 375,000 new and growing small businesses annually.
For more information about starting or operating a small business, call 1-800/634-0245 for the SCORE chapter nearest you. Visit SCORE at www.score.org. Connect with SCORE at www.facebook.com/SCOREFans and www.twitter.com/SCOREMentors.
Shalini Karnani Bonjour
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Request more information about PR Newswire products and services or call us at (888) 776-0942. | <urn:uuid:17ed9c50-e818-4b86-9596-2510c5b9bd89> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.prnewswire.com/news-releases/score-celebrates-small-business-owners-during-national-entrepreneurship-month-and-national-entrepreneurs-day-179474281.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368699881956/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516102441-00008-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.926437 | 787 | 1.632813 | 2 |
Hall agreed that the pop-culture connection of zombies to apocalyptic groups is "a shared motif of a dystopian world emerging." He added that zombies are a stand-in for "The Other," an alien group, process or force that is "almost always" the basis for apocalyptic developments.
Zombies can be a substitute for a corrupt government, an oil-based economy, foreigners or even a Sodom and Gomorrah society itself.
"[H]ow you deal with the threat is an open question," he said.
Whatever route to the end (or new beginning), Hall thinks the very diversity of subcultures underscores the fact that we have reached an apocalyptic apex.
"In this moment, people are seeing the old ways of life recede," he said. "That's the occasion when all kinds of different people from all kinds of different directions come forward with one or another apocalyptic scenario." | <urn:uuid:e52ffeec-2b5c-4488-bc05-56ea041c3001> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.ksat.com/lifestyle/Apocalypse-believers-big-finish-predictions/-/477938/17864194/-/item/1/-/14n61e/-/index.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368703298047/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516112138-00024-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.941859 | 184 | 1.601563 | 2 |
Many Americans celebrated Arbor Day for the 119th time this year, unaware that the man who founded the event was a transplanted Detroit-area resident upset over the lack of trees in Nebraska.
There's irony to that fact, for many tree-lined streets that Arbor Day founder J. Sterling Morton enjoyed while he lived in the Detroit area are now under threat.
Although the Detroit area is not as barren as Nebraska was when Mr. Morton founded Arbor Day in 1885, 6 million ash trees in southeastern Michigan are dead, dying, or being cut down because of a devastating foreign pest, the emerald ash borer.
Drastic as that sounds, it could be only the beginning of an altered landscape for Michigan, Ohio, and Indiana.
Officials are so worried about the havoc the bug could cause that they have begun discussing the possibility of cutting a huge swath across those states.
Canada clear-cut 84,000 ash trees across Ontario's southwestern peninsula a few weeks ago.
A semicircle running south from Michigan into northwestern Ohio and northeastern Indiana would involve tens of thousands, if not millions of ash trees, creating a firebreak-like barrier up to 6 miles wide, said Sharon Lucik, spokesman for the U.S. Animal Plant and Health Inspection Service in Brighton, Mich.
The cost could be millions of dollars and the project could take eight years, said Bob Waltz, an Indiana Department of Natural Resources entomologist.
With billions of trees, this region doesn't appear to be in any imminent danger of becoming treeless.
Yet forestry experts and nursery owners admit the emerald ash borer is one of many threats causing anxiety over the fate of some species of trees that provide the region with shade and beauty, and even help cleanse the air.
"We are now seeing an array of threats to Ohio's forests that are unprecedented," said Tom Harrison, a veteran plant pathologist for the Ohio Department of Agriculture who's studied such issues for more than two decades.
Besides the emerald ash borer, there are other threats to our trees, some already in this region and some feared to be on their way. Among them: Asian longhorn beetles, gypsy moths, beech scale insects, hemlock woolly adelgid, and sudden oak death fungus.
The fungus, first noticed in central California oaks in 1995, may have been spread by a Los Angeles nursery. A shipment to the Cincinnati area is under review by investigators.
"I think we've had more exotic pest flare-ups in the past four to five years than we have had in the past 20 years combined," Mr. Harrison said.
Contributing to the declines are developers who clear land for more housing subdivisions and retail plazas. Maintenance activities by FirstEnergy Corp. and other utilities to trim back trees from power lines to prevent blackouts are factors as well. Many trees also are felled by oil companies to maintain an aerial view of their pipelines.
Remember Dutch elm disease?
It began in Cleveland in 1930, when the disease started its stranglehold on the American elm tree, one of the nation's most popular shade trees for residential neighborhoods. By the 1960s, elms were struggling to survive.
Most people today don't remember when the American chestnut tree was the dominant hardwood species in the eastern United States, including Ohio, where it once was the state's most common tree. An exotic fungal disease known as chestnut blight wiped out the species by the 1950s.
Years later, butternut trees - a relative of the black walnut highly valued for furniture - were decimated from much of the continent by another fungus.
The U.S. Department of Agriculture's Forest Service has described the loss of those species as "three American tragedies," each caused by fungal diseases from other continents.
Today, few state or federal officials from this part of North America spare any adjectives when discussing the potential impact of the tiny Asian beetle.
"The emerald ash borer is the worst of the bunch, because it's so devastating to its host tree," said Mr. Harrison, who heads up Ohio's emerald ash borer task force.
Michigan Department of Agriculture Director Dan Wyant even went so far as to formally declare the bug a menace to society.
"It's hard to survey or detect," Mr. Harrison said, "and you must take draconian measures to get rid of it when you find it."
Those draconian measures include cutting down more than 20,000 ash trees in Ohio this year alone, including about 15,000 in northeast Columbus, one of several pockets of the Buckeye State where the beetle has been detected.
About 1,500 trees were targeted for destruction in the vicinity of Hicksville, Ohio, and an additional 450 in the Perrysburg/Rossford area. Hundreds were destroyed last year in western Lucas County, near Whitehouse, and hundreds more will be coming down as soon as this week near Ohio's latest confirmed site, south of Toledo Express Airport.
That's because with no safe, foolproof pesticide developed to kill this bug, protocol calls for destroying all ash trees within at least a half-mile radius of known infested sites. The idea is create a gap big enough to cut the beetle off from its food source. Pesticides are applied to trees just beyond that perimeter as a backup.
Ohio's figures, however, pale in comparison to what's been going on in Michigan, where 6 million ash trees have died or are being cut down.
On Friday, Governor Jennifer Granholm asked President Bush to declare Michigan a major disaster area to help make the state eligible for more federal funding for eradication efforts. The cost of addressing the problem in Michigan is estimated to be greater than $163 million. The state has received $29 million from the federal government so far.
Michigan has quarantined a 13-county area in the southeastern part of the state seen by experts as the epicenter of North America's infestation. The bug was discovered in that part of Michigan in 2002, but officials now realize it may have been there for as long as a decade. It has since spread to other parts of Michigan.
Across the Detroit River, at least 84,000 ash trees in Ontario's southwestern peninsula from Lake St. Clair to Lake Erie - a swath of land 6.2 miles wide and 18.6 miles long - were clear-cut this year. That $12 million project was an attempt to prevent the beetle from spreading to other parts of Canada.
Emerald ash borers also have been found in Indiana, Maryland, and Virginia.
In the case of Maryland and Virginia, the infestation was blamed on a Michigan nursery owner who ignored the state's quarantine and shipped infested ash trees there. Stuart Leve pleaded no contest in November to 123 counts of violating Michigan's emerald ash borer quarantine and plant health laws. He was sentenced Dec. 10 by District Court Judge Brian MacKenzie in Novi, Mich., to the maximum sentence of $12,300 - $100 for each count - and was ordered to pay $16,000 in restitution to a Maryland nursery that had unknowingly purchased infested trees from him.
The judge left open the possibility of ordering Mr. Leve to pay thousands more in restitution to Maryland and Virginia for their expenses, officials said.
Drew Todd, state urban forestry coordinator for the Ohio Department of Natural Resources, said the emerald ash borer has the potential of being every bit as devastating as Dutch elm disease.
"From a potential damage standpoint, it is very similar," he said. "It has the potential to alter the composition [of the landscape] drastically."
Mr. Harrison agreed. "Dutch elm disease didn't kill all the elms in a year or two. Whether or not the current containment efforts [for the emerald ash borer] work - that's still in the cards."
Many of the problems faced by trees in the Great Lakes region parallel threats that have emerged in the world's largest collection of fresh surface water: The onslaught of exotic species.
Invasive species have hitched rides in the wooden shipping crates and ballast water of ocean-going ships, gotten off in the vicinity of port cities such as Detroit and Toledo, then blitzed the North America ecology with a set of problems many scientists here have never seen before.
Invariably, the destruction has created new learning curves - but it's often been a game of catch-up, because officials admittedly haven't known what to predict whether it's on the land or beneath the water.
Scientists acknowledge the problem will get worse because of emerging global trade markets.
Increased trade with Asia has the potential of causing more ecological threats, because Asia's climate has more in common with North America's than Europe's, experts said.
"It's inevitable that we're going to have invasives that get established and disrupt the ecology," said Dan Herms of the Ohio Agricultural Research and Development Center in Wooster, Ohio. Mr. Todd agreed. "As the world economy evolves and the ease of shipping increases, there are more and more opportunities for these things to happen," he said.
They and others are looking beyond the traditional ivory towers of a major university for help: the U.S. Department of Homeland Security.
Officials believe the attempt to slam the door on exotics will benefit greatly from the government's enhanced efforts to keep out terrorists. That's because security includes better detection of chemical agents, not just people. Invariably, that should lead to better detection of biological pests foreign to North America, they said.
"There's a lot more emphasis being paid to the ports, not just in looking for terrorists but also for pests," Mr. Harrison said.
The evolving changes are hard on people like Tom Oberhouse, who owns North Branch Nursery, Inc., in Pemberville, one of northwest Ohio's largest tree farms. Although not in a quarantined area, he said he's all but given up on the ash making a comeback as a landscaping tree.
White ash is Ohio's third-most common tree, with an estimated 3.8 billion statewide. They have contributed millions of dollars to the economies of Michigan and Ohio in nursery sales because of their popularity as a landscaping tree.
They've also contributed millions of dollars because of their role in manufacturing. Ash is used to make products ranging from wood flooring to baseball bats; in Ohio, the manufacture of ash-made tool handles is one of the state's larger businesses.
"The emerald ash borer is kind of all-consuming at this point," Mr. Oberhouse said.
Mr. Oberhouse said the bug's threat is the worst he can recall in his 24 years in the nursery industry. He said he is hopeful a pesticide will be developed, but doesn't see that reversing the damage to nurseries.
"Most people don't want a tree they have to put pesticides on every year," he said.
In the aftermath of Dutch elm disease, ash trees were seen as a shade-tree replacement for the loss of elms. Now, hybrid elms that are resistant to Dutch elm disease are displacing ash as landscaping trees, Mr. Oberhouse said.
Call it another sign of homogenization among continents: Scientists are in the early stages of coming up with a hybrid ash that would be resistant to the emerald ash borer. They're studying ash trees in Asia that can tolerate the bug. A collaborative effort among Michigan, Ohio and federal scientists is underway at the Michigan State University Tollgate Research and Education Farm near Novi, Mich., about an hour north of Toledo. On April 24, officials planted 800 trees, including two species of Asian ash.
"Two years ago, none of this seemed real significant to me," confessed Mr. Herms, an Ohio researcher involved in the effort. He now is confident that ash hybrids will be developed that are resistant to the emerald ash borer.
Years ago, a knee-jerk reaction to attacking tree problems such as the emerald ash borer might simply have been mass fumigation with chemicals.
In the late 1950s, DDT was used to curb Dutch elm disease. Much of it was surplus chemical left over from World War II, when it was used to help the military combat malaria or yellow fever.
After studying bird deaths on the Michigan State University campus that had been linked to DDT, however, researchers eventually concluded that robins were poisoned by eating DDT-contaminated earthworms.
DDT was later blamed for decimating America's bald eagle population because it made eagle eggshells thin and vulnerable.
In 1962, Rachel Carson published her landmark book, Silent Spring. The book has connections to Dutch elm disease, in the sense that it begins with a description of a strikingly eerie silence that could have befallen the nation if robins and other birds continued to die from DDT
Ms. Carson, a former aquatic biologist for the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, was lauded by Time magazine as one of the most influential people of the 20th Century for awakening the scientific community to the dangers of chemical overexposure.
Since then, the chemical industry's products have come under closer scrutiny and a new generation of scientists has grown up looking for links between excessive use of chemicals and cancer, with the latest research evolving toward birth defects, reproduction problems, and child development problems.
"Silent Spring still has an impact on what our scientists are doing and how they're doing it," Mr. Todd said.
Looking for solutions other than pesticides "reduces your arsenal to some degree and rightfully so," Mr. Harrison said, "because there are some tools you use that are worse than the actual pest."
Cutting down trees is an alternative. Considering the outcry that chopping down a property owner's trees can generate, officials say they appreciate the public's sacrifice to accept the destruction being done in some areas in an effort to halt the emerald ash borer's spread.
"This is a very drastic thing for us," Mr. Harrison said. "We don't take pleasure in taking these trees down. It strikes a little bit of emotion in you that you didn't know you had. It's hard."
Contact Tom Henry at: [email protected] or 419-724-6079. | <urn:uuid:20640ee6-d656-4494-a975-476e12eadde0> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.toledoblade.com/frontpage/2004/05/03/Ash-borer-not-alone-in-threatening-shade-trees.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368706890813/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516122130-00055-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.970106 | 2,969 | 2.875 | 3 |
For the time being, the ability to make and edit contributions is
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Starting out as a Wex author involves making choices about what
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step, you should make sure that your intended topic hasn't been covered
already; this is easily done by searching. You should also learn a little bit of the general mechanics of editing, with particular attention to linking to legal resources.
Choosing what to write
Wex is intended, at least initially, as a resource for law novices,
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members of the general public with a professional need to know
something about a particular area of law, people who want to know more
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about the law.
Wex includes a few basic types of articles:
- The simplest, and perhaps the least time-consuming, are simple dictionary definitions, such as the one for abuse of discretion. These offer the term along with its meaning(s), and perhaps some illustrations of the term taken from caselaw or statute.
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These are, we admit, blurry distinctions. And there are many other
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example, discussions of particular cases. We are particularly interested in topics and definitions that are helpful to law novices -- students in the first part of the first year of law school, businesspeople with particular law interests, etc.
As for choosing a specific topic, you might begin by searching
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The mechanics of starting a new page are covered in "starting a new article". Help with the mechanical aspects of editing can be found in Help:Editing. Consulting the section on linking to legal resources will make the job easier.
We strongly suggest a look at the style guide before you begin. | <urn:uuid:fb7cf77a-c4ff-4ee4-9f03-498a2b809738> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.law.cornell.edu/wex/getting_started_as_an_author | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368696382584/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516092622-00016-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.948178 | 739 | 2.5625 | 3 |
-Mabel’s Place, Lawrence windows, Mabel Dodge Luhan House, Taos, New Mexico, February 2007, photo © 2007 by QuoinMonkey. All rights reserved.
A friend of mine told me she’s been rereading her old writing practice notebooks. She said it took her splat into the face of Monkey Mind; she also discovered a few gems.
Inspired, I started reading over notebooks from an Intensive writing retreat in Taos last year. It’s hard to reread the dribble and drat of writing practice. I’m glad I remembered my wading boots. It was getting pretty thick in there.
I found passions and complaints, all the frustration and fear, the rawness of sitting in silence. There was a whole paragraph on an ant crawling through a patch of light and into a crack in a floor plank. Another two on breathing in and out, the workers talking in the distance, the wind through the small corner window hitting the side of my face.
The same things kept popping up over and over again. But once in a while, there it was – a refreshing moment of clarity.
Natalie Goldberg teaches the practice of rereading in Writing Down the Bones. She devotes a whole chapter to it. She says time should pass, space between writing and rereading. Then there is a meeting of the minds:
The continuation of writing through all your discursive thoughts is the practice. A month later you recognize consciously the good writing when you reread your notebooks. At this point our unconscious and conscious selves meet, recognize each other, and become whole. This is art.
In the pages of that old notebook, I discovered a 10 minute practice from February of 2007, one of the last practices we did as a group in the zendo. The topic was to make a list of what we remembered about the last year of writing in the Intensive.
There was a strong feeling of intimacy, and of something ending. And at the same time, a fresh start.
What I Remember About Writing – 10 min
- Details. Write details. They bring the work alive.
- No sentimentality.
- Stand on the backs of the writers that came before you.
- Read everything by an author.
- Be grateful for writing connections.
- Give back to your community. Don’t just take.
- Have compassion for other writers. Study their lives.
- Study good literature, essays, and word counts.
- Ask questions. Listen for the answers.
- Don’t be afraid to look dumb.
- The more personal it is, the more others can relate to it.
- Love good books. Love other writers. Go where they lived and worked.
- Insights aren’t always followed. Sometimes they go back inside.
- Seeds from a Birch Tree, James Baldwin, John Cheever.
- Sugar Nymphs, Caffe Tazza, Ghost Ranch, the Harwood.
- Suspend judgment.
- Keep writing practice at my back.
- Writers labor over books.
- Do not waste this precious life.
- Study the minds of other writers.
- Practice and sitting teaches how to hold creative energy.
- The energy of resistance turned is awakening.
-list from a writing practice in Taos, February 10th, 2007
Wednesday, July 4th, 2007 | <urn:uuid:1bc09ac5-d96c-4264-8308-c621387350c9> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://redravine.wordpress.com/2007/07/04/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368698207393/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516095647-00009-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.938521 | 713 | 1.6875 | 2 |
Subsets and Splits