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I calculate a symmetric surface model. However, the reported tensions are not consistent. Is it a user error?
So that the correct voltages are displayed on all surfaces, it is recommended to switch on the local axis system via the Project Navigator - Show the surface axis system. It can usually be seen that the respective surfaces have a different rotation of the surface axes than the other surfaces (see Figure 1). |
Not all of this research I agree with, these are just some of the studies done on birth mother's grief (there are more but not many) Don't let one study detour you in any way from choosing or not choosing adoption. Ask other birth moms and get several opinions before you decide. There are many ways (I believe) to avoid some of the emotional pain others have experienced in the past (not avoid, but more limit the conditions that may bring on additional turmoil just not needed) Disenfranchised grief...I had heard of it before in Psych class, but never did I really get it until I became a birth mom.
This disenfranchised grief is when the grief is connected with a loss which cannot be openly acknowledged, publicly mourned or socially supported. In many cases of disenfranchised grief, the relationship is not recognised, the loss is not recognised or the griever is not recognised. The loss of a child through adoption is usually a loss which cannot be openly acknowledged, which is why mothers often suffer in silence...people who have experienced any type of loss often feel anger, guilt, sadness, depression, hopelessness and numbness and that in cases of disenfranchised grief, these feelings can persist for a very long time. The lack of recognition of their grief often results in them holding on to it more tenaciously than they might otherwise have done.
"Post-Adoption Depression Syndrome" (PADS), which is not yet a distinct illness recognized by the American Psychiatric Association. PADS can range from a full-blown episode of severe depression that requires hospitalization or just a simple case of the blues that lasts a month or two. The few scientific studies of PADS indicate that over half of adoptive mothers experience it. For example, in 1999 Harriet McCarthy, manager of the Eastern European Adoption Coalition Parent Education and Preparedness, surveyed 165 mothers who had adopted children from Eastern Europe and found that 65% reported post-adoption depression. Other researchers have determined that you are more likely to experience PADS if you adopt from overseas or if your child has special needs."
. This makes it difficult to find a good counselor. In addition, counselors may have attended "Infant Adoption Awareness Training" in which some attendees have been told that mothers who have problems following the loss of their child to adoption are "few in number and mentally ill". One can only wonder whether people who are grieving a death or divorce are also too "mentally ill" to be worthy of compassionate counseling. Note: There is a large market for newborn babies for adoption in America. Adoption "counselors" in North America like to refer to expectant parents as "birthparents" or "birthmothers", while calling the unrelated person hoping to adopt a "parent". The objective of this so-called "respectful adoption language" is to make the acquisition of healthy newborn babies by infertile people or gay people seem "normal". The euphemism "adoption" is used to deflect attention from the reality - this is a transfer of human babies from loving (if naive or pressured) relatives to customers. The misleading, disrespectful terms "birthmother", "birthfather" and "birthparents" are used on this website for search engine purposes only. The terms "mother", "father", "single parent", " family member" and "natural mother" are accurate, respectful, and nonderogatory terms. |
Resume is a paper on which details of education qualifications, experience, your skills and abilities etc. are spilled. It’s like a paper version of what we are. Anybody can write a resume. A resume must be written in an effective manner.
An effective resume is one which is good presented, accurate, authentic and easy to read and understand. An effective resume might not have all the details about you but it must be perfect enough to get you recruited. Not everybody can write a resume in an effective way.
If you want to write a resume in an effective way, follow a format to write. You can choose among chronological resume format, functional resume format and hybrid resume format.
If you are freshly graduated student then, chronological resume format will suite you just fine. If you are experienced person with career change and with long gaps in your employment career then functional format is the best.
Think and choose a format of your type.
Don’t make your resume too long. Resumes highlight your skills and abilities but not your story. Do not over do things. Don’t write paragraphs about yourself. Just keep it short and refined. Try to write everything in point wise and make sections and side headings and sort things accordingly.
Don’t write any fake content or give wrong details. Don’t exaggerate about yourself. Just keep it real. Don’t make things up while you write about yourself. Don’t alter your scores or achievements. Don’t bluff about yourself.
Just remember the purpose of your resume and write it according to the job description. Give the details what are relevant and required for the job. Don’t give every detail about your skills or languages or achievement or anything.
Just write relevant things what are required for the job. And try to write and highlight things which are mentioned in the job description if you have them.
It’s called a resume for a purpose and it is limited to 2 or 3 pages. So, don’t try to write your whole story in it. Just keep it short and mention the necessary things which you think might help you. Don’t write in paragraphs. If you have to do so then just keep it brief. Try to write everything in a point wise manner.
Just go through the job description and write only the necessary details and few others and highlight the details which are mentioned in the description so that it catches the eye of the person who selects you.
While writing career objective make sure that it makes sense and make sure that it matches the job description. Try to relate it to the job description. Don’t make it look pretentious, mean what you write. Use active verbs etc. Don’t create confusion in the mind of the reader. Write it in a simple way.
Don’t try to bluff and exaggerate about your skills and talents, achievements. At the same time don’t be modest about mentioning your achievements. The achievements which you think are embarrassing might be the qualities the recruiter might be looking for.
Be honest. If don’t know about few things or if you have a half knowledge on few things don’t put them on your resume. Just keep it simple and keep it real.
While writing a resume, firstly you have to divide it into sections. And then you can list out your qualities under different sub headings. While listing your skills, strength, and achievements try to highlight things which you feel are related to your job and which are mentioned in the job description.
A resume is nothing without presentation. Make sure that you make it presentable. Try to use bullets where ever required and while listing out your qualities. Use numbering when you tabulate your scores or accomplishments.
Use bold and italic text where ever required i.e., in the headings or sub headings or highlighting something etc. Make it look good.
Use active verbs and use proper language in your resume. The language need not to be polished or something. Just keep it simple and don’t use irrelevant words or offensive words. Just write it in a simple understandable language without any mistakes.
These are the few things which are expected in every resume and few secrets of effective writing. |
An internet protocol that facilitates extension of email's limited capabilities is termed as Multipurpose Internet Mail Extensions (MIME). Users can insert images, text, data files, and sound for exchange through email. This addition of internet standard was proposed in the year 1991. MIME format is used to transmit all automated emails that are manually composed by using SMTP. The close relationship of MIME and SMTP standards is evident from the fact that on many occasions, emails are called as SMTP/MIME emails.
For the Internet, type of content has great significance in HTTP protocols. This content type is defined by MIME. In the beginning of any transmission through Web, servers insert MIME header that is used by clients for selection of application that is has relevance to the data indicated by header. Special header directives are used to describe the format of a message body. It is of importance for appropriate representation of email by client.
MIME can be extended to register new types of content and the presence of new version suggests that the message is formatted by using MIME. Internet media type of data is described by content-type and content-description offers additional information about message content. The encoding used in the message body is sown by content-transfer-encoding and content disposition has attribute 'filename' and used to define file's name as well as attachment setting. Media types were earlier referred to as MIME types and Media subtypes are assigned by IANA. These include applications, audio, images, messages, models, text, video and so forth.
The principal purpose of MIME is to code binary files for transmitting them over Web as attachments. It also facilitates sending a non-ASCI file including sound or a video. The basic intention behind development of MIME was to overcome limitations of SMTP such as inability to handle data that is not in text format, unable to support languages in 8-bit codes, and failure of rejecting mails exceeding a particular size. |
This seeming folly closes a vista inside the walled garden of Strokestown Park, County Roscommon. In fact the main feature here, the limestone Venetian window, was originally sited on the first floor of the main house and formed part of Richard Castle’s design dating from the 1730s. When Strokestown underwent modifications around 1819 – the architect on that occasion being John Lynn – the window was removed (presumably because a large Ionic portico was added directly beneath) and put into storage. It only found a new home in the walled garden when this was restored in the 1990s. |
The body has within it an intelligent force, a cognitive power, which deserves recognition. This cognitive power is defined in this thesis as physical cognition, a way of knowing, learning, and responding that occurs within the body and comes from the body. There is currently an imbalance in the relationship between mental and physical cognition in secondary education. This imbalance has permeated Western thought since Descartes claimed that the thinking being is separate from the bodily being. With requirements for physical education and fine arts at the bare minimum, there is a need for physical engagement in learning in secondary education. Offering a teaching model that includes movement, acting, and Anne Bogart's Viewpoints, this model provides a step by step plan for both teaching theatre from a physical perspective and developing physical cognition. It is through this integration of mind and body that education of the whole person begins. |
Clara Barton’s life and work paralleled the development of international emergency relief and its spread throughout the world. Throughout that process, she was an important leader in its development. The vehicle she ultimately used to facilitate emergency relief in peace and war was the Red Cross, which still offers international aid to this day.
Barton’s first encounters with relief work came during the American Civil War. One of the important policies to come out of the Civil War which likely influenced Barton was the Winchester Accord. In the spring of 1862, the Union and Confederate armies reached the agreement. The accord regarded doctors as non-combatants, and established that they could not be held as prisoners of war but would be released in due time and allowed to return to their respective armies. Barton, who worked closely with many of these doctors, surely saw the value of this, especially since it allowed the surgeons to remain with the wounded without the concern of being captured. This practice led directly to the soldiers receiving better care than they otherwise would have, establishing a critical precedent in American wartime medical care.
Meanwhile, in Europe, several nations formalized a set of humanitarian laws on a much larger scale than the Winchester Accord. The International Committee of the Red Cross was founded in 1864 after the horrors of the Battle of Solferino (1859) came to light. The Treaty of Geneva was signed by twelve nations and outlined rules for the humane treatment of the wounded, prisoners of war, and noncombatants during war. It also provided for the neutrality of both relief workers and the wounded themselves.
After the Civil War, while in Geneva, Switzerland on the advice of her doctor to relax, Barton was finally introduced to the Treaty of Geneva. As someone who spent countless hours face to face with the human wreckage of war, Barton found it almost incomprehensible that the United States refused to sign the treaty, and began to work tirelessly to start the American Red Cross. She lobbied Congress, promoted the Red Cross ideals to the public, and pushed for its ratification until 1881, when the Senate and President Chester Arthur finally ratified the Geneva Convention.
Barton founded the first local chapter of the American Red Cross in Dansville, New York, in 1881, and served as the President of the American Red Cross until 1904, eight years before her death. She was single-minded in her devotion to the organization, and continued to expand the influence of the Red Cross throughout her tenure. Her Civil War experiences taught her that, to be effective, relief efforts had to be rapid, since the need was immediate, and not tied to political influences. |
Samantha Bradshaw is a senior fellow at the Canadian International Council. She is also a D.Phil. candidate at the Oxford Internet Institute and a researcher on the Computational Propaganda Project at Oxford University.
The revelations about Cambridge Analytica – the big data firm that misused Facebook data to target voters with propaganda – should have Canadian policymakers thinking seriously about how information, technology and data will affect our elections in 2019. There are increasing concerns that social media is undermining democracy – broadcasting conspiracy theories, fake news and Russian-sponsored disinformation campaigns – and Canada should not be complacent. In a data-intensive society, winning an election might have less to do with a candidate, party, or platform and more to do with buying and selling voter data to hack democracy.
We live in a networked society where data is the currency in our information economy. Every time we like a post, interact with friends or make an online purchase, we generate data about our behaviour, interests, values and relationships. Internet companies have traditionally used this data to assemble detailed customer profiles to tailor products to specific segments of the population. However, these techniques are increasingly being used to build detailed psychological profiles about voters that can be leveraged to deliver political advertisements and propaganda. In today’s digital environment, personal data is not only used to market traditional consumer products, but to sell us world leaders.
Civic data brokerage has become big business. Over the past five years, political actors have hired private firms to map voter constituencies, tailor political messaging and shape electoral outcomes through data-driven profiling. Firms such as Cambridge Analytica have already worked with politicians in countries such as the United Kingdom, the United States and Kenya to monitor, suppress and even deliver outright lies to voters. Even in Canada, the Liberal Party considered hiring the data analyst who blew the whistle on Cambridge Analytica’s improper use of Facebook data to work on their 2016 campaign. The strategic combination of big data analytics with computational propaganda and disinformation can distort political processes, spread skepticism and distrust, and interfere with a citizen’s ability to make sound political decisions. A strong democracy requires high-quality news, a pluralistic climate of opinion and the ability to negotiate public consensus. But powerful political actors are increasingly leveraging big data to manufacture consensus, manipulate public opinion and subvert democratic processes.
As Canada prepares for the 2019 federal elections, we’re dangerously unprepared to confront challenges at the intersection of individual privacy, social-media transparency and data-driven campaigning. Currently, no federal privacy legislation covers the activity of political parties with respect to voter data: the Personal Information Protection and Electronic Documents Act (PIPEDA) only applies to the commercial collection of personal data; in the Privacy Act, political parties are excluded in the definition of “government institutions,” and the Canadian Elections Act does not oversee data collection, analysis, use or storage. In the past, the Liberal Party made a voluntary commitment to PIPEDA, and the New Democratic Party said it will honour the transparency aspect of the law. But beyond the privacy policies of the parties themselves, there are no legal or regulatory mechanisms in place to ensure that voter data is not being misused by politicians.
Social media has certainly caused a number of challenges for democracy and addressing these issues will be critical for improving the future health of our digital public sphere. We live in a time where citizens – especially young ones – use social media to find news and information that directly informs their political identity and shapes their opinions about politics. Yet, many people do not realize how much data is collected about them or the extent to which their online experience is individualized by algorithms and advertisements based on their personal information and digital footprint.
While commentators have been demanding more digital advertisement transparency and better education programs to protect users from disinformation, these solutions don’t address the deeper, systemic problems grinding away at democracy. The confluence of surveillance capitalism, big data analytics and lack of algorithmic transparency alongside widespread shifts in how individuals consume political news and information have the potential to exacerbate the challenges we are seeing around fake news, computational propaganda and voter suppression. If we want to protect the integrity of our democratic processes, Canada needs to develop legal mechanisms that address issues to do with data privacy and political campaigning. And applying basic data-protection laws to political parties is an easy starting point for policymakers concerned with safeguarding democracy in the digital age. |
Teaching is something of an isolating profession. Teachers close their doors and instruct, at all grade levels and every subject. Teachers work alone, receiving an “observation” compliance visit by the supervising administrator as part of the annual evaluation. The structure of school in the United States makes shared planning time difficult if not impossible, students need supervision at all times so teachers cannot have the same planning time and of course the one hour, or less, of “planning” time is the only time a teacher can use the rest room, take a breather, contact parents, check the mailbox and prepare materials for the rest of the day or the next day. Lunch is typically a half hour, which often includes escorting students to the cafeteria and back to class. Collegiality and collaboration are not easily achieved when you don’t see or have time with your colleagues. A school calendar typically provides a planning day once a quarter or grading period, that’s when grades are due. So when can teachers share, discuss, plan and collaborate? After hours.
I have personally found virtual environments to be a space and time for synchronous collegiality and collaboration. On Tuesday nights I visit ISTE Island on Second Life, sometimes for a planned event and sometimes just to talk to teachers about challenges I’m having and get suggestions. I have met teachers from various states and countries with whom I share struggles and ideas. Periodically I logon to Reaction Grid or Opensim and sometimes find a teacher I have met online to exchange strategies and developments. I visit classes in session and interact with students, the collegiality and trust required of a Professional Learning Community (PLC) exist despite never having actually met my virtual colleagues. PLNs and social/professional networking sites offer a sort of sharing and collegiality, it is not the same as on-the-spot, in world “in-person” communication. I think of it as a cross between face-to-face and online. Much is available about the connections made in virtual settings. The authenticity of virtual friendships becomes evident to anyone who spends any time in this type of environment .
My virtual friends include people who are not teachers, people I may never have met as someone who moves primarily in an educator world. Interactions with these people enrich me both personally and professionally. I have a better idea of trends and realities to discuss with students and peers; jobs in the STEM area, business planning, software and data visualization tools, the music business. A real plus was car buying advice received from a virtual friend, the mechanical engineer and part-time SL space explorer. I have met people from other countries and have conversed with the assistance of an instant translator, picked up a little Italian and improved my Spanish.
Virtual worlds are not the answer to life, but they do offer a relatively easy and inexpensive opportunity to interact with colleagues and professionals that can help you grow.
Exceptional explanation. This rings true for me as well. I will be sharing this with others.
Thanks Roger. Suiting up and ready for the next space flight. |
Benjamin Banneker, the son of a former slave, was born in 1731 on a farm near Baltimore. From books loaned by a neighbor, Banneker taught himself surveying, astronomy, and mathematics. He later published several almanacs containing his astronomical observations. These almanacs widely distributed in Pennsylvania, Delaware, Maryland and Virginia. In 1791, Banneker received an appointment to assist in the survey of the boundaries of the Federal Territory - a ten-mile square now known as the District of Columbia. Banneker was also a social activist; he wrote a long letter to Secretary of State Thomas Jefferson likening the slavery of Negroes in the US to the enslavement of the American Colonies by the British. He attached his first Almanac as evidence that an African-American could be a distinguished scientist. Banneker died in 1806 on his Maryland farm. Banneker was honored on a 1980 US postage stamp.
In his journals, Banneker wrote and collected mathematical puzzles written in verse. These journals served as his notebooks for astronomical observations, his diary, and his math notebook. Unfortunately only one of his journals survived a fire on the day of his funeral. The mathematics in this journal consisted of six puzzles and two pages of mathematical writing. Banneker's six puzzles from the journal were published in an excellent biography of him written by Silvio Bedini. To my knowledge, much of Banneker's mathematics in his own handwriting has never been reproduced. I located a microfilmed copy of his journal at the Maryland Historical Society in Baltimore. The quality of the reproduction was poor, but I was helped by Mr. Omar Rumi of Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia, and my son, Quinn, a student at MIT. With the combination of Banneker's excellent penmanship, quality scanning and most of all painstakingly accurate photographic retouching on the part of Mr. Rumi, I am able to reproduce Banneker's actual handwriting of his mathematics. |
Asthma in adults is considered to be almost a life-long suffering for most patients, if not all. It is important to manage it well, by using milder medicines and achieving a relatively attack-free phase for a long time.
Homeopathic treatment works wonders for Asthma. Patients who are on homeopathic medicines enjoy much better health than those who do not; as per the study.
It reduces the frequency of asthma attacks.
It reduces the severity of attacks.
It enhances immunity whereby your tendency to get a frequent cough, colds, throat infection, etc. reduces.
It reduces the need for bronchodilator, cortisone, inhalers, and antibiotics.
It is absolutely safe and can be taken along with the conventional medicines.
Dr Shah's patients in over 177 countries have been benefited.
Associated diseases eczema, pollen allergy, Ischemic heart disease, bronchiectasis, pulmonary fibrosis, etc.
One may expect a definite change in about three to five months. The total length of treatment varies from patient to patient.
Besides following the homeopathic treatment for asthma, you also need to have a balanced, nutritious diet to alleviate the discomfort due to asthma. Even though there is no specific diet for asthma, consuming certain healthy foods can help promote healthy functioning of your lungs and reduce the symptoms of the disease. Find below some effective diet tips to follow.
Make sure you have plenty of vitamin D rich foods in your regular diet when the following homeopathy for asthma treatment. Having adequate intake of vitamin D helps minimize the number of asthma attacks, particularly in kids. So, add salmon, milk, fortified orange juice, eggs, and other foods abundant in vitamin D in your daily diet.
It is advisable to include foods abundant in beta-carotene in your regular diet. Consumption of beta-carotene on a regular basis, particularly by women, while following asthma treatment is sure to improve the quality of your life. So, don’t miss adding sweet potatoes, spinach, cantaloupe, leafy greens, carrots, and broccoli to your daily diet.
Eating fresh fruits and vegetables is highly beneficial to obtain relief from the discomfort of asthma. Make a habit to eat an apple every day, as eating apple helps minimize the risk of asthma and promotes healthy functioning of your lungs. Also, add various fresh, nutritious vegetables to your daily cooking preparations and salads to keep the hazards of asthma at bay.
Make sure you eat foods that are rich in omega-3 fatty acids, such as sardines, salmon, tuna, flaxseed, and other healthy plant sources, in your diet when following asthma treatment. The consumption of omega-3 fatty acids offers you plenty of health benefits that can help you get relief from the discomfort when you are suffering from asthma.
Boost your intake of foods that are abundant in magnesium. Increasing your intake of magnesium is beneficial for improving your lung volume and flow significantly. So, enhance your magnesium levels when following asthma treatment by including foods, such as pumpkin seeds, salmon, dark chocolate, and spinach, in your diet.
In addition to diet tips, you also need to follow some self-care tips to improve your health and to obtain relief from the troubles of asthma. Here, you can find some health tips for asthma patients to follow along with the treatment.
Performing exercises regularly and leading an active lifestyle is highly beneficial to combat the adverse effects of asthma and to obtain a great relief. In cases of asthma, where fatigue is the cause of asthma, practicing various breathing exercises prove highly effective along with asthma treatment. Breathing exercises fill your lungs with fresh air and you exhale a lot of air out. Thus, breathing exercises help eliminate a lot of toxins out of your body.
First, figure out all the things that trigger your asthma attacks and ensure you strictly avoid those triggers when following asthma treatment. Avoid coming in contact with allergens, such as dust, dirt, and pollen, as they often trigger asthma attacks. Maintain cleanliness in your house and surroundings. Do not eat foods that trigger your breathing troubles.
Often, obese people tend to suffer from asthma as well as other health hazards. So, you need to take care to maintain a healthy weight and avoid turning obese. Eat healthily, exercise regularly, and regulate your weight gain effectively when following asthma treatment.
Make it a habit to drink plenty of pure water daily. Drinking a lot of water not only promotes smooth digestion but also minimizes the formation of thick mucus when you are suffering from asthma. So, ensure you drink at least 8 to 10 glasses of water daily when going for asthma treatment.
Strictly quit smoking and lead a healthy lifestyle to minimize the discomfort resulting due to asthma. Smoking is highly injurious to your health even when you are on asthma treatment. So, quit smoking.
Leukotriene Modifiers: Insomnia, headache, irritability, vomiting, and nausea are some of the side-effects of leukotriene modifiers when they are used as an asthma treatment.
Anticholinergics: Sinusitis, headache, pharyngitis, and bronchitis are some of the common adverse effects of anticholinergics. Other side-effects of anticholinergics, when used as an asthma treatment, are high blood pressure, allergic rhinitis, diarrhea, urinary tract infections, cough, and yeast infections in the throat. |
The draft of the Directive has been the subject of heated debates in the weeks leading up to the vote in the EU Parliament and has led to thousands of people across Europe protesting against its implementation. The reason for the protests were mainly two proposed changes in digital copyright law contained in the draft Directive; Article 15 ( erstwhile 11) is intended to ensure fairer remuneration for the online use of press publications and Article 17 (erstwhile 13) to prevent accessibility of protected works on the Internet. According to experts and critics, the implementation of these Articles will lead to a considerable restriction on the fundamental right of freedom of expression and information (Article 10 ECHR) and will have a lasting adverse effect on the use of the Internet.
The first relevant point of criticism regarding the new Directive is Article 15, which aims to provide better protection for the use of press publications on the Internet. To ensure a fair remuneration, EU-based press publishers will be able to claim rights over their articles that are reproduced and made publicly available for online use.
Private or non-commercial use, the setting of hyperlinks as well as the use of individual words or very short extracts from press publications will continue to be permitted without restrictions (practice will show what is actually meant by "very short extracts" from press publications). Contrary to many fears, the sharing of press publications on social media platforms by private individuals will not be affected by the Directive. With the implementation of the new Article 15, even the news service platform Google-News, that provides an overview of articles of various press publishers and links them via hyperlinks, will be able to continue its service, with only, if at all, minor restrictions.
Another driving force for public protests and massive criticism against the Directive is the new Article 17. According to this article, service providers will be responsible for content uploaded and made publicly available on their platforms by users. For the online publication of works protected by copyrights, platforms such as YouTube or Facebook will have to obtain the consent of rights holders, for example by concluding licensing agreements. The liability privilege for hosting providers according to Article 14 of the EU E-Commerce Directive 2000/31/EC, which requires service providers to act only after becoming aware of unlawful content on their platform, shall no longer apply to these cases.
This means that uploaded content must be reviewed by service providers before it can be uploaded and made available to public. In practice, such a content review by platforms such as YouTube or Facebook, with worldwide several million content uploads per day, will only be possible by using "Upload-Filters". This is precisely where the criticism of Article 17 comes in. Although the Directive explicitly provides for exceptions to the obligation to obtain consent of right holders for quotations, criticism, reviews, cartoons or parody, the use of filter systems will inevitably lead to the blocking of legitimate content ("Overblocking"), as upload filter systems are not yet capable of clearly distinguishing between lawful and unlawful content, which will inherently constitute a restriction of the fundamental right to freedom of expression (Article 10 ECHR).
Article 17 also keeps start-ups and small businesses outside the scope of its application. Service providers that have been offering their services to the public for less than three years and do not exceed an annual turnover of EUR 10 million will not be subject to the "filter-obligations". They are only required to make every effort to obtain the consent of the right holders for publishing copyright protected work. Such companies remain liable under the hosting provider privilege of the E-Commerce Directive.
Finally, paragraph 8 of Article 17 of the new Directive provides that the application of this provision shall not result in general monitoring or blocking of lawfully uploaded user content. It seems questionable - also against the background of the ECJ's previous decisions on the obligation and scope of removal obligations of a hosting provider under Article 15 of the E-Commerce Directive 2000/31/EC, e.g. in the cases Scarlet/SABAM (C-70/10) and SABAM/Netlog (C-360/10) - how this requirement can be met, especially as Article 17 now lays down filter obligations for hosting providers which are intended to prevent future copyright infringements. Here, too, it will be the task of the courts to find a moderate solution between two seemingly contradictory requirements - on the one hand the prevention of future infringements and on the other the prohibition of general monitoring obligations for hosting providers. |
Why Are Flexible Workspaces So Valuable?
One of the reasons flexible workspace is so valuable is that it has turned the workplace into a destination and an experience; a place where people want to go.
A huge range of businesses and industries now recognize the value of flexible workspace.
But why are flexible workspaces so valuable to people, companies, and investors?
The true value of flexible workspaces is that they enable better experiences that translate into productivity, creativity, and wellness.
Everyone’s talking about flexible workspaces: brokers, large companies, commercial real estate owners, REITS, investors, designers, among others. The question is, why? Why are flexible workspaces so valuable to people, companies, and investors?
Flexible workspaces are just like technology in that they are disruptive, but, more importantly, they are enablers. That’s where their value lies.
But, what exactly do flexible workspaces enable?
Flexible workspaces are diverse in that they are home to professionals from different industries and lines of work. Flexible workspaces enable collaboration because they provide a place where people are constantly exposed to new ideas and different perspectives. Moreover, flexible workspaces tend to have communal areas where users interact with one another; these interactions often transform into new partnerships, new work opportunities, new ideas, new clients, and even new team members.
By 2030, JLL predicts that 30% of corporate real estate portfolios will be comprised of flexible workspaces. Companies of all sizes have started to use flexible workspaces as a tool to attract and retain talent. Flexible workspaces are visually appealing and inspirational, they offer amenities that can improve the work experience, they allow companies to find talent in different countries and regions, and they empower individuals to work wherever and whenever works for them (a valuable perk among millennials and Generation Z workers).
The design of a workplace says a lot about a company’s culture. Flexible workspaces can improve company culture because they are designed to encourage collaboration and to improve a person’s overall workplace experience. Moreover, by allowing workers to work away from a company’s HQ, a company sends out a message that they trust their workers to get the job done regardless of where they are. Having teams based out of flexible workspaces improves company culture because it encourages team members to actively participate in the community and to engage in activities outside of work, which can help strengthen the bond between employees and which can also contribute to a person’s wellbeing (more on this later).
Community is one of the biggest selling points of flexible workspaces, especially coworking spaces. Flexible workspaces enable community through a variety of events and internal member portals. The goal of these spaces is to bring people together to facilitate and strengthen authentic connections between members. According to the Harvard Business Review, even if people don’t participate in all events and activities, they feel part of the community simply from knowing that “there is potential for interactions when they desire or need them.” Flexible workspaces enable community because they provide individuals with access to a network of support and professional connections.
Flexible workspaces actively promote wellness through a variety of programs and amenities like mediation and yoga sessions, access to gym memberships, healthy foods and snacks, workshops to help people deal with stress, and the like. Flexible workspaces are also a safe place where people can talk about mental health issues and battle loneliness. Moreover, these workplaces incorporate design elements that contribute to a person’s overall wellbeing, like natural light, ergonomic furniture, color psychology, and design that encourages constant movement throughout the day.
The modern workplace is about choice; it’s about balancing different types of environments within a given space. Flexible workspaces enable choice by allowing people to choose where and when they work from and by providing different work environments within the workplace. Most flexible workspaces offer a combination of private and open space, communal areas, breakout areas, meeting room areas, lounge areas, and event space. They also offer choice in lease length, cost, and additional services.
Flexible workspaces are paving the way in human-centric design; rather than the workplace being a place where people have to go, flexible workspaces have turned the workplace into a destination, a place where people want to go. This is the result of carefully thought-out and designed spaces that seek to inspire and motivate people. Flexible workspaces are sustainable, they address wellness, and they offer a seamless experience across all touchpoints.
The value of flexible workspaces is that they enable better experiences that translate into productivity, creativity, and wellness. |
Plaits and rings, coils and crescents – freshly baked çörek are the treats of high days and holy days.
The çörek is full of symbolism, and its association with religious festivals reflects earlier pagan customs. All sorts of buns, loaves and çörek are eaten at Sabantoy, the colourful June festival celebrated by the Altay, Çuvaş, Tatar and Başkurt peoples of Central Asia.
Heath W Lowry, in the first of a series of articles this issue, pays tribute to the city that gave the Ottoman state its first capital.
As Bursa lay in ruins after the earthquake of 1855, the man the Sultan sent to rescue the city was Ahmed Vefik Pasha. A brilliant man of letters, champion of Ottoman causes and very undiplomatic diplomat, he was to leave an indelible mark on Turkish culture. David Barchard reinstates a wayward hero. |
What are the disadvantages of honey with hot milk?
Honey is an enriching food but poses health risks if consumed along with hot milk. The mixture leads to abdominal discomfort, allergic reactions, and weight gain. Milk and honey are both high in sugar content that can weaken the nerves of the body. Honey with anything hot in general is bad for health. |
Along with preventing things like cavities and gum disease, you also want to make sure you don't end up chipping or breaking your teeth. Although they have enamel to protect them, which is a very strong material, it isn't very thick and this means your teeth should still be considered as fragile. The information here will educate you on some of the most common ways people break their teeth so you can avoid making these mistakes with your own teeth.
One of the easiest ways to get your kids to take proper care of their teeth is to keep them interested in their teeth. You can do this by answering their questions completely and by continuing an open dialogue about dental hygiene and tooth conditions. You can learn about some of the questions kids tend to have about teeth and the answers to them here: Why are some kid's teeth so yellow?
A cosmetic dentist is a professional that has dedicated their practice and many years of education toward helping individuals improve the appearance of their teeth. Listed below are two effective cosmetic treatments to discuss with your dentist whenever you are trying to improve the appearance of your teeth. Porcelain Veneers One of the best cosmetic treatments to discuss with your dentist is porcelain veneers, mostly because this particular type of cosmetic treatment is effective at covering up you much any type of blemish that you may be experiencing with your teeth.
Have you ever broken a tooth? Do you know what you would do if you did have a broken tooth? Breaking a tooth can be extremely upsetting but can happen to even the most careful people. Your lawnmower could run over a rock or a large stick that could fly up and hit you in the mouth, you could be playing sports and a piece of sports equipment could knock out a tooth, or you could simply trip and hit your face on the way down. |
Are you one of those uncreative persons? Someone who wishes he or she was as full of ideas as others, someone who admires those who always come up with something new? You might do yourself terribly wrong.
David Kelley, founder and chairman of IDEO, an innovative design company, holds the opinion that most of us have much more creative potential within ourselves than we might think. He thinks that most of us are simply afraid of being judged and thus are not confident enough to be creative. In a TED Talk, he explains his idea how we can overcome the problem by taking people through a series of small successes. In his opinion, this will turn fear into familiarity and make people think of themselves as creative persons who really are.
David Kelley considers one concept central for creative confidence: self-efficacy, the belief that we can perform in a certain way in order to attain a certain goal. In the context here, it is the belief that we can be creative, that we can produce something innovative. Self-efficacy was intensely studied by psychologist Albert Bandura and has again and again proven to be a predictor of success in various fields. It leads to more willingness to take on a task, put time and effort into it, persist and be more positive with respect to the task’s outcome. It is even a predictor of health behaviours. Thus, it seems natural to also see it as a predictor of creativity.
Kelley’s ideas are also in line with psychologist Carol Dweck’s concept of fixed vs. growth mindsets (see the post “Why talent is not sufficient for success”). People with the former mindset fear being judged and proven not to be intelligent or creative, whereas person with the latter mindset see difficult tasks as opportunities for growth. Kelley suggests we take little steps and produce many small successes for ourselves. Little rewards are important for our learning and perseverance, as we reported in the post “Reward yourself andimprove your performance”.
David Kelley definitely has a point when he appeals to us: Do not divide the world into creatives and non-creatives, but let them gain self-efficacy. |
Silk paper is very easy to make and cuts into any shape you want so it makes a good embellishment in wet felting. The sample above shows just silk paper shapes on merino wool, but of course you can mix silk paper shapes with other embellishments.
There are a few different ways to make silk paper but here's a simple one.
Make up 500ml (just under a pint) of wallpaper paste following the instructions on the packet - this will be more than you need to make a small sample, but it will keep for another day if you cover it tightly.
Cover a work surface with several layers of newspaper then place the piece of plastic on top. Lay the piece of net on top of the plastic.
Make a layer of silk fibres, in the colour of your choice, on top of the net - don't go right to the edge of the net but leave 5-10 cms (2-4") of net showing all around.
Make a second layer of silk fibres on top of the first layer ensuring that the fibres run in a different direction to those on the first layer.
You don't have to lay the fibres neatly - you can put them exactly as you wish.
Here's a close-up view of the fibres on the second layer.
Carefully place the second piece of net over the fibres and in line with the piece of net underneath the fibres. Then spray the silk, through the net, with the water containing a little dish-washing soap. When the silk fibres are saturated, use a small sponge to remove as much water as possible. Check the reverse side for dry-spots.
Apply wallpaper paste liberally to the silk fibres, through the net, to both sides - either use a small sponge or a large soft paintbrush.
Use your fingers to really work the paste into the silk fibres on both sides for a couple of minutes then, starting in the centre, push any excess paste away until it's on the plastic and not on the net .
Leave the silk paper between the pieces of net to peg it up to dry. Protect the area beneath the silk paper with a drip tray or newspaper because it's very hard to clean up!
When the silk paper is dry, carefully peel the netting away. Don't worry if you can see the pattern of the netting on the paper as it will disappear during felting.
You can cut shapes out of the silk paper freehand or you can trace shapes onto the paper side of freezer paper then iron the silk paper to the waxy side of the freezer paper using a dry iron on medium heat for 2-3 seconds. Use baking paper underneath and on top to protect the iron and ironing board. Gently press - don't move the iron back and forth. Let it cool. When you've cut out your shapes, gently peel the silk away from the freezer paper.
When you're trying out a new technique it's a good idea to make a small sample so that any problems can be easily corrected.
Four layers of blue merino wool and a partial layer of white merino wool were used to make this small sample - we didn't worry about neat edges as the sole purpose of making the sample was to try out the application of silk paper shapes.
After the merino wool was wetted and flattened, the silk paper shapes were placed on top then wetted through a piece of net. The felt was made with gentle agitation on both sides until the silk had been trapped by the wool fibres, then worked until it was firm enough.
The merino wool fibres will migrate right through the silk paper and if you think the result looks dull, you can shave the surplus fluff away from the silk using a one-blade razor. Be careful to not abrade the silk - use a very light touch.
It was useful making this sample because we found that the dark red silk 'bled' a little and that will be worth remembering for future use! |
Implants inserted into the brain. Although primarily used to repair neural damage – such as that caused by birth defects or injury – it can also be used to enhance human intelligence and memory.
In the past, greywork (also known as greyware) allowed humans to interface directly with computers. While this is still possible, given the state of current AI technology (which hasn’t advanced much, if at all, in the last 300 years) it is cheaper and more efficient to do so manually.
Over the last several generations, there has been an increased incidence of rejection amongst greyware patients, where implants simply stop working.
Research suggests the increased rejection of neural implants is linked to the Pollen. |
The lay subsidy granted by Act of Parliament in 1523 was a tax on the laymen (as opposed to clergy), levied on householders, landowners, those possessing moveable goods worth £1 or more, and all workmen aged 16 or over earning £1 or more per annum. Real estate was taxed at a shilling in the pound; moveable goods worth £1 to £2 at fourpence a pound; £2 to £20 at sixpence a pound; and over £20 at a shilling in the pound. Wages were taxed at fourpence in the pound. Aliens were charged double; aliens not chargeable in the above categories had to pay a poll tax of eightpence. The records of the assessment for the county of Suffolk, mostly made in 1524, survive in 64 rolls in the National Archives. From 42 of these a compilation for the whole shire was printed in 1910 as Suffolk Green Book x. This includes a list of defaulters of 1526 and a subsidy roll of 1534 for Bury St Edmunds. |
Tips for Feeding Autumn Birds - Homestead Gardens, Inc. | Homestead Gardens, Inc.
There is more to feeding fall birds than just providing the right foods. By keeping the backyard safe and meeting birds’ other needs, a fall flock will be healthy, active and diverse.
Keep feeders clean and filled even in poor autumn weather.
Allow leaf litter to build up under trees and shrubbery to attract birds with shelter and insects.
Choose fall plants that offer evergreen cover and lasting berries or fruits for fall and winter food.
Squirrel-proof bird feeders with different tactics to prevent autumn foraging squirrels from depleting birds’ food supplies. |
In 1820, he moved to Stettin in Prussia (now Szczecin in Poland), where he worked as organist and music director of the school. It was while there that he did most of his work as a composer, publishing a version of Goethe's Erlkönig in 1824 (written 1817/18) which some say rivals Schubert's far more famous version. He went on to set many other poets' works, including Friedrich Rückert, and translations of William Shakespeare and Lord Byron.
On 20 February 1827, he conducted the first performance of the 18-year-old Felix Mendelssohn's Overture "A Midsummer Night's Dream", Op. 21. He and Mendelssohn were also soloists in Mendelssohn's Concerto in A-flat major for 2 pianos and orchestra.
Later in life, Loewe became very popular both as a composer and as a singer. As a youth, he had a high soprano voice (he could sing the music of the Queen of the Night in The Magic Flute as a boy), and his voice developed into a fine tenor. He made several tours as a singer in the 1840s and 1850s, visiting England, France, Sweden and Norway amongst other countries. He eventually moved back to Germany, and, after quitting his posts in Stettin after 46 years, moved to Kiel, where he died from a stroke on 20 April 1869.
Loewe wrote five operas, of which only one, Die drei Wünsche, was performed at Berlin in 1834, without much success; seventeen oratorios, many of them for male voices unaccompanied, or with short instrumental interludes only; choral ballads, cantatas, three string quartets (his opus 24,) and a pianoforte trio; a work for clarinet and piano, published posthumously; and some piano solos.
In 1875, at Bayreuth, Richard Wagner remarked of Loewe, "Ha, das ist ein ernster, mit Bedeutung die schöne deutsche Sprache behandelnder, nicht hoch genug zu ehrender deutscher Meister, echt und wahr!" (Ha, that is a serious German Master, authentic and true, one who uses the beautiful German language with meaning, one who cannot be sufficiently revered!).
Several recordings of Loewe's ballads and other lieder are available on CD, sung by vocalists such as Josef Greindl, Hermann Prey, Dietrich Fischer-Dieskau, and Kurt Moll. Additional recordings can be found on YouTube. Female singers rarely sing, or record, his music.
In 2012 an urn thought to contain the heart of Carl Loewe was found inside the Szczecin Cathedral's southern pillar during the renovation works carried out that year. A special commission appointed by the Szczecińsko-Kamieńska Metropolitan Curia has deduced, on the basis of historical records and an inscription on the pillar, that the urn indeed contains the heart of Carl Loewe. |
Loop Industries has developed a new upcycling technology that uses a process called depolymerization to deconstruct waste plastic.
Numerous reports show that our failure to manage plastic is one of the biggest threats to our oceans and ecosystem today. And a large part of the problem has been that conventional recycling techniques can only "downcycle" plastic.
Loop Industries, a company based in Quebec, Canada, is making headlines with its revolutionary new upcycling technology. The technology uses a process called depolymerization that requires no heat or pressure to deconstruct waste plastic—think used carpets, soda and water bottles—into its basic chemical building blocks.
Forbes recently sat down with Founder and CEO Daniel Solomita to find out how he came up with the technology behind Loop.
The focus on virgin, single-use plastics has meant that around $120 billion dollars are lost every year to the economy from products that are thrown away after a single use, and the issue is compounded by the fact that conventional collection, recovery and recycling programs have struggled to keep pace with the sheer volume produced as the sheer economics of managing single-use plastics almost demand their disposal rather than their recovery and reuse. Long-term solutions must involve finding alternatives to plastic, but until that happens the focus must be on creating a "Circular Economy" where we use only what has already been harvested from the Earth—and retroactively remove what is already clogging up our oceans and landfills. |
reEnforce is a data collection tool which utilizes SFpark’s real-time sensor and meter data to show Parking Control Officers (PCOs) where vehicles are parked at unpaid meters or in commercial spaces. When a PCO arrives at a space, he or she logs if a citation was issued or how the space was used, noting if the space was occupied by a vehicle with a disabled placard, for example, or if the meter was out of order. The app does not issue citations, and PCOs still have to visit each vehicle for verification and to write tickets.
What is the timeline and scope of the reEnforce pilot test?
The SFMTA is introducing reEnforce as a six-month pilot project, with five PCOs using the app at one time. The pilot will cover 1,700 parking spaces in four SFpark pilot areas: Fisherman’s Wharf, Marina, Fillmore, and Hayes Valley/Civic Center. The reEnforce pilot will continue through spring 2013, and in 2013 the SFMTA will evaluate whether to expand the program.
What are the reEnforce project goals?
There are two main goals of this project. First, the SFMTA will test how new technology can be used to help deploy PCOs more effectively and help PCOs operate more efficiently. If successful, more efficient enforcement of parking meters will allow PCOs to focus more time on addressing other issues, such as sidewalk parking and directing traffic. Secondly, data from this app will help the SFMTA better understand how metered parking is being used and how we can better manage this limited resource.
Does reEnforce issue citations automatically when the meter expires?
No, PCOs must verify illegal parking and issue citations in person. In fact, there are many reasons why someone can be parked legally at an unpaid meter; a common reason is disabled placard permits that exempt drivers from paying meters. reEnforce simply shows PCOs on a map where vehicles are parked at unpaid meters, allows them to document what they did or saw at each space, and helps PCOs avoid visiting paid vehicles, empty spaces, and the same vehicle twice.
Do all PCOs use reEnforce?
During the pilot phase ending spring 2013, five PCOs will use the app at one time.
Will reEnforce ever be used citywide?
reEnforce depends on data from parking sensors and smart meters. The SFpark project currently has sensors and smart meters at about one quarter of San Francisco’s metered spaces. The SFMTA is planning to upgrade all meters citywide in the coming years and will evaluate in 2013 whether or not to expand parking sensors outside of the existing SFpark pilot areas, which would allow reEnforce to be used more broadly.
A decision to expand the use of reEnforce will also depend on the results of this pilot test. The SFMTA’s evaluation of the reEnforce pilot will include user experience, quality and quantity of new data gathered, quality of the software and hardware available, changes to PCO productivity and the percent of drivers that pay the meter.
What do the PCOs see on the screen?
The PCOs have access to an interactive map with markers showing where vehicles are parked at unpaid meters and where vehicles have parked at commercial meters. The application hides spaces which are vacant, paid, or have been previously visited. Spaces that a PCO is responsible for monitoring but do not have smart meters or parking sensors will be displayed on the map without live information. The PCOs will also be able to see their location and important landmarks on the map.
What if I do not have time to get back to my parking meter to pay? Will a PCO be notified instantly?
During this pilot, drivers will receive a five minute grace period from when they pull into a space to pay the parking meter. When a meter expires but the parking space remains occupied, a marker will display on the map in reEnforce.
The project was funded by the US Department of Transportation as part of the SFpark pilot project.
Is the app open source?
The source code will be shared publicly after the software has been fully refined.
What kind of hardware does the software run on?
PCOs are testing a small Android tablet to access the software. The application was written in HTML5, allowing the application to be used on any device with a web browser, giving the SFMTA many options for what device to use in the future. |
Mandatory water restrictions have been put into place on all businesses, residents and farms throughout the California state.
Govenor Jerry Brown said all cities and towns are to reduce their water usage by 25 percent.
Due to the lack of snow, the drought-ravaged state may see these restrictions in place for as long as nine months.
“We’re in a new era,” Brown said. “The idea of your nice little green grass getting lots of water every day, that’s going to be a thing of the past.
“This historic drought demands unprecedented action,” he concluded.
State officials say that over the next nine months, a 25 percent cut will reduce usage by about 1.5 million acre-feet of water (one acre-foot is equivalent to 325,000 gallons).
David Stivers, an executive vice president of the Pebble Beach company, said his company is studying the restrictions to see what effect it will have on business.
“It will not affect our golf course irrigation because we use recycled waste water (for golf course irrigation) from a plant we built in 1994,” he said.
Brown made the announcement while standing on a patch of brown grass which, during this time of year, is usually covered by several feet of snow.
The water restriction does not apply to the state’s agricultural industry, but the industry is expected to report more on its groundwater use. The exclusion prompted criticism since the agriculture industry is responsible for consuming about 80 percent of the state’s developed water supply.
The imposed water restrictions come after the Sierra Nevada snowpack, which the state relies heavily on for water, remains at a near record low. |
Do We Need to Stretch?
Over the years I have heard so many different things about stretching. Some runners insist that everyone should stretch and that skipping a pre-run stretch will result in immediate injury. Others say that stretching can cause injury especially when your muscles are tight or cold. Then there are the crazy yoga people who think stretching is a religion. You certainly don’t want to say anything negative about stretching around them.
So who is correct? I have a bad back and my chiropractor has told me for years that gentle stretching will help “warm up” your muscles. Once your muscles are warm, you can then slowly start your workout at an easy pace and gradually work up to normal effort.
This type of stretching does not look anything like the stretches I did before cross country or soccer in high school. These stretches are more gradual and do not force the muscle. I tried this type of stretching for years and it seemed to help. Gently rolling your shoulders, knees to your chest while lying on your back, and easy wall stretches for your calves are all classic moves that when done gently can warm up/cool down your muscles.
Personally I do not see any benefit to the dramatic stretching done in yoga for runners. Runners do not need to touch their toes or transform their bodies into a random animal position. I do believe yoga is an interesting way to build strength and flexibility but not sure that I would recommend yoga for a runner. Could someone also explain “Hot Yoga” to me? Usually I try to avoid working out in extreme heat.
One of the good things about running is that you really don’t need to be flexible. Basically good running form is a steady slightly forward position. There is no lateral movement, quick stops and starts, or jumping as is frequent in basketball or soccer. Increased flexibility is not a bad thing but is not necessary to run a fast 5k. Unless you have extremely limited motion I do not believe your run times are affected by flexibility. The only times I have felt an issue with flexibility is when I have had to run with a bad back. Not being able to lean forward will definitely reduce your ability to run hard. |
There were 3.4 injuries for every 100 workers in the state of Georgia in 2011, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics. Around half of those workplace injuries were serious enough to result in missing days of work. The injuries also occurred across all fields and professions, including construction, mining, manufacturing, transportation, service and retail.
Overexertion – Injuries resulting from carrying, pushing, pulling, lifting or otherwise putting strain on the body.
Falls on the same level – Injuries resulting from tripping, slipping or stumbling without falling to a lower level.
Falls to a lower level – Injuries that result from falling onto a level below.
Bodily reactions – Injuries resulting from the way your body moves, such as when you twist or trip without falling.
Being struck by objects – Injuries resulting from something falling onto you or hitting you.
Car accidents – Injuries resulting from car accidents that occur while you are driving as required by your job. Both professional drivers, such as truck drivers, and those required to run errands for their job can suffer these types of covered workplace injuries.
Being caught in or compressed by something – Injuries that result when someone is trapped in a machine, run over by a machine or otherwise caught or compressed.
Striking an object – Injuries that occur when you walk or fall into a wall, desk, door, machine or other object.
Repetitive stress/repetitive motion – Injuries such as carpal tunnel, a herniated disc or muscle strains/sprains resulting from the way you use your body at work.
Workplace violence – Injuries that occur as a result of violence directly connected to your employment.
These types of workplace accidents are among those that could result in an injury that is covered by workers’ compensation. There is no requirement that your employer was negligent or careless in any way for you to be eligible for workers’ compensation benefits.
These and other types of accidents and incidents at work can cause a variety of different impairments and medical problems, including death.
Strains, sprains and other injuries due to overexertion – These types of injuries are very likely to result when you do the same tasks over and over at your job or when you ask your body to do too much at work.
Spinal cord injuries – Falls, car accidents and violence are all top causes of spinal cord injuries and are all likely to occur at work. A spinal cord injury can result in complete or partial paralysis below the area where the injury happened, often resulting in paraplegia or quadriplegia.
Traumatic brain injuries (TBI) – Slips and falls and car accidents are among the leading causes of brain injuries. Brain injuries can range from a concussion to a coma to deadly bleeding in the brain. Some victims experience permanent cognitive impairment. TBI can also cause seizures, mood changes, fatigue, memory problems, ringing in the ears, numbness and a host of other long-lasting symptoms.
Repetitive stress injuries – Carpal tunnel is just one of the many types of repetitive stress injuries that can result from repeatedly taxing your body in the workplace. Injuries to the back, knees, shoulders and other joints are also common.
Broken bones – Falls, car accidents, being struck by objects and striking objects are all likely to result in broken bones. In some cases, broken bones can lead to permanent impairment.
Amputations – Getting crushed by an object or caught in a machine are common causes of amputations. Under Georgia law, those who lose a limb may be entitled to additional compensation. For example, someone who loses an arm or a leg at work can receive 225 weeks of benefits.
Vision loss – Both exposure to toxins or physical injury to the eye can result in impaired vision or blindness, as can other causes.
Hearing loss – Exposure to loud noises as well as physical damage to the ears or ear canal can result in partial hearing loss or deafness.
Post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) – Victims could be entitled to receive benefits for PTSD under certain circumstances when they can clearly tie their mental health issues directly to something that occurred at work.
Occupational illnesses – Exposure to toxins at work can lead to the development of various types of illnesses, including asbestosis, lung problems, respiratory conditions and cancers.
If you suffer from these or any other injuries as a result of doing your job, you could have all of your medical bills covered by workers’ compensation. If your illness or injury results in you missing work or being unable to work at all, then you could also receive partial lost wages benefits. Workers’ compensation also provides death benefits to the families of those who suffer deadly injuries at work.
When you suffer an accident in the workplace, it is important to report it to your employer as soon as possible in order to ensure that you remain eligible for workers’ compensation benefits. |
The use of renewable energy systems means to have a free clean energy.
Wood burns without producing sulphur emissions and harmful carbon dioxide (CO2).
During combustion, in fact, it releases the energy stored during the photosynthesis process.
absorbed by the plant during its growth, thereby respecting the nature cycle. |
Owners of commercial real estate often lease their spaces through one of the various types of net leases. In a net lease, landlords usually charge tenants a lower base, plus additional costs for typical operational expenses of the space. These additional costs can include real estate taxes, insurance, maintenance, janitorial services, management, landscaping, and many other costs. The primary difference between a net lease and a gross lease is that the rent in a net lease can vary based on the associated costs of operating the building, while in a gross lease, the tenant pays a fixed amount every month.
The most common type of net lease is the NNN Lease (Triple Net Lease). In a triple net lease, the tenant is responsible for paying a base rent plus the net property tax, net insurance, and net common area maintenance items (CAMS), hence the name triple net. This net amount is based on the amount of space that the tenant occupies. For example, a tenant that occupies 30% of the entire space would pay 30% of the insurance, property taxes, and CAMS. This lease is common in standalone commercial buildings and in retail setting. Because triple net leases can vary the cost of rent for tenants, it can be difficult for businesses to forecast expenses in full detail.
Since the rent can fluctuate in a triple net lease, based on changing operation costs, it is important for tenants in a triple net lease to negotiate caps on the amount that rent can be raised per year. There usually is a level of transparency between landlords and tenants in triple net leases that allows tenants to realize savings when operation expenses decrease. In most cases, having a triple net lease increases the tenant’s level of responsibility for the space. |
Numbers 29:12 On the fifteenth day of the seventh month, you are to hold a sacred assembly; you must not do any regular work, and you shall observe a feast for the LORD for seven days.
“Five days later, on the fifteenth day of the same month, you must call another holy assembly of all the people, and you may do no ordinary work on that day. It is the beginning of the Festival of Shelters, a seven-day festival to the LORD.
“On the fifteenth day of the seventh month you shall have a holy convocation. You shall not do any ordinary work, and you shall keep a feast to the LORD seven days.
"You are to hold a sacred assembly on the fifteenth day of the seventh month; you do not do any daily work. You are to celebrate a seven-day festival for the LORD.
Beginning on the fifteenth day of the seventh month and continuing for seven days, everyone must celebrate the Festival of Shelters in honor of me.
Gather for worship on the fifteenth day of the seventh month. Celebrate this festival in honor of the LORD for seven days and do no work.
You are to hold a sacred assembly on the fifteenth day of the seventh month; you must not do any daily work. You are to celebrate a seven-day festival for the LORD.
"'On the fifteenth day of the seventh month you are to have a holy assembly; you must do no ordinary work, and you must keep a festival to the LORD for seven days.
"On the fifteenth day of the seventh month you must have a holy assembly. You must not do any regular work. Instead, celebrate a festival to the LORD for seven days.
And on the fifteenth day of this seventh month ye shall have a holy convocation; ye shall do no servile work; and ye shall keep it a feast to the Lord seven days.
And on the fifteenth day of the seventh month, which shall be unto you holy and venerable, you shall do no servile work, but shall celebrate a solemnity to the Lord seven days.
29:12-40 Soon after the day of atonement, the day in which men were to afflict their souls, followed the feast of Tabernacles, in which they were to rejoice before the Lord. Their days of rejoicing were to be days of sacrifices. A disposition to be cheerful does us good, when it encourages our hearts in the duties of God's service. All the days of dwelling in booths they must offer sacrifices; while we are here in a tabernacle state, it is our interest, as well as our duty, constantly to keep up communion with God. The sacrifices for each of the seven days are appointed. Every day there must be a sin-offering, as in the other feasts. Our burnt-offerings of praise cannot be accepted of God, unless we have an interest in the great sacrifice which Christ offered, when he made himself a Sin-offering for us. And no extraordinary services should put aside stated devotions. Every thing here reminds us of our sinfulness. The life that we live in the flesh must be by the faith of the Son of God; until we go to be with him, to behold his glory, and praise his mercy, who hath loved us and washed us from our sins in his own blood. To whom be honour and glory for ever. Amen. |
Acne is caused by the effects of hormones on the pilosebaceous unit, consisting of a hair follicle, sebaceous gland, and a hair. The follicle becomes obstructed and an overgrowth of normal skin bacteria, Propionibacterium acnes, causes the destruction of the lining of the follicle. This process allows the follicular material to enter the dermis, causing an inflammatory response.
Topical antibiotics work by killing the Propionibacterium acnes bacteria. This not only helps reduce the small infections in the pores but also indirectly keeps the pores open. Topical antibiotics have been around for a while without many changes to the formulations; here's a brief summary of each. All topical antibiotics must be prescribed by a healthcare provider.
Clindamycin is the most frequently used topical antibiotic for acne, and it's available as a solution, lotion, or gel at 1% strength. It's applied twice a day to all acne prone areas. Clindamycin is generally well tolerated but may cause some irritation.
Erythromycin is the second most commonly used topical antibiotic used for acne, available as a solution, gel, and ointment at 2% strength. It's applied twice a day to all acne prone areas. Like clindamycin, it's generally well tolerated but may cause some irritation.
Erythromycin is safe for use by pregnant women.
Tetracycline is not used very often as a topical treatment, but it is available as an ointment and solution at different strengths. Tetracycline contains sodium bisulfite, a sulfa derivative that can cause allergic reactions. It may also cause yellowing of the skin.
Metronidazole is used frequently for acne caused by rosacea and is available as a gel at 0.75%. It's applied one or twice per day and is generally well tolerated but can cause irritation.
Is Clindamycin the Right Acne Treatment for You? |
Battery recycling might not be at the top of everyone’s list but it certainly should be. On average, every household in the United States has a minimum of least 10 batteries lurking in every corner. At least 8 of these batteries are thrown out on a yearly basis. This may not sound like much but if you consider the fact that this leads to around 3 billion dry cell batteries being purchased around the country every year, it makes sense that some form of reusing or recycling needs to take place. |
Description A group of cadets in front of the cabins. These five cabins or cottages were contructed in 1864-1865 and served as cadet living quarters while barracks was reconstructed after the Civil War; they were subsequently used for a variety of functions, including Surgeon's office, tailor's shop, guard room, and laundry room. These buildings stood where Shell Hall and Carroll Hall are now located, and were torn down between 1905 and 1909. |
David Cameron, Prime Minister of the United Kingdom from 2010-2016, visited Illumina’s San Diego headquarters this week to share thoughts about the importance of genomics and continued investment in science and medicine.
Following an executive briefing and a tour of the headquarters facility led by President and CEO Francis deSouza and Executive Chairman Jay Flatley, Cameron hosted a town hall meeting with company staff. Speaking to a standing room only crowd, Cameron recalled his personal experience caring for his first son Ivan who suffered from Ohtahara syndrome and died in 2009. He recalled the lack of information genetic counselors could provide at the time about whether he and his wife were at risk for having future children with the condition as an example of why he made genomics research a priority in Britain.
“When I became Prime Minister, I thought that if there were areas where we could do much better in terms of trying to shine a light onto those dark areas about our health and our makeup then we ought to do it,” he said.
Cameron, whose leadership was instrumental in the creation of Genomics England and its work to sequence 100,000 genomes, reflected on Britain’s history of innovation in genomics as home to Francis Crick, Frederick Sanger, and scientific powerhouse universities like Oxford and Cambridge. He thanked Illumina for its partnership in the 100,000 genomes project and described how Britain, as a country with a national health system, can bring together patient data with genomic sequence information to better understand health and disease. He said he hoped that the project would lead to the development of personalized treatment approaches that would improve health outcomes worldwide for patients with diseases both common and rare.
“We should be able to draw together amazing data to go with the genomic information, about lifestyle, about treatment, about progression, that will really help us to crack the great diseases of our lifetime,” he added.
Looking to the future, Cameron shared optimism for the opportunity for Illumina’s technology to make a positive impact in the world as it can be used to tackle diverse problems from antibiotic resistance to drug development.
Illumina employees were excited to hear from Cameron and asked questions about how to improve rare disease advocacy, how research and development monies could spur innovation, and the global geopolitical landscape. |
On an early morning hike at Pu’u Wa’awa’a, I saw this wild pig on the hillside above me. It was busy rooting around in the dirt, hence the brown snout. Wild pigs can do an enormous amount of damage in their foraging. The photo at right shows one of many areas alongside the trail that has been dug up by pigs. These areas are susceptible to erosion when it rains.
I was glad the pig was a ways up the hill as the other damage they can do is to people who get too close. Given the size of this one, I suspect I’d have come off second best. |
My first teaching was as a dancer for SNDO students, a technique class. Then my first workshop was at movement research, where I taught choreographic anarchy. I had all the students write their personal manifestos in choreography to question their own assumptions and preconceived ideas about making dance. I continued to teach improvisation or choreography in intensive workshop settings at Impulstanz Vienna, Forum Danca Lisbon, PARTS Brussels etc.
Which aspects of dance do you consider important to be taught?
All aspects from technique to theory to production. I think I am particularly good and interested in teaching improvisation, creating score tasks and situations for the dancer to discover their own movement language, interests, capabilities and choices. Improvisation is used as a strategy to explore body memory and physical and emotional states. There are workshops, for instance, that concentrate on how images unconsciously affect the way we move. The images used come from existing sources mixed with images we create for ourselves and images we have for our own body. Integrating these images in the work, the dancer can explore how they expand his or her imagination and physical range. With these entrances for improvisation, strategies could be discussed for their development into choreographic ideas.
How could an artist pass on his or her knowledge?
Teaching repertory is one option but I prefer to teach the particular questions behind each choreographic work, what I am interested in at the moment, what I am investigating currently, to share these questions and allow the students to discover the work for themselves without copying the choreographic material from the repertory.
I just realized when I did the book “Are we here yet?” with Jeroen Peeters that I actually had developed a whole series of exercises that I haven’t even realized they are exercises, a method that I developed during workshops and rehearsals. They are most image-based and they are for expanding people’s imaginary sphere and ways of thinking about their own body or the space. I think it is related to this fictional world primarily. Some are more technical like there is an exercise called “Ghosting yourself” where you start movements that are very intense and physical, then you keep the action but you just have the trace of emotions and situations. It is an attempt to become empty, absent, detached, a body becoming mere surface. So I give imagery scores to explore and I dance with the students knowing that physical transmission is an important one.
What do you experience while teaching new generations of dancers?
They are comfortable to improvise and open for movement processes, practices and scores and looking for their own movement language. They principally don’t need a single ideology, don’t need steps, they are thinking and curious. They consider their informed dancing bodies are meeting the work and see the workshops as a sharing of knowledge.
In this workshop, improvisation will be used as a strategy to explore body memory and physical and emotional states. We will investigate the borders between knowing and not knowing, abstraction and intention, image and action. Extending our understanding of movement vocabulary and possibilities, we will travel through energetic worlds, memory spaces and emotional landscapes. We will explore charged single actions to create collective kinetic sculptures. Moving fictions combined with physical work will be shaped into scenarios that transform and shift as we interact with others. In the various improvised scores, we will search for moments of intimacy, transgression and risk. Meg will be joined each afternoon by sound artist and composer Kaffe Matthews.
“A memory is a lonely, complicated and fleeting place. To revisit it, is to change it, even if preservation is every memory’s purpose.” - Tine Van Aerschot in Are we here yet?
Extracting from the research from her solo Hunter (2014), Meg Stuart’s workshop invites us to investigate our own personal archive of movement in the broadest sense. This can include personal memories from daily life, dances you might have learned, movements and gestures you hardly notice, or fictional selves and experiences as well as cultural and external influences. Extending our understanding of remembrance and its possibilities, we will travel through our memory spaces and emotional landscapes and move between the borders of knowing and not knowing, of remembering and forgetting. Where is the physical memory located in our body? How do we move from a memory and still be present in the here and now? How to articulate trauma and dead zones? As we improvise together, our personal archive evolves and is reshaped into a transpersonal and collective experience, articulating unfinished histories of ourselves and others.
Together with Stephanie Maher, Lexa Rosean and their guests, Meg Stuart is teaching and performing the first week of Ponderosa's Witchcamp. The Witchcamp is a 2 weeks research meeting with intensive workshops, rituals and performances for improvisers, performers and artists interested in questions about alchemy, ritual space, clear energetic transgression, the magic of the performance moment and Pagan basics. For more information and subscription, please check Ponderosa's webite.
From June 11 to 15 Meg Stuart teaches a workshop at PONDEROSA's Summerschool 2012 in the P.O.R.C.H. / Alternative Conservatory (A.C.) programme. The Training module is collaboratively created and curated by Stephanie Maher (Ponderosa) & Kathleen Hermesdorf (La Alternativa). Together they combine and channel their forces into an immersive and intensive month. The focus is on the body and contemporary movement forms, as well as the individual co-existing with others and in nature. Co-teachers are Stephanie Maher, Kathleen Hermesdorf, Peter Pleyer, Maria F. Scaroni, Hanna Hegenscheidt. For more information and subscription, please check Ponderosa's webite.
Along with Felipa Martorell, Nelson Guerreiro, Teresa Silva and others Meg Stuart is invited by Forum Dança (Lisbon) to teach in the frame of the PEPCC programme which is an intensive and advance course in international contemporary dance. The programme focusses on contents such as contemporary dance technique, yoga, chi kung, improvisation, composition and creation among other topics. |
Normally, under the concept of “pyramids of Giza” modern man understands only the complex of the three largest buildings of Khufu, khafra and menkaura. However, it is supplemented by a large number of smaller pyramids, temples, ancient cemeteries and, of course, the legendary Sphinx.
The exact dates of construction of these monuments still can not say anything definite. However, there is no doubt that the construction of the entire complex in Giza valley was completed to the XXIII century BC that is the age of the youngest of the monument goes back at least 3200 years.
Initially, the shape of the pyramids was quite different than now. The main entrances to the tombs were built covered galleries connecting them with churches. But the main thing – the giant stone faces of graves covered the shining of Tura limestone, the thickness of which was about one meter. Today of former grandeur can only guess – according to ancient sources, the pyramids of Giza, thanks to the veneer of limestone that glistened in the sun, and Shine that was visible even from the valley of the Nile (a distance of 25 kilometers).
About the uniqueness and architectural value of the pyramids is better illustrated by the fact that, of the “seven wonders of the ancient world” has survived to this day are the only ones. In addition, up to 1880, the monuments at Giza, and the pyramid of Cheops, was vysokopolnogo man-made structure on earth (almost 150 meters).
Still, it is surprising how relatively underdeveloped the Egyptian civilization was able to build such monumental buildings. One only the great pyramid consists of two million blocks of stone, the weight of the greater part of which reaches 2,5 tons. Without wheels, complex lifting systems builders managed to achieve such high quality work that still inner rooms facing tremendous pressure, not collapsed. And between the blocks impossible to insert even a tiny needle.
Lots of interesting theories with fans of mysterious causes and the unusual placement of the tombs relative to each other and maps of the starry sky. So, the pyramids of Khufu and khafra are strictly diagonally from each other, and the smallest tomb of menkaura is shifted slightly to the East. Thus, the structure according to your drawing precisely reproduce the appearance of one of the largest constellations in the Northern sky – the belt of Orion.
In the history of the pyramids in Giza is still a lot mysterious, and the interest in them does not subside. Especially tourist interest, no wonder millions of visitors to Egypt invariably acquire excursions to Giza, despite the removal of the complex from the main seaside resorts of the country. |
What is Cryptocurrency Tether (USDT) in Simple Words?
Tether is the first company in the world that created a platform where it combined the functions of cryptocurrency and fiats. Project Tether works on the technology blockchain, developers Tether for their project took blockchain Bitcoin, and so it is fully protected. Like any cryptocurrency, Tether has no issuer, and is completely decentralized, allowing anyone to purchase it.
Cryptocurrency Tether is an ordinary digital asset, the exclusive feature of which is the use of digital equivalents of real currencies. Thanks to such features, cryptocurrency Tether is freed from speculative moments, which to some extent deter people from the crypto sphere.
The Tether platform is able to convert US dollars, euros and Japanese yen to cryptocurrency under the name Tether. In this case, Tether has a hundred percent security of its coins, i.e. 1 USDT – Tether coin has such ticker, equal to 1 USD. And 1 Eurt equals 1 EUR, as you see the ticker cryptocurrency varies depending on the currency, which is converted to the currency name, the letter “T” is added.
Blockchain technology allows Tether to use the best cryptocurrency features: anonymity, transaction speed, transparency and reliability. In this case, binding cryptocurrency Tether to a particular currency gives a clear understanding of the number of fiats in your account. In other words, you use the benefits of cryptocurrency, using the usual money.
Developers have created their own, a native web wallet Tether and added a mobile application to it. Tether wallet performs the functions of a regular cryptocurrency wallet, with which you can store, send and receive cryptocurrency. The minimum amount for deposit and withdrawal is 1 unit, and the commissions for these operations are not charged. In addition to the “native” wallet, Tether support other popular resources, such as the purse Coinomi and such exchanges as Binance, HitBTC, Bittrex.
The project Tether and its eponymous cryptocurrency is a project that will be able to attract more and more insecure and fearing people to the sphere of cryptocurrency. After all, the storage of money in cryptocurrency Tether does not carry absolutely no risks. Thanks to its approach, Tether provides the opportunity for companies to use maximum business opportunities, relieving themselves of the headache of how to send a payment. Our opinion, cryptocurrency Tether is an angel, among cryptocurrencies. |
Do You Really Need to Separate Whites and Darks?
The age-old laundry question, one that has been debated for years, is it really necessary to separate your lights and darks? The reason there is such an ongoing debate is because there is no clear-cut right and wrong, or light and dark answer, it is more complicated than that. It may seem ridiculous, its just laundry, but it is true!
One of the main reasons this question is so complicated is because clothes themselves are so complicated. Clothing isn’t all the same and different articles of clothing are made up of different materials and fabric, each material requires a different washing cycle. Washing machines have different washes cycles for a reason!
Of course, clothes are all sorts of different colors, so it is generally recommended to separate clothing by color, especially light and dark clothing. Dye in darker colored clothing can seep into lighter colored clothing during the washing process and light clothing can turn into off-shade colors and be ruined. New clothes tend to leak their dye more than older clothing because the dye is still new and fresh, so if you are washing a new dark blue shirt for the first time, it may not be in your best interest to throw it in the laundry with a bunch of whites. On the flip side, when washing only whites, you can add bleach or white vinegar into the wash to give the whites a brighter look.
There are many upsides and advantages to separating clothes by fabric and color, mostly to avoid shrinking and unwanted coloration. It is not necessary though, which is why the classic argument remains. If you are in a rush or only have a few clothes left to wash, you can mix colors and fabrics. Just be sure to wash the clothes using cool water, and do not include a new colored article of clothing in that wash or your whites may be a different shade after the wash. |
It’s almost midnight, and Hilde sits in her room, reading. She tries to write using the “free association” techniques that Freud pioneered. She wonders if she’s repressing anything important. She also wonders what Alberto is planning to do to her father. She considers reading the final page of the book, but chooses not to—that would be cheating.
This is a funny section, because Gaarder seems to be talking directly to his readers without actually addressing them. Gaarder is telling his readers not to skip ahead to the end of the book, so as not to ruin the surprise!
Hilde falls asleep and wakes up the next morning. She remembers a dream she had, in which her father returned from Lebanon. In the dream, Hilde crosses paths with Sophie, who’s carrying Hilde’sgold crucifix. At the end of her dream, Hilde embraces her father.
The meaning of Hilde’s dream is by no means clear (that’s part of the point), but certainly Hilde and Sophie are still inextricably linked, as shown by their joint possession of the gold crucifix.
Hilde’s mother enters the room and wishes her good morning. She tells Hilde she’ll be home around 4 pm. When Hilde is alone again, she resumes reading Sophie’s World. In the book, Sophie has left the major’s cabin. She tries to “hold the major’s attention,” as Alberto instructed her. She jumps around, yodels, and climbs a tall tree, only to find that she can’t climb back down. Suddenly, a goose appears before Sophie. The goose introduces itself as Morten, and explains that it flew here from Lebanon. Morten claims to have carried a 14-year-old boy named Nils across the sky. Sophie asks Morten how he managed to carry someone so heavy. Morten claims that he slapped Nils, causing him to become “no bigger than a thumb.” Sophie ignores the goose, saying that she has a philosophicalgarden party to organize.
This passage is borderline unintelligible to anyone who didn’t grow up in Scandinavia, where The Adventures of Nils is a popular children’s book. Suffice it to say that Nils and Morten are beloved children’s book characters, as well-known in their country as the Cat in the Hat is in the United States.
Morten, undeterred, tells Sophie that an old woman was planning to write a book about Nils’s adventures. Morten claims that this is ironic, since he and Nils “were already in that book.” In this instant, Sophie feels someone slap her, and she becomes “no bigger than a thumb.” Now, she’s flying on a goose’s back, looking down at the trees and houses. Eventually, Morten lands, and Sophie realizes that she’s grown back to her full size. She thanks Morten for bringing her down from the tree, and Morten says, “A mere bagatelle.” Morten tells Sophie he would have liked to show her the rest of Europe—in other words,to give her the same education he gave Nils, years ago. With these words, Morten flies away.
Morten carries Sophie through the sky, much as Alberto and Albert could be said to carry Sophie through the complex terrain of Western philosophy. The similarities between Morten and Alberto / Albert are then underscored by Morten’s parting words to Sophie, “A mere bagatelle,” which we recognize as Alberto’s modest catchphrase for Sophie. Gaarder also throws in some more meta-fictional jokes here, as Morten and Nils realize that they too are in a book.
Sophie is back in her home. She and Mom prepare for Sophie’s garden party the next day. Mom asks Sophie if Alberto is planning to come to the party, and Sophie says he’ll be there. The next morning, Alberto calls Sophie and tells her that his “secret plan” is going well. He tells Sophie to meet him in Café Pierre, a café in the center of town.
We’re not sure what Alberto is planning, or even what he couldbe planning without Albert’s knowledge. It’s suggested that Alberto is evading Albert’s authority by operating out of Albert’s subconscious, but there’s no indication that Alberto is even anything but a part of Albert’s subconscious.
At the Café Pierre, Sophie waits for Alberto. She feels like a real adult—older than her years. The people in the café seem dull and trivial to her—aesthetes, to use Kierkegaard’s phrase. Suddenly, Alberto enters the room, wearing a black beret and a beautiful old coat. Alberto apologizes for being late and tells Sophie that they’re going to talk about modern philosophy.
At the beginning of this novel, Sophie was a shy young girl, more comfortable in her den than in public. Now, Sophie doesn’t think twice about surveying a crowd and criticizing it for being full of aesthetes (which seems like an arrogant thing to say about people she’s never met before, and shows that she’s not immune to the hubris that comes with knowledge).
One important strain of modern philosophy, Alberto begins, is existentialism. Existentialism is the belief that man’s existential situation must be the starting point for any system of thought. Before Alberto unpacks this difficult concept, he gives some of the history of existentialism. Friedrich Nietzsche (1844-1900) was an important philosopher, because he believed that the modern world was too subservient to Christian morality, which he termed a “slave morality.” Nietzsche wanted to reformulate morality to reflect the “real world” of man’s existence.
It’s a pity that Alberto doesn’t have more time to discuss Friedrich Nietzsche (who’s just as deserving of an entire chapter devoted to his philosophy as Kierkegaard or Hegel). But at this point, it becomes harder to group philosophy into manageable units, such as Romanticism, Enlightenment, etc. Even Existentialism, the dominant “theme” of this lesson, is a loosely understood philosophical school, encompassing a far more diverse array of philosophers than its predecessors.
One of the key Existentialists was Jean-Paul Sartre (1905-1980). His life-long friend and companion was Simone de Beauvoir. Sophie is glad to hear that Alberto is finally talking about a female philosopher. Sartre started from the premise that “Existentialism is humanism.” By this, Sartre meant that Existentialism begins by assuming that “God is dead”—a phrase that comes from Nietzsche. In the absence of a God, humanity is forced to come to terms with its own existence.
Alberto tries to clarify what Sartre meant when he claimedthat “existence precedes essence.” Sartre believed that humans exist in a different sense than a rock or a tree exists—humans are self-conscious. This means that humans don’t have an “essence” in the same way that a tree or a rock has an essence—they don’t have essential properties or characteristics that determine everything they do. Because humans don’t have these built-in properties, they have to “create” themselves—they have to decide what kind of lives they want to lead, and what kind of nature they want to have.Before Sartre, philosophers tried to explain human nature. Sartre, by contrast, didn’t believe that human nature was real—it is man’s fate to do whatever he wants. Alberto makes an analogy: Sartre thinks that humanity is like a troupe of actors without a script or stage directions. Sophie thinks she understands what Alberto means.
Alberto admits that Sartre’s view of life can be depressing. And yet Sartre wasn’t a nihilist—he refused to believe that things have no meaning at all. Instead, Sartre believed that life must have a meaning—it’s just that humans have to choose this meaning for themselves.
To Sartre, even nihilism is a form of universalism (i.e., “everything is meaningless”), and thus a contradiction of Existentialism. In a way, Sartre is even more committed to the concept of freedom than his predecessors—he wants each human being to find his or her own freedom. This idea also seems relevant to the novel. Sophie has accepted that she exists only in the pages of a book, so now she must go about finding freedom and meaning within the parameters of that reality.
Sartre was interested in questions of perception andconsciousness. He argued that we each perceive the world in a different way, according to our own thoughts and emotions. For example, a woman who is pregnant might think that she sees lots of pregnant women around her; an escaped criminal might imagine that he sees police officers all around him. Albertothen admits that he was late for his meeting with Sophie on purpose, because hewanted Sophie to look around the crowd in the café.
Alberto wants Sophie to become aware of her own changing thought processes. This is an important point to bear in mind, because it suggests that Sophie herself might be projecting onto the other members of the crowd, and assuming that she is more enlightened than the people around her.
Alberto goes on to describe the writings of Simone de Beauvoir, an Existentialist who tried to merge Sartre’s ideas with feminism. De Beauvoir argued that the supposed differences between men and women are illusions—there is no “women’s nature,” just as there is no human nature. Sophie is attracted to this idea.
De Beauvoir’s ideas were widely criticized at the time because they seemed to contradict biological facts. But this wasn’t quite de Beauvoir’s point: she wasn’t saying that there are no biological differences between men and women, but that there is no innately feminine way of perceivingthe world, contrary to what’s often assumed (for example, “woman’s intuition”).
Alberto describes the influence of Existentialism on literature. Writers like Albert Camus and Samuel Beckett wrote plays and novels that evoked “the absurd,” i.e., that which is meaningless or irrational. The purpose of these literary works was to show that life, as we experience it, has no inherent meaning—we have to create this meaning for ourselves. Often in a work of absurdist theater, a character finds himself trapped in a bizarre, dreamlike situation, and yet doesn’t react with surprise or confusion.
Like Darwin and Freud, Sartre’s philosophical ideas weren’t only influential in the world of philosophy; they also had a profound influence on Western art and literature. Gaarder presents Camus as primarily a fiction writer, but he was also a philosopher who was arguably as influential as Sartre, and developed the philosophy of Absurdism.
Although philosophers continue to argue over many of the same questions that puzzled Socrates and Plato thousands of years ago, there are also some new problems that philosophers try to solve. Philosophy now studies animal rights, environmental decay, etc.Albertosuggests that the world might have arrived at the “end of history”—a period in which there are no wars or violent conflicts. Of course, it’s also possible that civilization is on the cusp of a new age.
Throughout the book, Alberto has been trying to refute the idea that philosophy is a useless endeavor. Here, he shows the ways that philosophy, far from being useless, is intimately engaged with the problems of the real, contemporary world.
Alberto and Sophie walk down the street. As they walk by a store, Sophie sees something on TV—footage of a UN soldier waving a sign, “Back soon, Hilde!” Alberto mutters, “Charlatan.”Alberto and Sophie keep walking, and eventually come to a bookstore. In the back, they find the “New Age” section, full of tarot cards, UFO photographs, etc. Alberto tells Sophie that this place is the “temple of our age.” Alberto claims that the belief in the supernatural, as seen in a place like the New Age bookstore, is mostly nonsense—the kind of “figment of the imagination” that Hume would have dismissed. Sophie tells Alberto that he’s being unusually harsh. Alberto admits that not all psychics and mystics are frauds—they certainly believe that they can predict the future. He promises to keep an open mind on all questions of mysticism, acknowledging that all exciting new ideas appear to be magic, at least at first. Before they leave the bookstore, Sophie notices a book called Sophie’s World.
It’s impressive that Alberto has concealed his distaste for mysticism and occultism for so long—it’s as if he’s been withholding his own opinions so that he can be a truly impartial teacher (this would suggest that his duties as a teacher are now concluded). Alberto and Sophie could be said to represent the two sides of Western philosophy: the former rigid, scientific, and eminently rational; the latter sensitive, intuitive, and mystical. Sophie seems more willing than Alberto to believe in the existence of spirituality and mysticism. Once again Gaarder plays with reality by placing the book “Sophie’s World” as a physical object even within the world of Sophie’s World. |
HONOLULU (AP) - A newly discovered fungus is killing a tree that’s critical to Hawaii’s water supply, endangered native birds and Hawaiian cultural traditions like hula.
The disease called rapid ohia death has hit hundreds of thousands of ohia lehua trees on the Big Island. As of last year, it was found to have affected 50 percent of the ohia trees across 6,000 acres of forest, but it’s believed to have spread further since then. To date, it’s been found primarily in Puna but also in Kona and Kau. It hasn’t been seen anywhere else in the world.
Robert Hauff, the forest health coordinator at the state Department of Land and Natural Resources, said the state is planning aerial surveys next month to learn how many acres are affected by the fungus. A world expert in similar diseases is also expected to visit the islands to advise the state on how to control the outbreak.
“Worst case scenario is that it spreads statewide and it decimates all of our ohia forests. It’s a pretty bleak picture,” Hauff told reporters at a news conference in Honolulu.
Ohia is important to the water supply because it’s so effective at soaking water into the ground and replenishing the watershed. It’s critical for native birds because the animals feed on its nectar. It provides a canopy to native plants growing underneath it in the forests.
The state Department of Agriculture has created rules prohibiting moving wood, flowers and other parts of the ohia tree between islands. The state is also encouraging people to clean tools used on ohia and clean shoes and clothes used near ohia.
Christy Martin, a spokeswoman for the Hawaii Coordinating Group on Alien Pest Species, said the fungus is “sneaky” because it can infect a tree for months before showing any symptoms.
“So somebody could think they’re walking through a healthy forest, picking up wood and doing whatever they’re doing collecting for lei and not know they’re dealing with an infected tree,” Martin said after the news conference.
Sam Ohu Gon III, senior scientist and cultural adviser at the Nature Conservancy of Hawaii, said ohia wood was used for weapons, hula instruments, homes and temples in ancient Hawaii. Many Hawaiian proverbs and sayings reference the tree. |
•Look left, right and left again when crossing and keep looking as you cross.
•Put electronic devices down and keep heads up and walk, don’t run, across the street.
•Teach children to make eye contact with drivers before crossing in front of them.
•Always walk on sidewalks or paths. If there are no sidewalks, walk facing traffic as far to the left as possible.
•Children should walk on direct routes with the fewest street crossings. |
Leopold's Crate: Last night I was told that turkey can kill my dog.
Last night I was told that turkey can kill my dog.
Leopold eyeing up some leftover turkey from last night.
Last night my husband and I threw a "fry party", where we heated up a deep fryer in our back yard and guests came over with ingredients of their choosing to drop in the vat of peanut oil. It was a night of indulgence for sure. My favorite fried goodies included oreos, bananas, and the large turkey my husband prepared.
At one point Leopold was eyeing up that turkey (and by eyeing up I mean sniffing awfully close!). I don't blame him. It smelled good and tasted better. A couple of the guests were watching and said something to me, in what I thought was jest, about how turkey can hurt dogs. I laughed and said "Leopold seems to disagree". They then proceeded to tell me that turkey can, actually, kill dogs.
I responded by saying "What? That's not true".
I hope I didn't come off as rude to the well-meaning guests, but in my years working with dogs in both a professional and personal setting, I have never once come across that little factoid.
I'll admit that I was terribly afraid that I was wrong. So I did some research online.
I did find articles and blog posts about the dangers of turkey. "Skip the turkey at Thanksgiving for your dog!", stuff like that. Or this one from NBC that contained a subheading "Toxic Turkey" and advised people to "Refrain from giving any part of the beautiful bird to your cat or dog".
But the articles that made claims about turkey toxicity had no cited references. No quotes from veterinarians. So, I'm not sure where they were getting their information--possibly other websites that were getting their information from other websites that were getting their information from a random stranger who claimed turkey killed their dog. (Apparently if enough people believe something, that makes it true. ...Except that it doesn't.).
The articles I found that did have any sort of clout explained that turkey, as a meat, is fine to give to dogs. In fact, it's a high quality protein source. That's why you can find it as an ingredient in some dog foods. In fact, "smoked turkey" is on the list of ingredients in the kibble I feed MY dogs -- Taste of the Wild, Wetlands recipe.
The poop is that sometimes the manner in which the turkey is given to a dog can cause gastrointestinal upset and in some cases pancreatitis. It's not the turkey, it's the fact that a dog isn't used to eating turkey, and/or the fat content of the turkey tidbits they're eating is too high (the skin has quite a bit of fat in it, for example).
Thanksgiving is often the time we give our dogs turkey, or maybe even a whole meal comprised of the different delicious dishes we, ourselves, enjoyed. Thanksgiving turkeys and side dishes are more likely to be decadent, full of extra butter and oil. At least that's how it is in our house... Most dogs don't eat this kind of food on a daily basis, and therein lies the problem.
Have you ever tried to switch your dog's kibble to a new brand or a new recipe? If you try to switch outright, the result is a sick doggy who probably needs to be let outside many many times if you're luck or hours of cleaning for you... (ew.....)! To switch a dog's food, you're supposed to slowly introduce the new food over time, gradually adding more of the new and less of the old over ten or so days. And switching dog food brands/recipes is a much more innocuous event than is offering Thanksgiving leftovers.
Imagine, then, that the Thanksgiving meal you're giving your dog is not only atypical to their diet, but is very possibly higher fat that normal. There's a good chance that it's not going to sit well. And in some cases can result in pancreatitis and even death, such as the case my guests were relating to me.
It does not kill dogs. It doesn't harm dogs. In fact, there are even supplements on the market that use tryptophan specifically for dogs to help relieve anxiety (research suggests these supplements don't work...).
If you want to know more, I found this great science-based article online that gives the rundown of tryptophan and dogs.
I'm not sure why my guests thought tryptophan was the blame for the pancreatitis of their family's dog. I hope their vet didn't tell them that...!
Turkey does not kill dogs. Tryptophan does not kill dogs.
BUT, be smart about the little extras you give your dog. Is your dog on a low-fat diet? Don't suddenly give them a bunch of fat. Does your dog never get to eat "people food"? Don't suddenly give them an entire meal of "people food". Also, it's a good idea to cover and put your leftovers away so that your dog doesn't sneak onto the counter and help himself.
I did research online to write this article. Part of feeling confident in the information I present to you, my reader, is knowing what to look for in an article that tells me it's a reliable source. Interested in learning how to research dog-related topics (or... any topics, really), for yourself? Stay tuned. I'll work on that blog post next. |
The Direct Enrollment Program at the University for Foreigners (Università per Stranieri di Perugia) offers the unique opportunity for students to focus exclusively on Italian language and culture. Participants enroll at the Università per Stranieri di Perugia for a semester-long program and study with university students from all over the world whose goal is to become fluent in Italian. It is intensive, international, and most of all, widely recognized as the best way to gain fluency in Italian and enjoy everyday life in Italy.
The program is taught entirely in Italian and is open to students of all levels of language proficiency. It includes approximately 27 hours per week at the Università per Stranieri di Perugia coupled with weekly recitation classes with Umbra instructors. The instructors’ role is to guide, assist, and assess students through their learning experience at the local university. They set weekly assignments, exams, and determine students’ final grades in the program.
The program yields 16 semester credits. At each level of language proficiency, the curriculum is fixed and may not be modified. For more information, download the Program Outline for more details on the structure of the program, the material covered, and the transcripts awarded for each level completed. Please note that Direct Enrollment students do not have a traditional fall or spring break, but will enjoy holidays listed in the Italian academic calendar.
Students are encouraged to take this document to their faculty and/or study abroad advisor to gain permission to attend the program and ensure that proper transfer credit will be awarded. In addition, advisers are encouraged to contact the Umbra Institute directly with questions or for more information about the Direct Enrollment program.
The Università per Stranieri di Perugia represents the oldest and most prestigious Italian institution specialized in Italian language instruction. Founded in 1921, today the Università is an important center for both the teaching of Italian and the development of new educational methodologies. It hosts approximately 5,000 students from over 100 different nations each term. The university’s principal location is in the beautiful Gallenga Palazzo located in the heart of the city, opposite the 2,000-year-old Etruscan arch of the ancient city and a short walk from the Umbra Institute.
The Umbra Institute works closely with the Università per Stranieri to create a study abroad program that incorporates this stimulating international environment. Participants in the Direct Enrollment: University for Foreigners program are registered as students at both the Università per Stranieri and the Umbra Institute.
The program inserts the traditional American four-month semester into the Italian academic program as organized by the Università per Stranieri. For this reason, course organization follows two different models depending on the semester in which students enroll. The fall semester is comprised of a one-month course followed by a three-month course, and the spring semester is a three-month course followed by a one-month course.
At the lower levels (A1-B1) the curriculum is fixed and may not be modified, whereas courses at the B2 level and above introduce a separate component on Italian culture and society.
Advanced courses, at the levels of C1 and C2, also include courses in a variety of subjects such as advanced linguistic studies, phonetics, phonology, morphology, syntax, semantics, dialects and historical linguistics, as well as courses on Dante, Italian Renaissance Art, business writing, Italian literature, and more. These courses supplement the linguistic program and are used as tools to not only teach the subject matter, but also continue to improve Italian language skills. Each session, advanced students create their own program and may choose up to three elective courses from a variety of offerings in Italian studies in the humanities and social sciences.
For some students, the direct enrollment experience can be overwhelming, while others, particularly at the beginner level, may find it difficult to follow classes taught in Italian. The Umbra Institute provides each student with a weekly tutorial and special office hours for additional assistance when needed. Umbra instructors are experts in the fields of teaching Italian and assessing language acquisition.
Students will cover grammatical and conversational topics and prepare for their exams at the Institute. Each week, tutors will provide the necessary learning materials and may ask students to organize a weekly update of their Stranieri activities. Students will be given regularly assigned exercises, including short essays. In addition, the students’ midterm, final oral presentations, and exams will take place at the Institute. It is the Umbra instructor who is ultimately responsible for assessing the performance of all students and assigning the final grade for all students.
Program participants have access to all social and sports activities offered by the Università, which include the Chamber Music Group, University Musical Association of Perugia (Agimus), University Social Center (concerts, shows, plays, exhibitions, and Italian films are shown; students can participate free of charge in the events and can also exhibit their artistic works), excursions (weekend trips organized by the Università to important Italian cities and historical and artistic monuments of Perugia and Umbria), and sports (all students have access to the University Sport Centre of Perugia, the CUS, which organizes athletics, baseball, basketball, football, swimming, judo, karate, tennis, cycling, volleyball, lacrosse, etc.).
Housing is provided for all students in shared apartments with either Italian or international students. There is no meal plan, but apartments are equipped with full kitchens.
Homestays are available upon request.
At the end of each three-month program students are eligible to take a CELI (Certificato di Lingua Italiana) exam and receive a certificate of proficiency from the Università degli Studi di Perugia. The CELI is recognized internationally and may be useful for students who hope to work in fields which require knowledge of Italian. The Centre for Assessment and Language Certification of the Università set the examination dates, which often fall outside the semester schedule for Umbra students, and are generally offered twice a calendar year. |
Riverdale encourages its Upper School students to chart their own courses. As they balance a challenging college preparatory curriculum, co-curricular activities, athletics, and opportunities for foreign travel, science research, outdoor experiences, and independent study, they create an experience that is unique to their talents and interests and yet shaped by their collaborative community. The Upper School has a "culture of yes," says Upper School Head Dr. Kelley Nicholson-Flynn. The school gives students the freedom and resources to take their interests in new directions while they also contribute to the life of the community.
Upper School Head Dr. Kelley Nicholson-Flynn discusses the ways in which Riverdale students apply their learning in the classroom and beyond.
Constructing America is an interdisciplinary course that is team taught by the English and history departments and required for all 11th graders. Upper School history teacher Dr. Elizabeth Pillsbury led a trip to the Kaaterskill falls to show students the landscape that helped shape American identity. |
The clock components that identify wrist watch capability (and also to some extent kind) are called movements. These specific clock components keep an eye on elapsed time and also find out the best ways to direct the hands appropriately at every moment; that is their primary purpose. However motions (or electric motors) frequently have subsidiary purposes that can be rather captivating, as well as one such function is chiming.
Typically, clock parts operated totally mechanically, utilizing weights or coiled springtimes to provide rotational pressure as well as a network of equipments to obtain seconds, mins, and hrs. Pendulums and escapements regulated the regularity of ticking so that the force had not been used at one time.
In modern times clocks run online instead of mechanically. There are still some mechanical components, such as hands linked to turning shafts, yet the timing resource of a weight or springtime has been replaced with a quartz crystal. Digital registers build up the number of timing pulses, thereby ensuring accuracy timekeeping.
Both the traditional as well as modern-day variations of electric motors have the capacity of tracking things beyond elapsed secs, mins, and hrs. One could conveniently prolong their cycles from semi-daily to daily, weekly, or monthly. These attributes are rarely seen on analog clocks (though usual on electronic ones), yet when applied they inevitably charm the audience.
Cuckoo clocks are historical instances of traditionally introducing the hr both visually and aurally. There have likewise been several various other ways of doing this, as well as occasionally neighborhoods of the hr are indicated. Such impacts invariably captivate while notifying.
The chime is comparable in purpose to the cuckoo, though it does not have any type of aesthetic hint. Perhaps one is derived from the various other, however chimes are most certainly related to one-time town criers and also belfry. Singing alerts, bell ringing, and also tolling were all forms of introducing information or events audibly.
The result of such statements was for townspeople to collect in a public space such as the square or a church. In a feeling this was an early form of broadcast media, verifying really effective and efficient in getting words out. We know that town criers announced the time and also thus developed the technique of associating news with the moment.
Church bell towers were also efficient acoustic signalers. At some time the towers started offering a clock face and thus providing a visual hint. This was a convenient form of interaction for those in the area, though not of much use for people further out.
Nonetheless, the lasting trend was in the direction of a combination of view and also hearing hints, specifically as the growth of timekeeping mosted likely to a smaller range. Mantle clocks and grandpa clocks prevailed that charmed visually yet likewise chimed up to four times a hr and also sounded a hr matter. Property owners and also businessmen obtained the visual or acoustic hint, signifying them to address the other one.
Chiming traditionally can be found in patterns, several of which have ended up being fairly prominent. Big Ben's Westminster pattern is most likely one of the most acquainted, however there are options similarly enchanting that pass the names of Winchester, Whittington, and also St. Mary's.
Chimes have their drawback: their repeated nature quickly resulting in extreme nuisance, especially when it sounds every 15 minutes. The bell timbre has a big influence in how one responds to the chime. Regardless, make certain that the clock motion you order has an override switch for disabling the chime (at the very least in between 11 during the night as well as 7 in the morning, if not completely).
Some activities provide a means for you to tape your personal chime sounds. This feature affords the chance of being creative as well as including a note of personalization. There really is no end to the ways one can get a timepiece that both charms and also keeps time by constructing the ideal mix of chiming clock components. |
Although the benefits of planting cover crops are reaped by producers, they can also help pests survive.
Landscape diversification, including the use of cover crops, can provide habitat and forage for beneficial insects. This is especially true in the spring when there is a lack of food. Alternatively, cover crops can also support field crop pests, including moths, beetles, flies and slugs. The early spring vegetation, sometimes called a “green bridge,” provides resources until the row crops emerge. In the past, several green bridge pests have become common in Iowa.
Biology: widespread U.S. pest that migrates to Iowa annually; 2-3 generations each summer; females attracted to grass and lay egg masses in aggregated areas.
Injury: caterpillars are mobile and nocturnal; young caterpillars skeletonize leaves but leave the midrib behind; older caterpillars can consume leaves; VE-V5 corn and V(n) soybean is most susceptible; significant stand loss is possible.
Biology: widespread U.S. pest that migrates to Iowa annually; 2-3 generations each summer; females attracted to green vegetation lay eggs randomly.
Injury: caterpillars are mobile and nocturnal; caterpillars defoliate leaves and tunnel in plant, and are capable of cutting seedlings at soil; VE-V7 corn and V(n) soybean is most susceptible; significant stand loss is possible.
Biology: widespread U.S. pest that overwinters in Iowa; 1 generation each summer; females randomly lay eggs along ditches in fall.
Injury: caterpillars are mobile; young caterpillars infest grass and older caterpillars infest corn, soybean and ragweed; V5-V10 corn and V(n) soybean is most susceptible; significant stand loss is possible but aggregated at field edges. |
Cyril was born in 1920 in Bradley Square, Tickhill. The square is now demolished, but used to stand near Sunderland Place.
Cyril’s father, Ralph, had originally worked, as a groom, on the Sandbeck Estate before joining the Veterinary Corps during the First World War.
Sarah Ann, his Mother, “ was a very good manager,” and kept her family fed economically.
“We all had to be so so, you know. If you went to the table, there was no chatter, you had to eat what you were given or leave”. One of the dishes Cyril remembers is a sheep’s head stew with lentils. This fed the whole family.
Cyril started at the infants school in Tithes Lane the age of five. The Headmistress was Mrs. Shaw, who was assisted by Miss Iva Hornshaw,. The school comprised three classrooms, and the infant room was the smallest.
In winter time, Black Lane fields flooded from the Torne as far as the castle. When the water froze it was possible to slide to a pond which was at the back of the castle.
Cyril also enjoyed ”tripping about with the lasses round the maypole,’ at the Mayday celebrations .There was a procession to the Buttercross.
“It’s about time “you found a job and got to somebody else’s table,” said Cyril’s dad, not long after he had left school. “The Nineteen thirties were terrible times. I was at home a month before I could get a job”, recalls Cyril, though he did odd jobs in the locality…. “one and six here… a shilling there… sometimes nowt at all”.
Cyril joined the Home Guard, and also volunteered to be trained as a ack ack (anti aircraft) gunner for the batteries at Thrybergh. He recalls marching to Wentworth for manoeuvres, and taking part in marksmanship competitions.
The Glass Bulb Factory was being built in Harworth. Here Cyril was to spend the next twenty five years.
“I’d give anything to get a t’ back of a pair of horses and plough a furrow” he says, “Just to see if I could still do it. |
The Kunstpalast is the result of a recent renovation project by Ungers, who came first in a closed competition held in 1995; work began in 1998 and was completed in 2001.
The concert hall dedicated to Robert Schumann has been created in the podium, near the massive sloping stone wall: it is two storeys high, completely faced with wood, with a floor with light and dark square inlays, and is accessed directly from the entrance atrium. The semi-cylindrical building located at the rear is intended for use as offices, and exhibition, commercial and parking space and is composed of three parts: two circular crowns are arranged around a tower with a roof sloping towards the ceremonial courtyard. The outermost crown repeats the characteristics of the Kunstpalast, while the intermediate one appears as a large glazed gallery creating further indoor space; the curved walls in square ashlar stones seem like a framework, due to the continued repetition of small and large windows, all made using a square 60 x 60 cm grid pattern.
A constant link with history emerges from this project by Ungers. For him, this is an authentic existential problem inherent to the sphere of individual creativity: he looks to the past not as an opportunity for erudition, but rather as a heritage to be repeated giving it a new meaning acquired through theoretical observation. From as long ago as the beginning of the sixties, Ungers has focussed on a revision of modern architecture and in particular of functionalism, considering architecture to be both a technical and artistic skill, but most of all considering projects to be procedures that produce space and shapes and that, when they come into being, increase awareness of their authors.
The assembly of elements typical of the history of architecture uses geometry as a metaphor of a universal order and brings back the theme of "transformation", which sees anything new as intentional discontinuity with regard to a context, forcefully raising the problem of the meaning, the image and the representation, even beyond any connection between form and planning. Ungers is one of the few architects to have taken an interest in the relationship between the author of a project and the work, perceiving a conflict that today has led him to absolute self-restriction, to architecture that forgoes any desire for representation. |
the buttons hit a different bar, producing a different sound.
While that wireless controller was a technological breakthrough in its day, it was nothing compared to modern infrared controllers, which can perform a multitude of tasks, including tasks that aren't even accessible from the devices main control panel.
Infrared, is electromagnetic energy in a frequency range directly below the visible light spectrum. It most often registers as thermal radiation, or in other words room-temperature heat. If we look at the electromagnetic light spectrum, we find infrared (highlighted in yellow on this diagram).
Infrared is light, but it's not visible to the human eye. However, we can develop instrumentation that is capable of "seeing" this light. Infrared photography, whether film or electronic, is able to capture images in infrared.
As with other light, infrared can change somewhat in frequency, and it can also have data imposed upon it through a number of means.
Which of these methods are used depends upon the manufacturer, as there are no universal standards for infrared controllers. Phillips created one, which some other companies have used, but it is not widely accepted as a standard. Japanese companies have some similarity of design, with their controllers sending a manufacturer's identifying code before sending the signal.
Today, almost all remote controllers are digital, having a simple internal microprocessor, which converts button pushes into 4-bit digital codes. These codes are modulated and transmitted by an infrared diode. An infrared phototransistor in the device being controlled (usually hidden behind a window in the control panel) receives this signal. Another microprocessor decodes this signal, which it then passes it on to the device being controlled.
You must realize that the microprocessors used for the coding and decoding these signals are about as complicated as what you'd find in an average digital watch. They are amongst the simplest microprocessors available today.
Two important little notes I need to mention about universal controllers. First of all, when the battery dies or is removed, so is the code you put in. Don't lose your instructions, or you'll be buying a new universal remote. The second thing is that they don't replicate your devices controller perfectly. So, you may find that some commands don't work properly.
Besides the problem of not having a standard that everyone agrees on, meaning that you and your friends need a collection of controllers to manage your entertainment center, the other big problem with IR remotes is that because they are operating by transmitting light, they are limited to line-of-site operation.
This is where IR Extenders come in to help us out. Let's say that you want to be able to control the entertainment center in your living room from your master bedroom. That way, when the kids are being too noisy at night, you can turn off the TV (okay, maybe you've got some other reason to control it).
An IR Extender will allow you to remotely control your TV, or whatever other remote control device you want, like your stereo system, from another room.
In a sense, an IR Extender is a repeater. Whatever information it receives, it then sends out again. That way, it really doesn't have to understand which system or protocol your device is using. All it has to do is receive the signal and send it back out again.
For an IR Extender to work, the transmitter needs to be located within line-of-site of the device that you are trying to control. The receiver needs to be located within line-of-site of the location where you want to be able to control the device from. For example, you could have your receiver in the kitchen, to control the entertainment center in the living room. This would give you the capability to mute the sound or pause the movie, when you receive a phone call.
• Wired - Where you run a hidden wire from the receiver to the transmitter. Although more work to install, the nice thing is that they are unobtrusive, almost invisible and not a bother.
• Wireless - These units have a radio transmitter, which receives the IR signal from your remote control and converts it to radio waves, which are then transmitted to the radio receiver. The radio signal is then converted back to an IR signal and broadcast to the device you want to control. These units are much simpler to install, but are more obvious. |
There’s something appropriate to the fact that Solomon’s words are about 3000 years old, and while he may not have given humanity enough credit in terms of technology, he certainly was right about our behavior. There are two places I think this is relevant, with radically-different levels of importance.
The first and more important is that, as I’ve heard a number of pastors say, there is nothing we can do that God hasn’t seen before. Our shortcomings and sins are neither novel nor noteworthy, and neither is our cycle of struggle, failure, trying again, backsliding, progress, temporary success, and genuine forward progress. The story of the Bible is the story of humanity failing, screwing things up, pleading for forgiveness, getting it, doing better, and then sliding back into old habits and the cycle beginning anew. There is nothing we can do to shock God. There is no wrongdoing we can commit that will set us apart as one of the “special bad ones.” His forgiveness extends to all equally.
The second is that because of this pattern, human nature has been more-or-less constant for all of our history. We do good, we do evil. Cycles of freedom and oppression wax and wane, and one can find parallels with present events in history, sometimes very recent history. I’m sure everyone with an internet connection has seen some quote that, on the face of it, appears to be about current events that was actually from the 1960s. Or 1860s. Or 1360s. Humanity is nothing if not consistent, which is why, in my opinion, the stories we tell each other are so important.
It’s also why they tend to be so similar.
There are archetypal stories out there (how many is the subject of much discussion and debate) but the names are familiar: the Hero’s Journey, Boy Meets Girl, Monster in the House, and so forth. Each one comes with its own set of tropes and conventions. So many of us strive to come up with something original, when the truth is: we can’t. There is at least one website devoted to cataloging tropes, and it is massive. In a way, that knowledge is freeing, if you let it be. Because there is still room to combine the elements in a new way, even if the elements themselves are familiar. And in so doing, we can create something more useful than something new: we can create something meaningful, and meaningful in such a way that it can be understood.
Meaningful doesn’t always have to mean “deep” by the way; not every story we tell is going to contain some timeless, profound truth. However, if we let them, almost every story we tell, or that we let others tell us, will reveal some small tings about us. Telling stories together builds friendships, but it does so by showing others parts of us that we can’t or won’t show in other ways. Tabletop RPGs can do this better than most other means, if we let them. The collaborative nature of the experience means that the participants should be constantly playing off of each other – you can tell a lot about someone by the types of characters they create, and how those characters behave in-game. The experience teaches both us and our friends our own specific rhythms and patterns of thought while teaching us theirs in return. Oftentimes, all that’s useful for is making the session more enjoyable, but in today’s world of stress and disconnection, that’s still a worthy goal. Every now and then, though, sometimes unintentionally, the experience will teach us something profound about ourselves, deeper than we expected, but you have to keep scratching the surface to get down there. |
The Institute of Information Technology of the Azerbaijan National Academy of Sciences (ANAS) has put forward an initiative to increase the number of articles in Wikipedia, a free online encyclopedia.
The Institute said that work in this area is envisaged in the ANAS action plan for 2013.
Currently, more than 37.6 million articles are available in Wikipedia. Azerbaijan's efforts to increase coverage in the online encyclopedia will promote the country internationally.
Currently, Azerbaijan with 94,635 articles is in the 47th place among 286 countries represented in Wikipedia. Georgia and Armenia, the other two South Caucasus republics, are ranked 52nd and 68th, respectively.
According to the ANAS Institute, over the last eight years, the number of articles in the Azerbaijani language posted in Wikipedia has significantly increased. Whereas in 2004 the number of such registered articles was only 25, the figure has now exceeded 94,000, and it can be increased further.
"More attention should be paid to this issue -- presenting to the world historical, geographical, linguistic and other articles," the Institute said.
Azerbaijani Wikipedia was launched in January 2002, and the first article in Azerbaijani appeared in April 2004. As of May 16 it has 58,026 registered users, including 14 administrators.
Azerbaijani Wikipedia has been consistently increasing the number of its articles. However, some of the articles are in the form of stubs or have grammatical and syntactical mistakes.
The first meeting of the Azerbaijani Wikipedia Community was held in Baku in December 2009. The event was organized in order to forge ties of friendship and familiarity between Wikipedians and mull a number of issues including technical problems and prospects for future development.
Wikipedia is a multilingual, Web-based, free-content encyclopedia project operated by the Wikimedia Foundation and based on an openly editable model. It is written collaboratively by largely anonymous Internet volunteers who write without pay.
Anyone with Internet access can write and make changes to Wikipedia articles, except in limited cases where editing is restricted to prevent disruption or vandalism.
Wikipedia's articles provide links to guide the user to related pages with additional information. |
Hooded Mergansers (Lophodytes cucullatus) are a diving duck native to North America. As the name suggests, Hooded Mergansers are literally “hooded” with a large crest. When in breeding plumage, the males have an unmistakably large white crest outlined in black, creating an attractive contrast. The black continues from the head all along the back and tail. Their upper throats are black, while their breast is white. Along their mantle is a white and black barred pattern. Similarly, along their back, there are wing coverts that are black with a bold white line, forming striking plumes. Their flanks are cinnamon-brown colored and are overlaid by fine black barring. Lastly, the drakes have a fine black bill and a bright golden eye. The hens too have a “hood,” but theirs is smaller and cinnamon colored. Their overall body color is brownish-grey, and their wing coverts bear the same pattern as the males’ coverts do. Hooded Merganser hens have brown eyes and brown and yellow colored bills. In eclipse plumage, Hooded Merganser drakes resemble hens.
This species is classified as Least Concern by the IUCN, and is readily available in captivity. Being the most affordable merganser species, and the smallest, Hooded Mergansers are a great duck to begin with before moving on to the more challenging sea ducks. Since they are naturally diving ducks, Hooded Mergansers require diving-depth water (at least 18 inches deep). In the wild, their diet consists of aquatic insects, small fish, crayfish, and other similar creatures. In a captive setting, minnows can be released into their ponds for enrichment and supplemental protein. It is a joy to watch Hooded Mergansers diving and the males displaying with their raised hoods. Typical with any mergansers, Hooded Mergansers can become aggressive during breeding season and can chase other birds away on a regular basis. While I have not had this get in the way of breeding success, it is something to consider especially if a small species is being bullied. Their eggs resemble a golf ball and have a thick shell. The incubation period for Hooded Mergansers is 28 days. I find that my Hooded Merganser hens nest well, though I do remove the ducklings prior to hatch and then artificially rear them. Like the Smew, they too are wet brooded in aquatic rearing cubicles from Leucopsis Products. The ducklings can be tricky to get eating, but they should be fed Mazuri Waterfowl Starter.
I should have surplus Hooded Mergansers this fall, so inquire about being placed on my waiting list. Since this is a diving duck species, I will be requiring information as to your facilities to ensure they will be placed in a good home. |
There is much historical debate on who coined the term "shred" as it relates to guitar. One explanation states that it was coined in the early 1980s by a guitar magazine writer (who prefers to stay anonymous) because "fretboard gymnastics" was too awkward. Another case is made for the fact that many guitar players "shredded" their hands, bandmates, clothing, and amplifier grills with the pointy ends of the pointy Japanese guitars that were so popular during the 80s shred craze. A third explanation is the term "woodshedding" (considerable practice), which is required to pay scales as fast as the style demands, morphed into "woodshredding" then just "shredding" then just "shred." |
Let us note that marx was educated in the early nineteenth century, and it should suspected that he had a somewhat limited view of world history compared to what we can see now.
Marx’s ‘stages of production’ theory’ posits for example a progression from feudalism to capitalism to communism. But this can’t really be right. None of these are ‘stages’ of history. Feudalism is a medieval subset, while capitalism has no real beginning in modern times: capitalism has been developing since the neolithic, its modern explosion is really connected with the industrial revolution and new forms of finance. But all of that existed in greek times, embryonically, perhaps, and that was centuries before ‘feudalism’, mostly again an occidental phenomenon. Marx’s views might have seemed logical in the early nineteenth century but now they are simply goofy. The whole system simply crashes on this point.
The left is still stuck in this misperception and it makes their views easy to challenge/refute. The left MUST abandon this nonsense and start over.
World history shows a completely transparent sequence of periods, the era from Egypt/Sumer from 3000 BCE to about 600 BCE, from 600 BCE to 1800 AD and 1800 AD to some unknown future phase of civilization…You can slide these dates backward by several centuries, 3300 BCE, 900 BCE, 1500 AD and the result is about the same…and we suspect this list goes back into the neolithic…We see that ‘feudalism’ is stranded in the medieval stage of our second so-called epoch.
This is not dogma: you can periodize world history in many ways, but the above has many advantages. It is a basic ‘eonic effect’ or set of epochs. And historians over and over again instinctively adopt this periodization (though not always). It is handy to do it this way, that’s all. The so-called ‘eonic model’ (which is not a theory) can be put to the sidelines and/or used to clarify this periodization. But in the end it is empirical and ironically non-falsifiable because it is not a theory but three huge data files. And global civilization cascades out of this pattern, not forgetting the neolithic. For some reason world history seems to change gears around 3000 and 600 BCE and then around 1800 (really more like 1500 to 1800). One interesting result is that the ‘modern’ epoch is barely underway by any comparison with the ancient phases. A useful way to periodize modernity. And one that does not as such predict the end of its own epoch: we cant enclose the present in a deterministic system. We must be free to contradict such a system. In our approach that is the case. (in the eonic model we are probably exiting the whole set of epochs into a free future).
And you can simply study economic systems as they arise in this massive data set. The economies of ancient egypt/sumer, quite apart from many changes over time, don’t really fall into any of marx’s categories, the ‘oriental despotism’ category being inadequate to the varieties we see. We can’t produce a theory of this such as ‘historical materialism’ and must study each one empirically, a blessing in disguise.
The point here is that if feudalism and capitalism fail as world epochs we can’t expect ‘communism’ to arise teleologically from them. We reject marx’s theories, but much of this thinking is still useful: we can certainly look at class struggles or economic relations in our set of ’empirical epochs’ (taken in the rough). Marx may be right for a different reason: the capitalism we see now is about to destroy a whole planet, we need to develop a new system. But we better be ready to confront a whole series of alternate futures that current elites may concoct. If we think communism should come next we have to define it and make it come about. That’s the worst mistake of marx: he never defined what communism was to be yet predicted its inevitability, disastrous, he unwittingly left that to stalin, with lenin in left field replicating the tsarist secret police. If we declare that communism must be democracy, then the issue of lenin/stalin never arises. And people still say bolshevism was ‘communism’. It wasn’t. We can define a real version and eliminate stalin’s as not-in-slightest way communism. And so on. But there is no next epoch of communism as such. That was propaganda. Again in a logical way marx was right: if we assume axioms of fairness and equality we can derive a whole set of communisms and assess their viability as just systems, etc…And climate calamity pretty well suggests the need to take control of ‘capital’ before its lunatics destroy civilization.
In terms of our epochs there is a simple solution to the confusion: democracy does rise in terms of our epochs, for mysterious reason. Hegel sensed it and then spawned (not this fault) the whole morass of ‘end of history’ propaganda.
Whatever the case, democracy in the modern era is a definite center of gravity (until fascists take over and return us to a middle ages). Our problem is easily solved: communism must by definition be a democracy based on axioms of fairness (we need a more complex discussion, no doubt). We are saddled up and ready to go. And here marx was again very perceptive: capitalism has thwarted democracy: we must produce a ‘socialist/communist’ democracy.
If we say that we MUST move on, the reason is clear: you can’t expose the flaws of your theory to your enemies.
We should discuss this essay later: many define capitalism so that it is really a modern phenomenon. Or coincident with the end of slavery.
Our approach would be to consider continuous versus discrete stages with (relative) discontinuities, none of it quite making sense.
But consider again the case of greece (we pick greece because it is better documented, our statements might point to something far more general). Ancient greece had factories. period. with our without slavery, and no modern machines. And consider stock markets in their original form, groups of bidders in a public square trying to raise funds. The greeks had that too, surely. And probably the sumerians also.
So what is capitalism: our eonic model carefully distinguishes stream and sequence, continuous or discontinuous/sequence histories. But surely the history of capitalism is continuous all the way through, with greater or lesser realized versions. It looks like capitalism suddenly appears via a semi-discontinuous apparition in a new epoch at around the time of the french revolution. It doesn’t really work. Nonetheless it surely seemed like it to marx: the industrial revolution and capital finance did indeed seem to crystallize and that in eighteenth century. But it is not really a complete novelty and is more like an amplification of a continuous history. So we are really seeing is a series of capitalisms in continuous remorphings, capitalism 1, cap…2, etc….starting very early in world history.
(The eonic model shows the way to consider discontinuities in history, but this doesn’t apply to economic streams). |
Please take few reflection minutes and try to answer yourself. Just after that read this text further.
How society and science can benefit from AI?
Which are AI limitations and how they can be overpassed?
Do I really like working on AI or is it just the societal hype?
Take few more reflections moments.
One common approach would be to define AI as the study of intelligent agents. Agents can be anything, from devices to pieces of software. They can learn from data/environment/experience to maximize their chances of succeeding in a goal. Reflection moment: Are these really universal truths? Traditional AI problems involve reasoning, planning, learning, perception, pattern and image recognition, etc. There is a number of subfields in AI. Within this honors track, the main focus will be on deep learning and neural networks, but also other subfields (e.g. machine learning, symbolic reasoning, evolutionary computation) and related fields (e.g. complex systems, neuroscience, optimization) will be addressed. The work will be performed in multidisciplinary teams, following the problem-based and design-based learning approaches. All teams will focus on the technical and scientific aspects of AI, except one which will focus on AI philosophical aspects. All teams will interact with each other.
From September to November, we will try to have a very fast learning curve. This assumes several short lectures on key areas of AI given by experts and by yourself using the flip-classroom concept. The lectures will be far of covering everything, but shall be enough to start creating a basic understanding with many missing elements. Mainly by self-study and with some guidance from coaches you shall be able to fill the dots yourself. The remaining of the year will focus on deeper understanding of AI through practice in real-world competitions (e.g. Kaggle competitions).
In the second year, there will be two main directions based on your personal interests. An applied research direction in which we will participate in data-driven competitions at top level conferences (e.g. NeurIPS Competition Track), and a fundamental research direction. The latter will start in the first semester by entering in the ICLR reproducibility challenge (or similar activities). It will continue in the second semester by developing your own publishable research.
AI is a broad multidisciplinary field. During this two-year track will be impossible to cover all its aspects, but you shall be able to “learn how to learn” yourself about any domain and to understand better what type of career you would like to follow after your bachelor studies (e.g. engineering, management , research, academia). Everyone can find her/his place in this honors track. You need just to be very self-motivated, to have a strong wish to succeed, to like self-study and team work at the same time, and to enjoy answering to questions like “How?” and “Why?”. |
Ash gourd (Benincasa hispida) is a popular vegetable cultivated throughout Kerala. The fruits are cultivated mainly for culinary purpose. The fruits are covered by white, chalky wax, which deters microorganisms and helps impart an extraordinary longevity to the gourd.
The optimal temperature for the growth of ash gourd is in the range of 24–27'C. The plants are adapted to a wide range of rainfall conditions. It tolerates a wide range of soil but prefers a well drained sandy loam soil that is rich in organic matter. The optimum soil pH is 6.0–6.7, but plants tolerate alkaline soils up to pH 8.0.
Co 1: High yielding variety released from the Tamil Nadu Agricultural University. Large sized, round fruits with average fruit weight of 8.0 kg.
KAU local: High yielding variety released from the Kerala Agricultural University. Fruits are oblong, and medium sized.
Indu: High yielding variety with good flesh thickness released from the Kerala Agricultural University. Yield potential is 24.5 t/ha. Mean fruit weight is 4.82 kg.
Apart from the regular variety, an extra small fruited type, known as Vaidyakumbalam, is also grown for medicinal purpose. This medicinal ash gourd is morphologically different from the common vegetable type in fruit size, rind thickness and shelf life.
The recommended seed rate for ash gourd is 0.75-1.0 kg/ha.
January-March and September-December are the ideal seasons for growing ash gourd. For the rainfed crop, sowing can be started after the receipt of first few showers during May-June. Prepare the soil to a fine tilth by ploughing and harrowing. Pits of 60 cm diameter and 30-45 cm depth are taken at a spacing of 4.5 m x 2 m. Well rotten FYM and fertilizers are mixed with topsoil in the pit.
Sow four or five seeds per pit at 1-2 cm depth. Avoid deeper sowing as it delays germination. Irrigate with a rose can daily. A pre-sowing irrigation 3-4 days before sowing is beneficial. The seeds germinate in about 4-5 days. Unhealthy plants are removed after two weeks and only three plants are retained per pit. Soaking seeds overnight in cold water is found to improve germination. To reduce the attack of soil born fungus, soaking seeds in 0.2 % solution of bavistin for two hours is also recommended.
In high range zone, seedlings can be raised in greenhouses to ensure good germination and are later transplanted to the main-field. Sow two or three seeds in small plastic pots/containers filled with potting mixture. Thin to a single seedling when they have four to six true leaves. Water the seedlings thoroughly every morning. Seedlings are ready for transplanting 15-20 days after sowing or when they are 10-15 cm tall. Transplant seedlings into the field at spacings similar to those used for the direct seeding method.
Ash gourd is grown trailing on the ground by spreading dried twigs and coconut fronds on the ground.
Balanced fertilization is essential for high yield and good keeping quality of the fruits. Apply FYM @ 20-25 t/ha as basal dose along with half dose of N (35 kg) and full dose of P2O5 (25 kg) and K2O (25 kg/ha). The remaining dose of N (35 kg) can be applied in two equal split doses at the time of vining and at the time of full blooming. A fertilizer dose of 70:25:25 kg N:P2O5: K2O / ha in several splits is recommended in Onattukara region. The fertilizer dose per pit would be 28:10:10 g N:P2O5:K2O.
During the initial stages of growth, irrigate the crop at 3-4 days interval, and alternate days during flowering/fruiting. Furrow irrigation is the ideal method of irrigating. But in water limited environment, trickle or drip irrigation can be resorted to. During rainy season, drainage is essential for plant survival and growth.
Ash gourd is a cross pollinated crop. Insects, especially bees, pollinate flowers. Pollination can be a problem during the wet season since bees are less active during overcast conditions. Introduction of bee-hives ensures good pollination and avoids the need for hand pollination.
Spraying vines with flowering hormones increases the number of female flowers and can double the number of fruits. For example, one application of gibberellic acid at 25-100 ppm increases female flowers by 50 % and can work for up to 80 days. Application of ethrel (an ethylene releasing compound) has also been found to increase femaleness.
Conduct weeding and raking of the soil at the time of fertilizer application. Earthing up is done during rainy season. Hand or hoe weeding can be performed as needed. Mulching is commonly used for ash gourd crop grown on raised beds. Use organic or plastic mulch depending on availability. Mulch can be laid down before or after transplanting and after sowing.
Control: Apply carbaryl 10 % DP in pits before sowing of seeds to destroy the pupae. Breaking of soil to expose pupae, and burning the soil in pit by dried leaves are also effective. Bury any infested fruits to prevent the build up of fruit fly population. Cover the fruits in polythene/paper covers help to prevent flies from laying eggs inside the fruits. It can also be effectively controlled by the use of banana fruit traps prepared.
The disease appears as small, round, whitish spots on leaves and stems, which later enlarge and coalesce rapidly. White powdery mass appears on the upper leaf surface. Heavily infected leaves become yellow, and later become dry and brown. Extensive premature defoliation of the older leaves occurs resulting in yield reduction.
Ash gourds are mature when the stems connecting the fruit to the vine begin to shrivel. Cut fruits from the vines carefully, using pruning shears or a sharp knife leaving 3-4 inches of stem attached. Snapping the stems from the vines results in many broken or missing "handles." |
Every child knows the bluebird, possibly the kingfisher and the blue jay, too, but there is only one other bird with blue feathers, the little indigo bunting, who is no larger than your pet canary, that you are ever likely to meet unless you live in the Southwest where the blue grosbeak might be your neighbour. If, by chance, you should see a little lady indigo-bird you would probably say contemptuously: “Another tiresome sparrow,” and go on your way, not noticing the faint glint of blue in her wings and tail. Otherwise her puzzling plumage is decidedly sparrowy, although unstreaked. So is that of her immature sons. But her husband will be instantly recognised because he is the only very small bird who wears a suit of deep, rich blue with verdigris-green reflections about the head—bluer than the summer sky which pales where his little figure is outlined against it.
Mounting by erratic, short flights from the weedy places and bushy tangles he hunts among to the branches of a convenient tree, singing as he goes higher and higher, he remains for a time on a conspicuous perch and rapidly and repeatedly sings. When almost every other bird is moulting and moping, he warbles with the same fervour and timbre. Possibly because he has the concert stage almost to himself in August, he gets the credit of being a better performer than he really is. Only the pewee and the red-eyed vireo, whom neither midday nor midsummer heat can silence, share the stage with him then.
Description: An attractive Indigo Bunting perches on a branch in the DeSoto National Wildlife Refuge located in Iowa. |
1. A duty is a major subdivision of work performed by one individual.
2. It includes similar tasks that make up one area of responsibility.
3. Most jobs have four to eight duties.
1. A task is one of the work operations that is a logical, essential step in the performance of a duty.
2. It defines the methods, procedures and techniques by which duties are carried out.
• What is done (action).
• How it is done (procedures, materials, tools, or equipment).
• Why it is done (purpose).
4. Begin each task statement with an action verb in the first person present tense, e.g. write, calibrate, analyze.
5. Carefully clarify the following verbs which have a variety of meanings and connotations.
6. Use an alternative task statement format when there is too much information in a single sentence.
8. Do not include references to personal qualities or skills.
9. Provide supporting documentation to substantiate qualitative terms(e.g. complex, elaborate).
10. Avoid phrases such as "assist in", "responsible for" and "involved in" which obscure the action.
event dates and composing correspondence.
maintain effective staffing and production levels.
determine possible source of payment problem.
Edit manuscripts for post graduate researchers by correcting spelling, faculty phrasing and imperfect punctuation.
Edit manuscripts for post graduate researchers with authority to review critically from a subject matter standpoint, checking and verifying content, condensing overelaborated topics, making additions to topics inadequately covered and rearranging material when not effectively presented.
Prepare statistical tables by seeking out sources of basic information, planning the schedule and means of collecting the information, designing tables and writing interpretive text.
Prepare statistical tables by copying numbers from given places on a schedule, posting them to a given column and line on a tabulation sheet, adding to the columns, and computing the averages and percentages on a calculator.
• answer questions regarding staff merit increase policy.
exceptions with the Dean's Office.
Assist Administrative Assistant in budget management by monitoring 30 supply and expense accounts.
Monitor 30 intramural supply and expense accounts by posting expenditures and reconciling balances against the General Ledger.
A summary statement provides a synopsis of the major purpose of a position and its role in the department.
Under direction of departmental chairperson, manage all business and support functions for the Department of Philosophy. Major duties include supervision of nonacademic staff, material management, space utilization, preparation and management of departmental budget and fiscal control of contracts and grants.
This section of the job description describes the way in which work is assigned, when it is reviewed, how it is reviewed, and what guidelines, prototypes and protocols are available.
Assignments are given in terms of broad organizational goals and objectives. Goal attainment is reviewed with department chairperson on a quarterly basis through presentation of status reports and formal discussions. Department, campus and governmental guidelines relative to budgetary control, contract and grant administration, and personnel management are available for reference, however, interpretations and original problem-solving are required. |
Wisdom teeth are a set of third molars which are usually the last to erupt. People usually get these in the late teens or early twenties. They cause no trouble if they erupt on their own and are healthy. But if it does not develop on its own and causes trouble, then one needs to get it extracted. Because if not extracted, it can cause harm to the adjacent teeth and gums.
The problem of wisdom teeth has developed with age. The evolution study by the scientist proved that it is an evolutionary legacy. Earlier people never faced any such issue and had all their teeth intact and had no knowledge of wisdom teeth.
So how did the wisdom teeth evolve? What is the history behind wisdom teeth and what is the legacy behind?
To know the answer of all these questions let us understand where and when do the wisdom teeth erupt. Just as our permanent teeth erupt in the jaw, the third molar or as it is called wisdom teeth develop in the jawbone. But they evolve very late and are the last to occur in the jaw.
The second molars usually start to develop at the age of three. The third molars, however, starts forming at the age of nine or sometimes between 7 to 15 years in age. They take a good time to emerge and normally emerge between the age of 17 to 24. During this time the wisdom teeth either erupts completely or partially.
When this does not erupt properly and gets stuck between the gums then it is called an impacted tooth. There are problems associated with the impacted wisdom teeth such as damage to adjacent teeth, gum diseases or cyst. It can sometimes happen that the wisdom teeth are failing to emerge or rotate at an angle of 20 to 30 degree causing trouble to your gums.
It is not that having impacted wisdom teeth is bothersome but not taking necessary steps to overcome this will surely cause other problems as discussed. Also, having impacted wisdom teeth is not genetic. This is an evolutionary process and has developed with time.
One of the major reasons for getting impacted wisdom teeth is lack of space. Because they are the last to erupt, the space in the jawbone is taken by the first or the second molar, as a result, there is no space left for wisdom teeth. They can neither move up or down through the gums.
The evolutionary process has shortened jaw growth. This, therefore, makes it difficult to adjust all the teeth that have emerged or are yet to emerge. Due to this reason kids, today face the problem of crooked teeth more than what it was earlier. So, if space is shortened for even the first and second molars then adjusting the third molar is also a very difficult task.
But what is really questionable is the jaw size. A decade or two ago people had a longer and broader jawline, however, today the jaw sizes have decreased. One of the most important reason is the type of food we eat.
Earlier people use to feed on raw food which required chewing such as nuts, raw veggies or hard food. The eating habits of people have changed broadly. They feed on soft food such as peanut butter, pasta, soft bread etc. which do not require much chewing. Since there isn’t any pressure on the jaw, the size of the jaw has reduced and have stopped the growth potential of the jawbones.
So if your kids are in growing age they urge them to consume crunchy hard food such as raw veggies, nuts for that matter even chapatis. All these require proper chewing in order to push them down to the stomach for further digestion. This will surely help in jaw development and they will then have a stronger and longer jaw to accommodate all the teeth.
If you have already developed impacted wisdom teeth, then get it extracted as soon as possible else they will be of more harm than good. The process of extraction is quite simple now. The advancement in dentistry has made everything very easy and painless.
Most of the extraction surgeries today are needleless and are performed with extra care and precision. The dentist today suggests getting the third molar extracted but there are chances that we need not extract it and in that case, they will in time emerge on their own.
Wisdom teeth are part of our teeth which helps in chewing and helps in nutrition. But not having one will also cause no harm to us. This, however, explains that our diet helps in evolution and add a lot in this process. Wisdom teeth removal today has become a widely known process carried out by the dentist on the people worldwide.
So, if you are facing the problem of impacted wisdom teeth then look for a dentist near my location and get it extracted. |
The San Fernando Valley is an urbanized valley located in Southern California. More than half of the city of Los Angeles' land area lies within the San Fernando Valley. The official first rancho and adobe settlement in the southeast part of the San Fernando Valley was occupied by the Reyes family, in what is now Encino, California, but a rancho settlement in the northeast part of the San Fernando Valley was occupied by the Cota Family, near the mission at San Fernando, California.
Prior to development, before the arrival of the Los Angeles Owens Valley Aqueduct water, the valley was a bleak semi-desert, too dry for extensive agriculture over more than a small part of the valley. After the construction of the Owens Valley - Los Angeles Aqueduct, the mostly rural area was annexed by the city of Los Angeles in 1915, more than doubling the size of the city. Other cities in the San Fernando Valley include Sherman Oaks , Encino, and Granada Hills.
Granada Hills is a district in the San Fernando Valley region of the City of Los Angeles, California. It is located just north of the North Hills and Northridge, west of the Mission Hills and Sylmar districts, and just east of the Porter Ranch district. In 1916, the San Fernando Valley's first oil well was drilled in what is now Granada Hills. The oil well was located at the northern tip of Zelzah Avenue. Granada Hills was founded in 1927 (as " Granada;" the "Hills" was added 15 years later) and started out as a dairy farm and orchard known as the Sunshine Ranch. Among the crops harvested here as the nation prepared for the Roaring ‘20s were apricots, oranges, walnuts and beans. Vestiges of former citrus groves can still be seen as small groups of orange, lemon or grapefruit trees in some residential yards.
Sherman Oaks is an 8.1-square-mile district in the San Fernando Valley region of the City of Los Angeles, California. In contrast to much of the Valley, the area is relatively urbanized , with commercial skyscrapers along Ventura Boulevard as well as scattered throughout. In addition, residential densities are highly mixed, with apartment and condominium neighborhoods alongside single-story residential ones. The area is a hub for regional transportation, business, and shopping. Sherman Oaks was one of the first Valley communities to experience intensive real estate development. Anticipating the development of the Los Angeles Aqueduct in 1913, Los Angeles Suburban Homes Co. purchased 47,500 acres of the southeast Valley in 1910. In 1911, a subdivision map called Tract 1000 was filed with Los Angeles County. From that parcel, one of the partners in the company, General Moses Hazeltine Sherman, bought 1,000 acres for himself. In 1927, Sherman subdivided the property and sold the land for $780 an acre.
Encino is a hilly district of the City of Los Angeles, California. Specifically, it is located in the central portion of the southern San Fernando Valley and on the north slope of the Santa Monica Mountains. The local economy provides jobs primarily in health care (including one of two Encino-Tarzana Regional Medical Center hospitals), social services, and professional services (accounting and financial services, real estate, and legal) sectors. There are approximately 3,800 businesses employing about 27,000 people. A popular Encino location is Los Encinos State Historic Park, which features historic buildings, a small museum, and picnic grounds. Encino is also the site of many television and movies locations. |
How to Shop Smart for Groceries?
With every passing day, we are increasingly buying readymade foodstuffs from the market, owing to the scarcity of time to cook at home. Frequently, both men and women are working shoulder to shoulder outside homes and cooking at home is taking a backseat. In such times, processed foods in grocery and convenience stores are an easy-pick and save a lot of time and energy. Catering to this increasing demand for ready-to-eat snack foods and meals, many companies have jumped into making processed and packed food, and grocery stores are now flooded with multiple brands with new varieties in colorful packs. It is very tempting to pick these food packs. But, how healthy are these food products? Which are the foodstuffs we should avoid or buy carefully while shopping?
Biscuits are our everyday tea-time snacks and have become omnipresent. They are available in so many different varieties, flavors, and textures. But, most biscuits come with added white sugar, vegetable oil, and refined flour. Even multigrain ones have a large quantity of refined flour. Added artificial colors and flavoring agents are common in biscuits. They may taste good, but their nutritional value is negligible. If we cannot avoid eating them, we can surely buy ones that have a better composition, and we can certainly reduce their consumption.
Bread has become a household staple food. So much so that, it has become synonymous with chapati/roti. Bread comes in many forms and shapes - regular slice bread, buns, loaves, puffs, pizza base, burgers, croissants, fruit cake, etc. Even cakes and pastries come in this category. But, all these foods are extremely low in nutrient value and are loaded with trans fats, refined flour, and simple sugars. A big reason for obesity these days is overconsumption of these readily available foods. Again, we need to watch out against over-consumption of these, without making it a regular habit.
Our favorite potato wafers, crackers, french fries, salty mixtures in colorful packets are in these categories. They are our leisure-time snacks while watching television, or having a casual chat. No matter how crispy and tangy they are, they have loads of salt and vegetable oils. Daily intake can lead to obesity and hypertension. They can easily be overeaten, adding up a large number of calories. Therefore their consumption must not be very often.
If we cannot resist buying the above categories of foods, we can surely reduce the quantities that we buy and can avoid eating them on a daily basis. We should look for healthier snacking options which are available in stores and can be made at home as well easily, such as - roasted peanuts, roasted peas, fox-nuts, plain puffed rice, baked sweet potatoes, steamed corn salad, sprouts salad, home-baked multigrain bread, and cookies.
Healthy snacking goes a long way in avoiding excess calorie intake and increasing our dose of macro and micro nutrients which are essential for our long-term health. Developing this habit in children goes a long way in their balanced physical and mental growth. |
World Academy of Art and Science in Minneapolis on May 21, 1996.
The prospects for employment in the 21st Century are of growing concern to citizens and governments of both developing and developed nations around the world. Few social issues bring out so deeply our latent anxieties about the future. In developing countries it calls to mind the immediate challenge of generating remunerative work opportunities to meet the rising expectations of one billion people who will enter the labor force during the coming decade. For many in the industrialized West, it evokes an image of a future in which technology and international competition economically disenfranchise more and more people. For the younger generation it is viewed in more individual terms as an obstacle to career advancement and personal fulfillment.
Discussion of this subject is further complicated by a lack of reliable facts and a confusing array of impressions, emotions, misconceptions and statistics, even in countries with highly educated populations. In the early 1990s when rising unemployment generated growing concern in North America, the focus on the increasing numbers of unsatisfied job seekers overshadowed the more fundamental fact that the actual percentage of the population employment had also reached historically peak levels. The preoccupation of the media with corporate layoffs and downsizing has obscured the fact that only 5% of the US workforce is employed by the Fortune 500 and that since 1990 total job creation has outstripped job destruction in the USA by more than two to one.
Attention to the serious economic problems of some developing nations prompts us to overlook some startling successes and encouraging trends. In recent years a number of East Asian countries have achieved full employment and now confront labor shortages. China has created more than 100 million jobs during the past decade. The rate of employment growth in India has more than doubled since an economic reform package was launched in 1991.
Our present concept of work as employment is a relatively recent phenomena. In earlier centuries the vast majority of people around the world were left to fend for their own economic survival working on farms and in crafts. But the transformation of economic activity and social life in this century and the increasing regulation of economic activity by government have made individuals increasing dependent for their economic survival and security on political, economic and social policies and forces beyond their control. Without access to jobs, people lack the ability to ensure their economic survival. Today employment opportunities are directly influenced by a wide range of public policies relating to taxation, monetary stability, trade, investment, immigration, defense and environmental regulation. This led the International Commission on Peace and Food (ICPF) to conclude in its report, Uncommon Opportunities: An Agenda for Peace and Equitable Development, that employment must be guaranteed as a fundamental human right. "Recognizing the right of every citizen to employment is the essential basis and the most effective strategy for generating the necessary political will to provide jobs for all."
Although the magnitude of the task varies from region to region, generating increasing numbers of work opportunities is a common challenge facing every region of the world. The work of ILO and ICPF suggest that there is considerable scope for applying practical strategies to alleviate and perhaps even eliminate the current worldwide shortage of employment opportunities. Clearly no single remedy will suffice. A comprehensive package of measures is needed that accelerate the process of economic and social development by more fully and effectively utilizing the available material, social, organizational, technological and human resources. Nor can nations hope to resolve this problem in isolation from each other. Coordinated and cooperative efforts will be needed at the international level.
A plethora of technological, commercial and social factors are bringing about a shift in a conception of work. The conventional idea of eight to five employment is breaking down in several directions. More and more people are taking their jobs back to the home. Others are leaving the corporate environment to become self-employed. Although employment has ceased to be a necessity for many, the social and psychological role of work in defining and developing personality remains very strong. Thus, a new generation of healthy retired people are seeking ways to remain constructively active and engaged in work. Perhaps, what is needed is a shift in focus from full employment to full engagement.
Theory of employment: To initiate thought and discussion contributing to the formulation of a comprehensive theory of employment, so that a more conscious understanding of the process will lead to more effective policies and strategies.
Evolution of work in 21st Century: To examine current and projected trends to arrive at a better understanding of the future of work in post-industrial societies and the policy measures that will promote a smooth transition to whatever the future holds in wait for us.
Practical country-specific strategies: To initiate research projects to formulate more effective practical strategies for stimulating employment generation in representative developing and developed nations.
Jordan: At an international conference organized in Amman last July by ICPF and the Noor al Hussein Foundation, a proposal was formulated for a project to stimulate employment generation in Jordan and other countries of the region as a support to the Middle East peace process. UNESCO sent a representative to the Amman meeting and has recently organized two workshops to evolve an effective approach for the project. The Academy proposes to collaborate with ICPF, the Noor al Hussein Foundation and UNESCO to evolve practical strategies to stimulate entrepreneurship and employment, and serve as a model for other countries of the region.
Netherlands: The challenges of employment growth in Western Europe differ from those in North America due to policies providing stronger support for job security and wage growth, which have resulted in faster growth of incomes and slow expansion of employment opportunities. Netherlands has led the way in examining alternative strategies for improving the situation, including recent legislation to encourage voluntary part employment, which could generate 100,000 additional jobs. The Academy is seeking the collaboration of a research institute in the country for a study of strategies to accelerate job growth in the European social environment.
North America: Although the current employment situation and short term prognosis is quite favorable, the longer term impact of technological developments, corporate restructuring, international competition and delayed retirement characteristic of work in the 21st Century are likely to manifest here before they do in other parts of the world. Therefore, an examination of the practical impact of these trends and policy options to address them will be of significant value both here and overseas in the years to come. The Academy is seeking collaboration with an appropriate research institution to examine these tendencies and propose appropriate policy measures to adapt to their influence. |
The national flag of Mexico or La Bandera de Mexico consists of three main colors: green, red and white. Each color represents its own meaning. Green represents Mexico’s independence movement; white embodies the Catholic faith’s purity, and red symbolizes the blood of the national heroes who fought for independence against Spain. An eagle that is perched on a cactus tree eating a snake with the national coat of arms is situated at the center of the flag. A legend says that the gods told the Aztecs to find an eagle that is perched on a cactus tree while devouring a serpent. The place where they would see this eagle is where they would build their city. The Aztecs saw the eagle on a marsh, which is currently the main square in Mexico City.
Search online for a picture of the Mexican flag. It is advisable to browse through official Mexican websites to make sure that the design is the correct one.
You can copy the flag and paste it on Microsoft Office Word, using a short bond paper. Adjust the picture to fit into the paper. Make sure that the paper’s page layout is set to landscape.
Use colored ink so you will not have to color the flag after it is printed. Since the flag has many colors, it is best to check the printer for sufficient ink. Not enough ink may make the colors dull.
You can also opt to make the flag by yourself. You can use the Paint application on your desktop. Set the paper to letter size, or 8.5 inches by 11 inches. This is the perfect size for making a flag. Divide into three sections, coloring them green, white and red.
If you know how to draw, you can draw the centerpiece of the flag. Draw an eagle perched on a cactus tree, eating a serpent, with a little splash of water underneath the cactus, and Mexico’s coat of arms under it.
You can also cut the image from the website and paste it to your work if you don’t want to draw.
You are now ready to print your Mexican flag. Print the image on both sides so that you can wave it either way. Paste the left edge of the flag onto a stick so you have something to hold on to.
Making any country’s national flag requires thorough research. The design must be the correct one to avoid ire by the country’s people. The national flag is a matter of national pride, so you must be careful in making one. Making the correct one also shows respect to the country’s history and its people. |
A patient that is missing an entire row of teeth is in a unique position: a chance to start fresh with a full-arch restoration! While there are other options for treating a full row of missing teeth such as single implants and dentures, patients these days are expressing a desire for a solution that is more affordable, quick and convenient.
The demand for immediate replacement teeth has led to a revolution in how we deal with missing teeth: the full-arch restoration. Also known as “implant supported dentures”, this innovative treatment allows Dr. Imray, Dr. Gesek and Dr. Middlebrooks to combine implant technology with dentures to give our patients a new smile and a renewed outlook on life, all in one day!
Traditional dentures can be inconvenient, painful and unstable. And while dental implants are an excellent choice for single tooth replacements, on the scale of a full arch, they can be expensive and complicated. However, putting these two treatments together yields a solution that works for nearly everyone: implant supported overdentures. During this treatment, four dental implants are placed in the jaw and a full dental bridge attached to them, giving you a full row of teeth in just one appointment.
Cost: Because this treatment requires just four implants per arch, it is much more affordable than placing an entire row of implants.
Convenience: Replacement teeth can typically be placed during the same appointment as the implants.
Bone Graft-Free: Two of the four implants are placed at special angles in the back of the jaw to make the best use of available jawbone. This often eliminates the need for bone grafting.
Faster Healing: Less time in the chair and less time healing round out the benefits of full arch restorations.
As with other dental implant procedures, you will be anesthetized for comfort during the surgery and thus won’t feel a thing. Post-operation soreness is typically manageable with over-the-counter medications, and any necessary prescriptions will be discussed at your appointment.
Two implants are placed in the lower jaw, onto which a denture snaps into place. This option is more stable than traditional, removable dentures; however there will still be some movement. Sore spots can develop if food is caught underneath. Periodic appointments ensure proper adjustment.
Referred to above as “overdentures”, this process involves the placing of four to six implants in the lower jaw. A custom support bar connects the implants, and a denture with internal retention clips is attached to the support bar. This option is very popular as the denture is more stable than with ball attachments, yet it is still removable for cleaning.
Also known as a screw retained denture, this option offers maximum stability. Placed on five or more implants and secured by screws or clasps, the denture is permanent, only removed by us at maintenance visits. The denture does not contact gum tissue, allowing you to clean under it without removal.
Of course, there is always the option to have each missing tooth replaced by an individual dental implant. The benefits of this are increased stability, preservation of the jawbone and a natural look. However, the process is the most costly and time-consuming.
The treatment options for the upper arch are basically the same as those mentioned above, however additional implants are sometimes needed to compensate for softer bone. |
Has anybody heard this line before? If you have you were probably out having a good time, perhaps celebrating a great trading day. This line also applies to the Commodity Futures markets. Futures markets are contracts being bought and sold that will all eventually expire. For example, the S&P contract will next be expiring the 3rd Friday of September. Before this contract expires the majority of the daily volume (number of contracts created by a buyer and seller each trading session) and open interest (number of outstanding contracts still not offset at the end of the regular trading session (RTH) and carried over into the extended trading hours (ETH)) will begin trading the next contract month December. This is also referred to as a rollover.
With the new Pro Futures class now being taught at Online Trading Academy there is going to be much more focus on other Futures markets than just the E-Mini Stock Indexes. Since each Commodity Futures contracts have unique contract specifications they also each have unique rollover dates before a contract expires.
We will focus on the Trade Station charting platform, but these rules will apply to any chart package you are using.
When it comes to charting Commodity Futures prices we have a host of ways of doing so. This is usually up to the individual trader to choose which one works for them. The key is consistency in using the same one all the time. If you keep switching between the different charting styles you may get paralysis of analysis trying to make a trading decision.
Since each Commodity Futures contract has an expiration we could simply plot just the contract month that is trading and use that for our supply/demand levels. For example you would enter the symbol for Corn to be CZ12. That would plot the December 2012 Corn contract, there are some disadvantageous to this. Eventually the contract will expire and you will not have any more price action for that contract nor will the Exchanges accept orders for expired contracts for obvious reasons. There are times when a contract specific chart works very well, but that is for another article. In the meantime we need a chart that will plot data that appears to have no contract expirations.
These charts are called continuous charts. A continuous chart is designed to splice on the next month in the contract cycle once the volume leaves the front month contract. This allows you to see the price action of contracts that have good liquidity and full bodied Candle patterns. Unlike a chart that is illiquid causing you to see dots and dashes making it very difficult to find good levels.
The continuation charting style I would like to discuss is the unadjusted type. To get this type of chart a trader using Trade Station must enter some numbers and letters after the symbol of the Commodity Futures contract.
TradeStation will use the @ symbol to mean a continuous charting method of that symbol. Then comes the varying numbers you see above. What do they mean and how do we determine what numbers to use on each individual Commodity Futures symbol?
These numbers tell the charting package exactly how many days to rollover the Commodity Futures contract near each expiration of the contract. This allows for only prices to be plotted that contain the high volume of the new contract and discontinue plotting the contract that volume is going to be dropping off into its expiration. But when should your charts rollover?
If you are trading a Commodity Futures contract that is physically delivered they will all have something called a First Notice Day (FND). This is the day that any trader wishing to make or take delivery of the particular Commodity contract must notify the Exchange of their intent. As a speculator you do not want to be trading after this day in that contract. Your Broker will most likely not allow you to trade beyond this date either due to the risk of delivery assignment. Being long a contract after this date is telling the Exchange you want to take delivery of that Commodity and a delivery will most likely be assigned to you. This information is important to the trader charting a Commodity Futures contract. Because everybody but people interested in the delivery process will have left this contract by the FND that tells you the rollover date for that Commodity. That is half of the equation, the FND. (I will show you where to get that soon).
The next date you will need is the Last Trading Day (LTD). This is the date the contract actually expires and will not trade anymore for that month and year. Now you should be able to see what two dates we will need to determine chart settings for an unadjusted chart. We will take the LTD – FND to determine how many days the contract should rollover before expiration. When we count these days we “only” count trading days, no weekends or holidays.
Looking at this calendar let’s find the Ten Year Treasury (TY) contracts FND and LTD. If you look at August 31 you will see that the Treasury complex has FND for the September contract that day. This means that the majority of volume will be gone from the September contract on the first trading day of September. The Front Month will then become December 2012. The next thing you need to find is when does the September TY expire? We scroll forward to September on the calendar and we find that on September 19 the September TY will expire. Now we simply count from September 19 back to August 31 (only trading days). We see there are 13 trading days between these two dates (ignore Labor Day holiday and weekends). Another note about contract rollovers. In this example of the TY we see 13 trading days. During the previous contract rollover there were 15 days. This is very typical of the Futures markets. Sometimes there are holidays, positions need an extra or one day less to rollover etc. What we will do is just take an average for these rollovers and the most you will be off is a day, maybe two days. The average cycle for the CME Interest Rate products is 14 days.
With this information we can create a continuous contract that will rollover 14 days before every contract expiration. On your Trade Station chart or Radar Screen you can enter the symbol @TY=114XN. Unlike the @ES=107XN which rolls over 7 days before the contract expires the TY goes a few more days.
As I mentioned earlier each Commodity Futures contract will rollover at different times before each expiration. It is a good idea to go through the markets you will be trading and create a list of these expiration dates so you can create charts that more closely represent contract months with the most volume.
There are some Commodity Futures contracts that the FND comes after the LTD. The Energy markets come to mind for doing this. This is done to allow the person/firm dealing with the delivery process to know the contract expiration settled price. There will be a fixed price for all involved to deal with. Unlike a contract that has FND before the LTD where those participants will not know exactly what they will pay or get paid until the LTD contract settled price. This throws a wrench in the spoke for the above formula. For these markets a trader needs to look back a few contract expirations. Find the LTD of the market you are tracking. Then open an intraday chart of any timeframe and observe the volume for each trading day coming into the LTD. You will notice that each Commodity Futures contract will show the volume drop off one contract and the next day the next month out will have all the volume. By looking at a few of the previous expirations you will see a pattern of the number of days this occurs before the LTD. Again, plan on there being a 1 or 2 day variance.
Once you determine these days before expiration I would advise writing them down somewhere in your trading plan for each of the markets you are going to trade. Continuation charts are needed when you do longer term analysis on your charts.
“Never let success go to your head and never let failure go to your heart.” – Author Unknown, perhaps they learned this lesson in life the hard way. |
Yes, I absolutely want my students to learn the material. Should it matter whether they learn it in the designated time frame or not? If they learn from their failure, that is success; that is an intangible goal of perseverance. Part of ‘school’ should be the development of skills for success: perseverance, focus, diligence…grit.
Yet, it is these very same skills, if applied in the first place, which make the need for a ‘retest’ unnecessary. So, within me, there’s this battle.
Previous experience with retests and test corrections adds to the side against it. The only students who would leverage these opportunities to their advantage were the ones that did not exactly need it. Truth be told, I wanted the struggling students to have another shot; a chance for the late bloomers to shine. This just wasn’t the case.
So a month or so ago, surfing through the myriad of blog posts in Google Reader, I found an older post on Kelly O’Shea’s Physics! Blog! discussing the retest and using an application process. Students apply for a retest?! What a thought! A glimmer of hope arose.
Blatantly stealing her ideas, each student has to do Test corrections (for multiple choice an explanation of elimination needs to be provided; for calculations or short answer problems, an explanation of what went wrong the first time has to be included). Within each course’s Dropbox, a folder has been created, each with practice problems and concept review questions. The students do not have to do the entire worksheet or all the problems; they should pick and choose the concepts/skills needing practice. Though I cannot set aside a day on the weekend for the actual retest, lunch or after school are available.
A few kinks will need worked out based on the initial run with my freshmen classes. Right now, I’m semi-requiring a meeting with each student to review their test corrections, practice problems, and try to reexplain any concepts that still seem shaky. Time will be a constraint. Additionally, student awareness seems to be the biggest obstacle; awareness of what actually is confusing or difficult (common answers still circle around ‘everything’ being confusing or ‘nothing; I just didn’t study’). Genuine self-analysis should improve with doing. It does take time to develop.
This, unfortunately, has not completely alleviated my ambivalence. The extra time investment required now, had it been applied initially, would preclude the need to do the test over again. I keep coming back to doing things right the first time.
Ultimately, if it helps them figure out how to study better, it’s a good thing; and with better study skills, fewer retests should result. It boils down to the students figuring out there’s no shortcuts. They have to be diligent and put in the time required to understand. I can’t learn for them, but I can give them opportunities to do so. Here’s to my retesting the retest. We’ll see how it goes. |
This converter contains units of concentration of moles per volume and mass per volume. Mass and volume units are metric. You may convert molar concentrations to mass concentrations when you give the molar mass of the soluted substance. Without such input, only conversion within the molar concentrations or within the mass concentrations is possible.
Usage: To convert molar concentrations to mass concentrations or vice versa, at first type the molar mass of the soluted substance (the solute), since with such a change all other inputs are deleted. Choose a fitting unit (g/mol or kg/mol) from the pull-down-menu and then type the value. A later change of the unit converts the value to the other unit.
Type the concentration value to convert into the field, behind which you find the unit. Move the mouse over a unit or click on it to read its full name. Click on any empty space in the window or on the "calculate" button. Read the result in the other fields.
All inputs must be positive numbers.
Use the "reset" button to reset your calculation.
You may type any volume value into the dark fields on the right. The values in the lighter fields in the front are calculated correspondingly.
Example: How many grams of NaOH are contained in 125 ml of 0.5 M sodium hydroxide solution ? At first type the molar mass of NaOH (39.997 g/mol). Then change the volume input (0.125 l) in the line for "g pro x l". Finally type the concentration (0.5 mol/l) into the "mol/l"-field. Click on any empty space in the window or on the "calculate" button and read the result (2.4998 g). |
When capacitors are connected in series, the total capacitance is less than any one of the series capacitors’ individual capacitances. If two or more capacitors are connected in series, the overall effect is that of a single (equivalent) capacitor having the sum total of the plate spacings of the individual capacitors. As we’ve just seen, an increase in plate spacing, with all other factors unchanged, results in decreased capacitance.
When capacitors are connected in parallel, the total capacitance is the sum of the individual capacitors’ capacitances. If two or more capacitors are connected in parallel, the overall effect is that of a single equivalent capacitor having the sum total of the plate areas of the individual capacitors. As we’ve just seen, an increase in plate area, with all other factors unchanged, results in increased capacitance.
As you will no doubt notice, this is exactly opposite of the phenomenon exhibited by resistors. With resistors, series connections result in additive values while parallel connections result in diminished values. With capacitors, its the reverse: parallel connections result in additive values while series connections result in diminished values. |
One of the issues discussed with schools is the increasing boredom of students. Technology is partially to blame, as is the reluctance of students to take ownership of their learning. What is this issue called?
One of the issues discussed with schools is the increasing boredom of students. Technology is partially to blame, as is the reluctance of students to take ownership of their learning. This issue is called: Passivity. |
When a business owner has put the money into a business they want it to succeed. There are many things that can make this happen. Some might not consider roofing a way to protect their business investment. Nevertheless, it is very important.
A commercial business must invest in a location. It could be a warehouse or a store, but it is important, but it is where they store a product or where they sell their service or product to customers. If the roof is not in good condition and leaks then it could damage the products stored there. It can also cause even more damage to the building that could cost a lot of money or profit from the business. It is the profit that is needed to help the business that is being put into repairing damage that could have been prevented.
There are many business decisions that need to be made. One is the commercial building and having a good roof, maintaining a roof or repairing a roof can be part of that investment. When choosing a building the roof is a major concern. Once the building is purchased there could be a need for repairs or replacement for roof overtime. roofs could be metal, which is growing in popularity because it is strong, takes less maintenance and can last for many decades, such as up to 50 years for some materials and a100 years in some instances.
These means this commercial roofing option is giving a lifetime lasting seal. If a business decides to use this material for a roof it is considered best to hire an experienced roofing company that deals with metal roofing. This is pointed out because not all roofing company does work with metal roofing. Materials used in metal roofing include copper, steel and aluminum. Another benefit when using metal roofing in commercial buildings is the material does well when it comes to bad weather and is considered very durable.
Other materials used for roofing include slate, asphalt and tile. Prices are determined by durability and energy efficiency. One of the cheapest roofing options includes ASPHALT SHINGLEs but their life expectancy is comparatively shorter than other materials. Most of the time roofing material last for 30-35 years if maintained properly.
Metal roofs are considered expensive compared to the cost of other roofing options. Nevertheless, a major selling point for metal roofs is that they last for decades. ASPHALT SHINGLEs last up to 30 years is cared for properly and has been the most used in the past. It is inexpensive, but often does not do well in bad weather. The most expensive ones are slate shingles but they help you conserve energy so even when you are paying over 300% extra to get them installed over other materials, it is a long term investment. Slate shingles can last a lifetime or as experts say, 100 years is an average life of the shingles. Call in the best roofing expert for all your commercial roofing requirements to ensure that the professional work lasts a long time. |
Invasive earthworms can alter the carbon and nitrogen cycles in woodland, as well as undermining native plant species, a study suggests.
US researchers found that the presence of non-native worms also accelerated the breakdown of forest litter, increasing the risk of soil erosion.
The worms are spread to new areas by horticulture and land disturbance, they add, as well as on vehicles' tyres.
The findings have been published in the journal Human Ecology.
"The presence of earthworms in temperate hardwood forests may accelerate decomposition of forest litter, which potentially reduces habitat for forest-floor animals, (increases) soil erosion... and affects carbon and nitrogen cycles," the researchers from Colgate University, New York, wrote.
Quoting a previous study, the scientists said that invasive earthworms could reduce the amount of carbon stored in soil by up to 28% as a result of the animals eating fallen leaves, which had a knock-on effect on the temperature of the forest floor.
Dark soil absorbed more solar energy than lighter leaf litter, causing the soil to dry out more quickly.
As well as altering the chemical composition of soil, the worms also had an biological impact because the thinner layer of litter reduced populations of a number of forest-dwelling flora and fauna, such as small mammals, ground-nesting birds and some threatened fern species.
The team, whose study focused on the forests of north America, suggested that there were a number of factors behind the dispersal of non-native worms across the landscape.
These were primarily the result of human activity, because after being wiped out in the region during the last period of glaciation, earthworms would have made a very, very slow advance northward, covering just a few hundred kilometres over the past 10,000 years.
The shipping and transplantation of soil in the horticulture industry is believed to be one factor.
The researchers also said that previous research had shown a strong correlation between the presence of roads and the number of worms found in the area, probably the result of the combination of soil disturbance and worms being dispersed by vehicles.
As well as the unintentional spread, the team indentified a number of "intentional" vectors. One was the use of Lumbricus rubellus (red earthworm) in community compost heaps.
But the biggest problem came from the disposal of fishing bait, which the researchers described as "the most important vector for widespread and scattered exotic earthworm introduction in remote areas".
Although Lumbricus terrestris (common earthworm) is native to temperate regions of Europe, it is considered to be an invasive species in North America as it thrives in agricultural marginal land and is deemed to inhibit the growth of native flora in these areas.
Yet within parts of Europe, the common earthworm itself is struggling to compete against flatworms that were introduced from Australasia.
However, a study published earlier this year that examined the role of worms in the carbon cycle of tropical forests found the creatures had a net benefit in terms of locking carbon into the soil.
Within an area of rainforest in Vietnam, the researchers found that casts (excretions of digested organic matter) produced by a species of worm had higher concentrations of carbon, and were able to withstand about twice as much rainfall, than surrounding "control" soil samples.
As a result, the team concluded that the presence of worms enhanced the transition of organic material into soil aggregates.
Soils with many aggregates (clumps of soil particles and a mixture of organic and fungal matter) are considered to be more stable and less prone to erosion. |
Work hours and turnover intention among hospital physicians in Taiwan: does income matter?
Physician shortage has become an urgent and critical challenge to many countries. According to the workforce dynamic model, long work hours may be one major pressure point to the attrition of physicians. Financial incentive is a common tool to human power retention. Therefore, this large-scale physician study investigated how pay satisfaction may influence the relationship between work hours and hospital physician’s turnover intention.
Data were obtained from a nationwide survey of full-time hospital staff members working at 100 hospitals in Taiwan. The analysis sample comprised 2423 full-time physicians. Dependent variable was degree of the physicians’ turnover intention to leave the current hospital. The pay satisfaction was assessed by physicians themselves. We employed ordinal logistic regression models to analyze the association between the number of work hours and turnover intention. To consider the cluster effect of hospitals, we used the “gllamm” command in the statistical software package Stata Version 12.1.
The results show that 351 (14.5%) of surveyed physicians reported strong intention to leave current hospital. The average work hours per week among hospital physicians was 59.8 h. As expected, work hours exhibited an independent relationship with turnover intention. More importantly, pay satisfaction could not effectively moderate the positive relationship between work hours and intentions to leave current hospital.
The findings show that overtime work is prevalent among hospital physicians in Taiwan. Both the Taiwanese government and hospitals must take action to address the emerging problem of physician high turnover rate. Furthermore, hospitals should not consider relying solely on financial incentives to solve the problem. This study encouraged tackling work hour problem, which would lead to the possibility of solving high turnover intention among hospital physicians in Taiwan.
Physician shortages are an emerging international concern [1–4]. More critically, there is no immediate solution to this problem. The workforce dynamic model, proposed by Sklar, suggests three phase of physician workforce dynamic and their various pressure points to which interventions can target . Specifically, the attrition and outflow of physician threatens the functioning of health care systems. High physician turnover can lead to an inadequate supply of health services, thereby compromising people’s access to health care and endangering the quality of patient care and safety [5–7]. In addition, the adverse consequences of physician turnover may include financial loss, low patient satisfaction, and poor organizational practices .
Rapid changes in health care environments and increasing health care costs have led to great pressures on physicians. Hospital physicians may be particularly susceptible to these factors because of the nature and environment of their work. Compared with general practitioners, hospital physicians typically treat more patients with critical conditions, and they have a higher workload and lower job control. Furthermore, previous studies have indicated that psychosocial job stressors, high levels of distress, frequent sleep problems, heavy workloads, job dissatisfaction, and poor workplace relationships are plausible factors associated with high physician turnover [9–11]. Many of these work-related stress, distress, and dissatisfaction may be resulted partly from hospital physicians’ long work hours [12, 13].
The situation may be worse in many newly developed countries. Several studies have indicated that the average work hours among physicians in Taiwan are greater than those of physicians in other developed countries [14, 15]. Although some studies are available in Asia or in Taiwan, these studies suffer from the methodological issues such as low response rates, poor generalizability, and a lack of detailed analyses on the relationship between work hours and turnover intention. Because physicians play a crucial role in ensuring a well-functioning health care system, many countries (e.g., France, Canada, and the United States) have attempted to restrict the maximum work hours of resident physicians . However, in newly developed countries, understanding of these problems remains limited and few efforts have been made to regulate the work hours of hospital physicians, especially in attending physicians.
From a management perspective, a possible and intuitive approach to employee retention is to increase income. The National Health Insurance program in Taiwan is famous for low expenditure, high medical service usage, high coverage rate, and acceptable medical quality . Low expenditure with high usage rate, combined with ageing problem and increased cost due to technology advancement, undoubtedly put great pressure on hospital’s financial balance . As a result, health professionals’ income is always the target of controlling cost, including physicians. Recently in Taiwan, malpractice lawsuit, excessive workload, and unfair income are three most frequently mentioned causes of the physician shortage in hospitals. Whether elevating the pay satisfaction of physician is a useful approach to decrease the impact of long work hours on turnover rate is a critical question for hospital managers and health policy makers.
In this cross-sectional study, we adopted the nationwide hospital survey Needs Assessment Survey on Physical and Mental Health and Occupational Safety for Full-time Staff in Healthcare Workplace (Additional file 1) which was conducted by Bureau of Health Promotion in 2011. The structured questionnaire survey was developed to assess the health, health-related behaviors, and work conditions of hospital staffs in Taiwan. Work hours and turnover intention are two main dimensions assessed in this survey. Previous research has shown that the questionnaire has exhibited acceptable validity and introduced its sampling method clearly (Additional file 1). Among the 127 selected hospitals, 100 (78.7%) agreed to participate in this survey, and all full-time staff members at these hospitals were requested to participate. The questionnaire was anonymous, and a return envelope was provided with each questionnaire. Hospital staffs were requested to return the completed questionnaires in a sealed envelope to collecting sites at the hospitals. We distributed 98,817 questionnaires from May 2011 to July 2011, and 70,622 (71.5%) validated questionnaires were returned. Among those who returned their questionnaires, 4538 respondents reported that they were physicians. After we excluded responses with incomplete information (678 people) and those below 35 years old (1437 people), the final sample in our study comprised responses from 2423 attending physicians. For those below 35 years old, they are very likely still under trainee. After accomplishing trainee, it is reasonable to change to other hospitals to pursue their new medical lives. To avoid overestimating the meaning of intention to leave current hospital as the willing of turnover, we only analyzed the physician group above 35 years old. Furthermore, following previous studies, we chose to focus on physicians’ intention to withdraw, instead of actual turnover, as the dependent variable for several considerations [11, 19]. First, the cross-sectional nature of the survey prevented the measurement of physicians’ actual turnover from practice. Second, previous studies have shown turnover intention is a reliable predictor of actual turnover [20, 21]. The study protocol was approved by the institutional review board at the Bureau of Health Promotion prior to distributing the survey (BHP investigation number 0990800708).
Turnover intention was assessed using one question (“What is the likelihood that you will leave your current hospital?”. The responses were measured using a 5-point Likert scale ranging from 1 (none) to 5 (very strong). We classified turnover intention as mild (i.e., physicians who answered none or mild), moderate (i.e., physicians who answered moderate), or strong (physicians who answered strong or very strong).
The main independent variable was the number of work hours, which was measured using the survey item “Please recall how many hours you worked in the last week”. According to Taiwan Labor Standards Act, the normal weekly work hours shall not exceed 48 h, and the overtime weekly work hours shall not exceed 60 h . Physicians in Taiwan are not considered laborers; thus, the Labor Standards Act does not apply to this profession. No legislation exists to regulate hospital physicians’ work hours, so the proposed reference of an 88-h maximum for residents’ work hours per week by the American ACGME (The Accreditation Council for Graduate Medical Education) was also adopted as one cut point . Based on those cut points, we categorized the sample into five groups (< 49, 49–59, 60–88, and > 88 h) to further evaluate the impact of work hours on turnover intention.
The moderating variable considered in this study was pay satisfaction, which was assessed by one question (“Do you think it is reasonable for your current work pay?”. The responses were measured using a 5-point Likert scale ranging from 1 (very unreasonable) to 5 (very reasonable). We classified pay satisfaction as bad (i.e., physicians who answered very unreasonable or little unreasonable), moderate (i.e., physicians who answered moderate), or good (physicians who answered not bad or very reasonable).
In the analyses, we also included sociodemographic variables (age, gender, and marital status) and work characteristics variables (seniority at current hospital, clinical setting, supervisor position, accredited hospital level, hospital ownership, and health promoting hospital (HPH) status). Furthermore, we subsequently included health status and job satisfaction as control variables to adjust their impact on the relationship between work hours and turnover intention. Self-rated health status was separately categorized into three groups (good, moderate, and bad), and job satisfaction was divided into two groups (good and bad).
We employed ordinal logistic regression models to analyze the association between the number of work hours and turnover intention. This method is suitable for dependent variables with multiple ordered response categories, and we verified the appropriateness of using this model, which means the relationship between any two pairs of outcome groups is statistically the same. To consider the cluster effect of hospitals, we used the “gllamm” command in the statistical software package Stata Version 12.1(StataCorp, 4905 Lakeway Drive College Station, Texas 77845-4512 USA), which can estimate generalized linear latent and mixed models. First, multivariable regression was applied to determine the relationship between work hours and turnover intention by adjusting the sociodemographic and work characteristics variables (Model 1). Next, we analyzed the association between work hours and turnover intention by incorporating health status, pay satisfaction, and job satisfaction into the models (Model 2). Finally, to evaluate whether pay satisfaction moderated the relationship between work hours and turnover intention, we conducted stratification analyses based on the level of pay satisfaction.
Table 1 lists the distribution of the physicians’ characteristics and weekly work hours, showing that 351 (14.5%) of the surveyed physicians reported strong intention to leave their current hospital. There were up to 727 (30.0%) physicians rating pay satisfaction as bad. The average weekly work hours among Taiwan hospital physicians was 59.8 (19.9). Regarding the categories for the number of work hours per week, 1102 (45.5%) of the physicians worked more than 60 h, and 207 (8.5%) physicians worked more than 88 h. Longer work hours were associated with a stronger intention to leave a hospital. Additionally, the number of work hours decreased as age increased. On average, women worked 6 h less per week than their male counterparts. Those who were working in surgery or delivery rooms, emergency or intensive care unit reported a relatively much higher number of weekly work hours as 66.0 and 65.0, respectively. Physicians who were employed at medical centers reported working much longer hours than their counterparts in regional or district hospitals as 64.4 h per week. In addition, as average weekly work hours increased, self-rated health status, pay satisfaction, and job satisfaction deteriorated significantly. Table 2 shows that longer work hours and lower pay satisfaction were both related to higher turnover intention to leave current hospital, and the impact was statistically significant (P value < 0.001) and substantial.
Table 3 shows the association between work hours and intention to leave the current hospital. After we controlled for other variables, work hours exhibited a independent relationship with turnover intention. After adjusting for socio-demographic variables and work characteristics (Model 1), our results indicated that in comparison with physicians who worked less than 49 h per week, those who worked 60–88 h (OR, 1.40; 95% CI, 1.14–1.72) and more than 88 h (OR, 2.09; 95% CI, 1.52–2.87) had significantly stronger intentions to leave their current hospital. After we added health status, pay satisfaction, and job satisfaction into the model (Model 2), the positive relationship between work hours and intention to leave their current hospital persisted, although the magnitude of the effects reduced moderately for both the 60–88 h group (OR, 1.22; 95% CI, 0.98–1.51) and the more than 88 h group (OR, 1.53; 95% CI, 1.10–2.13). Furthermore, in multivariate analysis, young physicians, moderate seniority at current hospital (2–5 years), poor self-perceived health status, pay dissatisfaction, and job dissatisfaction were significant predictors of strong intention to leave current hospital.
To determine whether pay satisfaction moderated the association between work hours and turnover intention, we conducted stratification analyses (Table 4). The result indicated that among those who perceive their income as good or bad, the relationship between work hours and turnover intention disappeared. However, for those who stated moderate pay satisfaction, which comprised the majority of physicians (51.3%), work hours remained strong independent relationship with turnover intention. Those who worked 60–88 h (OR, 1.57; 95% CI, 1.15–2.13) and more than 88 h (OR, 2.00; 95% CI, 1.21–3.32) had significantly stronger intentions to leave their current hospital comparing with physicians who worked less than 49 h per week. However, the overall interaction P value of pay satisfaction and work hours did not reach the level of statistical significance (P value = 0.447).
This is the first article to directly analyze the effect of work hours on turnover intention, and also put pay satisfaction into consideration to estimate the possible moderating effect. There are three interesting findings. First, the average work hours among hospital physicians who are above 35 years old in Taiwan was 59.8 (19.9) hours per week, which was considerably higher than that of physicians in United States (49.6 h per week for nonresident physicians) . More importantly, 214 (8.6%) of the surveyed physicians worked more than 88 h per week. Second, a clear independent relationship was observed between work hours and turnover intention. These findings not only raise serious concerns regarding the health and wellbeing of physicians but also indicate that overtime work may increase physicians’ intentions to leave their current practice; thus, adding unnecessary administrative cost and more critically, endangering the continuity of patient care. The physician shortage problem in the hospital sector may threaten the function of the health care system. Unlike other factors associated with physicians’ turnover intentions (e.g., work stress, job satisfaction, etc.), work hours is a tangible and actionable factor. By building a reasonable work hour regulation, we can improve the wellbeing of physicians and diminish the possibility of leaving current practice setting.
Third, we know that even though financial incentive plays an important role in retaining physicians, it still cannot effectively moderate the adverse effect of long work hours on turnover intention. Similar results have been proposed by previous studies. One cross-sectional study in Ghana revealed that the dimensions of motivation and job satisfaction significantly associated with turnover intention included career development, workload, management, organizational commitment, and burnout, but not remuneration . Another article conducted in England to retain the general practitioner workforce showed that reduced intensity and volume of workload were more important than incentive payment . A review article to survey incentives for retaining health workers also documented financial incentives alone would exert limited effort. Working conditions, supervision and management, and education and training opportunities were also important and needed to be addressed together . As a result, hospital managers and government should not overlook the influential role of work hours. Money cannot solve everything, and there are still root causes which drive the turnover intention of physician, such as long work hours. Taking action on improving the overload of work can assist elevating the wellbeing of physicians, and resulting in mitigating turnover intention, which assure the well function of health system.
However, there were some limitations in this study. First, because this was a cross-sectional study, we were unable to ascertain the causal relationship between work hours and turnover intention, which could be addressed by future longitudinal studies. Second, because of data limitations, some relevant information, such as the physicians’ rank (intern, resident, fellow, or attending physician) or specialty were unavailable, thus preventing detailed analyses. However, we have tried to use the variables of age and clinical settings to offer more information. Third, because we were not assured the exact number of physicians who attained the questionnaire, it’s impossible to calculate the specific physicians’ response rate in this study. Forth, work hours were self-reported and based on recall, which may have resulted in the figures being over-reported or under-reported because of perceived differences related to work. If the reporting is non-differential, the effects of work hours may be stronger than we observed. Besides, some points require further discussion. Although we used weekly work hours as our primary independent variable, the concept of work hours should be refined to elucidate the turnover problem further. For example, the number of work hours is not necessarily representative of work intensity . Other variables (e.g., job control and work schedule flexibility) may also affect the psychological health of physicians . The stress feeling at work, the interruptions and other variables regarding work situation was incomplete, thus, hinder further understanding about the true root of work hour issue. Moreover, the intentions to retire, take a career break, or reduce clinical hours of work are important questions about physician workforce which were lack in the survey. Finally, although we sought to include as many as possible confounding variables in the analyses according to literature review, there may still be other factors that need to be explored further. For future studies, post-questionnaire focus groups or individual one-to-one interviews would be useful to get a more in-depth understanding of the factors responsible for employment unhappiness.
In order to implement the findings of this study, we may need to rethink of the medical system. If some physicians quit form the job due to long work hours, then those who stay in position will encounter more work hours, and thus lead to stronger intention of leaving their hospital. From the results of this article, we should break up the pernicious circle between long work hours and turnover intention. However, if cutting number of hours each physician does during a week is the proposed solution, then more physicians will presumably be needed to fulfill the same workload as now. Some plausible methods should be attempted to solve the possible workforce shortage problem. For instance, task shifting to replacement medical staff, such as enhancing the role and increasing the number of nurse practitioners or physician assistants may be suitable. Developing more effective information systems may help physicians to work more efficiently during their work hour. Strengthening the ability of primary care system and spreading the ideas of integrated medicine will also reduce the workload of hospital specialty physicians. Based on above method or other innovative solutions, we can reduce physician’s long work hours without necessarily increasing the total number of physicians.
In this study, we conducted a large-scale survey of hospital physicians. The sample comprised 2423 physicians working at 100 hospitals in Taiwan, assuring good generalizability of the study. The medical centers and regional hospitals where physician shortages were the most serious in Taiwan were included in the sample. The number of total hospital physicians working in Taiwan in 2011 was 24,552, and this study included 9.9% of them to conduct analyses . The sample size of 2423 physicians ensured high statistical power, not only in determining the significant effects of work hours on turnover intentions but also in examining whether pay satisfaction moderates this association. The findings show that overtime work is prevalent among hospital physicians in Taiwan. Both the Taiwanese government and hospitals must take action to address the emerging problem of physician high turnover rate. Regularly assessing physicians’ work conditions (e.g., work hours), and limiting excess work hours may be suitable policy tools. Furthermore, hospitals should not consider relying solely on financial incentives to solve the problem. There was a clear need to face the overload work hours of hospital physicians. Although it may be difficult and challenging, this study encouraged tackling work hour problem, which would lead to the possibility of solving high turnover intention among hospital physicians in Taiwan.
All participants were spontaneously willing to participate in this study, and all of them finished the anonymous questionnaires. We also obtained the consent of them to publish the analysis results of this questionnaire. |
The Somali Canadian Education and Rural Development Organization (SCERDO) is a community-based organization based in Edmonton, Alberta with a mission to promote the educational needs for all Somalis, at home and around the world. SCERDO believes that education and rural development are pre-requisites for the social and economic development of Somalia. Volunteers contribute greatly to SCERDO’s work, providing professional training, mentorship, hosting community events, and gathering resources for newcomers.
As of January 2018, the youth unemployment rate in Canada decreased by 2.2% compared to January 2017 according to Statistics Canada. Increased community support for youth is one reason for this decrease in unemployment. Some communities provide youth access to employment skills and work experience that are useful in finding employment and creating jobs. It is crucial to create more jobs for the economy to expand and grow. It is especially important for youth as they are significant to the future of the economy. Youth are equipped with skills in technology and social media, they are highly innovative, and they are aware of the current trends and perspectives of society. These traits allow youth to expand the businesses and organizations they work for and ultimately the economy.
To help youth enter and succeed in the workforce, SCERDO offers the Youth Employment Skills/Work Experience program. Youth participate in 10 weeks of in-class training, learning vital employment skills, such as resume and cover letter writing, training on Microsoft applications, and career planning. Following the in-class training, youth are matched with local employers for a 14-week work experience program. So successful are the placements, that most youth who have participated have been offered permanent employment after their experience.
While Abdikani has strong English, this is not often the case with many of the newcomers in the program. Nadia Fatah, the facilitator for the program, finds the largest employment barriers youth in the program have are their English level and their lack of work experience. This program helps eliminates these barriers by strengthening English skills and providing relevant workplace skills and experience. The program achieves these goals in a relatively short amount of time. As noted by Bashir Ahmed, the Executive Director of SCERDO, within a year, youth complete the program, land a job, then give back to the community by becoming taxpayers, volunteers and positive community members. This “positive circle” for society, Mr. Ahmed believes, is the biggest benefit of this program, and is worth the investment. |
When converting PDF document to TIFF image using VB.NET program, do you know about TIFF image format? Originally, TIFF stands for Tagged Image File Format which can be compressed and uncompressed by using lossless compression. TIFF image is regarded as the best image format for commercial work and is a standard in the printing and publishing industry. It is also a flexible raster image format for handling images and data within a single file and multiple layered images can be stored in a single TIFF file.
RasterEdge.Imaging.PDF.dll offers complete APIs for developers to view, compress, annotate, process and convert PDF document file in Visual Basic .NET class application. Similarly, RasterEdge.Imaging.TIFF.dll can be used for advanced TIFF file reading, annotation, conversion and editing applications. Using our VB.NET PDF Document Conversion Library, developers can easily convert PDF document to TIFF image file in VB.NET programming. We provide free VB demo code to guide you how to do this work.
Furthermore, if you are a Visual C# .NET programmer, you can go to this Visual C# tutorial for PDF to Tiff conversion in .NET project.
RasterEdge provides developers with detailed VB.NET demo code to render and convert PDF document to TIFF raster image in VB.NET project. The following demo code can be applied to your VB.NET project built in Visual Studio 2005 or later versions free of charge.
' Load a PDF file.
Dim inputFilePath As String = Program.RootPath + "\\" + "1.pdf"
' Convert and output to a TIFF file.
Dim outputFilePath1 As String = inputFilePath + ".tif" |
Finnish Comics Society organises a workshop for twelve 18–30-year-old Nordic comics artists in Helsinki, August 2018 to make publications with a risograph. The theme of the week-long workshop is to delve into modern Nordic folklore, myths and urban legends and tell these stories in short comics story format. The finished RISO publications will be distributed during Helsinki Comics Festival in September 2018.
There are always stories that stay with you, especially the ones you have heard as a child. Some you have learned from your grandparents or from friends during a sleepover. You’ll be walking down a dark forest road and you’ll remember the one with the ghostly footsteps of a dead suitor following a maid in the middle of night. Or on a cold winter night you might recall the one about the snowmobile driver whose brains froze when he drove without a helmet.
At the workshop, the participants will create short story comics focusing on contemporary and traditional Nordic sources. The stories can be based on persisting traditional stories, unsolved mysteries from the past, topical urban legends of the day or even the roots of sayings and proverbs we use everyday. The North is full of sources from which to draw inspiration – where will you start from?
We advice participants to avoid using source material from indigenous or minority e.g. Sami or Roma folklore, if you are not yourself of that heritage. We enthusiastically encourage artists of indigenous and minority backgrounds to apply for the workshop, so we can provide new platforms for your voices to be heard in the comics world.
Finnish Comics Society invites 12 young Nordic comics artists to Helsinki to make publications with a risograph. The RISO printing machine gives the possibility to make almost offset-quality as easy as with a regular copy machine.
The participants will plan their initial story ideas beforehand with the workshop leaders via online feedback, giving then more time to execute the final artworks during the workshop week. The participants will print the publications for the Helsinki Comics Festival 2018 weekend.
The working language of the project is English, but the created comics can be in any language.
The project will include an online preparation period 1.6.–25.8.2018, during which the participants select and plan their stories ideas together with the workshop leaders and each other.
The workshop will take place 26.–31.8.2018 in Helsinki. During the week, the participants finalize their story pages and create the printed works (zines and posters) with Comics Center’s RISO machine.
Participants keep rights to their original works and the print runs created at the workshop. Finnish Comics Society reserves only the right to use artwork created during the project to promote the project in a non-commercial capacity. Finnish Comics Society will similarly keep a small portion of each print run for its archive and to showcase project results.
The created print runs will be distributed at Helsinki Comics Festival 1.–2.9.2018. The festival will provide a joint-exhibitor table at its Zine Fest sales area. The created RISO print runs can either be distributed free of charge or at prices decided among the participants.
The camp was a great way for people to meet old acquaintances and make new friends as well as share information about a mutual passion; making comics. The workshops were taught by Finnish and Estonian comics professionals.
Nordicomics Youth! exhibition will be held in January 2016 in Serieteket, Stockholm, Sweden.
The Nordicomics Youth! Comics Camps were organised by the Finnish Comics Society and received support from Finnish Ministry of Education and Culture and Svenska Kulturfonden.
Finnish Comics Society organised the first Nordicomics Youth! comics camp for young artists in August 2014 at Luukki camp center, Espoo. Ten artists aged between 18–25 years from Norway, Finland, Sweden and Estonia took part in the camp. During their week-long stay the young artists worked on their own comics stories guided by Finnish professional artists. Gallery Sarjakuvakeskus is proud to present the finished stories and the working process of the camp now in an exhibition of its own.
The exhibition presents works by Johanne Eikå Bergill, Ida Eva Neverdahl and Jofrid Sandgren Østenstad from Norway, Jennie Sörensen and Sara Hernoldson from Sweden, Ina Rosberg and Yrtti Taivaloja from Finland and Leore Klyszejko from Estonia.
The Nordicomics Youth! camp was organised by the Finnish Comics Society and received support from Nordic Children’s and Youth Committee – NORDBUK.
A bunch of comics-enthusiasts gathered on August 8th at the Comics Center to celebrate the opening of a new exhibition at the Comics Center Gallery. The atmosphere was literally quite warm as people circled inside exploring all kinds of monsters and robots doing their daily routines.
The man behind the exhibition is Matt Boyce (1981), a British artist who comes from a bilingual family. Both his parents are deaf, and he is fluent in English and British sign language. Sign language is part of both his own art and teaching work at a college in London. The Everyday Monsters exhibition is part of Matt’s residency project in the CUNE Comics-in-Residence programme.
The day before the opening I sat down with Matt and we talked about the residency and his stay here in Helsinki. What are his plans for the forthcoming month, what are his first impressions so far and what are the things that inspire him?
Matt told me that during his first week in Finland he has mainly done some touristy things like looking at sights and walking around Helsinki. During his residency Matt will be staying at Suomenlinna, an island off the coast of Helsinki that holds an old maritime fort built in the 18th century. He has been overall impressed by his lodgings at HIAP residence center.
“It’s great to have a big house all for myself. It’s the biggest place I’ve ever stayed in. It’s kind of funny to have a big space for painting and there I am, working on my comics.” During his residency Matt will be working on a new comic book, but that’s still very much a work in progress.
The most important thing for Matt is that everyone can draw comics and express themselves. This will also be the basis of the workshop he will be teaching during August at the Comics Center in Helsinki and HIAP’s Gallery Augusta. During the workshop the participants will be making autobiographical comics using sign language, similar to the courses Matt is teaching in London. He showed me some comics made in the workshops by deaf children who are leaving school. In the comics they talk about themselves but also their fears regarding the future. Matt explained to me that in England, deaf children get support and help with studies while they’re at school but after graduation they might have anxieties about the future. In their comics the children talk about their dreams for the future but also the obstacles they might run into.
Matt describes the island he is living on as both strangely silent and filled with tourists at the same time. The tourist crowds have actually given him an inspiration for a zombie-comic – both tourists and zombies are known to wander around in large packs with no sense of direction. |
As short-term memory fades, names and places become harder to grasp and remember.
Research suggests that older adults are more inclined than younger people to pick up information from their surroundings to fill gaps in their short-term memories, often making use of prompts that might otherwise seem like distractions. A new study shows how this tendency can help them connect names with faces.
“Being a little more susceptible to distraction as we age can be an advantage,” said Kelly Murphy, a clinical neuropsychologist at Baycrest Health Sciences, a geriatric residential, health care and research center affiliated with the University of Toronto, where she also is a psychology professor. She’s one of the coauthors of the study, recently published in the journal Psychology and Aging.
In the first part of the experiment, two groups — one with 32 adults ages 60 to 86 and another consisting of 25 younger people — were shown pictures with the faces and names of 24 different people, then tested to see how many they could remember. Next, the subjects were shown another series of pictures with faces and names. This time, they were told to ignore the written information and concentrate on pressing a button when the same face appeared twice. Some pictures were repeats from the first trial.
Afterward, both groups retook the first test. This time, Murphy said, the older adults improved their ability to connect names and faces by 15 percent, though they had been told not to pay attention to the names in the second trial. The younger group, presumably better at ignoring distractions, improved by only 2 percent.
The researchers envision eventually using their findings to develop a smartphone memory-training game, which would use faces and names from an older person’s everyday life. |
Have you ever gone to a training, been excited about how you might use what you learn, only to return to the office and shelve it til “later”? Most of us have done it. I know I have. Just like the learners in our programs, we have other demands and responsibilities that compete for our time. They eat away at the time and space we need to dig into those new skills, practice them and refine them to the point that they are useful to us when we need them. At CLN, we are working on new strategies to help you build in time for learning that is suited to your unique learning needs.
In adult learning, we know that the more opportunities for authentic practice the greater the improvement in skills and knowledge. This is called persistence in learning. As adult learners, we need persistence in our PD learning to get better at what we do as much as foundational learners in our CALP programs need it.
The complex skills and knowledge we learn in CALP PD require persistence in learning beyond the workshop but finding those precious nuggets of time in our work day to dig deeper on our own is not easy. Consistently, on CLN workshop evaluations, we hear that people want more time to process what they are learning and more support in practicing the skills learned in the training. It is with this in mind that CLN is exploring new strategies to give you timely access to follow up training and coaching to help you implement the learning from our workshops.
What do persistence strategies look like?
CLN has been experimenting with a couple of different strategies to support persistence in learning for CALP staff. The goal is to give you more than one connection point to the trainer, fellow learners and training material as it relates to your own learning goals. Each of these strategies gives you, CALP staff, ongoing learning options.
Coffee Hours are a one-time follow-up training done 4-6 weeks after a training. They are typically done online in small groups. Facilitators provide guided learning with particular attention to the experiences and learning participants have done since the face-to-face workshop. So far this year we have piloted this approach in follow up to Training Your Tutors, Reading Assessment, and Books Offer Your Kids Success (B.O.O.K.S.).
The goal is to coach workshop participants to take the learning one step further by finding ways to implement it in their programs.
Building in a 4-6 week gap between the workshop and the coffee hour gives time for independent learning and practice. This way participants come to the coffee hour with real life questions that come out of the successes and challenges of trying out the tools and grappling with the concepts.
Participants who have not found time, space or mental energy to return to the workshop learning are just as welcome to join in the coffee hours as those who are further along in their learning and implementation. We all learn from each other! |
Most of my research uses mathematical tools to shed light on a few fundamental questions in ecology: - Can we construct techniques to help predict the effects of future environmental change on the ability of animal populations to survive? - How can we infer the nature of animal interaction mechanisms, both with each other and their environment, from movement data? - How do complex systems of animal movements and interactions give rise to emergent population-level patterns? See my publications page for more. |
When can we play, Parental Unit?
This excellent article written by Dr. Karen Becker and posted on the Mercola Healthy Pets blog, describes eight telltale signs that your dog needs more attention from you. I've bet you've heard that well-worn quote: "He might only be here for a part of your life, but for him, you are his whole life."
We urge pet owners try to keep that one sentence in mind each day as they plan their activities.
The bottom line is that pets suffer when they don't get enough exercise, play and general attention from their parental units. And they show this is a variety of ways that Dr. Becker describes so well in this article. For example, if your dog is disobedient, he or she may just need regular, long walks in the park and some additional play time with you. Dogs can also become lethargic, overweight and downright depressed without enough attention from their humans.
Parental Unit learned this the hard way with my predecessor, Carson, the high energy Wire Fox Terrier. She got Carson at a time in her life when she was working outside the home full time, and actually had the energy to go out at night (hard to believe, now!). Although Carson got his daily walks and some playtime, they were way too short for his energy level, and both Carson and Parental Unit suffered the consequences of those choices. She feels guilty to this day, but has made good on her promise to spend much more quality time with me.
Not nearly enough play time with the high energy Mr. Carson.
It's hard to tell how much exercise, playtime and attention is too much or too little, but we say, err on the side of more quality time with your pooch and you'll both benefit. One way to add to your quality time together is to integrate your dog into your daily activities like running errands, for example, even if it takes you a bit longer and some extra patience to complete those errands. Your dog will enjoy the socialization time, learn how to behave in different situations and with new humans...and get to spend extra time with you!
Let us know how you fit in the time during your busy days to make sure your pets get enough attention. We'd love to hear your stories! |
Black womanhood shapes my identity in many ways. It affects the way I style my hair and the choices I make at the bookstore to pick up works by feminist writer Roxane Gay or African-American novelist Toni Morrison.
But it shouldn’t have any effect on determining my paycheck.
It’s hard to feel hopeful about entering the workforce after graduation knowing that, statistically, I might earn less money than my white male counterparts due to the wage gap.
According to the National Partnership for Women & Families, American women working full-time lose a combined total of more than $840 billion every year due to income inequity.
Today, women earn about 80 cents on the dollar compared to men — but women of color fall even further behind.
Compared to white men, Black women make 63 cents on the dollar, and Latina women make 54 cents. At this rate, the Institute for Women’s Policy Research predicts women won’t receive equal pay for another 42 years.
Americans should have in-depth discussions about the wage gap and the unfair consequences it has on women, especially women of color. And legislators need to institute policies like paycheck transparency to ensure fair pay by law. This requires companies with federal contracts to share information on employee earnings and salaries with the government.
Racist stereotypes have further contributed to the wage gap for some women.
“Women of color are not taken seriously because of the stereotypes that come with women of color, that their ideas are not as great as white men’s ideas,” said Rujuta Chincholkar-Mandelia, a gender, sexuality and women’s studies professor.
Chincholkar-Mandelia, who moved to the United States from India, said she has heard stereotypes about immigrant women being inarticulate and submissive.
These stereotypes must be challenged. People can work to counteract them by acknowledging they exist, discussing them with others and working to change the narrative they perpetuate.
Another way these stereotypes can be challenged is by noting positive representations of women of color and celebrating their successes in their respective fields.
“Just seeing examples that go against your bias is really helpful,” said junior political science and public health major Martha Sherman, the public relations officer of the Feminist Majority Leadership Alliance.
We must recognize that the wage gap has been a long-standing issue for women, and for some even more than others. Women of various backgrounds must be included in the conversation about income inequity. Solidarity across racial and gender lines is also crucial in bridging the gap.
Obama signed the Fair Pay and Safe Workplaces order in 2014, which included paycheck transparency.
This was meant to reveal any discrepancies between the incomes of men and women, prompting businesses to correct any gap.
But President Donald Trump recently signed an executive order revoking Fair Pay and Safe Workplaces, removing the paycheck transparency requirement.
Working women are already susceptible to injustice in the workplace, and Trump’s order only exacerbates the issue.
Leaders like Trump cannot continually dismiss this problem. Their negligence as people in power encourages others to ignore this important civil rights issue. Political leaders must first acknowledge the existence of the wage gap, and then work to correct it through legislation so women can progress economically.
In January, Mayor Jim Kenney signed a wage equity law prohibiting employers from asking applicants their previous salary history. The law, which some have opposed for the added regulations it places on business, is set to take effect on May 23.
This law is essential because employers use salary history to gauge how much employees should be paid, and since women historically make less than men, their salary history reflects that. This cycle complicates economic mobility for women.
Philadelphia’s wage equity law is a positive step toward working to level the playing field between men and women.
If we value women’s labor in society, we must be willing to pay for it. Our laws must ensure no woman is paid less simply because of her gender or race.
We need to continually engage in discussions about the wage gap to make others aware of its potential impact on women in the workforce. Only when citizens and policymakers are continually confronted with this issue can we hope to spur action and legislation for women in the workforce. |
Scientists were shocked by what they found while pouring over accounts by famous South Pole explorers from about a century ago — findings that could change the way experts think about Antarctica and global warming.
Researchers found that Antarctic sea ice extent has barely changed since Ernest Shackleton’s botched expedition to map out the South Pole in 1917.
Antarctic sea ice conditions in Shackleton’s day mirrored those of today, according to a new study using logs compiled by Shackleton, in addition to data from other noteworthy Antarctic forays during the early 20th Century.
Lead researcher Dr. Jonathan Day and his team were the first to calculate Antarctic sea ice conditions prior to the 1930s. Day estimates sea ice extent ranged from 3.3 and 4.3 million square miles and continued to grow into the 1950s.
Why is that significant? It means Antarctic sea ice has fluctuated throughout the 20th Century due to natural climatic shifts, and not man-made warming.
“If ice levels were as low a century ago as estimated in this research, then a similar increase may have occurred between then and the middle of the century, when previous studies suggest ice levels were far higher,” he added.
It’s more evidence Antarctic sea ice is less influenced by man-made warming than Arctic sea ice.
Arctic sea ice extent has shrunk more than 7 percent per decade since 1979 while Antarctic sea ice has actually grown about one percent per decade — despite what most climate models predicted.
A 2015 NASA study found Antarctica’s ice sheet increased in mass from 1992 to 2008. The study found ice gains in Eastern Antarctica more than offset ice loss from melting glaciers in the west.
Day’s study comes just after the British Antarctic Survey (BAS) found the collapse of a major South Pole was sparked by an El Nino during the 1940s, not man-made climate change.
The Pine Island Glacier began melting about 30 years before the modern warming trend of global average temperature that began in the late 1970s.
“A significant implication of our findings is that once an ice sheet retreat is set in motion it can continue for decades, even if what started gets no worse,” NASA’s Bob Bindschadler, a co-author of the report, said in a statement. |
How pricey is a traditional four-year education?
So pricey that even the mayor of New York City, who lives rent-free, earns $225K per annum, and owns two Brooklyn homes, considers the cost of schooling his two children "a big challenge," according to a recent New York Times story.
In a new book, The End of College: Creating the Future of Learning and the University of Everywhere, author Kevin Carey distills a brave new world in which a myriad of lower-cost solutions--most in their infancy--threaten to upend the four-year, high-tuition business model by which colleges and universities have traditionally thrived.
Whether Carey or his publishers are overstating their case--"the end of college" is no small claim, hedged as it is in the subtitle--is a question time will settle. What matters more, for entrepreneurs, is how fertile the opportunity is for startups to explore what Carey reports is a $4.6 trillion market for global education.
Carey's book describes many of these startups, all of which are taking aim at vulnerabilities in the incumbent business model. Here's a rundown.
Using cloud-based e-textbooks and course materials, Rafter helps campus bookstores digitize their offerings and keep their prices low, allowing them to regain the market share they were losing to other stores and course-materials marketplaces.
The school wins because store revenues rise. The students win because course materials are cheaper. And then Rafter wins, boasting of the results in convincing win-win customer testimonials. Rafter's customers include the University of Hawaii, North Carolina State University, and Thomas More College.
Piazza is an online study room where students can anonymously ask questions to teachers and other students. The best answers get pushed to the top through repeated user endorsement. Like Rafter, Piazza serves existing schools (1,000 of them, including Stanford, MIT, and Princeton). And it boasts endorsements from several professors at those schools.
How does Piazza make money? As Adam Vaccaro reported last year on Inc.com, Piazza offers recruiters access to its talent pool of 1.25 million global students.
As do the above two companies, InsideTrack sells its services to universities. It provides highly personalized coaching to students and it helps colleges assess whether their technology and processes are equipped to measure student progress.
In short, it helps students learn, and it also helps colleges collect and manage the technology that assists and provides evidence of that learning. By combining high-tech analytics with flesh-and-blood tutors, InsideTrack helps schools do what they're supposed to do: Teach.
The company boasts testimonials from leaders at Arizona State, the University of Virginia, and others. In addition, InsideTrack recently announced a partnership with Chegg, through which it will provide its coaching services directly to students.
If you attended a four-year school, then you know the feeling of receiving relentless requests for alumni donations. USEED is like Kickstarter for school fundraising: It helps schools build customized crowdfunding platforms for specific projects, and it helps them target alums who may have a particular interest in supporting those projects.
Customers so far include Emerson College and Penn State University.
One of Inc.'s 30-Under-30 companies from 2013, Course Hero is an online source of study guides, class notes, past exams, flash cards, and tutoring services. More than five million students use its resources.
Though it's not really a startup anymore--it was founded in 2006--it's still receiving rounds of VC money (including a $15 million infusion late last year).
This is another site offering shared learning tools from students worldwide. Quizlet founded around the same time as Course Hero, in 2005.
Today it humbly has numbers other companies would brag about: Almost 15 million monthly active users who average nearly 20 minutes per session, not to mention a consistent showing in the top 10 free education apps in the iTunes and Google Play stores, according to Tony Wan's superb story on EdSurge.
Other companies on this list provide services to schools or students. The Minerva Project is, literally, a new school.
It offers a world-class undergrad education for $10,000 a year, using online teaching methods and not wasting money on sports or buildings. Yet the students live together and enjoy a community experience. As freshmen, they live in San Francisco. They then spend each of the next six semesters together in a different global city.
Minerva's first undergrads--a class of 70 selected from 2,500 applicants--enrolled last September.
In its own way, Dev Bootcamp is also a new school. Its program allows you to become a Web developer after a 19-week course costing under $14,000.
It's one of many Web-developer schools taking this approach: Giving customers a credentialed certification, career services, and an alumni network for a price that's a fraction of what traditional education costs.
Plus, if you go to Dev Bootcamp, you'll never have to endure an annoying conversation at the dinner table about what you plan to "do" with your degree.
Founded by Thiel Fellow Dale Stephens (who took $100,000 from Peter Thiel to not go to college), The UnCollege Movement provides students with a 12-month Gap Year experience for $16,000.
The yearlong program has four phases: living in a Gap Year House, traveling abroad, working at an internship, and completing a creative project.
In other words, enrollees get some of what you'd get in college--dorm life, community--and some of what you'd get in a traditional gap year: travel, real-world experience. But you get it at a lower price.
Founded by Stanford computer science professor Sebastian Thrun, Udacity creates online classes through which companies can train employees. AT&T, for example, paid Udacity $3 million to develop a series of courses, according to The Wall Street Journal.
Other corporate partners include Google, Facebook, and Salesforce.
The tagline says it all: "Free online courses from top universities." Indeed, Coursera's partners include prestigious universities worldwide.
It makes plenty of money too--$8 million to $12 million in annual revenues, by EdSurge's estimate--through specialty classes and verifiable certifications of completed coursework.
In a nonprofit joint venture, MIT and Harvard created their own organization offering free online courses from top universities. Several other schools now offer their courses through EdX, including Berkeley, Georgetown, and the University of Texas system.
One of the many strengths of Carey's book is its in-depth profile of EdX, through which Carey himself takes a class in introductory biology.
As a nonprofit with an open-source platform, EdX can appeal to schools with a distrust of what drives venture-backed startups. Over time, it will be interesting to observe how nonprofits like EdX--founded by the schools themselves--compete and coexist with traditional for-profit startups in the education space.
CMU's OLI is another example of a nonprofit startup founded by a school to ward off its own potential disruption.
Founder Michael Saylor has been musing on how technology can scale education since he himself was an undergrad at MIT in the early '80s. Anyone, anywhere, can take courses on Saylor.org for free.
Carey writes that Saylor sees a potential business opportunity in what he calls "deep identity" credentialing: The technology that will, one day, create authentic, mobile-friendly documents attesting to anyone's educational accomplishments.
Think of it this way: If there were a secure, fast way for employers to view your educational credentials--to sort and compare them in the click of a mouse with the credentials of thousands of other job candidates--wouldn't any employer want it?
Founded by Mozilla, Open Badges is an attempt to establish "a new online standard to recognize and verify learning."
It is, in other words, another recognition that credentialing is a developing frontier in a landscape increasingly occupied by countless students taking countless courses from countless online providers of those courses.
Calling itself the "future of certificate management," Accredible is the company that provides certification services for several of the online schools on this list, including Saylor.org and Udacity.
Through Accredible's services, students can also add recommendations to their certifications. So, instead of doing it the old-school way--asking a professor to mail an actual letter--all you have to do is ask once, and the recommendation becomes a part of your digital badge.
All of these startups are just a small piece of what Carey's book paints as the bigger long-term picture: "A thriving ecosystem of nonprofit and for-profit organizations [that] will develop around the core education providers, offering students a range of services to support, facilitate, and improve their educational experience." |
As a child of the 60’s, I can remember another time in history when our nation was faced with such polarization that it lost much of what we had all been raised to believe in – that each person had a right to free speech. Those were contentious times and people confronted one another philosophically and violently around such issues as civil rights, the Vietnam War, feminism and justice.
In the last 5 years, we have experienced more violence in our communities than ever before and seeing people’s reaction to it by creating even more violence and death. We have 24/7 news access and more advanced technology than ever before and yet we witness behavior that seems primitive.
We have shows that talk about bullying and the damage it is doing to our young people and that drugs have become an epidemic, and diabetes and obesity are killing our youth. Big issues in our country require people being willing to play a bigger game to work together and let go of their fixed beliefs and individual ideology and world views to be able to see something bigger than themselves, their emotions and individual perspectives.
Coaching people for over 25 years I have the opportunity to listen to many worldviews and perspectives that are different than my own. However, my commitment to respect different perspectives and to look together with my client at possibilities, to see beyond immediate circumstances, is what is needed to create something new. Following are some simple rules of civility that can help us all come together with an understanding of the issues and work to create solutions.
Re-evaluate what you believe in – be willing to look at different perspectives. Are you willing to have an open mind and perhaps change your point of view?
Try to understand what you see and what you hear versus react and respond in judgment at the way people are expressing themselves.
Remember the loudest voice is not always the voice of reason.
Don’t give up and sit on the sidelines judging the game – get in the game and be a part of reinventing the game by playing a bigger game.
Remember, just because you do not agree does not mean the other person is wrong.
Come from respect and the values you want your children to follow.
We are living in a diverse world and learning to get along at a global level like never before. Each person has a voice and can make an impact – technology has given us that. As Americans, we have the right to express ourselves. However, with that comes the responsibility to speak respectfully and thoughtfully in a way that people can hear and understand what we are saying.
I believe that from chaos we will create order; that has always been what changes our world and we must always have faith in the fact that each of us makes a difference. |
This month’s project: ZIPPER PULLS!
Doodle Crate tends to focus on a single craft and contains only what you’ll need for the project. This month, it’s all about string art!
The booklet lists everything included in the crate, and there’s also a brief background on the history of string making. Doodle Crate even produces a video tutorial for each project and the link is usually provided on the booklet.
The first activity is making a stitched zipper pull. From start to finish, there are detailed step by step instructions so it’s practically impossible to go off track. They also provided design inspirations and stitching tips.
Next activity is making a spirelli zipper pull. It’s more complicated than a stitched zipper pull, but thankfully there are very specific illustrations that accompany the instructions.
This Crate is suitable for a wide range of ages, and older kids and adults can bring as much complexity to their projects as they want. Thanks to these high-quality photos of design inspirations, we’re even more excited to try out the activity for ourselves!
I saved our box for my daughter and a friend on a playdate – not every month has enough for 2 kids to complete, but this project did.
The girls used markers from home to plan out their designs.
Then they got to stitching! This no-knot project used tape to secure the string on the back of the keychain.
The girls worked intently on this project for a good 45 minutes for one keychain. They both made fairly intricate designs.
When they completed their designs they attached the bag clips onto the wooden keychains and secured the back threads with the included felt (which was self-stick).
Next was the Spirelli project. My daughter noted it made a design just like a spirograph. The girls really loved the results on these bag tags!
Alas, I only got pics of my daughter’s designs – her friend was so excited she squirreled them away immediately.
This month’s stitching project is fun and more suitable for older kids as it involves the use of needles (around 7+ is fine!). Everything needed for the project is included in the crate and we can’t stress enough how much we appreciate the thorough instructions and guidance which never leaves us confused. Overall, we think that Doodle Crate is a great subscription for anyone who loves crafts and although it’s targeted for the tweens and teens, even adults will find the projects interesting! |
These poems engage the life of the famed Mexican muralist Jose “David” Alfaro Siqueiros, whose vision of a free, generous, and artistically liberated Mexico, completely responsive to both its people and its history, unified and informed his inner and outer worlds. It is a book about the muralist’s sensibility, about the way in which his experimental art and his human concerns synthesized in his work to become his vision. Less a biography than an interpretation of one artist’s sensibility in love, in war, and in painting, it is unlike the usual collection of “stand alone” studio poems, but is rather an interdependent sequence that argues out its dialectic in a connected and accretive way. The result is a magical and riveting work of historiography and the lyric imagination.
What an ambitious book. It's rare for me to feel that I actually have learned something about the real world from a book of poems! In this way, it reminds me a bit of Tom McGrath’s Letter to an Imaginary Friend. The scope of the book is wonderful...and even so I wished it were longer. So much happens in those 84 pages. But as you say, it is a kind of mural so I suppose that is in the nature of the form: that a great deal can happen, can sprawl across a single wall.
It is quite a story and, of course, I can see why you were taken by it: his courage, his passion, his bullheadedness (even wrongheadedness, I suppose), the sense that this is a life larger than life. And though you do write him as larger than life, it doesn't seem to me that you misrepresent him. What sticks in my mind most strongly are both the scenes of violence (especially the whipping death) and the scenes of love. So I guess it comes down to passion, to honoring it, to noting its dangers as well as its triumphs.
Bill Tremblay’s earlier Shooting Script: Door of Fire (2003) and his new book Magician’s Hat present a layered tableau, a palimpsest of the brief but intense period in Mexican history (1937 to 1940) developed in the first book as a cinematic scenario and deepened here by a dramatic presentation of the same period in the biography of David Alfaro Siqueiros, the prolific muralist whose revolutionary politics led to an unsuccessful attempt on Trotsky’s life earlier in the same year the assassination occurred. This book, like its predecessor, creates a vivid Mexico we can relive in our own time through Tremblay’s brilliant poetry. |
ON October 13 at noon, the hour of the apparition and the miracle, there were between fifty and seventy thousand people at the Cova da Iria. The whole population of Portugal was represented there. Many people among this multitude of witnesses gave their version of the prodigious events they contemplated that day. Their witness is an important historical fact from which we must draw all the consequences.
But the presence of these crowds, and the extraordinary reality of the solar miracle must not make us forget the apparition of Our Lady to the three little seers and the contents of Her last message. That is why, temporarily leaving aside the enormous mass of evidence that we have, in the present chapter we will content ourselves with explaining events from the viewpoint of our three seers and their usual entourage.
One had to be among the first to arrive at the Cova da Iria to be sure of having a place near the holm oak of the apparition.
« Since the 12th (says Maria Carreira), there were so many people, so many people… God knows how many ! All these people made so much noise they could be heard clear to our house. 2 They spent the night in the open air, without the slightest shelter.
However, Maria Rosa was troubled at the thought of disobeying her parish priest, who once again had recommended that she not go to the Cova da Iria. It was only the grave danger her daughter was in that made her decide to go, she later confessed before the commission of inquiry. For greater safety, she came armed with holy water, as Bernadette did after the apparition of February 14, 1858.
TI MARTO : AN UNSHAKEABLE TRUST. First they went to Ti Marto’s house. The crowd filled the whole house, for everybody, both the curious and the devout, wanted to speak to the seers. While Olimpia, who like her sister-in-law was impressed by so many priests “ who did not believe ”, feared the worst, Manuel Pedro remained supremely calm : « I am going because I have faith in it », he declared. « I’m not at all afraid and am quite sure that everything will go off all right ! » The children, too, were quite calm ; neither Jacinta nor Francisco were in the least perturbed. But what a trial for them with all this hustle and bustle ! They were undoubtedly about to go through the most exhausting day of their life !
« “ Come on, ladies, none of that ! ” For they seemed to think that they had the power of saints. After a lot of trouble and interruptions we at last arrived at the Cova da Iria.
« The crowd was so thick that you couldn’t pass through. It was then that a chauffeur picked up my Jacinta and pushed and shoved his way to the lantern arch, shouting out : “ Make way for the children who saw Our Lady ! ” I went behind him, and Jacinta, who was frightened to see me among so many people, began to cry out : “ Don’t push my father, don’t hurt him ! ” The chauffeur at last put her down by the tree but there, too, the crush was so great that she began to cry. Then Lucy and Francisco made their way into the middle of it.
Maria Rosa, who had succeeded in remaining there, near her daughter, did not forget to give Lucy a motherly counsel : « Look carefully, Lucy, make no mistake ! » But Our Lady was already appearing over the holm oak, placing Her feet over the silk ribbons and flowers piously laid there the night before by the faithful Maria Carreira.
I am Our Lady of the Rosary.
Continue to say the Rosary every day.
The war will end soon and the soldiers will return to their homes.
– I have many things to ask of You : to heal some sick people and to convert some sinners, etc.
– Some, yes ; others no. People must amend their lives and ask pardon for their sins.
– Do you want anything more of me ?
– No, I want nothing more of you.
DURING THE APPARITION. While Our Lady was speaking with Lucy, just as on September 13 the crowd could see the same cloud forming around the holm oak, going up in the air before it disappeared.
« Then, opening Her hands (Lucy relates), Our Lady made them reflect on the sun, and as She ascended, the reflection of Her own light continued to be projected on the sun itself.
It was at this precise moment that the crowd could contemplate the extraordinary spectacle of the “ dance of the sun ”. The rain had suddenly stopped, the clouds were quickly dispersed and the sky was clear. Let us be content here to report the facts briefly, since later on, using the statements of numerous witnesses, we shall present each of the phases of this wonderful prodigy.
« We looked easily at the sun, which did not blind us. It seemed to flicker on and off, first one way and then another. It shot rays in different directions and painted everything in different colours – the trees, the people, the air and the ground. What was most extraordinary was that the sun did not hurt our eyes at all.
Before going on with the account of the events, and the end of this wonderful day, which was so trying for the three seers, let us pause a moment to comment on this final message of Our Lady at the Cova da Iria.
« When the sun was back to normal, relates Mr. Carlos Mendes (this young lawyer we have already spoken of), I took Lucy in my arms to lead her to the road. Thus my shoulders were the first platform from which she would preach the message Our Lady had confided to her.
« With great enthusiasm and great faith she shouted : “ Do penance ! Do penance ! Our Lady wants you to do penance ! If you do penance, the war will end… ” (In Portuguese, to do penance is equivalent to “ being converted, returning to God, fleeing sin ”, and not “ performing mortifications ”.) She appeared inspired. It was really impressive to hear her. Her voice had intonations like the voice of a great prophet (and Mr. Mendes is very insistent on this impression of the supernatural in the words and attitude of Lucy at this moment).
The second request of the Blessed Virgin is also very important and practical ; moreover, it is inseparable from the first, as the means is inseparable from the end that it alone can procure.
Sister Lucy takes pleasure in stressing this point : in each of Her six apparitions, “ our Heavenly Mother ” made sure to repeat Her request, always in the same terms, with the same insistence : « Recite the Rosary every day ! » This shows how much this beautiful prayer, so traditional in the Church, is supremely pleasing to Her motherly heart.
Far from being a completely secondary and optional devotion, the Virgin of Fatima came to reveal to us that the Rosary is the most ordinary condition to infallibly obtain all the graces that we ask of Her. Yes, She is the Mediatrix of all graces, by the good pleasure of Her Son. But this outpouring of favours which She holds in Her Heart, She can only release on each of our souls, our families, our countries and the world, in response to the humble and suppliant imploring of innumerable Rosaries. If, just as at Lourdes, She willed to appear at the Cova da Iria holding in Her hand this blessed instrument, guide of our prayers, it was to show us that it is the surest means, because it is the easiest and the humblest, of winning Her Heart and obtaining Her graces. Such is indeed the message of Fatima, which on this point is only repeating and developing that of Lourdes, but with even more vigour.
Our Lady here speaks the language of a mother who knows her children and what their true good is, while they themselves, poor and blind as they are, very often delude themselves, mostly desiring what would contribute to their ruin : material favours, the suppression of all crosses, and in short, the immediate satisfaction of all their desires.
On June 13 : « I asked for the healing of a sick person », Lucy recalls. « If he is converted, he will be healed during the year. » On July 13 : Maria Carreira, this exemplary Christian, animated by such a great love for the Most Holy Virgin, asked for the healing of John, her crippled son. « He will not be healed and he will remain poor. But he must recite the Rosary every day with his family and he will be able to make a living. » And so John Carreira kept his infirmities, but he nevertheless became sacristan of the “ Capelinha ”, and thus spent the whole of his long life in the shadow of Our Lady’s sanctuary. Rather than healing him, Our Lady had chosen for him a life full of suffering, prayer and service.
On August 19 : « I would like to ask You for the healing of some sick people. » « Yes, I will heal some of them during the year. » And on September 13 : « I will heal some, but others, no, because Our Lord does not trust Himself to them. » These words may seem harsh, but their tonality is so much in line with the Gospel : « Many believed in His name, seeing His signs which He did ; but Jesus did not trust Himself unto them, for that He knew all men, and because He needed not that any should give testimony of man ; for He knew what was in man. » (Jn. 2 : 23-25) No, Our Lady of Fatima does not have “ confidence in men ” any more than Her Divine Son ! And if She said, « Our Lord does not trust Himself to them », of those who prayed to Her with their lips, but whose heart was far from Her, what would She say, a fortiori, of Her declared enemies who glory in their impiety ?
“ TO OBTAIN THESE GRACES DURING THE YEAR. ” Our Lady also wishes to recall to our minds another lesson of the Gospel, which is as important as it is little known. To obtain a grace, it is not enough to ask for it once in passing… We must desire it ardently and ask for it insistently, with confidence, without ever giving up. This is undoubtedly why the Blessed Virgin, responding to the requests Lucy had made to Her, promised to hear them, but not immediately. On June 13 She said, regarding a sick person : « If he is converted, he will be healed during the year. » She said the same thing on July 13 : it is necessary to recite the Rosary every day « to obtain these graces during the year. » Finally, on September 13, regarding a little deaf mute Lucy was interceding for : « In a year from now, she will be better. » And on October 13, Our Lady responded to all the requests of Lucy by saying that « She would grant certain graces during the year. » 36 What an eloquent lesson to encourage us to pray with greater perseverance !
Just as at Lourdes, although Her confidants had of course recognized Her right away, She did not wish to reveal Her name at once. Why this delay, why this mystery, if not to draw our attention still more to a name which, as is always the case in the Bible, is the concrete expression and effective evocation of the very mystery of the person ? At Massabielle, Our Lady had not revealed Her name until March 25, at the sixteenth apparition : « I am the Immaculate Conception. » And, observed Bernadette, « these are the last words She spoke to me. » 37 At Fatima as well, She did not reveal Her name until the last of Her appearances : « I am Our Lady of the Rosary. » This name calls to mind a whole mystery which we shall explore little by little.
Let us admire the immense modesty of these words, which established the pilgrimage. Canon Formigao himself is astonished at them… On the evening of October 13, he asks Lucy : « Did Our Lady say She wanted many people to come, from everywhere ? » « No, She didn’t order anyone to come here », 39 is the answer. « Go tell the priests to have a chapel built here », the Immaculate had asked Bernadette on March 2, 1858. At Fatima it is the same request, marked by the same charming discretion, without there even being any mention of the clergy : « I want a chapel to be built here in My honour. » And that is all ! What modesty… but also what power ! To draw the crowds to the place She had chosen, She has other means, much more divine and efficacious than grandiose, wordy appeals : Her irresistible attractions, which in a few years would lead the whole good Portuguese people to Her feet, in spite of the opposition of the government and indifference of the priests, are the prodigies and graces that flow profusively from Her motherly hands, on all the pilgrims at the Cova da Iria.
Barely one year later, Her request will be fulfilled ; but ever so modestly, and without the help of the parish priest ! It was due purely to the initiative of a humble peasant, Maria Carreira. On August 6, 1918, construction was begun on a small commemorative chapel, the “ Capelinha ”, built on the very spot of the apparitions. Since that time, at Aljustrel, Maria Carreira was known by the charming and well merited nickname of “ Maria de Capelinha ”. And on May 13, 1928, the cornerstone of the great basilica of the Rosary was laid by the Archbishop of Evora.
To illustrate the joyful mysteries, first appears the Holy Family : St. Joseph and the Child Jesus blessing the world, and on the left, Our Lady, such as She appeared on the holm oak.
Finally, corresponding to the glorious mysteries, Lucy could see Our Lady of Mount Carmel. « Why did you say that the Lady at one moment seemed to be dressed like Our Lady of Mount Carmel ? » Canon Formigao asked Lucy on the evening of October 13. « Because She had something hanging from Her hand », she answered. Thus She was holding the scapular in Her hand, just as She had held the Rosary in all Her previous apparitions. We will return later to this important detail.
OUR LADY OF THE ROSARY, QUEEN OF PEACE. If the title chosen by Our Lady of Fatima is reminiscent of the three sets of mysteries in Her life, the joyful, sorrowful and glorious mysteries, it also reminds us of Her powerful intervention in the life of the Church and defence of Christendom. Surely this is even the most specific character of this Marian title. Since the time of St. Dominic, since the time of St. Pius and the victory of Lepanto, on October 7, 1571, which was miraculously repeated in 1716 at the walls of Vienna, Our Lady of the Most Holy Rosary is invoked as the rampart of Christendom under assault, the final recourse in the greatest perils. At Fatima, Our Lady came to reveal that She is the only dispensatrix of the gift of peace. We will see that this is even one of the essential points of Her great secret.
October 1917 : The three seers, in the company of pilgrims from Vila Nova de Ourem, under the porch built by the Carreira family to mark the location of the apparition.
« Almost every day, people went to the Cova da Iria to implore the protection of our heavenly Mother. Everyone wanted to see the seers, to put questions to them, and to recite the Rosary with them.
« At times, I was so tired of saying the same thing over and over again, and also of praying, that I looked for any pretext for excusing myself and making my escape. But those poor people were so insistent, that I had to make an effort, and indeed no small effort, in order to satisfy them. I then repeated my usual prayer deep down in my heart : “ O my God, it is for love of You, in reparation for the sins committed against the Immaculate Heart of Mary, for the conversion of sinners, and for the Holy Father ”. » (II, p. 82-83).
On the evening of October 13, Canon Formigao wished to interrogate the three seers separately. He managed to do so, once he was able to drag them away from the crowds of curious people, not without difficulty.
One episode of this interrogation, concerning the threefold vision in the sky enjoyed by the seers during the dance of the sun, deserves to be quoted.
« “ All these apparitions came at the same time, did they not ? ” asked the Canon, setting a trap for Lucy.
« From the beginning I had had a presentiment that the apparitions were true, he recounts. Thus I confess that I was almost trembling when I asked this question, and that I had to make an effort to state my question in an affirmative tone. Although it would not have been, strictly speaking, impossible for the children to have had a simultaneous vision of the three Images of the Blessed Virgin, it would clearly have created a serious difficulty.
The adversaries of Fatima have not failed to stress – no doubt to divert attention from their total disarray when faced with the unquestionable fact of the miracle of the sun – that the descriptions of the vision seen by the three children present numerous variations, and even several doubts or contradictions on details. Thus in the vision of the Holy Family, according to Lucy, the Child Jesus was « in the arms of St. Joseph », while according to Jacinta and Francisco He was « standing next to him ». But in such a case the contradiction can only be apparent, and can only come from the misunderstanding of such and such an expression of the interrogator, or an inability of the children to explain themselves with precision.
We may hope that the great critical study of Father Alonso, in confronting all the sources and also using the replies of Lucy to new, more precise interrogations, will unquestionably permit us to clarify the majority of difficulties of this kind.
Let us also point out that the rapid succession of these living images which replaced each other, one after the other, in the dazzling light, partly explains the difficulty Lucy experienced in making a firm and precise description. Let us not forget, after all, that she was only ten ! Even with her usual good memory, the means of expression of a child of that age, who was still illiterate, were limited. The three seers were also in a state of extreme fatigue, both on the evening of October 13 and during the whole following week, which diminished the usual firmness and precision of their replies. We will return to this point in the context of another difficulty raised by their statements.
Such are the facts. According to Canon Martins dos Reis, they raise « what is certainly the most difficult and serious objection in all the problems associated with Fatima. » 5 How could Our Lady have said, « the war will end today », when the armistice would not be signed until November 11, 1918, thirteen months later ?
This explanation would indeed be the simplest… But is it not in fact too easy ? Not without reason has this argument been turned around against its author : As long as this supposed secret accord has not been discovered, its purely theoretical possibility does not explain the disconcerting declaration of the seers : « The war will end today. » Moreover, is it not logical to believe that if an agreement of such decisive importance had taken place that day, it would have been known for a long time ? More than seventy years have passed since the events, and the author does not supply any concrete decisive fact in favour of his hypothesis.
« The war will end and the soldiers will return home soon. » This is the formula retained by Lucy as the most certain ; nor can she be accused of inventing it later on to tidy up the affair. It is just as well attested as the other expression : « the war will end today ».
We have then for this version a whole series of certain testimonies, confirmed by other affirmations of Our Lady, from previous apparitions, which are exactly identical. We know that in the great secret of July 13, Our Lady had already announced : « The war will end », and on September 13 she had repeated the same prophecy. « The war is to end », says the report of the pastor, Father Ferreira, dated September 15.
THE PROPHECY FULFILLED. This announcement of the approaching end of the war was verified by the events, first for Portugal and then for the other belligerents.
Even if, as in the majority of biblical prophecies, the diverse plans are not clearly distinguished, a whole part of the message of Fatima concerns first of all the “ land of Holy Mary ”. In 1916 it was first for their own nation that the “ Angel of Portugal ” had invited the three shepherds to sacrifice themselves : « In this way you will draw down peace on your homeland. » The definite reference of Our Lady to the approaching return of the soldiers (« Soon the soldiers will go home ») shows that Her words, « the war will end », concerned first of all Portugal and its expeditionary corps.
We will show at length in Volume II that it was effectively in the autumn of 1917, and even precisely in the municipal elections of October 14, that the political turnaround which would determine the future of the nation began. Portugal had been involved in the war since March 9, 1916, and the 40, 000 men sent to the French front had begun fighting in the spring of 1917. Yet, after the coup d’État of Sidonio Pais on December 8, 1917, the Portuguese participation in the war would be ended earlier than expected. Indeed in April 1918, the new government decided to recall its expeditionary corps and only a contingent of volunteers continued the war on the French front.
More generally speaking, in spite of the entrance of the United States into the conflict, which rendered the final victory of the Allies certain, the bitterness and uncertainty of the battles of 1918 showed that in October 1917, the date of the end of the war remained completely uncertain. A collapse of the French front before one of the terrible German offensives of 1918 could have notably prolonged the duration of the hostilities. This means that even as far as the world war is concerned, the words of Our Lady, « the war shall end soon », retain all their prophetic value. We shall return to this point later on.
The other words that the seers attributed to Our Lady on the evening of October 13 remain to be explained. Even before looking to determine the precise phrase pronounced by the apparition, we can definitely affirm that Lucy and Jacinta certainly misunderstood Her words in believing that the battles would cease that very day. Sister Lucy herself recognized it quite simply. However, the explanations she gives us are very valuable for understanding the psychological reasons as well as the limits of her error.
OCTOBER 13 : THE TERRIBLE TRIAL OF THE INTERROGATIONS. Along with this insufficient attention at the very moment of the apparition, we must also take into account another important psychological factor : the extreme fatigue of the seers on October 13, as well as in following days.
RUMOURS OF THE END OF THE WAR. And during this afternoon of October 13, Lucy was probably influenced by the ideas of some overenthusiastic pilgrims who imagined that the miracle of the sun would be accompanied by the immediate end of the war.
In effect, since Our Lady in Her messages had often requested prayers to end the war, many journalists, going beyond the exact sense of Her words, dared to present the cessation of combat on October 13 as a prophecy of the apparition.
This gives us a good insight into the psychological causes of Lucy’s error : during the apparition, her attention was distracted by her concern for all the requests to be passed on ; and right after, there were continuous questions on the date of the end of the war, suggesting the erroneous response of an immediate peace. Finally on the evening of October 13, in her extreme fatigue, Lucy was convinced Our Lady had announced that the war would end that very day.
« Even in the evening the interrogations did not let up », 20 she writes in her Memoirs. It was around seven o’clock in the evening when Canon Formigao arrived to interrogate the seers. Lucy had to respond to all his questions, and it was then perhaps that she pronounced for the first time the incomplete and therefore unfortunate phrase : « Our Lady said… that the war would end today. » She no longer made any mention either of the condition (« they must convert ! ») or the delay (« the war will end. »). The investigator, who understood her response as an affirmation by Our Lady of an immediate and miraculous suspension of the fighting, was troubled by it… Perhaps this was the main reason why he decided to come back on the 19th for new interrogations, hoping no doubt to complete them under better conditions. Alas, this would not be the case !
With clear perception, he summed up the situation : « Lucy especially, because she was interrogated the longest, could not be more fatigued, and her state of exhaustion causes her to respond to the questions put to her without attention and the desirable reflection. She responds sometimes almost mechanically and she comes to the point that often she cannot well recall certain circumstances of the apparitions. This is contrary to what she did before October 13th.
This excessive fatigue and its consequences – the lack of desirable attention and reflection – do they sufficiently explain the stubbornness of Lucy in believing that Our Lady had announced the immediate end of the war ? We may think so. Or was she possibly led into error by the very words of the apparition which she may have remembered, but simply misunderstood ?
Indeed, it is not impossible that the Virgin Mary Herself pronounced the contentious phrase that Lucy and Jacinta attributed to Her so firmly. Yes, She might have said, « The war will end today », but in a context that would have made its precise meaning clear.
This is the solution proposed by one of the best historians of Fatima, Father Messias Dias Coelho, in his masterly work O que falta para a conversâo da Russia. 23 The Most Holy Virgin may have said : « Let men amend their lives and the war will end today. » With the two prophecies linked to one another in this way, the words of Our Lady would not be a prophecy of a sudden and miraculous end of the hostilities, but a conditional promise to grant peace when men conform to Her desires.
We could then perfectly understand where Lucy’s error lay : she literally reported the words pronounced by Our Lady, but separating the two propositions which were linked : « Let men amend their lives and the war will end today », entirely transforming the character of the second proposition, removing its conditional character. 24 A twofold series of solid arguments can be advanced in favour of this solution.
THE STATEMENTS OF THE SEERS. Lucy herself, immediately after the apparition, seems to have repeated the words of Our Lady in their conditional form. Doctor Carlos Mendes reports that, while he carried her in his arms towards the road, she shouted : « Do penance ! Do penance ! Our Lady wants you to do penance ! If you do penance, the war will end ! » 25 But very quickly, under the influence of fatigue and incessant questions, Lucy forgot the link between these two propositions and when she was asked about the end of the war, she answered with the only phrase that mentioned war : « the war will end », or « the war will end today ».
But we have a proof that Jacinta retained a better recollection of the words of Our Lady and their conditional meaning. In her account of the apparitions written in 1922 Lucy writes : « Then I understood that Our Lady had said to me : “ When I go back to Heaven, the war will end today. ” But my cousin Jacinta said that this is what She had said : “ If the people amend their lives, the war will end today. ” This is why I cannot affirm how She pronounced these words. » 26 This important text, of which Father Messias Dias Coelho was unaware, confirms his hypothesis.
What is more, we find a trace of this divergence of interpretation between the two seers in the Formigao interrogation of October 19, 1917. The Canon asked Jacinta : « What did Our Lady say this last time ? » Jacinta answered : « I come here to tell you not to offend Our Lord any more, for He is already too much offended. If the people amend their lives, the war will end; if they do not amend their lives, the world will end. » 27 Jacinta then had grasped the conditional meaning of the promise.
But the humble girl, who was used to trusting her older cousin, went on : « But Lucy heard what Our Lady said better than I did. » What is important is this : if, in the first three days following the apparition, Lucy and she had not even had time to consult each other, 28 they were surely able to do so before the 19th.
THE GENERAL CONTEXT OF THE MESSAGE. In addition to Jacinta’s testimony we can put forward in favour of the conditional version (« Let men amend their lives and the war will end today ») another weighty argument which is practically decisive – the consideration of the general context of the message.
Indeed an expression pronounced by the Blessed Virgin on May 13 sheds much light on Her requests of October 13. Already Lucy had asked Her then : « Can You tell me if the war will go on long, or will it end soon ? » And Our Lady answered : « I cannot tell you yet, because I have not yet told you what I want. » 30 From the beginning, then, Our Lady had announced that obtaining peace would depend on whether men obeyed Her requests. She had also made clear that only on October 13 would She solemnly express Her desires : « In October, I will tell you who I am and what I want. » Thus it becomes clearer how Her final message corresponds to this twofold announcement.
On October 13, Our Lady of the Rosary in effect solemnly redoubled all Her requests. We have every reason to believe that She proposed them as necessary preliminaries for peace. To the question that was then on everybody’s lips, « When will the war end ? Today ? » the Blessed Virgin responds : “ Men must do « what I want », they must be converted and say the Rosary, and then « the war will end, even today. » Mercifully, the chastisement will not last one day longer than the refusal of men to conform to My requests. ” This is undoubtedly the most probable meaning of the words pronounced by Our Lady, at least to the extent they can be reconstructed using the oldest testimonies of the seers and later declarations of Sister Lucy, as well as in the light of the general context of the message.
FROM THE PROMISE OF OCTOBER 13… TO THE GREAT SECRET. This promise of peace in response to the accomplishment of Her requests is found in the great secret of July 13 : « If men do what I tell you… there will be peace. » Far from being banal or utopian because the conditions could not be fulfilled, we will soon see the unprecedented and eschatological character of this offer of peace made to the world. This means that as of this day the divine decision had been declared : God in His mercy would expect nothing more than the fulfilment of the few requests in honour of the Immaculate Heart of Mary, to immediately (and miraculously) grant the gift of peace to humanity : « The war will end today » or as Lucy said : « I understood that Our Lady had said : “ When I arrive in Heaven, the war will end today. ” » « … and a certain period of peace will be granted to the world. » These are the last words of the Secret.
They forgot the exact order of the words of Our Lady.
Given their extreme fatigue and the questions that suggested to them an erroneous response, on the evening of October 13, Lucy believed in the imminent end of the war.
All these errors can easily be understood when we consider that the children were exhausted with fatigue, and in a sense they even prove the veracity of their witness : their stubbornness in reporting such baffling words clearly shows – yet another proof ! – that nobody was dictating the message to them, but, on the contrary they had it from Our Lady and Her alone ! Now after having manifested Her power by the prodigious “ dance of the sun ”, She allowed Her messengers to make this error in the transmission of Her message. For that matter, do we not find analogous difficulties in the Gospel accounts of the resurrection of Our Lord ?
(9) Quoted by De Marchi, p. 134.
(12) Testimony of Dr. Almeida Garrett, professor at the University of Coimbra. Quoted by Barthas, Fatima 1917-1968, p. 344.
(13) O Seculo, article of October 15, 1917. Quoted by Barthas, Fatima, Unprecedented Miracle, p. 296.
(14) Indeed, to be in the same time zone as the belligerents, the Portuguese governments had imposed a legal time 90 minutes ahead of the solar time.
(15) De Marchi, p. 133.
(16) Statement of Maria Rosa Pereira to the parish priest of Fatima on November 13, 1918. Quoted by Barthas, Fatima 1917-1968, p. 128.
(17) Quoted by Dom Jean-Nesmy, p. 101.
(18) We follow the account given in the Fourth Memoir (p. 172-173), which for that matter corresponds quite closely with Father Ferreira’s report, although the words of Our Lady are not given in the same order.
(20) Father Ferreira’s report. See Documentos, p. 501.
(22) De Marchi, (Orig.) p. 153. Maria Rosa declared the same thing herself during the canonical investigation.
(24) De Marchi, p. 135-136.
(25) De Marchi, p. 136.
(26) The Truth About Fatima, p. 111-112.
(28) Message of July 13..
(31) On the evening of the 13th, Lucy explained to Canon Formigao that Our Lady did not use the word “ penance ” : “ Did she say that the people were to do penance ? ” “ Yes. ” “ Did she use the word penance ? ” “ No. She said we were to say the Rosary and amend our lives and ask pardon of Our Lord, but She did not use the word penance. ” (De Marchi, p. 144.) Quoted by Barthas, Fatima, Great Miracle of the Twentieth Century, p. 324.
(32) Lk. 13 : 3.
(34) Letter of April 12, 1970, published by S. Martins dos Reis, Uma Vida, p. 372. When, at the conclusion, we will make a synthetic commentary on all the requests of Our Lady, we will quote these important letters at length : they combine mysticism and the deepest theological insights with numerous polemical points against the “ wave of diabolical folly ” sweeping over the world and even invading the Church.
(36) Letter of Sister Lucy to Father Gonçalves, May 18, 1941. Memorias e Cartas, p. 443.
(37) The last two apparitions of April 7 and July 16 were silent.
(39) Quoted by De Marchi, p. 145.
(40) Account of Sister Lucy given to John Haffert in 1946. Quoted by Barthas, Fatima 1917-1968, p. 135-136.
(41) De Marchi, p. 143.
The account of 1922 adds : « Our Lord appeared on the right of the sun, but we only saw the bust of His Head. On the other side was Our Lady of Sorrows, dressed in violet. They were surrounded by a light which seemed to blind us. » S. Martins dos Reis, Uma Vida, p. 319.
(43) Letter to Father Gonçalves, August 18, 1940. Memorias e Cartas, p. 427.
(1) De Marchi, p. 143. Undoubtedly we have here an example of an error committed by the investigator, for according to other sources, Our Lord continued to appear at the same time as Our Lady of Sorrows.
(2) Does this disparity have a symbolic meaning ? Does it evoke the different vocations of the three seers, as in the apparition of June 13 ? It is not impossible.
(3) A simple hypothesis : the expression ao colo, which literally means « around the neck of », but more generally « in the arms », may have been behind the misunderstanding.
(1) Documentos, p. 508, 510.
(2) « A guerra acaba ainda hoje. » Documentos, p. 501.
(5) Sintese Critica, p. 75-76.
(6) In Na Orbita de Fatima, p. 159-182 (1958), and again in Sintese Critica, p. 75-76 (1968).
(7) Sintese Critica, p. 75-76.
Canon Martins dos Reis himself recognizes that this version, « the war will end », is equally attested by written documents dating back to October 13 1917. Sintese Critica, p. 75.
(9) Memorias e Cartas, p. 445.
(10) Quoted by Barthas, Fatima, Great Miracle of the Twentieth Century, p. 324. As we will see, this last formula is no doubt the key to the understanding of the whole question. For if it is proven that Our Lady spoke in this manner, promising peace under a condition, it is no longer of any great importance whether she spoke in the present or future tense, or whether she said “ today ” or not, for then all the expressions would be equivalent. We will return to this point.
(11) Quoted by Barthas, Fatima 1917-1968, p. 138. The original text is in Fatima 50, October 1967, p. 14.
(12) A. M. Martins dos Reis, Memorias e Cartas, p. 443-444.
(13) Quoted by De Marchi, (Fr. Ed.), p. 221.
(17) Quoted by Barthas, Fatima, Unprecedented Miracle, p. 294.
(18) Cf. the article by Msgr. A. Borges, Fatima 50, October-November 1968.
(19) Letter of May 18, 1941 to Father Gonçalves, Memorias e Cartas, p. 443-445.
(22) De Marchi, p. 149-150. A simple reading over of the replies of Lucy to the interrogation of October 19 will show how well-founded the remarks of Canon Formigao were. Lucy hesitates in speaking not only about certain words of the apparition, but even about her own facts and gestures, which she no longer remembers. Here are two examples : « “ On the 13th did you tell the people to look at the sun ? ” “ I don’t remember doing that. ” “ Did you tell them to shut their umbrellas ? ” “ In the other months I did ; I don’t remember about this last time. ” » (De Marchi, p 150-151).
(23) P. 111 to 133 (Fundao, 1959).
(24) Eventually Father Simonin and Dom Jean-Nesmy (p. 229) rallied to this solution, which is as simple as it is judicious.
(25) Quoted by Barthas, Fatima, Great Miracle of the Twentieth Century, p. 324.
(26) S. Martins dos Reis, Uma Vida, p. 317.
(27) This last phrase should not mislead us. Undoubtedly it is the echo of the great secret announcing terrible chastisements on humanity if it is not converted : “ Several nations will be annihilated. ” Although the expression is clumsy, it supplies one more proof that the eschatological character of the secret was not invented twenty years later by Sister Lucy.
(29) Quoted by De Marchi, p. 154.
(31) It is sufficient to add the conjunction AND to the response Sister Lucy made to Canon Formigao on the evening of October 13, for the formula to be perfect and remove all difficulties : « Our Lady said we were to amend our lives and not offend Our Lord any more because He was too much offended already, and that we were to pray the Rosary and ask pardon for our sins [AND in this case), that the war would end today, and that we could expect our soldiers home shortly. » De Marchi, p. 144. |
Cyber Governance: Communication Design and Authoritarian Power in Cyberspace is my graduate thesis, completed for Pratt Institute’s MFA Communication Design Program in May 2016. This thesis is about technological politics. It aims to study what direction of social structure does the exercise of power within cyberspace lead us toward, and reveal how communication design, especially interaction design and interface design became the tool to establish authoritarianism in digital media.
Communication design in this medium creates the concept of “user experience”, which establishes a convenient lifestyle that incorporates corporeal behaviors and digital automations into a constant connected wireless network. However, the foundation of these pleasant experiences is the exchange of data, which translate from every aspect of physical conditions in our behavioral patterns, such as locations, biological features, gestures, brightness, time, movements, etc. Once these factors have been translated into data, it became documentable and transmissible. The distinction between physical and digital is ambiguous that dominance power agents are able to manipulate the form of interfaces to entice users embrace these technologies and contribute more data. This process is definitely the exercise of authoritarian power.
The design of this publication embodies the characteristic of “cyber” that distinguish from other communication medium: ambiguous and ubiquitous. The typographical design reveals the essential of this technology: massive metadata and documentations. Monotype has been used in typewriters, which can be found in official documents in authoritarian institutions. However, it also been used in coding environments. Therefore, by referencing the visual elements of official documents and programming environments, the design of these book reference a “raw” archive, play with the ambiguity between physical and digital conditions, which let audience reconsider the data translation and documentation behind these technology.
This publication included my thesis paper and all related design projects, an interview by Tim Jordan who propose the concept of “cyberpower”; two essays relate to the topic, “A Declaration of Independence in Cyberspace” by John Perry Barlow and “The Californian Ideology” by Richard Barbrook and Andy Cameron, and the transcript of the video “A Message to the Citizens of the World” produce by hacktivist group Anonymous. |
Miss Pratt is the class teacher.
Miss Sadler is the Learning Support Assistant in the class.
This page will keep you well informed of what Squirrels are learning each term as well as important pieces of information.
We have had a busy half term in Squirrels class!
In English we have focused on the story The Enormous Turnip. We had lots of fun exploring turnips, even painting with them! We used puppets to help us learn the story and spent lots of time acting out the story with our friends. At the end of the half term we came up with our own ideas to write our own stories. We have focused on adjectives and time connectives in our story writing.
In Maths we have spent the half term securing our knowledge of number. We have spent lots of time practicing our counting and ensuring we are able to identify one more or one less of a given number. We have enjoyed lots of practical learning which has helped deepen our understanding! We are now starting to look at addition, we will continue to use lots of practical methods in our learning.
Our topic this term is stories from around the world and we have had lots of fun learning different stories from places such as Africa, Australia and France. We will continue this next half term, exploring more countries as we go along. We have learned about Vincent Van Gogh in Art and about our senses in Science. We had lots of fun exploring our senses, particularly the taste test!
In English this half term we have been learning about the story How to Catch a Star. A star landed in our playground and it was our job to look after it! We built rockets, made moon dough and became astronauts as we explored the story. We then innovated the story and came up with our own versions. The children produced some fantastic stories!
In Maths we spent the half term exploring addition, using the mastery approach to maths to really embed our understanding. We looked at part/whole models, fact families and number bonds using lots of practical resources to help us in our learning. We have been using STEM sentences in our learning to help us explain how we know the answers to our questions, this has really helped us deepen our understanding. The children have definitely become masters of addition!
We have continued to learn about stories from different countries in topic. We have learned about the different continents around the world and different stories from each continent. We even used the chrome books to create our very own e-books!
Imagine our surprise when we came back after Christmas to learn that Mrs Burns had lost fruit ALL around the school! We decided we would help her and go on a fruit hunt. We found a juicy mango, a yellow banana, a creamy avocado and a round orange... just like in Handa's Surprise! The children have had a great time learning about Handa in English and have used the most wonderful adjectives in their writing. We have just finished writing our own versions of the story, where Handa lost cupcakes, sweets and even some toys on her way to visit Akeyo!
In maths we have moved on to look at subtraction, following the same mastery approach that we used for addition. We have spent lots of time exploring practical ways to represent subtraction, using the power of 3 method where we have to answer it, prove it then show it. We have also continued to use STEM sentences, which we are becoming really good at! |
Cyber attacks are a worrying trend, with the US saying its systems are under constant attack, while the UK estimated that cyber crime costs the country £27 billion a year.
The prime security focus of corporate IT departments has been guarding desktop computers and laptops used throughout an organization with firewalls and anti-virus software.
But with the growing use of smartphones and tablets in the corporate world, companies are becoming aware of mobile security threats and the way in which wireless devices are being used to send and receive sensitive information.
The California Department Insurance and the California Department of Managed Care are conducting their own investigation into Health Nets loss of several server drives that contained enrollee and employee information.
The state insurance departments independent follow-up investigation would determine whether the health insurer did everything it could have to avoid and remedy the security breach. The other regulators investigation would also look into the insurers security practices.
RIM is asking Blackberry users to turn off a component of the internet browser after finding a critical breach in the system.
U.S. urges U.N. to take military action against Libya.
American and allied diplomats pressed the United Nations Security Council on Thursday to authorize a broad range of military actions against Libya, making a last-minute effort to prevent Moammar Kadafis advancing forces from completely overrunning the outgunned rebels.
In a shift from their earlier caution on military action, U.S. officials urged the council diplomats in a morning meeting to vote for a resolution that would permit airstrikes on Libyan ground forces and aircraft, which have encircled the rebel stronghold of Benghazi.
Egypts dreaded State Security agency has been dissolved, but many doubt the power of the secret police has really been broken after decades of using torture, intimidation and spying to intervene in almost all aspects of life. Egyptians fear some of its 100,000 members are still working underground to derail the countrys bumpy transition to democracy.
Under Hosni Mubaraks nearly 30-year rule, State Security was above the law. It spied on anyone suspected of dissident opinions, oversaw media, disrupted political activity and had the final say on who filled posts from government ministers to university professors.
Despite being annoying, uncomfortable and invasive, most travellers say security patdowns at airports are necessary, but not everyone is convinced they would be effective in deterring an attack.
Nearly 85 percent of air passengers questioned in a global Reuters poll said the measures, which are considered by some to be a violation of human rights, are warranted but a hassle, although 40 of travellers say the measures would not catch anyone determined to cause harm.
The Transportation Security Administration announced Friday that it would retest every full-body X-ray scanner that emits ionizing radiation �€” 247 machines at 38 airports �€” after maintenance records on some of the devices showed radiation levels 10 times higher than expected.
The TSA says that the records reflect math mistakes and that all the machines are safe. Indeed, even the highest readings listed on some of the records �€” the numbers that the TSA says were mistakes �€” appear to be many times less than what the agency says a person absorbs through one day of natural background radiation.
Symantec has discovered suspicious code within a repackaged version of the Android Market Security Tool.
The Tool was originally published by Google to combat the Android.Rootcager virus that was downloaded to users phones via apps containing malware, hosted on the Android Marketplace.
Symantec found the version of the tool containing suspicious code on an unregulated third-party Chinese marketplace.
The U.S. Federal Trade Commission has closed the book on its legal action against Twitter, stemming from two 2009 hacking incidents where high-profile Twitter users -- including President Barack Obama -- lost control of their accounts.
They make the news on a regular basis: incidents in which a company or government agencys security is breached, leading to a loss of information, personal records, or other data. There are many ways to measure the size or cost of a security breach. Some result in the loss of millions of data records, some affect millions of people, and some wind up costing the affected businesses a lot of money. Not to mention, the questions of you calculate the value of personal medical information vs. credit card numbers.
An earthquake and tsunami hit Japan and killed hundreds of people last Friday and destroyed $10 billion of infrastructure.
After the natural disaster paralyzing the city of Tokyo, there were five nuclear reactors is now in danger of leaking when their cooling systems failed. The nuclear meltdown in Fukushima forced the government to evacuate nearly 14,000 people near the power plant.
In the updates regarding the nuclear meltdown in Fukushima, Kyodo News reported that there were three reactors affected by the earthquake.
The personal information of some 31,000 faculty, staff, retirees and students at the University of South Carolina was exposed on the Internet, officials said.
The breach is the third time in two years USC has experienced a major breach of security on its computer system, The State newspaper reported.
Google Android users need to be wary of rogue apps that try to steal personal data from their handset, says Internet security firm Bullguard.
The security researchers issued the warning as it was revealed that more than 50 malicious apps had been discovered in the Android Market.
Chinas warning that it will not tolerate any Arab-style protests has been backed up by increased security on the streets.
Police in Beijing kept a close watch on Tiananmen Square. Security patrols were stepped up around a main shopping area, where an online call had urged people to protest.
Beijing has tightened censorship and reporting restrictions. Controls and checks on foreign tourists and journalists have also been increased.
Cooperative Extension family living specialists have developed a website to give people more information about tax credits, including eligibility.
For working families struggling to make ends meet, starting a savings account might seem out of reach. But studies suggest that when refunds exceed expectations, the odds of taxpayers saving some of the surplus goes up.
That's one plan the TSA is considering.
In an effort to attract and retain students interested in cyber sleuthing for the CIA, National Security Agency and U.S. Homeland Security, the federal government announced last week that it has tabbed DSU as a source for cyber security professionals.
That means for the next four years, National Science Foundation dollars will cover up to eight undergraduate and graduate students' annual college costs and pay them a stipend of $8,000 to $12,000 a year as well, said Josh Pauli, associate professor of Information Assurance at Dakota State.
Choosing to carry luggage onto a plane instead of checking it with an airline might save a few bucks at the ticket counter, but it is costing taxpayers about a quarter-billion dollars a year.
Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano told Congress this week that luggage fees have prompted more passengers to hold onto their bags. That means more items for Transportation Security Administration officers to inspect at security checkpoints, at a cost of about $260 million annually.
Another week, another tech giant getting into privacy trouble. Google has nabbed the �€œprivacy outrage spotlight�€ this week over its collection of the last four digits of children�€™s social security numbers in an art contest �€” Doodle 4 Google.
The possible government shutdown scheduled for March 4, 2011 could trigger a cyberwar emergency. If non-essential government employees end up being furloughed in early March, the federal governments computer systems will be run by a shortlist of critical-need employees.
One major problem: The federal government's list of critical-need computer security employees has not been updated in over 15 years.
According to the influential Nextgov website, the government's emergency call-up IT security list was last updated in 1995, ahead of the last federal government shutdown.
Last weekend skiers were shot, an explosive device damaged a lift and a car bomb was defused. With the next Winter Olympics taking place in Sochi there are real concerns over security and much is being decided behind the scenes. |
Osteoarthritis is one of the most common diseases people encounter as we age. Osteoarthritis is “wear and tear” arthritis. It occurs as microscopic damage occurs to the cartilage on the ends of the bones in our joints. The cartilage has a very limited ability to heal and as the damage to the cartilage occurs over time the cartilage becomes more and more rough losing its smoothness.
As the surface becomes more rough it tends to cause additional damage and accelerates the osteoarthritis. As the cartilage wears away the bone underneath sees increased stress and can become very hard or calcified. The bone recognizes this stress and tries to get bigger to spread the stress over a greater area and can form bone spurs or osteophytes near the joint.
Osteoarthritis is the number one condition Dr. Zavoyski treats at Delray Orthopaedic Center. He has specialized training and expertise in the treatment of this disease and has multiple options to treat the pain that usually accompanies osteoarthritis.
Unfortunately there is no “cure” for osteoarthritis and most treatments are designed to treat the pain. Typically the ultimate treatment after trying other conservative measures is usually a total hip or knee replacement.
If you are having kneeor hip pain, please make an appointment with Dr. Zavoyski for an evaluation. He will be able to best serve you from the initial evaluation, conservative treatments, and if needed a total hip or knee replacement surgery. |
If you have developed symptoms of gum (periodontal) disease, a regular cleaning might be insufficient. The earliest stage of gum disease, gingivitis, is typically treated with a regular cleaning; however, when you progress to the next stage, called periodontitis, scaling and root planing (SRP) are indicated. This is a simple procedure performed by Dr. Heher to help clean areas of bone loss, by removing built-up plaque and tartar from below the gumline. Using special instrumentation, a SRP treatment at Smiles! Dentistry by Dr. Joseph Heher cleans any pocketing below the gumline, then smooths the teeth to prevent future buildup. If you are concerned about your gums, learn more about SRP at Smiles! Dentistry by Dr. Joseph Heher in Salisbury, MD.
During your dental exam, Dr. Heher will assess the depth of your gum pockets. If the pockets, also known as sulci, are greater than three millimeters, a scaling and root planing treatment could be recommended. SRP can help reduce the depth of your gum pockets so plaque and bacteria cannot collect in those areas preventing bone loss. Some of the early symptoms of periodontal disease include swollen, reddened (as opposed to pink) and/or bleeding gums which may or may not have started to recede. If periodontal disease is diagnosed at the onset, one or more SRP sessions can improve symptoms. However, if gum disease has progressed to later stages (periodontitis or advanced periodontitis), then you may require more extensive surgical therapies.
Scaling and root planing is a deep periodontal pocket cleaning that can be carried out in our office with local anesthesia to numb the areas being treated. We may also recommend nitrous oxide sedation if you feel stressed about undergoing this procedure. Dr. Heher or the hygienist will use a scaling instrument to carefully eliminate built-up plaque and tartar in your gum pockets. They will then smooth or plane the outside of the tooth to reduce the number of areas where plaque and tartar can become trapped to prevent future buildup.
After your SRP treatment, you may temporarily experience gum and tooth sensitivity, as well as some numbness from the local anesthetic. Dr. Heher may prescribe antibiotics to help eliminate any remaining bacteria from your gums. You should adhere to a good daily oral care routine at home, including proper brushing and flossing, to keep your teeth and gums clean and healthy. At the minimum, semi-annual dental exams are encouraged so Dr. Heher can assess the health of your gums and teeth and to have your mouth professionally cleaned. Depending on the original condition of your gums and home care after your treatment, you may need several more SRP treatment visits to totally remove any residual tartar and plaque deposits.
Scaling and root planing is a common procedure for the treatment of gum disease, which is generally covered in part by dental insurance. Our team can contact your carrier to help you understand your coverage and personal costs. If you do not have dental insurance, Smiles! Dentistry by Dr. Joseph Heher accepts numerous payment methods including medical financing that can be explained during your consultation. |
The Latino Economic Development Center (LEDC) used HFFI financing to establish the Immigrant Enterprise Healthy Foods Fund, which invests in immigrant-owned, food-related enterprises that hire local low-income residents of Minneapolis and St. Paul, Minnesota. Six projects are under development with financing from the fund: a Latino-owned grocery, a cooperative grocery, a producer-owned retail store, a Latino tamale manufacturer, a commercial kitchen for Hmong growers, and a produce warehouse to benefit both local producers and a purchasing cooperative of Mexican restaurants and grocery stores. This program will create over 40 new full-time jobs and increase access to healthy food in these two low-income areas, including two USDA food desserts. LEDC is also using HFFI financing to co-develop Wirth Cooperative Grocery and establish two mobile grocery stores to circulate in high-need low-income areas. These projects respond to the nutritional needs of low-income residents, provide sales opportunities for immigrant farmers, and are expected to create an additional 38 new jobs. You can find more information here.
The Local Initiatives Support Corporation (LISC) is a national community development financial institution (CDFI) founded in 1979 with a mission to build healthy, sustainable neighborhoods that are communities of choice: good places to work, do business, and raise children. LICS takes a holistic approach to improving community health in underserved places by promoting better housing, education and job opportunities. LISC targets work to shore up fundamental resource every neighborhood needs to keep resident well: easy access to primary health care, affordable, nutritious food and safe recreation spaces. LISC has offices in 32 cities and works with 86 rural partners serving over 2,000 counties in 44 states.
LISC uses HFFI financing to expand healthy food options in low-supermarket access areas throughout the nation including Massachusetts, Michigan, Minnesota, Illinois, Pennsylvania, New York, Ohio, Indianapolis, and Rhode Island. We offer low-cost loans for the development of healthy food retail outlets, which have range from full-service grocery stores to farmers markets.
Expansion of existing food coop to increase its footprint by 49%, from 11,990 square feet to 17,800 square feet, and double the size of its retail sales floor from 4,150 to 8,000 square feet, allowing the store to expand its produce and other items, open a café with seating, add parking, and improve delivery access.
Midwest Minnesota Community Development Corporation (MMCDC) is using HFFI financing to expand the Seward Community Cooperative (Seward Co-op), an independent natural food grocery located in Minneapolis, Minnesota. This business expansion project will develop a full-service grocery store in a low-income area designated as a food desert by the USDA. Moreover, this project will redevelop a former creamery manufacturing building that will serve as a production and central administration facility to increase Seward Co-op’s retail capacity. To further address food desert conditions, the Seward Co-op will be promoting their new Nourish Initiative. The Initiative will include free classes featuring healthy recipes that feed a family of 4 for under $10. This project will create a total of 104 new permanent jobs, including 69 full-time positions. You can find more information here.
Building upon the efforts of the Minnesota Grocery Access Task Force, The American Heart Association and Blue Cross Blue Shield formed a coalition of local stakeholders to advocate for a state investment in the Minnesota Good Food Access Fund (GFAF). An initial public funding of $250,000 for the GFAF was written into law during Minnesota's 2016 legislative session. In addition to establishing permanent facilities for the sale of healthy, affordable food in areas of the state where better access to those foods is needed, an integral component of the Fund is the establishment of a Fund Advisory Committee. The GFAF Advisory Committee will assist the Commissioner of Agriculture in establishing program criteria, project eligibility guidelines, application processes and additional selection criteria, and annual monitoring and accountability mechanisms. The Advisory Committee will also facilitate leveraging of additional public and private investments, and promote the program statewide. |
New Shepard is a rocket manufactured by Blue Origin for space tourism. The rocket is designed to take passengers into suborbital space inside of a crew capsule. The capsule features six large observation windows, which Blue Origin says are the largest ever constructed for a spacecraft.
New Shepard is fully reusable and as of April 2018, it has made seven test launches. In November 2015, it was the first reusable rocket to successfully make a soft landing on the ground, beating out the more famous SpaceX Falcon 9 booster by several weeks.
Blue Origin was founded by entrepreneur Jeff Bezos, who made his fortune with Amazon. Bezos also purchased the Washington Post in 2013. Forbes magazine ranked him as the richest person in the world in March 2018, with a net worth of $112 billion.
Blue Origin likely will not bring passengers into space before late 2018 (according to a 2017 article from SpaceNews), but it has released details of the flight path. When passenger flights happen, New Shepard will launch vertically for about two and a half minutes before main engine cut-off.
The capsule will then separate from the rocket; passengers will be weightless for about four minutes during the 11-minute flight, and will be high enough (at an altitude of 307,000 feet or 93,573 meters) to see the curvature of Earth. The spacecraft will coast for a few minutes in space before re-entering the atmosphere. New Shepard will land using an autonomous, rocket powered vertical landing system.
New Shepard is named after NASA Mercury program astronaut Alan Shepard, who was the first American to fly in space in 1961. Passengers aboard the Blue Origin spacecraft, however, will enjoy more than 10 times the space in the capsule than Shepard did in his Freedom 7 spacecraft. Up to six people can fly into space at once; the interior volume is said to be large enough for everyone to float and move around. The large windows will provide a view of Earth.
In addition to passengers, the spacecraft aboard New Shepard can carry standardized experiments of up to 50 lbs. (23 kilograms), with larger options available for custom requests.
Prior to flying in space, Blue Origin launched several prototype test vehicles. The first test flight took place in November 2006, and the first vertical landing (which took place after a short flight) happened early in 2011. A second test vehicle in August 2011 crashed due to flight instabilities, according to Blue Origin.
Blue Origin received $3.7 million from NASA under the first phase of the Commercial Crew Development program, in 2010. The money was used for a launch abort system and composite pressure vessels. (After several more commercial crew phases, NASA ultimately selected SpaceX's Dragon and Boeing's CST-100 spacecraft in 2014 to eventually take astronauts into space.) Blue Origin also has submitted a proposal for New Shepard to fly research payloads under NASA's Flight Opportunities Program.
The New Shepard rocket has gone through a few iterations over the years. The first flight of New Shepard 1 took place on April 29, 2015. While the flight was a success, the rocket failed to land as planned due to losing pressure in the hydraulic system. The capsule made a safe touchdown.
The latest flight used the New Shepard 3 rocket. It took place on Dec. 12, 2017, with a reusable booster, a capsule and a mannequin called Skywalker. This flight was the first time that a New Shepard rocket flew under a non-experimental permit from the Federal Aviation Administration. This situation allowed Blue Origin to carry several revenue-generating experiments on board the flight. |
mimics organic acids that occur naturally in soil or are released by plant roots.
run-off or leaching. Several slow-release fertilizers and fertilizer amendments are available today that increase fertilizer use efficiency by changing the timing of nutrient availability via physical or chemical means, helping to fine-tune nutrient availability. Slow-release fertilizers are relatively insoluble in water but more soluble in ammonium citrate. In order to dissolve in the soil and become available to plants, they require phosphorus in the soil to be depleted by leaching or plant uptake, or organic acids to be released from plant roots.
Slow-release fertilizers are applied at or near seeding and, when applied at the correct rate, will fulfill phosphorus needs throughout the crop’s entire growing period. This single-application timing significantly reduces equipment cost and operator time. Slow-release fertilizers also minimize nutrient tie-up in soil, surface run-off and leaching into the water table, important benefits from both a financial and environmental perspective. |
Matrix photodetectors are a large number of discrete photodetectors arranged in a single row (linear arrays) or a two-dimensional matrix.
Number of photosensitive elements in the device can be from a few tens to even hundreds of thousands discrete “pixels”. The continuous development of technology leads to an increase in the number of elements and the degree of integration.
Photodetector matrices are applied inimage transmission devices, night vision, thermal imaging cameras, etc.
By physical principles they are semiconductor light detectors, the same as discrete photodetectors types PbS and PbSe, CdHgTe or InSb.
Homogeneity of temperature field to ensure identical conditions of discrete elements in a matrix.
The increased heat load due to the presence of a large number of individual photodetectors and large size of the matrix.
For the matrix of Photodetectors multi-stage thermoelectric coolers with large size and high cooling capacity are required.
RMT has developed and produces special series of multistage TEC cooler for matrix photodetectors.
Series of two-stage thermoelectric cooling modules with enlarged cold side 2MDX04 and 2MDX06 provide maximal cooling with temperature difference 95-98 °C, that allows keeping operational temperature in a range of -40...-50 °C. The cold side dimensions are up to 11х11 mm2.
For deeper cooling we recommend special three-stage TEC series 3MDC04 and 3MDC06.
To select suitable solution and the optimal TEC for an application, the supporting Online TEC Assistance is available at RMT’s website. For detailed modeling and calculations the company RMT provides our customers by free software TEC Cad or iTECPad. |
Why A Weighted Blanket Can Be Helpful in Foster Care and for Foster Children/Kids – a Must Read!
Whether you are a foster family with a child or children, or whether you are with a foster agency or with the state helping families and foster kids, a weighted blanket can a strong tool to help you connect with the foster child.
A weighted blanket is a great way for a kid to feel comforted right away. Weighted blankets raise serotonin levels and lower cortisol levels by wrapping the child up – they can stow away under a weighted blanket and feel protected. Many weighted blankets can be ordered (www.mosaicweightedblankets.com) in different kids prints, like dinosaurs, camouflage, owls, or superheroes (for example) so that the child will think that the blanket is cool and will take to the blanket right away. It can be their protection from the world, so to speak.
A weighted blanket is also a very special gift – it says “You are so special, I gave this to you because you are important to me.” It’s a useful item for therapy and rehabilitation. Most children in foster care have PTSD and have experienced trauma. Many suffer from depression and anxiety. Weighted blankets are so helpful and comforting for any foster child, as they lower anxiety, and raise serotonin levels (great for depression and anxiety and insomnia) especially when a child is acclimating to a new home.
Many foster agencies purchase a weighted blanket for the child and send it to the home to help the child adjust. The facts of foster care are that most children arrive at a new home with nothing or with a few items in a trash bag. They have not only lost their parent or parents, but they have lost friends as well. They wake up in a new house and going to a new school without anyone with them, they are doing it alone. Many kids have lived without food, or with running water or electricity. They hoard food and have strange behaviors (many overeat, thinking the food will run out) or don’t know how to use the potty – it can be a challenging time. So a dose of patience, and anticipating a long adjustment period is optimal for the foster parent. |
Don't cut or manipulate nais.
The cuticles are living skin. Don't cut them because they are the natural protective barrier to fungus and bacteria.
When protection is lost, infections can harm the nailbed and lead to permanent nail damage. Carefully use a cuticle pusher instead.
Don't share your electronic nail pen heads with others for hygiene reasons. That is what is done in professional nail studios, too.
Seriously. It damages your nails, you have to file them over and over again, and they will become shorter than you want. Plus it does not look pleasant, neither the biting, nor the nails.
Avoid any other damage; nails aren't tools so better use real tools, like scissors or knives when opening letters, parcels or any other packaging.
Nails start to break at the weakest or most exposed parts. Take the electronic nail pen and even out any irregularities.
Dry nails? Drink more water.
Your nails appear dry and brittle? Perhaps you don't drink enough water. It's as simple as that.
Use nail and cuticle oil.
It helps nourish both nails and skin. When you are exposed to lots of hand sanitisers, applying the oil twice a day may help. Others will prefer to use it daily or only weekly. Ideally allow some soak-in time; most people prefer applying the oil before going to bed.
Soft nails? Avoid excessive water contact.
Your nails are too soft? Perhaps they have too much contact with water. Using nail and cuticle oil can help as well.
To protect your nails and cuticles from too much liquids and chemicals think about using disposable gloves more often for any kind of housework connected to water and cleaning supplies.
Ingrown nails? They can be prevented.
Especially for toenails: avoid round shapes. File them rather squarely and not too short. If you have an ingrown nail, it may cure itself as the nail grows. Don't cut anything, it will make it worse and can cause infections. Rather, see a health professional when you have problems. |
Bohra descent is patrilineal. Traditionally the Daudi and Jaafaris have been endogamous; however, the other Bohra groups do marry other Muslims outside their own groups, except in some of the more remote villages of the Sunni where they would seldom marry outside their own class, a remnant of their Hindu heritage. Cross-cousin marriage is usual but polygyny, although permissible, is rare.
Engineer, Asghar Ali (1980). The Bohras. Sahibabad: Vikas Publishing House.
Enthoven, Reginald E., ed. (1920). "Bohoras." The Tribes and Castes of Bombay. Vol. 1,197-207. Bombay: Government Central Press. Reprint. 1975. Delhi: Cosmo Publications.
Insaf, Saifuddin (1986). The Bohra Controversy (As Reflected through Newspapers ) (in Gujarati). Surat: Central Board of Dawoodi Bohra Community Publications. |
Questions that often are asked as clients consider filling for bankruptcy are whether they will be able to keep their pension benefits and whether they will have trouble getting new jobs after filing . The answers are generally positive in these areas for people who do decide to file.
Pensions and other retirement benefits are usually protected in bankruptcy cases, which means that if you file for bankruptcy, you will keep these benefits. When you file for bankruptcy, there are certain types of property that you are allowed to keep. These types of property are kept through what are called exemptions. There is always a list of exemptions for each case, and the particular list you can use is determined by where you live. Every state has its own list of exemptions that apply in bankruptcy and can require its residents to use only that list. This used to be the practice in New York, where I practice, until a few years ago, when debtors in our state were allowed to choose between the New York list and the federal list.
The federal list of exemptions allows debtors to keep their pension benefits. This includes what are called defined benefit plans, which provide a payment on retirement based on years of service and level of compensation. Also included are the familiar defined contribution plans, where the value is based on what the debtor and their employer contribute to the plans. These are usually known by the section of the Internal Revenue Code that creates them: 401(k) plans, 453 plans, 403(b) plans, and so on. In fact, the federal list states that any plan which is exempt from taxation under the Internal Revenue Code is exempt in bankruptcy. This would also include IRA accounts.
New York and most other states also exempt all of these types of pension and retirement benefits.
Worried About Getting a Job After Filing for Bankruptcy?
For those who are worried about a job after filing for bankruptcy, there is a provision barring the government and private employers from discriminating against debtors in employment. The law is clear that an employer, governmental or private, cannot fire you for filing, but it is not clear if a private employer can refuse to hire you based on the bankruptcy filing. One section of the law makes it clear that governmental units cannot deny employment based on bankruptcy, but the section on private employers does not have language specifically prohibiting the denial of employment, and some courts have interpreted this to mean that private employers may refuse to hire because of bankruptcy, while others have held the opposite.
Proving that an employment decision is based on the bankruptcy may be hard as employers can claim that there were other factors in any employment decision. Although employers who get credit reports on prospective hires will see the filing of a bankruptcy, it seems that in actual practice few people have trouble finding jobs after bankruptcy. In fact, I know of one employer who wants prospective hires to file for bankruptcy where they have severe debt loads so that their financial worries will not interfere with their job.
The decision to file for bankruptcy always has to be weighed against what will happen if one does not file. While a debtor always is able to keep retirement benefits even though a petition in bankruptcy is filed, the possibilities relating to employment need to be considered. As with many things, a balancing has to be done. If the debts are so overwhelming that they will never be paid, a bankruptcy may be the answer even if there may be some small problems in the future. |