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- June 26, 2023 - Posted by: Modern Orthodontics - Category: Orthodontics It’s a mistake to think that orthodontic treatment is only for children and teenagers. Today, more and more adults are turning to orthodontics and braces in Clermont to improve their oral health and enhance their appearance. Advances in technology have also made orthodontic treatment more comfortable and less noticeable than ever before, making it a viable option for almost any adult. How Orthodontics Can Benefit Adults Better Oral Health Adults who undergo orthodontic treatment often experience improved oral health. Misaligned teeth can make it challenging to clean teeth properly, leading to plaque buildup, cavities, and gum disease. Orthodontic treatment can correct these issues, resulting in a healthier mouth. With straighter teeth, it becomes easier to brush and floss effectively, thereby helping prevent cavities and gum disease. Additionally, orthodontic treatment can address issues such as overbites and underbites, which can cause uneven wear on teeth and lead to jaw pain or headaches. Overall, orthodontic treatment can help adults achieve a healthier mouth, leading to better overall oral health. It’s important to note that proper oral hygiene practices, such as brushing and flossing regularly, are still necessary even after orthodontic treatment to maintain good oral health. Orthodontic treatment can significantly enhance the aesthetics of an adult’s smile. Misaligned or crooked teeth can make a person feel self-conscious and affect their confidence. With a straighter and more aligned smile, adults can enjoy improved self-esteem and appearance. Adult orthodontic treatment can greatly improve the comfort of individuals with misaligned teeth and jaws. By straightening teeth, orthodontic treatment can improve the bite, reduce jaw pain, and alleviate discomfort caused by overcrowding or gaps between teeth. Orthodontic appliances like clear aligners can help correct bite issues such as overbite, underbite, crossbite, and open bite. When the bite is corrected, the pressure on the teeth and jaw are distributed more evenly, reducing discomfort and preventing future dental problems. In addition to improving the bite, orthodontic treatment can also alleviate jaw pain caused by temporomandibular joint disorder (TMJ). TMJ is a condition that affects the joint that connects the jawbone to the skull, causing pain and discomfort in the jaw, face, and neck. Orthodontic treatment can help realign the jaw, reducing TMJ symptoms and improving overall comfort. Furthermore, orthodontic treatment can also alleviate discomfort caused by overcrowding or gaps between teeth. When teeth are crowded or spaced too far apart, it can cause discomfort and affect the bite. Orthodontic treatment can help correct these issues, improving the overall comfort of the individual. Misaligned teeth can cause a range of problems, including difficulty in biting and chewing food, jaw pain, and even headaches. Thankfully, orthodontic treatment can help correct these issues and improve overall oral functionality. One way orthodontic treatment can improve functionality is by correcting malocclusions, or bad bites. Malocclusions can cause problems with the way the upper and lower teeth fit together, leading to issues with jaw movement and function. Orthodontic treatment can help correct these issues, improving jaw functionality and reducing pain and discomfort. Schedule Your Orthodontic Appointment with Modern Orthodontics Today Don’t fall for the misconception that orthodontic treatment is only for children and teenagers. Adults, too, can enjoy the benefits of orthodontic treatment, including improved comfort, better aesthetics, enhanced functionality, and better confidence. Schedule your appointment with our orthodontists today, and we’ll evaluate your orthodontic needs before creating a personalized treatment plan for you.
Description: Let's Talk! Cubes get kids talking, sharing, and learning. The Let's Talk! Cubes put social and emotional learning in action! The set of 6 colorful conversation cubes features engaging prompts targeting topics related to social-emotional learning (SEL). One-on-one or in small groups, kids and adults alike can take turns rolling the cubes and answering one of the 36 SEL questions and prompts printed on the sides. Each of the Let's Talk! Cubes are made from durable foam that's ready for years of social-emotional learning activities. How To Use It: Roll the cubes and answer the questions! Let's Talk! Cubes come with three different SEL categories The orange cubes are perfect for ice breakers. Roll the cubes and answer questions like "What holiday do you like best and why?" The blue cubes can be used when targeting social skills. Roll the blue cubes and answer questions like "What steps should you take to tell someone you are sorry?" The green cubes works great when focusing on emotions and feelings. Roll the green cubes and answer questions like "Name a time when you learned from your mistake”. What’s In The Box: 6 Let’s Talk Cubes featuring 36 different prompts For little hands that have a hard time rolling the cube, try putting the cube in a cup and pouring them out! The color coded dice make it easy to target the right skill area, simply use the cubes that correspond to the lesson focus! For students who struggle with open ended questions offer options to pick from!
living with the land an introduction to a nature-connected life Saturday May 14th - Saterday May 21th Do you wish to connect more with nature in your daily life? We welcome you at our off-the-grid finca Can Cabota, to learn, be inspired, and to connect to nature and yourself. Our Living with the Land program is a weeklong immersion into the wilderness of Spain, in which you are invited to connect with nature in all of life's aspects. It is a combination of 'being' and 'doing': You will learn practical skills and simple, yet powerful, spiritual practices that you can integrate into your life at home (even if you live in the city). Being at our finca will allow you to disconnect fully from all inputs and distractions. Making space for you to rest and reconnect to yourself and nature. You will leave with new inspiration, skills and practices on how to continue this nature-connected life at home. The program includes - foraging and preparing edible and medicinal wild plants - organic veggie garden (permaculture principles) - composting basics - food preservation techniques (including fermenting) - sourdough bread making - nature meditations and ceremonies - tribe life Imagine waking up to the sounds of birds, planting the new seedlings into the garden, while the sun makes the dewdrops shine. Cooking a delicious meal with the plants you gathered from the forest. Dipping into the crystal clear river to cool off, sharing stories around the campfire and falling asleep to the sound of the owls. This program is for you if - you want to live more in connection with nature - you like to be inspired in both practical and spiritual ways - you want to learn tools and practices that you can integrate into your own life - you want to disconnect from the distractions of daily life and reconnect to yourself - you want to have fun and enjoy nature with a tribe of like-minded people Hello! We are Bastiaan and Jorien We believe our relation to nature lies at the core of the transition to a healthy world. Therefore, we envision and embody a nature-connected life. We found each other in both love and vision of life. We started the School of Nature in 2017 from our apartment in Amsterdam. We’ve now settled in our natural paradise in Catalunya, Spain and are re-launching the School of Nature from here. We both studied in the economy/business/finance sector. Jorien soon found her way working alongside social entrepreneurs and meanwhile unfolded her intuition for working with our inner nature. Bastiaan found his passion for ecology through travels around the world and now holds extensive knowledge and experience in regenerative farming, wild foraging, permaculture and agroforestry/food-forests. Robin ticket (early bird) €495,- before spring equinox (March 20th) Nightingale ticket (late bird) €575,- after spring equinox (March 20th) We like to have an intimate tribe, therefore there is a maximum of 12 people. - shared spacious tent with bed €20,- pppn - BYO tent/camper €10,- pppn Are you interested in joining? Leave your contacts by clicking the button below and we will be in touch with you soon with more information.
Is it just a smokescreen? I love watching movies and documentaries about World War I and World War II. It never ceases to amaze me what those soldiers went through and the eternal gratitude we should have for their unselfish sacrifice. A classic scene from many of those video productions is the setting of soldiers moving about against the backdrop of a smokescreen. That’s where the phrase “smokescreen” derives from. It is a military term depicting a wall of smoke intended to mask the movement of troops and artillery. Smokescreens were a key element in the success of many individual battles. Most of us don’t have to worry about military smokescreens in our everyday lives, but we do deal with another type of smokescreen. For example, when you talk to someone who brings up an argument while not really looking for an answer, or if a reasonable answer wouldn’t make any difference, we call that a “smokescreen. You most likely have experienced this numerous times. I’ll bet you’ve even used smokescreens yourself! I’m sure I have. It’s been years, but smokescreens came in handy when the case for whatever I was promoting was pretty weak. It can be a very effective technique… just not a good one! Try this one on for size. You ask a skeptic if they would consider going to church, and they say, “Not a chance. The church is filled with hypocrites!” Let’s think this through a bit deeper, using critical thinking skills. What do they mean by “the church”? It’s not like there’s only one church on the planet, and it has that issue. Secondly, you do not judge a belief system by people who violate its teachings! It is undoubtedly true that there are Christians who act hypocritically. That’s not a knock against Christianity; that’s a sad commentary regarding those individuals. The body of Christ needs to come alongside those individuals and gently encourage them to make whatever changes are appropriate to mature in their faith and be a better testimony to those around them. Additionally, even if you found a church that in general wasn’t struggling with hypocrisy, the skeptic very often still wouldn’t want to go. That means the issue of hypocrisy is just a “smokescreen” being used to mask the larger issue of their rejection of Jesus Christ. One caution here. It is very important to find out what the skeptic’s experience with church has been. They may have had a horrific experience that is greatly influencing their skepticism, and we shouldn’t ignore that. On a somewhat related note, I remember standing around on the playground in grade school, talking with a few classmates. Somehow the subject of church came up and they all stated “what they were.” Methodist, Catholic, Episcopalian. I remember feeling very frustrated and uncomfortable because I didn’t have a “label.” I grew up in a non-denominational Bible church, and wasn’t aware of any particular label I should be using. That’s another story for another time. I bring this up because I mentioned to my classmates that I went to church three times a week; Sunday morning, Sunday night, and Wednesday night. They all looked at me in horror and said, “You go three times a week? We would hate that! How can you stand it?” I actually really liked going to church. It was a great family event, I liked the pastor and his sermons, and I had a lot of friends there. For many of them, that was about the only time I would see them. What I didn’t realize was how different my classmates’ experiences were. Turns out, church for them was a very arduous event in an extremely sterile environment. Overall, it had virtually no meaning whatsoever, other than they were forced to go because their parents took them. They put in their time once a week, Sunday morning, for as short as possible, and then they were done for the week. They pictured me doing that three times a week! It’s no wonder they thought I was crazy. I met a guy over 20 years ago at the health club where I was a member.. He was a Harley-riding staunch atheist, and I was a Christian who felt if I ever did ride a Harley, I’d probably end up killing myself and quickly meet the God he didn’t believe in! He and I didn’t have much in common. Despite our vast differences, we enjoyed just “shooting the breeze” while working out. He knew what I believed and made it very clear he “didn’t want to hear any of this God stuff.” I respected his wishes and never pushed but was always willing and able if he ever brought up the subject, which happened more often than not. Years passed, the health club closed, he went his way, and I went mine. A few years ago, he joined the club where I am currently a member. I had not seen him in many years. He approached me and said (in his usual loud voice), “Hey preacher man, save anyone lately?” I smiled and said, “I’m working on it!” He razzes me a lot, and I enjoy it. It’s all good fun. He once again brought up the subject of God, so I jumped right in. At one point, I told him there is a great deal of very impressive evidence that the Bible is not just some “religious” book but is the inspired Word of God. I very briefly mentioned prophetic evidence. His response was, “Well, it all depends how you interpret it.” I quickly said, “You are absolutely right! It does depend on that. So how do you interpret it”? Crickets chirped for the first time since I met him. He was using a smokescreen that no doubt had served him well in the past, but I called him on it, and he was silent. I finished by telling him that I would pray for him, and he smiled broadly and said, as sincerely as could be, “Thank you!” The general point I am making in this article is that skeptics often use arguments, not as a valid defense of their skepticism, but rather as a diversionary tactic. Way too often it is effective because the Christian is not as prepared to answer as they should be. Hopefully, this article will help you more effectively share and defend your faith, even with seasoned skeptics.
If you’re interested in beauty and skincare, you might be surprised to learn that the Middle East has a rich and diverse beauty culture. From ancient traditions like henna to modern innovations like black seed oil, there’s a lot to discover. So, let’s dive in and explore the Middle Eastern beauty scene! One of the most well-known aspects of Middle Eastern beauty is henna. Henna is a plant-based dye that’s been used for thousands of years to create intricate and beautiful designs on the skin. It’s a common tradition in many Middle Eastern countries, and it’s often used for special occasions like weddings and festivals. But henna isn’t just for decoration – it’s also believed to have healing properties for the skin. Another ancient tradition is the use of essential oils. In the Middle East, essential oils like rose, jasmine, and lavender have been used for centuries for their fragrance, as well as for their medicinal properties. They’re often used in perfumes and beauty products, and they’re also used in traditional healing practices like aromatherapy. Black seed oil is another traditional beauty ingredient that’s recently gained popularity in the Western world. This oil is extracted from the seeds of the Nigella sativa plant, which is native to the Middle East. It’s believed to have anti-inflammatory and antioxidant properties, and it’s often used in skincare products to moisturize and nourish the skin. But the Middle Eastern beauty scene isn’t just about ancient traditions – there are also modern innovations and trends. In recent years, there’s been a growing interest in natural and organic skincare, and many Middle Eastern beauty brands are at the forefront of this movement. They’re using natural ingredients like argan oil, pomegranate, and honey in their products, and they’re taking a more holistic approach to beauty and wellness. In conclusion, the Middle Eastern beauty scene is diverse and exciting. From the ancient tradition of henna to modern innovations like black seed oil, there’s a lot to discover. Whether you’re interested in ancient traditions or modern skincare trends, the Middle East has something to offer. So, take some time to explore this rich and fascinating culture and discover the beauty secrets that have been passed down through generations.
According to a recent survey by Phillips Consulting, over half (52%) of Nigerian professionals are considering leaving their current jobs and moving abroad within a year. The Talent Management Report, “A New World Order: Shifting Paradigms in Addressing the Brain Drain,” was presented during the quarterly meetup of the Nigerian Human Resources Directors Network in Lagos. Finance & Insurance, Professional Services, Education, Healthcare, and IT will be the hardest-hit professions.Nearly 50% of employees working in these fields are considering leaving. According to the report, Nigerian businesses face numerous challenges in the post-pandemic world, such as market uncertainty, inflation, digitisation acceleration, changes in consumer behaviour, increased operational expenses, and complexity. But employee retention and brain drain prevention are today’s most pressing issues. The rising cost of living is impacting employees’ finances and workplace productivity. Before the Ukraine crisis, the Nigerian economy faced multiple challenges, including unemployment, a weak currency, and insecurity. The situation has exacerbated the high cost of living and affected employees’ finances and purchasing power. Research findings show that 90% of Nigerians who have faced an increased cost of living are cutting their spending on essential and non-essential items. This has resulted in financial stress, decreased purchasing power, lower job satisfaction, and higher job mobility and migration rates. Consequently, employees now channel their efforts toward increasing their revenue streams, improving economic stability, and enhancing their standard of living. To achieve these objectives, many are creating a ‘side hustle,’ finding better-paying jobs, or relocating abroad. As a result, the attrition rate across key sectors has increased significantly. As labour shortages continue to rise globally, there is intense competition for talent, especially in low-to-middle-skilled occupations. The top destinations and migration reasons for employees Employees are resigning or migrating for a mix of issues, some of which are within an organisation’s direct control, while others are not. The findings reveal that Nigerian professionals looking to migrate prefer Canada, the United Kingdom, and the United States as their top three destinations. The reasons for planning to migrate vary, with respondents citing factors such as seeking better-paid jobs, less toxic work cultures, a desire to work from home,and concerns about the country’s economy and insecurity. According to Phillips Consulting, 88% of individuals who plan to quit their jobs within a year are millennials and Gen Z. This demographic shift could lead to a significant loss of skilled workers, which may negatively affect critical industries and the economy. Moreover, this demographic includes young professionals with valuable skills and extensive education, making them highly desirable in the global job market. More than 50% of those surveyed said they would consider cancelling their migration plans if Nigeria met specific conditions. These conditions include a peaceful environment, better economic conditions, access to competitive and fairly paid job opportunities, and effective leadership. It’s a New World Order, and Businesses Must Reimagine their Talent Management Strategy According to the Phillips Consulting survey report, businesses should review their employee value proposition and talent management strategy to succeed in today’s constantly evolving talent management landscape. This means considering hybrid work arrangements, implementing a fair employee compensation strategy, and providing learning and career development opportunities. Additionally, employers should re-evaluate their approach to the cost-of-living crisis. Strategic talent management can enhance employee job satisfaction and retention, which is vital for fostering productive and diverse high-performance cultures in companies. The Role of Government The impact of migration on the Nigerian economy is highly complex. Research demonstrates that the migration of skilled workers from critical sectors can result in a shortage of skilled labour, harming the economy and nation-building. Consequently, the government must create an environment conducive to work by implementing policies that promote security and economic growth. Furthermore, the government should allocate more resources towards education and areas that enhance social mobility, motivating citizens to stay in the country and positively contribute to their communities. You can download the full report here About the Survey For this report, we combined two surveys. The first survey was completed by over 400 professionals across various industries in Nigeria. It aimed to identify the underlying causes of talent migration and the ‘brain drain’ impact on the country. For the second survey, we received exclusive access to the YouGov-Cambridge Globalism Project, an annual international survey conducted by YouGov and researchers at Cambridge University. The online survey was weighted to reflect the Nigerian adult population. The total sample size was 1054 Nigerian adults aged 18 or older between 24 August and 3 September, 2022. About Phillips Consulting Limited Building on its 30-year heritage, Phillips Consulting Limited is a leading provider of transformation, technology and outsourcing services. From offices in Lagos and Abuja, Phillips Consulting delivers integrated client solutions through its Strategy and Operations Transformation, People Transformation, and Digital and Technology Consulting practice areas. www.phillipsconsulting.net Support PREMIUM TIMES’ journalism of integrity and credibility Good journalism costs a lot of money. Yet only good journalism can ensure the possibility of a good society, an accountable democracy, and a transparent government. For continued free access to the best investigative journalism in the country we ask you to consider making a modest support to this noble endeavour. By contributing to PREMIUM TIMES, you are helping to sustain a journalism of relevance and ensuring it remains free and available to all. TEXT AD: Call Willie – +2348098788999
Jill Freelen Pine Grove, CA, United States Jill Freelen Pine Grove California USA Chapter 12 the sub conscience mind Our subconscious mind is our data bank for everything which is not in our conscious mind. The human brain can process 11 million bits of information every second. But our conscious minds can handle only 40 to 50 bits of information a second. Our subconscious mind stores our beliefs, our values, our habits, previous experiences, memories also every thought, everything that we've seen and done, it acts as our guidance. 90 to 95% of our behavior is influenced by our subconscious. Children are governed by their subconscious 100% until the age of about six when they start to develop a conscience. Because the subconscious acts first on our most dominating desires (especially those mixed with emotion) we need to make our desire clear by writing them down. And because the subconscious mind may be voluntarily directed only through habit, we will have to be persistent. Since we're making a conscious effort to influence our subconscious mind we need to shut off the flow of negative impulses and intentionally inject positive impulses through auto suggestion. Thought impulses can then be assembled into plans with the use of our imagination. Be patient but be persistent with guarding what enters your thoughts and goes into your subconscious mind because it's this application requiring coordination of the 13 principles that will allow you to program your subconscious mind with the desires that you want to manifest. In trying to tap into my subconscious mind I've found it necessary to quiet the chatter in my mind of other people's opinions and people's expectations of me and my own negative self-talk. With persistent repetition positive internal dialogue has replaced the unwanted chatter. Michael said to 'be here in a year from now"…. It's been a year since I started participating on the calls and I'm so glad I've stuck around.
In this article I will share with you the common practices of therapists in their first session(s) as well as give you some ideas of how to choose a therapist that could be a good fit for you. We will explore: Finding a therapist • Assessment • Confidentiality • Your first session • What to expect from therapy Finding A Therapist There are many ways to find a therapist: - Direct referral from a physician or psychiatrist. - Referral from a friend - Websites that are “Therapist finders” - Your own research Do your research: There are several different “Theoretical Orientations” that therapists practice from. Many therapists practice from multiple modalities, but to be an educated consumer, it is important to have an understanding of a therapist’s emphasis because it will have a HUGE effect on how you do therapy together. There are several theoretical orientations, I will share with you three main theoretical orientations of psychotherapy. Psychodynamic theoretical orientation primarily focuses on problems in your past experiences, what happened in your childhood primarily in you key attachment relationships (ie. parents, siblings and any prominent relationships that served as building blocks in your life), and draws a connection with your present problems or issues and emphasizes feelings. This orientation consistently asks “How does it make you feel?” Cognitive-Behavioral theoretical orientation primarily focuses on how your thoughts affect your feelings and behaviors/actions. This orientation believes that it is not what happens to you that determines your quality of life, but it is how you think about what happens to you and how you respond to it. Post-Modern (Narrative Therapy & Solution-Focused Therapy) theoretical orientation is one of empowerment that holds the perspective that people have strengths, abilities and resources that once we develop our gift at using them, we have the ability to resolve problems in our lives now and in the future. The focus of therapy is on the stories people tell themselves about problems and the effects of those stories on people’s lives. A post-modern therapist emphasizes understanding the problem, but focusing your attention and growth on what you want instead of the problem. Postmodern therapists believe that “You are NOT your problems. You are in a relationship with your problems.” For instance, “You are not depressed. You are affected by depression. You are an intelligent and capable person who happens to be affected by depression right now or is currently in a relationship with mania (mania is powerful and causes you to do all sorts of things).” The therapist does not take the stance of “the EXPERT”, instead you are the expert of your life (you are the only one who has lived it) and the therapist uses their expertise to collaborate with you and share a process with you that may help you develop your strengths and abilities. This form of therapy is highly collaborative and transparent. I could go on and on with post-modern therapies…. YES…I am biased. My foundation and training is as a Post-Modern therapist. However, I have integrated Cognitive therapy and Psychodynamic therapy into my practice and use anything that works for my clients. Most therapists will want to collect a significant amount of personal information about you in order to do a thorough assessment. It is important that we have an accurate medical history so that we can make necessary referrals to be able to rule out any medical cause for dysfunction in your life. It is also important that we have an understanding of your current symptoms – their onset, duration, intensity and history (have you experienced them before). This is how we diagnose (make sense of a problem you are experiencing) as well as determine if it is in our scope of practice and competency to be able to help you. We want to know about your support system both for your own safety and so we can provide resources and referrals. We will ask you about medication history, drug history, suicide attempt history and abuse history. Often times people are not honest about this from the get-go because it is very hard to share this history AND it makes sense to fear judgment, stigma, shame etc. There are many therapists who will not take on new clients who have current drug use or have a history of suicide attempts or current suicidality because it is NOT in their scope of competence and requires more availability and urgent care. In your first few appointments, your therapist will likely explore this information with you in a formal assessment. Confidentiality & HIPPA Agreement In California, it is the law that in your first appointment the therapist goes over with you “Confidentiality” and the ‘HIPPA Agreement”. Everything that is shared in therapy is held CONFIDENTIAL, but there are exceptions to confidentiality that you MUST know. - If a therapist suspects current or previous CHILD ABUSE (physical, neglect, sexual, emotional), we are legally mandated to report it to Child Protective Services. - If a therapist suspects current or previous ELDER or DEPENDENT ADULT ABUSE (physical, neglect, sexual, emotional, financial), we are legally mandated to report it to Adult Protective Services. - If you tell your therapist that have the intention to HARM a specific identifiable person, we are mandated by law to make reasonable efforts to warn that person and notify the police. (In California) - If you are suicidal (you have the intention to commit suicide and a plan to carry it out AND therapeutic interventions are not working) it is our ethical responsibility to contact the psychiatric emergency team (PET team) to have you hospitalized, even if it is against your will. In Your First Session Now that all of the legal and ethical stuff is out of the way It is all about the relationship Things for you to pay attention to to determine if you have a good fit with your therapist. - Do you feel comfortable in the therapist’s presence? In my opinion, the therapist is NOT supposed to be intimidating. You can expect yourself to have walls up when you first meet and to feel anxiety. A therapist’s presence should feel good, provide containment and feel safe once you build trust. - Do you like the therapist? Do you respect the therapist? It is important that you like your therapist’s personality and respect them. No therapist is a perfect person who lives by everything they say all of the time (or even much of the time)…nonetheless, it is important that you VALUE THE WAY THEY THINK. - Do you feel that the therapist gets you? I cannot express how important this is! If you share things that are very important to you and the therapist doesn’t acknowledge it and asks a question that changes the topic to what they think is important…THEY DON’T GET YOU. I am adamant about this because there are so many people who refuse to go to therapy because they have had this experience. I was one of them. I believe that a good therapist will check in with you and make sure that the conversation is useful for you and that you want to be having it. - Do you believe the therapist can help you? It is pretty common for people in their first session to “dump” out all of their feelings and experiences with the therapist. The challenge with this is that it feels good in the moment, but the trust is not there in the relationship so it makes most people feel so vulnerable that they won’t come back to therapy. Trust is not something you automatically give your therapist. Trust must be earned. I recommend honoring your boundaries and taking your time in therapy. Your boundaries and walls are there to keep you safe. I believe we should change our boundaries and walls only when we have something of more value to replace them with. In your first session, you have not created that something of value yet. What To Expect From The Process of Therapy - Therapy will open up wounds in order for them to better heal and it will be painful at times. - Therapy will affect the way you think and feel about yourself and your life. - Therapy will affect your behaviors and actions. - Because you are growing, therapy will affect all of your significant relationships. I hope this is useful. To choose me as your therapist, if you reside in the state of California, please contact:
Engage in organizing for digital innovation” The KIN Center for Digital Innovation teaches a number of courses related to Digital Business and Innovation (DBI) topics such as digital innovation, IS management and knowledge management , and research methods (primarily qualitative), in various three-year bachelor of science programs. Business students can opt for International Business Administration (English) and Business Administration (Dutch) at the School of Business and Economics. The KIN Center also coordinates and contributes to a number of minors (click on the links below to learn more): I’m very intrigued by questions like: How do emerging technologies affect how people are doing their businesses, how they influence organizational forms and how they give birth to new ways of working” (Student, Muliadi Hioe)
Tooth-Colored Fillings in Dacula, GA Most people will require at least one filling at some point during their lives. Up until a few decades ago, a silver amalgam filling was the most common way to fix a tooth after decay because it offered the most reliable and durable results. Today, however, tooth-colored fillings are more common and often preferred among patients. Advancements in materials along with application of composite fillings can provide durable results that do not negatively impact your smile. What Causes Dental Decay? You’re probably aware that avoiding sugar helps prevent dental decay. It is not the sugar directly that destroys enamel, however. Bacteria produce an acidic byproduct that softens enamel. You guessed it; their favorite food is sugar. In the right environment, bacteria multiply rapidly, which is why cleaning your teeth is so important. Sugar is only part of the story when it comes to avoiding cavities. Starchy foods, such as bread, bagels, crackers, and cereal, quickly convert to sugar when exposed to saliva as you chew, so these foods also promote decay. Acidic energy drinks and sodas amplify the problem since they often contain sugar and are already acidic in nature. Brushing and flossing at home is an essential part of good oral care. Your regular professional dental cleanings will remove tartar, which naturally collects between appointments, so you can enjoy a cavity-free smile. When a cavity does occur, Kinsey Smiles offers tooth-colored options to blend in with your teeth. Diagnosing Dental Caries (Decay) Early diagnosis of a cavity can save you a lot of hassle. Regular dental x-rays and exams with Dr. Kinsey are the best way to identify if you have a cavity. Dental decay does not usually have symptoms until it is quite advanced, which is why routine dental visits are so important. By the time a cavity hurts, you may need a root canal or you might need to have your tooth removed. We use digital x-rays in our Dacula dental office for increased safety and accuracy. How Tooth-Colored Fillings Work Dr. Kinsey will always ensure your comfort prior to beginning any treatment. Not all cavities will require anesthetic. After he removes any sign of decay and bacteria, he will fill the cavity with a composite material that matches the shade of your tooth. After curing the filling with a special light to harden the material, Dr. Kinsey will polish the filling to make it smooth and shiny. When you smile and laugh, no one will even notice you have a filling. You can eat on your filling right away, but if you still feel numb, be careful when you chew. You may accidentally bite the inside of your cheek or tongue. Are You Ready to Protect Your Smile? We welcome you to contact Kinsey Smiles to schedule a dental exam. Dr. Kinsey will always discuss all of your conditions with you, as well as all of your treatment options so you can make the right choice for your smile.
From the surface, one cannot spot any similarity between the software development and DevOps since the former deals with developers and codes; and the latter is more concerned with automation. In a sense, both of these operations go hand-in-hand since the element of human error in complex coding makes it necessary to bring DevOps on board. The Basics of DevOps The Constant Integration (CI) and Constant Delivery (CD) models have made it necessary to invest in development cycles that are quick in operations as well as in the deployment stages. Because of the increasing need in demand to have quicker and safer projects, DevOps is slowly becoming a household name in the software development sector. DevOps is an approach that focuses on the seamless collaboration of different teams that come together to ensure rapid software development and deployment. With DevOps, the focus is on reducing the overall development time while at the same time, improving operations through rapid rollouts. The DevOps model is not only concerned with the deployment of major new security updates or features. It also encompasses small code changes in response to user feedback, configuration issues, and changing business needs, etc. The changes in code are built, tested, and deployed as soon as possible. A majority of this is in the development phase. That said, it improves the collaborative experience and the companies that integrate this approach gain a competitive edge in the following: - Consistency: Uniformity throughout the DevOps model can be achieved by standardizing environment provisioning along with the software deployment process. - Provisioning: It provides the ability to inject new codes within a few keystrokes with the help of automation tools. This helps in transforming the manual setup into a series of automatic and pre-packaged actions. - Agility and Speed: The DevOps model aids in increasing the reliability, quality, and agility of the software launches as well as new feature releases. DevOps and Security DevOps has reached a new tipping point. According to Gartner Research, almost half of the IT organizations are actively utilizing the DevOps model as the means for producing and releasing custom applications. The same research noted that 80% of the institutions are concerned that the information security teams and policies are hindering them from utilizing the full potential of the DevOps model. The development, security, and operations have a similar goal which is to see the business succeed. However, all of them have varying ideas or perspectives of what is considered success. That said, the majority of the individuals believe that there is no place for security in the DevOps model when it comes to software production. This is partly because of the fact that organizations still do not understand how security fits into the DevOps model. However, DevOps does improve security since it provides collaboration opportunities between security professionals, software engineers, and various automation tools. DevOps is a blessing for security folks. With the help of the appropriate operational tools and the right automation, security personnel are capable of injecting security codes in the early phases of software development. This improves code security that in the end, reaches the deployment phases. On top of this, tight collaboration between different units allows the deployed software to have fewer errors that could otherwise cause outages, operational disruption, and release rollbacks. DevOps Security Challenges Although DevOps fits perfectly within an organization’s software deployment process, there are still various challenges associated with it. According to a SANS Analyst Paper, only 46% of the IT professionals are observing certain security practices within the DevOps model. This means that the rest of the software and IT environment ends up in an explosive and uncoordinated mess. That said, lack of coordination within an organization leads to various security loopholes that allow cybercriminals to benefit from it. Cyber attacks are not only a nightmare but they also wreak long-term havoc. Because of this, organizations must rally around a secure DevOps environment — one that relies on unique processes, tools, and policies for secure and rapid software releases. Eliminating human error with secure automation tools will allow the software to have bulletproof security throughout its creation and deployment process. Still, many organizations are far away from achieving a security utopia because: Often, software developers or institutions have the desire to move on rapidly. Since they want to lessen the time between the development and deployment processes, security is often viewed as a hassle. As a result, developers often overlook the need of implementing best security practices that ultimately cause infrastructural vulnerabilities. Cloud and Security Leaks When cloud technology is involved, the implementation of firewalls may not be enough. The security model in the cloud revolves around the Role-Based Access Control (RBAC). That said, the automation tools employed to secure the DevOps depend on the cloud-based resources. Legacy and Traditional Infrastructure Majority of the IT institutes are still running on legacy infrastructure. Since they are running on a traditional model, this means that they are not compatible with the recent security updates. To solve this issue, many of the companies have started running on a hybrid environment — that is the amalgamation of cloud-based elements with the traditional infrastructure. Since the model of DevOps is fairly new, it can not only be difficult to find DevOps engineers, but it can also get expensive. That said, training the existing staff to meet up with the demands of the DevOps model can also impact the time required to completely automate the software deployment process. Although, there are organizations that have launched on-demand delivery service concerning the DevOps. However, it can still get expensive. Without a doubt, the DevOps model is perfectly capable of meeting with all the organizational challenges related to software security. Introducing the DevOps model in the early stages of software development will ensure that companies successfully create, manage, and deploy secured software. In a world where technology and other advancements are making it easy for cybercriminals to launch attacks, the IT organizations should work together with the DevOps model and security personnel to create and deploy more secure software.
Crush blackberries, one layer at a time. Measure exactly 2 cups prepared blackberries into large bowl. Stir in sugar. Let stand 10 min., stirring occasionally. Mix pectin and lemon juice until blended. Add to blackberry mixture; stir 3 min. or until most the sugar is dissolved and no longer grainy. (A few sugar crystals may remain.) Fill all containers immediately to within 1/4 inch of tops. Wipe off top edges of containers; immediately cover with lids. Let stand at room temperature 24 hours or until set. Kraft Kitchen Tips! How to Measure Precisely To get exact level cup measures of sugar, spoon sugar into dry metal or plastic measuring cups, then level by scraping excess sugar from top of cup with a straight-edged knife. No-cook jams can be stored in the freezer for up to 8 months. Remove from freezer and let thaw in the refrigerator. Once thawed, no-cook jams will last 3 weeks in the refrigerator. Stir a spoonful of prepared jam into plain or vanilla yogurt. Calories From Fat % Daily Value Total fat 0 g Saturated fat 0 g Cholesterol 0 mg Sodium 1 mg Total carbohydrate 12 g Dietary fibre 0 g Sugars 12 g Protein 0.1 g 4-1/2 (1-cup/250-mL) containers or 72 servings, 1 Tbsp. (15 mL) each Nutrition information is estimated based on the ingredients and cooking instructions as described in each recipe and is intended to be used for informational purposes only. Please note that nutrition details may vary based on methods of preparation, origin and freshness of ingredients used.
Hundreds of BBC freelancers are facing colossal retrospective tax bills, and HMRC’s CEST tool (short for Check Employment Status for Tax) is being blamed by chiefs of the national broadcaster. Criticism of the tool, which is used for determining the IR35 status of contractors across the country, was heard at a Public Accounts Committee meeting held in Parliament yesterday. What impact has CEST had on the BBC? Since the application of the CEST tool, hundreds of workers’ employment statuses have shifted. Those that have always been found outside IR35 are now being determined as inside, and BBC chiefs are pointing to the use of CEST as the cause. BBC Director Lord Hall commented that ‘from 2017 onwards, [they] were surprised by the way the outcomes of the tests that [they] had been applying perfectly legitimately and properly before were suddenly changed by CEST.’ The BBC has struggled to grasp how to apply HMRC’s tool since they first adopted its use, and financial consequences are now being felt by its freelancers and contractors that could be life-ruining. Roughly 800 workers so far have been issued backdated tax bills after their employment status was changed by CEST. Many will face bankruptcy in order to pay the phenomenal amounts back. Why is the BBC criticising CEST? During the PAC meeting, BBC chiefs related their main grievances when determining employment status. They were asked to convey how they put the tool into practice and, although their methods weren’t necessarily proper, it was clear that they hadn’t misused CEST when assessing employment status. Most of the problems raised could be traced back to 2017 – the introduction of CEST. Lord Hall directly compared CEST to an employment test developed with Deloitte, a UK-based financial advisory and tax service company, back in 2013. Their test – which had the sanction of HMRC – determined around 900 out of 1,000 BBC contractors to be legitimately self-employed. Lord Hall also insisted that the radio industry guidelines have always been ‘strictly adhered to’ when determining employment status previously. The main CEST issues that BBC chiefs brought to light were: - the lack of a launch schedule and little to no training during roll-out, - no indication as to the volume of contractors that were due assessment, - CEST itself seemed rushed and untested, - no way to input sectoral differences for consideration. All of the above are common criticisms that have been repeated to HMRC since the tool’s launch. The taxman insists the tool is fit for purpose. Anne Bulford, BBC Deputy Director, said of CEST: ‘The challenge that we faced was that CEST places different weight on different factors when compared with our previous test. I don’t think they [BBC staff] have done anything wrong.’ What is the BBC doing to protect its contractors? The BBC has accepted its part in these changed employment determinations. The broadcaster is now working towards a settlement with HMRC to protect its freelancers from the potentially devastating impact of having to pay a retrospective tax bill. Lord Hall also admitted that many contractors may have had little choice in their use of limited companies due to the BBC’s contract specifications. The chiefs were questioned as to whether BBC contract workers were told to operate via limited companies or have their engagements cancelled after multiple accusations came over the last year. Ms. Bulford conceded that the BBC ‘has saved between £2m and £3m per year in employer’s and National Insurance contributions since Off-Payroll was introduced as a result of engaging limited companies and sole traders.’ The Deputy Director also stated that the BBC had warned HMRC in 2016 that the employment status changes were ‘coming in too quickly and would cause huge difficulty’. Despite this, HMRC insisted that the BBC continue to use CEST for their status determinations. Could CEST have similar effects on other UK businesses? In response to the 800 BBC workers now facing bank-breaking retrospective tax bills, Lord Hall appeared remorseful of the situation. He said: ‘I take no joy at all from being at odds with people who are front line to our viewers and listeners. None, and I want to repair that relationship.’ The damaged relationship between the BBC and its freelancers has been reported on before, and comes as no surprise. A report carried out by the National Audit Office looked into the impact of the IR35 reforms on contractors hired by the BBC and found that, although the broadcaster was indeed taking steps to fix the circumstances, issues still remain unresolved. This same relationship breakdown between business and contractor is likely to be repeated across the county through the continued use of CEST, particularly now that it’s garnered a reputation for producing an overwhelming proportion of inside determinations. The climate for contractors and freelancers is increasingly hostile in the face of IR35 and the use of HMRC’s faulty tool could be seen as unsupportive of workers. Lord Hall’s final comment was a further warning. He said: ‘HMRC should be thinking very hard about the difficulties created by rushing into something which was more global in nature, and which we still haven’t worked through the consequences of now.’
Tremaine Williams has never wanted people to make a fuss or give him any special treatment. So most of his classmates at Locke High School in South-Central Los Angeles don’t know he has been blind in one eye since elementary school and that he has only partial sight in the other. “I wanted to make it on my own,” said Williams, 18, a senior who has won a scholarship to UCLA next year. “I don’t like to call it a handicap because I haven’t let it stop me. “I just worked harder to compensate, just learned to be more creative. . . . I’ve managed to make myself into what I want to be.” When he makes his commencement speech this month as salutatorian of his class, Williams plans to reveal his secret in hopes of inspiring his classmates to push themselves over whatever hurdles may confront them. “I’ve had some trouble,” he said, “but it all works out.” Keith Funk, head counselor at Locke, said Williams “never, never gives up.” Funk said Williams also “has an insight into complex relationships” that is unusual in someone so young, and that while he is in many ways “just a normal kid . . . he is not swayed by peer pressure; he is very much his own man.” Williams, who maintains a 3.8 grade average, has won several writing prizes, including first place in this year’s countywide Martin Luther King Jr. Art and Essay Contest, which netted him a $1,000 scholarship. “The atrocities of this world can be abolished if we as a people work together to achieve it,” Williams wrote in his prize-winning essay. “This can only be done if we learn to live together in one environment, in one common world, working for a common dream. "(King’s) dream has been passed down to my generation, and I will personally work to keep it alive.” Williams recently was one of eight American students chosen to participate in a cultural exchange trip to Japan, an experience he describes as “just beautiful.” Williams, who plans to study economics and, perhaps later, law, said he picked high goals for himself because of his father, a medical doctor in Cleveland. “He was the first in our family to get a college degree . . . he set a certain standard. I’m proud of that, and I want to show him I can be successful, too,” said Williams, who lives with his grandparents. He counts his grandparents, his school and the friends he has attended classes with since elementary school among his blessings. But his passion since junior high school has been being part of a marching band. He is Locke’s drum major and one of three leading the Los Angeles Unified School District’s prestigious all-city band. “That’s my joy,” he said of marching in a band. It also once threatened to be his biggest disappointment, he said, recalling an incident that illustrates his determination to succeed. “I played the clarinet, and because of my eyesight I don’t have any peripheral vision on my left and I couldn’t see the others next to me, so I was having trouble staying in the line,” he said. “People started giving me a hard time. I felt bad, but I didn’t want to tell them why, and I didn’t want to give up marching band.” So Williams taught himself to be a drum major, practiced hard and won the post. “Now I have no problem,” he said, smiling broadly. “Now I have the whole band in my face.”
WHAT ARE COOKIES? A cookie is a small data file that is placed on your browser or the hardware of your computer or other device to allow a website to recognise you as a user when you return to the website, either for the duration of your visit (using a ‘session cookie’) or for repeat visits (a ‘persistent cookie’). Other similar technologies work in a similar way and we use the word ‘cookie’ in this Cookies Policy to refer to all technologies that collect information from your device. Strictly necessary cookies. These are cookies that are required for the operation of our Site. They include, for example, cookies that enable you to log into secure areas of our Site. Analytical cookies. They allow us to recognise and count the number of visitors and to see how visitors move around our Site when they are using it. This helps us to improve the way our Site works, for example, by ensuring that users are finding what they are looking for easily. Functionality cookies. These are used to recognise you when you return to our website. This enables us to personalise our content for you, greet you by name and remember your preferences (for example, your choice of language or region). Advertising cookies. These cookies record your visit to our Site, the pages you have visited on our Site and others and the links you have followed. We will use this information to make the advertising displayed to you more relevant to your interests. We may also share this information with third parties for this purpose. This Cookies Policy gives you information on the specific cookies used on this Site. HOW TO CONTROL AND DELETE COOKIES If you wish to restrict or block the cookies which are set by the Site (or, indeed, on any other website) you can do this through your browser settings. The ‘Help’ function within your browser should tell you how. Alternatively, you may wish to visit http://www.allaboutcookies.org/ which contains comprehensive information on how to do this on a wide variety of browsers. You will also find details on how to delete cookies from your computer, as well as more general information about cookies. Please note that, as these websites are not owned or operated by us, we are not responsible for any of the content on them. Please be aware that restricting cookies may mean that you will not be able to take full advantage of all the features or services available on the Site. MAIN COOKIES USED BY US ON OUR SITE A list of the main cookies used by us on this Site together with details about what each is used for can be found in the Cookie Details section below. THIRD PARTY COOKIES This Site uses third party cookies. More specifically, we use third party Analytics cookies to help us collect information that allows us to analyse web traffic to our Site. The information collected via the cookies, which is anonymous, is sent to a third party that operates analytics tools which we use to analyse the information collected and improve our Site. A list of the third party cookies used in connection with the Site can be found under the relevant section in the Cookie Details section below. Some of the emails we send to you may contain a ‘web beacon pixel’ (clear GIFs) or tracked links which allows us to identify when you have opened the email and to verify which links contained in the email you have accessed. We use this information to determine which parts of our emails are of most interest to you. You can delete the pixel by deleting the email. If you do not wish to download the pixel to your computer or other device, you can ensure this by selecting to receive emails from us in plain text rather than HTML, or not opening pictures in your email. Alternatively, you can unsubscribe from our mailing list by contacting us at [[email protected]]. We may make changes to this Cookies Policy at any time by sending you an email with the modified terms or, where appropriate, by posting a copy of them on the Site. Any changes will take effect 7 days after the date of our email or the date on which we post the modified terms on the Site, whichever is the earlier. If you have any questions or concerns about cookies or your privacy when using this Site, please contact us as follows: If you wish to write to us, please write to [Lazy Dancer Tips Limited], [PO Box 74903, Southwark, London, LND, SE16 9FA, United Kingdom]. Our email address for data protection queries is [[email protected]] DATE PUBLISHED: [22/12/2019] www.lazydancerstudio.com (Platform: Kajabi) uses the following cookies on the Site: \|\|Kajabi session cookie Tracks your active admin session so you don’t need to re-login\| \|\|Kajabi affiliate token Tracks which affiliate has referred an offer purchase\| \|\|Admin bar hidden Tracks whether the user wishes their admin previewing bar to be hidden\|
Len Beadell Library Updated: Jan 29 "Len Beadell was one of Salisbury's 'great characters', a modern pioneer whose life and work deserve to be preserved for future generations." The Len Beadell Library, before being moved in November 2019, was located at 55 John Street Salisbury. It was one of 5 public libraries managed by the City of Salisbury. In December 1997 the City of Salisbury decided it would be appropriate to commemorate Len Beadell's memory by naming its new central library in his honour. Len's contribution to Australia's literary and cultural heritage, as well as his work with the Army Survey Corps, was captured through a major artwork. The Len Beadell Memorial Artwork was funded by public subscription to commemorate Len's life and achievements. A list of contributors is shown in the gallery below. The artwork was designed by Martin Corbin and made at Architectural Stained Glass Studio, at Unley, in collaboration with Jan Aspinall and Berin Behn. The Len Beadell Artwork was officially unveiled on 10 December 1999. 'In designing this memorial, I have tried to provide a real sense of who Len Beadell was and the significance of his legendary work, in a manner that he would have enjoyed' Martin Corbin The Len Beadell Memorial Artwork is in two parts: The first part comprises a set of four, 8mm thick toughened glass panels that give a sense of the colour and expansiveness of the outback and the work carried out in this beautiful if often difficult environment. The design centres on a image of the bulldozer making an initial cut for one of the roads probably the Gunbarrel Highway. Smaller attached panels have been screen printed or sandblasted with images from the life of Len Beadell - photographs taken by him, cartoons he drew and text from the pages of his books. Scroll across to see all four panels in the First Part The second part, a single panel, is a tribute to Len Beadell. The panel is darker, to evoke the night sky which provided Len with the stars from which to take his bearings. Instead of stars and constellations, we see handwritten calculations and diagrams. The panel includes: a small plate with brief text in memoriam, made in the same manner as his road signs a transparency of one of his original maps with notes and trig bearings in the area of Sandy Blight Junction an image of Len Beadell with his scoutmaster and mentor, John Richmond an image of Len at work in the outback, standing on the bonnet of his jeep images of Len the older man as many will remember him in his years as author, public speaker and tour guide an interview with Len from a 1952 Woomera 'Gibber Gabber'. Various photos in the gallery below show some close ups of the glass panels, the Len Beadell Memorial Artwork information brochure acknowledging those who made contributions, and the New Salisbury Hub featuring the Len Beadell Innovation Corner (opened 30 November 2019).
Followup to: Life's Story Continues Imagine two agents who've never seen an intelligence - including, somehow, themselves - but who've seen the rest of the universe up until now, arguing about what these newfangled "humans" with their "language" might be able to do... Believer: Previously, evolution has taken hundreds of thousands of years to create new complex adaptations with many working parts. I believe that, thanks to brains and language, we may see a new era, an era of intelligent design. In this era, complex causal systems - with many interdependent parts that collectively serve a definite function - will be created by the cumulative work of many brains building upon each others' efforts. Skeptic: I see - you think that brains might have something like a 50% speed advantage over natural selection? So it might take a while for brains to catch up, but after another eight billion years, brains will be in the lead. But this planet's Sun will swell up by then, so - Believer: Thirty percent? I was thinking more like three orders of magnitude. With thousands of brains working together and building on each others' efforts, whole complex machines will be designed on the timescale of mere millennia - no, centuries! Believer: You heard me. Skeptic: Oh, come on! There's absolutely no empirical evidence for an assertion like that! Animal brains have been around for hundreds of millions of years without doing anything like what you're saying. I see no reason to think that life-as-we-know-it will end, just because these hominid brains have learned to send low-bandwidth signals over their vocal cords. Nothing like what you're saying has happened before in my experience - Believer: That's kind of the point, isn't it? That nothing like this has happened before? And besides, there is precedent for that kind of Black Swan - namely, the first replicator. Skeptic: Yes, there is precedent in the replicators. Thanks to our observations of evolution, we have extensive knowledge and many examples of how optimization works. We know, in particular, that optimization isn't easy - it takes millions of years to climb up through the search space. Why should "brains", even if they optimize, produce such different results? Believer: Well, natural selection is just the very first optimization process that got started accidentally. These newfangled brains were designed by evolution, rather than, like evolution itself, being a natural process that got started by accident. So "brains" are far more sophisticated - why, just look at them. Once they get started on cumulative optimization - FOOM! Skeptic: So far, brains are a lot less impressive than natural selection. These "hominids" you're so interested in - can these creatures' handaxes really be compared to the majesty of a dividing cell? Believer: That's because they only just got started on language and cumulative optimization. Skeptic: Really? Maybe it's because the principles of natural selection are simple and elegant for creating complex designs, and all the convolutions of brains are only good for chipping handaxes in a hurry. Maybe brains simply don't scale to detail work. Even if we grant the highly dubious assertion that brains are more efficient than natural selection - which you seem to believe on the basis of just looking at brains and seeing the convoluted folds - well, there still has to be a law of diminishing returns. Believer: Then why have brains been getting steadily larger over time? That doesn't look to me like evolution is running into diminishing returns. If anything, the recent example of hominids suggests that once brains get large and complicated enough, the fitness advantage for further improvements is even greater - Skeptic: Oh, that's probably just sexual selection! I mean, if you think that a bunch of brains will produce new complex machinery in just a hundred years, then why not suppose that a brain the size of a whole planet could produce a de novo complex causal system with many interdependent elements in a single day? Believer: You're attacking a strawman here - I never said anything like that. Skeptic: Yeah? Let's hear you assign a probability that a brain the size of a planet could produce a new complex design in a single day. Believer: The size of a planet? (Thinks.) Um... ten percent. Skeptic: (Muffled choking sounds.) Believer: Look, brains are fast. I can't rule it out in principle - Skeptic: Do you understand how long a day is? It's the amount of time for the Earth to spin on its own axis, once. One sunlit period, one dark period. There are 365,242 of them in a single millennium. Believer: Do you understand how long a second is? That's how long it takes a brain to see a fly coming in, target it in the air, and eat it. There's 86,400 of them in a day. Skeptic: Pffft, and chemical interactions in cells happen in nanoseconds. Speaking of which, how are these brains going to build any sort of complex machinery without access to ribosomes? They're just going to run around on the grassy plains in really optimized patterns until they get tired and fall over. There's nothing they can use to build proteins or even control tissue structure. Believer: Well, life didn't always have ribosomes, right? The first replicator didn't. Skeptic: So brains will evolve their own ribosomes? Believer: Not necessarily ribosomes. Just some way of making things. Skeptic: Great, so call me in another hundred million years when that evolves, and I'll start worrying about brains. Believer: No, the brains will think of a way to get their own ribosome-analogues. Skeptic: No matter what they think, how are they going to make anything without ribosomes? Believer: They'll think of a way. Skeptic: Now you're just treating brains as magic fairy dust. Believer: The first replicator would have been magic fairy dust by comparison with anything that came before it - Skeptic: That doesn't license throwing common sense out the window. Believer: What you call "common sense" is exactly what would have caused you to assign negligible probability to the actual outcome of the first replicator. Ergo, not so sensible as it seems, if you want to get your predictions actually right, instead of sounding reasonable. Skeptic: And your belief that in the Future it will only take a hundred years to optimize a complex causal system with dozens of interdependent parts - you think this is how you get it right? Believer: Yes! Sometimes, in the pursuit of truth, you have to be courageous - to stop worrying about how you sound in front of your friends - to think outside the box - to imagine futures fully as absurd as the Present would seem without benefit of hindsight - and even, yes, say things that sound completely ridiculous and outrageous by comparison with the Past. That is why I boldly dare to say - pushing out my guesses to the limits of where Truth drives me, without fear of sounding silly - that in the far future, a billion years from now when brains are more highly evolved, they will find it possible to design a complete machine with a thousand parts in as little as one decade! Skeptic: You're just digging yourself deeper. I don't even understand how brains are supposed to optimize so much faster. To find out the fitness of a mutation, you've got to run millions of real-world tests, right? And even then, an environmental shift can make all your optimization worse than nothing, and there's no way to predict that no matter how much you test - Believer: Well, a brain is complicated, right? I've been looking at them for a while and even I'm not totally sure I understand what goes on in there. Skeptic: Pffft! What a ridiculous excuse. Believer: I'm sorry, but it's the truth - brains are harder to understand. Skeptic: Oh, and I suppose evolution is trivial? Believer: By comparison... yeah, actually. Skeptic: Name me one factor that explains why you think brains will run so fast. Skeptic: Eh? Abstrah-shun? Believer: It... um... lets you know about parts of the search space you haven't actually searched yet, so you can... sort of... skip right to where you need to be - Skeptic: I see. And does this power work by clairvoyance, or by precognition? Also, do you get it from a potion or an amulet? Believer: The brain looks at the fitness of just a few points in the search space - does some complicated processing - and voila, it leaps to a much higher point! Skeptic: Of course. I knew teleportation had to fit in here somewhere. Believer: See, the fitness of one point tells you something about other points - Skeptic: Eh? I don't see how that's possible without running another million tests. Believer: You just look at it, dammit! Skeptic: With what kind of sensor? It's a search space, not a bug to eat! Believer: The search space is compressible - Skeptic: Whaa? This is a design space of possible genes we're talking about, not a folding bed - Believer: Would you stop talking about genes already! Genes are on the way out! The future belongs to ideas! Skeptic: Give. Me. A. Break. Believer: Hominids alone shall carry the burden of destiny! Skeptic: They'd die off in a week without plants to eat. You probably don't know this, because you haven't studied ecology, but ecologies are complicated - no single species ever "carries the burden of destiny" by itself. But that's another thing - why are you postulating that it's just the hominids who go FOOM? What about the other primates? These chimpanzees are practically their cousins - why wouldn't they go FOOM too? Believer: Because it's all going to shift to the level of ideas, and the hominids will build on each other's ideas without the chimpanzees participating - Skeptic: You're begging the question. Why won't chimpanzees be part of the economy of ideas? Are you familiar with Ricardo's Law of Comparative Advantage? Even if chimpanzees are worse at everything than hominids, the hominids will still trade with them and all the other brainy animals. Believer: The cost of explaining an idea to a chimpanzee will exceed any benefit the chimpanzee can provide. Skeptic: But why should that be true? Chimpanzees only forked off from hominids a few million years ago. They have 95% of their genome in common with the hominids. The vast majority of optimization that went into producing hominid brains also went into producing chimpanzee brains. If hominids are good at trading ideas, chimpanzees will be 95% as good at trading ideas. Not to mention that all of your ideas belong to the far future, so that both hominids, and chimpanzees, and many other species will have evolved much more complex brains before anyone starts building their own cells - Believer: I think we could see as little as a million years pass between when these creatures first invent a means of storing information with persistent digital accuracy - their equivalent of DNA - and when they build machines as complicated as cells. Skeptic: Too many assumptions... I don't even know where to start... Look, right now brains are nowhere near building cells. It's going to take a lot more evolution to get to that point, and many other species will be much further along the way by the time hominids get there. Chimpanzees, for example, will have learned to talk - Believer: It's the ideas that will accumulate optimization, not the brains. Skeptic: Then I say again that if hominids can do it, chimpanzees will do it 95% as well. Believer: You might get discontinuous returns on brain complexity. Like... even though the hominid lineage split off from chimpanzees very recently, and only a few million years of evolution have occurred since then, the chimpanzees won't be able to keep up. Believer: Good question. Skeptic: Does it have a good answer? Believer: Well, there might be compound interest on learning during the maturational period... or something about the way a mind flies through the search space, so that slightly more powerful abstracting-machinery can create abstractions that correspond to much faster travel... or some kind of feedback loop involving a brain powerful enough to control itself... or some kind of critical threshold built into the nature of cognition as a problem, so that a single missing gear spells the difference between walking and flying... or the hominids get started down some kind of sharp slope in the genetic fitness landscape, involving many changes in sequence, and the chimpanzees haven't gotten started down it yet... or all these statements are true and interact multiplicatively... I know that a few million years doesn't seem like much time, but really, quite a lot can happen. It's hard to untangle. Skeptic: I'd say it's hard to believe. Believer: Sometimes it seems that way to me too! But I think that in a mere ten or twenty million years, we won't have a choice.
Douglas E. Wade (1909-1987) was a wildlife conservationist, ecologist, educator, editor, writer, and prairie restorer. Graduating from Beloit College in 1935, Wade received an M.S. degree in 1940 at the University of Wisconsin, where he studied under Aldo Leopold. Between 1938 and 1963, he was a research specialist for the Pennsylvania Game Commission, a wildlife instructor at the University of Missouri, a naturalist in residence at Dartmouth College, and the head of the education division of the Saskatchewan Department of Natural Resources. He also edited the Journal of Soil and Water Conservation, 1956-59. From 1964 until his retirement in 1987, Wade was professor of outdoor education at Northern Illinois University's Lorado Taft Campus. He and his wife were instrumental in founding the Prairie Preservation Society of Ogle County, Ill., and their Windrift Prairie Shop and Nursery in Oregon, Ill., specializing in native species. This collection contains biographical material, Wade's correspondence with colleagues, published and unpublished writings, research files, organizational papers, and a large collection of reference files, mostly containing professional literature. Subjects covered in the reference files include conservation education and theory, ecology, forestry, population control, prairie preservation and restoration, soil and water conservation, and wildlife and game management. The collection also includes many publications by and about Aldo Leopold, transcripts of Leopold's radio talks, and notes and handouts from Leopold's classes. Dorothy R. Wade donated the collection to the Library in 1990 and 1995. Jane and Dean Shaeffer of Dixon, Ill., and Tanya and Christopher Vernon of Champaign, Ill., facilitated this acquisition.
Assuming the public school system didn’t crush your soul, learning is a great activity. It expands your viewpoint. It gives you new knowledge you can use to improve your life. It is important for your personal growth. Even if you discount the worldly benefits, the act of learning can be a source of enjoyment. “I have never let my schooling interfere with my education.” — Mark Twain But in a busy world, it can often be hard to fit in time to learn anything that isn’t essential. The only things learned are those that need to be. Everything beyond that is considered frivolous. Even those who do appreciate the practice of lifelong learning, can find it difficult to make the effort. Here are some tips for installing the habit of continuous learning: 1. Always Have a Book It doesn’t matter if it takes you a year or a week to read a book. Always strive to have a book that you are reading through, and take it with you so you can read it when you have time. Just by shaving off a few minutes in-between activities in my day I can read about a book per week. That’s at least fifty each year. 2. Keep a “To-Learn” List We all have to-do lists. These are the tasks we need to accomplish. Try to also have a “to-learn” list. On it you can write ideas for new areas of study. Maybe you would like to take up a new language, learn a skill or read the collective works of Shakespeare. Whatever motivates you, write it down. 3. Get More Intellectual Friends Start spending more time with people who think. Not just people who are smart, but people who actually invest much of their time in learning new skills. Their habits will rub off on you. Even better, they will probably share some of their knowledge with you. 4. Guided Thinking Albert Einstein once said, “Any man who reads too much and uses his own brain too little falls into lazy habits of thinking.” Simply studying the wisdom of others isn’t enough, you have to think through ideas yourself. Spend time journaling, meditating or contemplating over ideas you have learned. 5. Put it Into Practice Skill based learning is useless if it isn’t applied. Reading a book on C++ isn’t the same thing as writing a program. Studying painting isn’t the same as picking up a brush. If your knowledge can be applied, put it into practice. In this information age, we’re all exposed to a lot of information, it’s important to re-learn how to learn so as to put the knowledge into practice. 6. Teach Others You learn what you teach. If you have an outlet of communicating ideas to others, you are more likely to solidify that learning. Start a blog, mentor someone or even discuss ideas with a friend. 7. Clean Your Input Some forms of learning are easy to digest, but often lack substance. I make a point of regularly cleaning out my feed reader for blogs I subscribe to. Great blogs can be a powerful source of new ideas. But every few months, I realize I’m collecting posts from blogs that I am simply skimming. Every few months, purify your input to save time and focus on what counts. 8. Learn in Groups Lifelong learning doesn’t mean condemning yourself to a stack of dusty textbooks. Join organizations that teach skills. Workshops and group learning events can make educating yourself a fun, social experience. 9. Unlearn Assumptions You can’t add water to a full cup. I always try to maintain a distance away from any idea. Too many convictions simply mean too few paths for new ideas. Actively seek out information that contradicts your worldview. Our minds can’t be trusted, but this is what we can do about it to be wiser. 10. Find Jobs that Encourage Learning Pick a career that encourages continual learning. If you are in a job that doesn’t have much intellectual freedom, consider switching to one that does. Don’t spend forty hours of your week in a job that doesn’t challenge you. 11. Start a Project Set out to do something you don’t know how. Forced learning in this way can be fun and challenging. If you don’t know anything about computers, try building one. If you consider yourself a horrible artist, try a painting. 12. Follow Your Intuition Lifelong learning is like wandering through the wilderness. You can’t be sure what to expect and there isn’t always an end goal in mind. Letting your intuition guide you can make self-education more enjoyable. Most of our lives have been broken down to completely logical decisions, that making choices on a whim has been stamped out. 13. The Morning Fifteen Productive people always wake up early. Use the first fifteen minutes of your morning as a period for education. If you find yourself too groggy, you might want to wait a short time. Just don’t put it off later in the day where urgent activities will push it out of the way. 14. Reap the Rewards Learn information you can use. Understanding the basics of programming allows me to handle projects that other people would require outside help. Meeting a situation that makes use of your educational efforts can be a source of pride. 15. Make Learning a Priority Few external forces are going to persuade you to learn. The desire has to come from within. Once you decide you want to make lifelong learning a habit, it is up to you to make it a priority in your life. More About Continuous Learning - Adapting to Change: Why It Matters and How to Do It - How to Develop a Lifelong Learning Habit - 10 Reasons Personal Growth Is Important No Matter How Old You Are - Going Back to School at 40 Helps Create a New Golden Age: Here’s How Featured photo credit: Paul Schafer via unsplash.com
People often ask me what style my paintings are, adding, "Is this Impressionism?" My answer is always, "I think of them as painterly, because they're realistic with strong brushwork.". But in all honesty, I'm not entirely sure about the difference. So now is my chance to investigate the idea of Impressionism vs. Painterliness. For this post, I decided to focus on paintings that depict figures, since that is a large part of what I paint. When I think of Impressionism, I think first of Claude Monet, and then all the rest of the impressionists including Berthe Morrisot, Edgar Degas, Mary Cassatt, Edouard Manet, Camille Pissaro, Pierre-Aguste Renoir, and Paul Cezanne. In general impressionists painted landscapes instead of genre paintings (with figures), but here are two excellent examples of impressionist figure paintings by Monet, left, and a detail of a painting by Morrisot, right. Wikipedia says that impressionism is characterized by "relatively small, thin, yet visible brush strokes, open composition, emphasis on accurate depiction of light..., ordinary subject matter, inclusion of movement..., and unusual visual angles." You can see all these characteristics in the paintings above. Also note that the figures seem more shimmering than solid. Now contrast those paintings with these by John Singer Sargent on the left and Joaquin Sorolla on the right. Where impressionistic paintings generally have small, overlapping brushwork with colors that blend visually, here there is more of a sense of a solid form, and the figures are is clearly, although loosely, defined. These artists use color, bold brushwork, and edges to model form. To me this feels painterly. Wikipedia says "An oil painting is painterly when there are visible brushstrokes, the result of applying paint in a less than completely controlled manner, generally without closely following carefully drawn lines." Well, it may look uncontrolled, but I say these masters knew exactly what they were doing when they wielded that brush. But then Wikipedia goes on to say "The Impressionists, Fauvist, and Abstract Expressionists tended strongly to be painterly movements." Huh? So Impressionism is by definition painterly? But to me the brushwork and the result is very different! This article, from ThoughtCo.com, agrees with me and considers the two styles to be separate movements. Well, let's move on. And now we come to my work. I must admit, when I was considering writing on this subject, I didn't think that in doing so I would be putting my work alongside that of the masters, which is complete hubris. Oh well. But I digress. If you do put my work next to the previous images, you'll see that my brushwork is more similar to the second group than to the first. I don't consider myself an impressionist because I do not use small brushstrokes juxtapositioned against each other to create the effects of light. I use larger brushstrokes of solid color to define form and create a sense of mass. I love the feel of laying down a juicy stroke of just the right color in just the right place to create the sense of an object in sunlight. That, for me is the magic of painting. Impressionist or painterly painter? In researching this article, I learned that the answer is not clearly defined. Certainly many impressionist painters, like Mary Cassatt, Edouard Manet, and Edward Degas produced some work that seems more painterly than impressionistic by my definition. In the end it's up to to the artist to define their style. I think my new answer will be, "Yes, my work can seem impressionistic, but I consider it to be painterly, because of the strong brushwork and solid forms." In fact, I think I'll write that on an index card for handy reference.
Elissa Altman shares the story of “Grandma’s Ghost,” a 30-year-old Japanese umeboshi plum, and the healing it brought in this difficult time. If you can know yourself as the unity of past, present, and future, says Geoffrey Shugen Arnold, then you see you’re right where you ought to be. A new exhibition at the Rubin Museum explores the future through the life of Padmasambhava, who was said to be able to see through time. Dzigar Kongtrul Rinpoche’s advice for time management: organize your schedule, let go of distractions, and make a clear aspiration to practice. The late Dainin Katagiri Roshi explores Dogen’s concept of Being-Time and how to work with it in our daily lives. In traditional Buddhist cosmology, kalpas are unfathomably long periods of time. There’s no better example of Zen’s direct, penetrating spirit than these exchanges between the late Zen master Seung Sahn and his students. The way we view time can cause us to either struggle or to live lightly. Ken Jones shows us that by seeing things as they are we can be spacious. The late Dainin Katagiri Roshi explores Dogen’s concept of Being-Time and how to work with it our daily lives. Homesickness is a rich and genuine thing, because it reflects the truth that whatever we admire is decaying and slipping away, even as we admire it.
"flyers" in the noun sense 1. circular, handbill, bill, broadside, broadsheet, flier, flyer, throwaway an advertisement (usually printed on a page or in a leaflet) intended for wide distribution "he mailed the circular to all subscribers" 2. flier, flyer someone who travels by air 3. aviator, aeronaut, airman, flier, flyer someone who operates an aircraft Source: WordNet® (An amazing lexical database of English) Princeton University "About WordNet®." WordNet®. Princeton University. 2010. View WordNet® License
The top 10 Must try local foods in Okinawa Updated: Apr 16 Welcome to our food lovers guide to Okinawa, Japan. Here are 10 local dishes and snacks you must try for your visit! Okinawa Soba uses thick noodles and is served in a bowl that looks very similar to Udon. One of the unique elements of this Soba noodle is that is made from 100% wheat flour for a more chewy texture. Where we found this: See our Day 1 Map reference on our road trip guide (We tried both the Soba and Sea Grapes below) Experience an explosion of seaweed taste as the little bubbles of seaweed pop in your mouth after the first bite. These are often served cold as a side dish with a soy and vinegar dip for a little extra flavour. Blue Seal's Beni-imo purple sweet potato ice cream: Blue Seal is the most popular brand of local ice cream in Okinawa which has been around since 1948 and can be found almost anywhere. There are many local flavours to taste but we personally loved the bright purple creamy sweet Potato ice cream. Where we found this: Ice Cream truck at Cape Zanpa lighthouse. We also went for seconds during our next day at Okinawa World. Purple Sweet Potato Cakes: While on the topic of Sweet Potato snacks, pick yourself up the most famous local Souvenir from Okinawa, the sweet potato cakes. They can be found in almost any souvenir store. Where we found this: Naha Okinawa Airport Soft Pumpkin Cookies: Another of our favourite sweet souvenirs was the soft and freshly made pumpkin cookies from the factory in Ocean Tower on Kouri Island. After tasting one, we purchased several boxes to take home. Ramen (ordered from a vending machine): Did you even travel to Japan if you didn't get something from a vending Machine? They say each part of Japan has their own distinct take on Ramen, so we recommend finding some local Ramen to taste. Where we found this: Ramen Koryu Naha Matsuyama Shop (Near Fukushuen Gardens, Naha City) Japanese Hawaiian fusion: Enjoy a fresh bowl of Japanese-Hawaiian fusion food. We loved the garlic shrimp from Kouri Shimp food truck on Kouri Island. When on a tropical island there's no going past some fresh seafood. Whether that's fresh fish from Makishi markets in Naha or some restaurant quality Sashimi. Where we found this: Okinawa Cuisine Chinuman Izumizaki (Near Harborview Hotel Naha) Taste the traditional rice brewed foaming Bukubuku Tea with a side of local peanut flavoured biscuits. There's an art to both creating and drinking correctly this tea which is worth giving a go. Where we found this: cafe along Tsuboya Pottery Street in Naha. While we are not massive beer drinkers we really enjoyed the locally brewed Orion Beer, indulging in at least one per night on our trip. The beer is brewed with fresh spring water from the mountains just behind the brewery. Where we found this: Any restaurant along Kokusai Dori Street, Naha City We hope you enjoyed our weekend travel guide to the the must try foods of Okinawa. To learn more on the top things to see and do in Okinawa check out our 4 Day Road trip itinerary guide here. For more blog posts on weekend getaways and travel itineraries check out the destinations section of our blog. Follow us @littlesherpatravels
God’s Sovereignty, the Coronavirus, and Our Fear March 22, 2020 Speaker: Albert Turner The first section below contains the message verses we looked at followed by a summary. The second section has takeaway thoughts and questions. Message Verses and Summary God ordains all things 5 I am the Lord, and there is no other, besides me there is no God; I equip you, though you do not know me, 6 that people may know, from the rising of the sun and from the west, that there is none besides me; I am the Lord, and there is no other. 7 I form light and create darkness; I make well-being and create calamity; I am the Lord, who does all these things. He does according to His will in the host of heaven and among the inhabitants of earth; And no one can ward off His hand Or say to Him, “What have You done?” …according to the plan of him who works out everything in conformity with the purpose of his will. The lot is cast into the lap, but its every decision is from the LORD. Are not two sparrows sold for a cent? And yet not one of them will fall to the ground apart from your Father. …in Your book were all written The days that were ordained for me, When as yet there was not one of them. He does this for His glory in the redemption of all who trust in Him In response to man’s sin God has submitted the world to falleness so that people would turn from their sin and seek Him for rescue. …creation waits with eager longing for the revealing of the sons of God For the creation was subjected to futility, not willingly, but because of him who subjected it, in hope that the creation itself will be set free from its bondage to corruption and obtain the freedom of the glory of the children of God. He never sins in His sovereignty, but He does use sinful “instruments” God does not sin Let no one say when he is tempted, “I am being tempted by God”; for God cannot be tempted by evil, and He Himself does not tempt anyone. But each one is tempted when he is carried away and enticed by his own lust. He uses the wills and desires and actions of even wicked people to achieve His ultimate good ends. Recall what Joseph said to his brothers: As for you, what you intended against me for evil, God intended for good, in order to accomplish a day like this— to preserve the lives of many people. Recall His sovereignty in the Crucifixion He was handed over by God’s set plan and foreknowledge, and you, by the hands of the lawless, put Him to death by nailing Him to the cross. His purposes are good and just And we know that God causes all things to work together for good to those who love God, to those who are called according to His purpose. For those whom He foreknew, He also predestined to become conformed to the image of His Son, so that He would be the firstborn among many brethren. What God is after is using all things to grow in you the heart of Jesus – a heart that is so glorious and good and pure and holy and loving and trusting of God, that it is worth taking you through all kinds of trials and hardships and suffering in order to separate your hope from this world and what it offers and plant it deeper and deeper and deeper and deeper into the soil of God and His faithfulness. So he uses what He hates to accomplish what he loves. He uses unemployment and car accidents and unfaithful spouses and cancer and kids with heart problems and church splits and crooked politicians and – even our own sin – to teach us in all kinds of ways to depend on Him and to trust in Him and to teach us that He alone is eternally dependable and He alone is eternally satisfying. Takeaway Thoughts and Questions Don’t be afraid But He placed his right hand on me and said: “Do not be afraid. I am the First and the Last. I am the Living One; I was dead, and now behold, I am alive forever and ever! And I hold the keys of death and Hades.” Revelation 1:17-18 What does it mean that Jesus is: - The first and the last (consider His eternal sovereignty we reflected on) - Alive forever – right now (i.e., With you / in you / interceding for you) - Holds the keys to death and Hades? (recall His words: "It is finished.") God cares for your every need What then shall we say to these things? If God is for us, who is against us? He who did not spare His own Son, but delivered Him over for us all, how will He not also with Him freely give us all things? Romans 8:31-32 Remember Paul is arguing from your greater needs to your lesser needs. Can you explain his point in your own words? - Where do you struggle to believe God for His help most right now? - Consider ways you have seen Him provide in difficult places before. Go to God with your fears Therefore, since we have a great high priest who has passed through the heavens, Jesus the Son of God, let us hold fast our confession. For we do not have a high priest who cannot sympathize with our weaknesses, but One who has been tempted in all things as we are, yet without sin. Therefore, let us draw near with confidence to the throne of grace, so that we may receive mercy and find grace to help in time of need. Hebrews 4:14-16 - How do you feel about going to God for help “in time of need”? - Is it hard to feel worthy to go to Him? Is it hard to feel it’s necessary? - How does this passage speak to all of that? Strengthen each other And let us consider how to stimulate one another to love and good deeds, not forsaking our own assembling together, as is the habit of some, but encouraging one another; and all the more as you see the day drawing near. Hebrews 10:24-25 - How do you feel you’re doing in reaching out to others? - Are there folks in your family or church who you are not reaching out to very well that you think you could do better? Do you feel maxed out? Spend some time with the Lord asking Him to help you trust Him with this season and to give you a heart (and ideas) to reach out to those who He wants to bless through you – or to sustain the amount of "reaching out" your presently doing.
‘Desycle at the table’ LSDP, the Desycle Foundation and the desycling coaches were invited by Foundation Wilde Westen and Stedelijk in West to organize a Desycling project for and with the neighbours of Geuzenveld-Slotermeer. The project took place in the location where Wilde Westen was executing “De kok, de kweker, zijn vrouw en hun buurman”, a project for het Stedelijk in West. As a follow up of Desycling A’dam 08, LSDP organized a project in collaboration with the coaches in which we explored the habits and costumes of different cultures around the subject ‘Kitchens and Meals”. Around 50 people (children and adults) shared their cultural experiences and creative skills during the project’s activities. The intensive collaboration resulted in specific products, like a large fruit bowl designed with recycled magazines and produced by a heterogeneous group of 40 people, plus concrete ideas which an enthusiastic group of women who wanted to explore further into new opportunities. Beatriz Fernandez Garcia Miritte Ben Yitzchak Gemeente Amterdam Stadsdeel Geuzenveld-Slotermeer Thanks for asking our participation to Marjetica Potrc and Wilde Westen Foundation The following link shows the weblog which was kept during the project: Weblog Desycling Amsterdam More photos on Flickr: Desycle op tafel on Flickr See also the manual for making the bowl:Fruit bowl manual
In a previous post, we described some of the ways that LuminUltra’s 2nd Generation ATP testing can be used to help operators and field technicians by delivering rapid microbiological water quality data for immediate action. In this entry, we look at how it can be used to help supervisors and managers better allocate their resources, optimize and troubleshoot processes, and easily monitor systemwide performance in large or complex systems. One of the greatest features of our testing platform, is LuminUltra Cloud. 2nd Generation ATP testing provides results in seconds, but historically, that would only be available to the person running the test. Combined with Cloud, supervisors and managers can now be notified immediately of those results. When operators perform the test using the mobile or web-based application, the data is automatically uploaded to a secure server, eliminating the need for manual data entry or sharing. Access to site data can be provided to multiple users, meaning managers can monitor data and offer real time decision support whenever they receive alarms. This is a major advantage over other types of tests, such as culture-based techniques, where incubation times of 24 hours to several days are required and might mean that corrective actions cannot be implemented until it’s too late. Having the ability to respond rapidly could mean avoiding having to implement a boil water advisory in a municipal water application or a major process shutdown in an industrial application. Managers can also easily monitor trends throughout large networks or at multiple assets distributed over large distances, which provides valuable information for allocating resources. Moreover, LuminUltra Cloud can be accessed on various devices, including Android or IOS based devices or a desktop computer, allowing managers to check on their systems from practically anywhere. The test kits also provide a great tool for process audits and optimization, as representative datasets can be obtained quickly and easily. In process audits, system-wide samples can be collected to identify hotspots or sources of contamination. For optimization work, microbiological growth can be easily tracked at different times and locations following an operational change. Furthermore, the data can be shared externally through LuminUltra Cloud, making it easier to collaborate with consultants or service providers. Finally, LuminUltra provides exceptional support and resources to help supervisors and managers make appropriate and effective decisions based on their microbiological data. LuminUltra Academy, our online training and certification centre, provides an extensive library of information about microbiological monitoring and control techniques. Application specific material is available for users in a variety of industries, including municipal water, wastewater, industrial water, and oil and gas. Furthermore, if you have any questions or would like any more information, our Technical Support team is always happy to help.
No doubt, we are busy people these days. With so much information around us, it’s easy to forget things like great ideas for work, appointment times, or even what we want to buy at the store. Many different apps can keep a list for you to check later, and Google Assistant is one of the most popular. On its own, Google Assistant has an incredible amount of features that make your life more functional, but when you pair it with other programs, you increase its value exponentially. And that’s what we’re going to do here, provide those who are just a bit scattered with an even better way to make sure we accomplish those tasks. Because if you’re anything like me, you end up forgetting to check the list, but luckily there are some useful tech hacks that work for the most scattered of people! Applets to the rescue Using an applet, a small application that performs one specific task that runs within a larger program, you can create actions that run automatically by connecting two different programs. One of these applets allows you to connect Google Assistant with Gmail to not only record your thoughts but also have them delivered to you via email in one daily digest email. If you are not familiar with applets, the prospect of doing something like this may sound daunting, but the process is straightforward and effortless to do. To create this connection, you need to create an account in a service called IFTTT. This company provides a software platform to connect apps, devices, and services from different developers. On this site you will find a wide selection of applets that connect many different technologies. Create your daily digest Once you’ve created your account in IFTTT, follow these instructions to activate the applet that will provide you with your daily digest email. 1. Search for “keep a list of notes” in the search bar. 2. Click on the result “Keep a list of notes to email yourself at the end of the day.” (Yes, that is the name of the applet) 3. Turn on the applet using the toggle switch. 4. Connect your account if you haven’t done so already. 5. Give the necessary permissions for the applet to work. 6. Fill in different ways you might ask the program to add information to the list. You can leave it the way it is, but you may want to change the wording to make it match your unique speech patterns. The $ stands for the item that Google Assistant will add to the list. 7. If you wish, change the time to have the email delivered at a different hour of the day. 8. Click Save. That’s it. The applet is now activated and ready to run. Would you like to keep separate lists instead of putting everything in one? You can create a different version of the applet by clicking “Create a different version of this applet.” When you list your command line options, make sure they are different than the original versions. Another way to remember the list If you are still worried you won’t remember to read the list, you can also set up your Gmail to automatically forward the email to an online productivity system you use, such as Evernote, Slack, or Trello. Theoretically, you can send this digest to any productivity software that has an email address you can send items to. Test it on your preferred system to see if it works. To send these emails, set up an email filter in Gmail that recognizes all emails that come from your Daily Digest, and forward them without any input from you. To set up the forwarding of the Daily Digest: 1. Open Gmail. 2. Go into Settings. 3. Click on “Forwarding and POP/IMAP.” 4. Click “Add a forwarding address.” 5. Find the email for the other account (Trello, Evernote, etc.) by checking that account in a separate window. 6. Click on “Add a forwarding address.” Copy and paste the email from your other account. 7. Check your other service to find the access code that IFTTT will send you. 8. Click the down arrow in the search box. 9. Type “[email protected]” into the From field. 10. Add a label to these emails such as “Daily Digest.” 11. Click “Create filter.” 12. Click on “Forward it to” and choose the email from the drop-down menu. 13. Save any changes as needed. That’s it. Now when the daily digest comes to your email each day, a copy of it will go to your productivity software. I have mine set to save on a Trello board with my daily todo list. I check it in the morning, complete any immediate tasks, and organize the other information. Once you’ve tried using the applet that creates a daily digest, check out the other applets on the site that are compatible with other programs you use. I think you’ll find some of them very handy!
Compared to GPU and ASIC mining, FPGA is much more efficient. Will FPGA take over other mining hardware, or will it fail miserably? In this article I will try to shed light on FPGA and how it will affect crypto mining. What Mining Hardware Is Available Now? I usually start similar articles with a definition of the subject I am writing about, but now before we get to FPGA, I’d better describe briefly what other mining alternatives are available at present. The present choices will help understand the advantages and disadvantages to FPGA. If you want to mine crypto, you basically have three options: CPU, GPU, and ASIC. CPU mining, as in Central Processing Unit mining, is the most accessible form of mining, but it’s also the least profitable. A good CPU can deliver the hashrate of a low- to mid-end GPU, but still with CPU mining your monthly earnings will most likely be in the single digits. This is why no serious miner will ever consider CPU mining an option. Mining with GPU (Graphics Processing Unit) is way better than mining with a CPU. However, good GPUs cost hundreds or thousands of dollars and you need dozens of them in order to make a living as a crypto miner. They also consume lots of electricity. The good thing about GPU mining is that you are not tied to mining a particular currency only. ASIC (Application-Specific Integrated Circuit) is the heavy artillery of mining. They deliver lots of hash power with lower electricity consumption, but they are not cheap and you are tied to mining a particular algorithm only, which seriously limits your choice of currencies. This means if a currency becomes not so profitable to mine, you are still stuck with it. As you see, none of the present mining options are perfect. What we need is an electricity-efficient, affordable, and flexible alternative. This is where FPGA comes in – or at least there are hopes this will happen. 2. What Is an FPGA? FPGA, or Field-Programmable Gate Array, is an integrated circuit designed to be configured by a customer or a designer after manufacturing – hence “field-programmable.” This is the main difference from ASICs, which once programmed by the manufacturer can’t be changed later. FPGAs aren’t new – they have been around for decades. In fact, in the early 2010s they were used for mining, but when ASICs came to the market delivering much more power at a fraction of the price, FPGA lost popularity. 3. How Is FPGA Better? In comparison to GPUs, FPGAs are better because they deliver ten times the hashrate of a GPU at a fraction of the electricity cost. In comparison to ASICs, FPGAs are better because they offer flexibility. Unlike ASICs, FPGAs can be adjusted postfork. This means once you buy an FPGA card you can reconfigure it as needed to mine whichever coin is the most profitable. 4. If FPGA Is So Much Better, Why Isn’t It Everywhere? For now, the main reason why FPGA isn’t the dominating mining equipment is its high price. With about $4K per card, or $25-30K per rig, this isn’t the equipment most miners will buy. While it’s true FPGA cards repay themselves much faster than GPUs, this is still a huge amount of money for most miners, especially when you consider the volatility of the crypto market. In addition to their high prices, FPGAs are still behind ASICs in terms of electricity consumption. While this isn’t a big deal for miners in areas with cheap electricity, for many others it is. One more reason FPGA cards are not mainstream is that they require in-depth technical knowledge to configure. There has been a lot of development in the area of simplifying the use of FPGA cards, but it’s still far from a just-plug-and-run situation. One of the most promising projects is this one, so if you consider FPGA mining, keep an eye on this thread. Will FPGA Take Over the Crypto Mining Market? This is hard to say because so many factors can come into play. For instance, if the crypto market crashes, you might guess nobody in their right mind will spend so much on equipment that might never pay for itself. On the other hand, if the prices of FPGA cards drop and there are more plug-and-play solutions, you can bet FPGA will become more popular. If there were decent entry-level FPGA cards at $300 to $500, lots of GPU miners would be ditching their equipment overnight. In a sense, it’s a Catch-22. In order for prices to drop, there must be higher demand. In order for higher demand to exist, prices must drop. Unless something better comes along, I do think the share of FPGA miners will increase in the next couple of years. If a critical mass of miners switches to FPGA, this will drastically increase the difficulty and make mining with GPUs very inefficient. Many GPU miners will have to switch to FPGA or leave mining. This isn’t in the immediate future, so for now don’t lose sleep over it.
Week 7, Day 3: - Further progress on the beam-and-block floor, though now most of the “easy” blocks are in and it’s a question of taking time to complete the more fiddly bits - As implied by the brown pipes laying on the beams, work has started on installing the pipes that will connect the four internal drains to the outside, running under the floor beams One advantage of the beam-and-block floor construction method is that it provides a solid working platform but it’s still possible to gain access to the under floor void throughout the majority of the build, by removing some of the blocks. The electricity cable and water mains connection will need to run through the underfloor void but they can be installed later. A few weeks before completion, once most of the other work has been done, a layer of insulation will be laid on top of the beam-and-block and covered with a layer of concrete. In some areas this concrete will be polished to form the final floor finish; in others it will be left a little thinner and covered with engineered wood flooring.
This diploma might help you to promote health and wellness on a person stage by evaluating lifestyle factors and by creating personalised wellness programs that make the most of evidenced-based theories and methods. A minor in Health and Wellness Coaching simply pairs with majors in human health. PA Health & Wellness provides high quality Medicaid & health insurance plans in Pennsylvania. Our protection choices include a wide range of Pennsylvania insurance coverage advantages, member handbooks, and wellness data. Through experience-based mostly learning, educated lecturers will provide an advanced education both inside and out of doors the classroom with real-world experiences. The Health and Wellness courses provide a diversified curriculum that is flexible, and college students are capable of select from varied health, diet, sport and fitness specialization areas. Dedicated to a Healthy Student Body It is simply as essential to indicate respect for others dwelling in the environment as it …
The most important thing to get along in a new country is certainly to learn the language. Ordering food, shopping in the supermarket, etc. is still possible, but that might be enough on holiday. In addition, only a few Spaniards can speak English in Las Palmas. In the south of the island, where the tourists are, this is easier, but not in the capital. I rented my apartment with What’s App and Google Translate. That worked well, but it’s not really a sustainable solution 😉 But that’s easier said than done. I’ve been learning Spanish for half a year and I’m making good progress. But the practice is missing. I can hardly speak a sentence straight ahead. My first point of contact will be the Coworkingspace. But there most of them speak English well, a Canario even German. So I’m not quite sure yet how I’m going to start to speak fluently. Apps, books and the language school I will definitely attend a language school. Three times a week 75 minutes from October. I hope that there will be plenty of opportunity to speak Spanish and not just to learn as for an exam at school. I am currently learning with two apps. I also have a grammar book to get an overview. The most difficult ones are the verbs. In Spanish, most of the meaning of a sentence is in verbs. There are many different forms. Only a changed letter in a verb can give the sentence a completely different meaning. But I think that’s something you’ll soon find out in practice. As an introduction, I can recommend the Memrise app, which has a very playful approach. That’s how you make fast progress, and it’s even fun. What’s missing here is a basic didactic structure. At least I didn’t recognize it. But you can build a good basis. More classical and didactic is the app Busuu, through which I’m fighting my way right now. The mixture of a playful and a classic app is a good way for me. So, in summary: Learning Spanish is relatively easy and fun. I’m just not sure how I can quickly find the opportunity to speak a lot of Spanish on the spot. If someone has taken a similar step, I’m happy to receive tips!
A range of chairs inspired by the animal study photographs of Eadward Muybridge, the most famous series of which was the movement of horses and which developed into one of the earliest forms of animation. The positions of the chair’s legs are influenced by the photographs Muybridge took in the 1870’s, which led to a range of chairs that are a physical animation of key frames. These images show Gallop No. 6 and Gallop No.2. Scottish birch, clear cast acrylic // 1075mm x 1150mm x 550mm
An American soldier who died in the waning days of World War II during the Battle of the Bulge in Belgium was awarded a Silver Star during a Veterans Day ceremony in California. Staff Sgt. Edmund "Eddie" Sternot of the 101st Airborne Division held back a German attack that included tank rounds at his machine gun station in the icy Belgian forest in January 1945, according to U.S. Army records. "Sternot's men beat back the Germans, and he led his unit with calm and valor under fire," said Maj. Vonnie Wright of the 101st Airborne Division. Sternot was cited for his heroism and awarded a Silver Star, but he never received the medal because he was killed days later during another German attack. For reasons unknown, Sternot's medal was never officially given out after he was buried at the Henri-Chapelle American Cemetery in Hombourg, Belgium. Decades later, in 2001, retired Army Lt. Col. Bill Linn, who runs the Heritage Arsenal Collection in Colorado, was given a prayer book belonging to Sgt. Sternot. From there, he began searching for Sternot's living relatives, which led him to Delores Sternot, 80, the self-described "little cousin." On Sunday, Delores Sternot finally received her cousin's Silver Star at a ceremony at the Pierre Claeyssens Veterans Foundation in Santa Barbara, California. "I'm stunned," Delores told CNN. "He is truly an American hero, along with so many other World War heroes killed. We are so proud of him. But why did it take so long?" Officials said Sternot would be awarded the Bronze Star for fighting during D-Day, in Holland and at Bastogne in Belgium. "He was robbed of the life filled with a lot of potential, and all of us relatives got robbed of spending time with him," Delores said. "But I'm happy he finally got that Silver Star." This article was written by David Matthews from New York Daily News and was legally licensed via the Tribune Content Agency through the NewsCred publisher network. Please direct all licensing questions to [email protected].
On 22 May, the Australian Academy of Science announced the election of 21 new fellows, seven of them in medical and health fields. They are: Professor Ian Chubb, former vice-chancellor of the Australian National University (2001-2011) and former Chief Scientist of Australia (2011-2016), for significant contributions to improving the infrastructure for scientific research and training and for being conspicuous in raising the public profile of science in the media; Professor Philip Hugenholtz, a microbiologist from the University of Queensland, who has made landmark contributions in the field of culture-independent analysis of micro-organisms and whose contributions have raised awareness of the human microbiome and its role in health and disease; Professor Mark Smyth, an immunologist from the QIMR Berghofer Medical Research Institute, for his significant contributions to tumour immunology, paving the way for effective immunotherapy of cancer, beginning with immune checkpoint inhibitor drugs; Professor Lois Salamonsen, from the Hudson Institute of Medical Research, for her transformative contributions to human fertility/infertility related to the uterus, including delivering new translational concepts to alleviate uterine infertility without IVF; Professor Melissa Little, from the Murdoch Children’s Research Institute, for her research on kidney development and her pioneering studies into renal regeneration, opening the door to kidney disease modelling, drug screening and the bioengineering of replacement kidney tissue; Professor Jozef Gécz, a human molecular geneticist from the University of Adelaide, for his contributions to the genetics of childhood onset neurological disorders, including intellectual disabilities, epilepsies, autisms and cerebral palsies, including identifying the first gene for non-syndromic intellectual disability, the FMR2 gene, in 1994 and more than 100 other genes for various forms of neurodevelopmental disabilities; and, Professor David Gardner, an embryologist from the University of Melbourne, whose basic animal research laid the foundation for major clinical developments in human IVF, resulting in significant increases in human pregnancy rates. Dr Joseph Doyle, Burnet Institute’s Deputy Program Director, Disease Elimination and Co-head, Viral Hepatitis Research, has been awarded the 2017 Gust-McKenzie Medal for his outstanding research in the epidemiology, management and prevention of blood borne viruses (HIV, hepatitis C and hepatitis B). Named in honour of the founding directors of the Burnet and Austin Research Institutes, Professor Ian Gust AO and Emeritus Professor Ian McKenzie AM, the award is presented annually to an outstanding mid-career Burnet staff member in recognition of excellence in research and/or public health. In his acceptance address at Burnet’s 28th Annual General Meeting, Dr Doyle said that the availability of new highly effective medications had the potential to transform the health prospects of the 200 000 Australians infected with hepatitis C, the majority of whom acquired the virus through injecting drug use. With a background in clinical medicine, Dr Doyle specialised in infectious diseases at The Alfred hospital where he works as a consultant physician. He completed his MPH at the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine, and his public health fellowship was undertaken at the Victorian Infectious Diseases Reference Laboratory and Burnet Institute. His PhD at Burnet and Monash School of Population Health was focused on the effectiveness of early hepatitis C treatment. Dr Doyle is currently undertaking his NHMRC Postdoctoral Fellowship aiming to improve population health and treatment for hepatitis C infection at Burnet and the Department of Infectious Diseases at Monash University. He is the clinical director of Burnet’s hepatitis C TAP (Treatment and Prevention) study. Professor Jonathan Sprent, head of the Garvan Institute of Medical Research’s immunology division, has been elected as a member of the US National Academy of Sciences (NAS). Professor Sprent is one of the most eminent immunologists of his generation. He is recognised, in particular, for his contributions to our understanding of T cells. He has made many seminal contributions across diverse aspects of T-cell biology, which have advanced our understanding of how the immune system is activated and how it avoids attacking “self”. He is now turning his attention to cancer immunotherapy. Among other honours, Professor Sprent is a Fellow of the Australian Academy of Science and of the Royal Society (UK), a past President of the American Association of Immunologists (AAI), the 2015 recipient of the AAI Lifetime Achievement Award, and an honorary member of the British Society for Immunology. He was previously a recipient of a Burnet Award by the NHMRC (one of only three awarded), and is currently an NHMRC Senior Principal Research Fellow. Professor Sprent was born in England and grew up in Brisbane. He graduated in medicine from the University of Queensland, and then went on to do a PhD in the lab of pre-eminent immunologist Professor Jacques Miller at Melbourne’s Walter and Eliza Hall Institute. After post-doctoral fellowships in Switzerland and the UK, Professor Sprent worked for 30 years in the USA, first at the University of Pennsylvania in Philadelphia and then at The Scripps Research Institute in San Diego. He returned to Australia in 2005, and has led the Cellular Immunity laboratory within Garvan’s Immunology Division since 2006. Six Australian researchers have been selected as a Howard Hughes Medical Institute (HHMI) International Research Scholars. The International Research Scholars Program - supported by HHMI and also the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, the Wellcome Trust, and the Calouste Gulbenkian Foundation – seeks to foster scientific talent outside of the G7 (Canada, France, Germany, Italy, Japan, the United Kingdom, and the United States). Eligibility criteria includes running a lab in a non-G7 country for less than seven years. The six Australian recipients are: Professor Mark Dawson, Head of the Cancer Epigenetics Laboratory, and Program Head of Translational Haematology, at the Peter MacCallum Cancer Centre; Associate Professor Kathryn Holt, Centre for Systems Genomics at the University of Melbourne; Professor Ryan Lister, ARC Centre of Excellence in Plant Energy Biology at the University of Western Australia; Dr Laura Mackay, immunology laboratory head at the Doherty Institute; Dr Seth Masters, inflammation laboratory head at Walter and Eliza Hall Institute of Medical Research; and, Dr Wai-Hong Tham, infection and immunity laboratory head at the Walter and Eliza Hall Institute of Medical Research. Two researchers will travel to Baltimore in the US to attend the American Society for Tropical Medicine and Hygiene (ASTMH) Conference in November 2017, after being awarded $5000 each from the Burnet Institute 2017 Travel Awards. Research officer Dr Herbert Opi (Beeson/Richards Laboratory) won a Harold Mitchell Foundation Postdoctoral Travel Fellowship to support his malaria research. Joining Dr Opi at the ASTMH Conference will be the winner of the Pauline Speedy Biomedical Research Travel Fellowship, PhD student, Katherine O’Flaherty, for her work looking at the effects of immunity on the epidemiology of sub-clinical and clinical malaria in southern Myanmar. The Crockett-Murphy Travel Award (up to $5000) to support national staff in Burnet’s programs overseas went to Healthy Mothers, Healthy Babies research officer Primrose Homiehombo, based in Kokopo, East New Britain, Papua New Guinea. Professor Margaret Hellard, the Burnet Institute’s Deputy Director (Programs) and adjunct professor at Monash University’s Department of Epidemiology and Preventive Medicine, has been appointed Co-Chair of the WHO Strategic and Technical Advisory Committee (STAC) on HIV and Viral Hepatitis, which held its first meeting in Geneva, Switzerland in March. Formed from an amalgamation of separate HIV and viral hepatitis advisory groups, the committee’s role is to provide WHO with strategic advice on HIV and viral hepatitis for the next several years. The WHO HIV and Viral Hepatitis STAC comprises clinicians, community members, leaders in policy, research, public health, and people from relevant backgrounds with expertise or a history of working in the sector from around the globe. The head of QIMR Berghofer’s Mental Health research program, Professor Michael Breakspear, has received the Royal Australian and New Zealand College of Psychiatrists’ 2017 Senior Research Award, recognising excellence in research in the field of psychiatry. Professor Breakspear is conducting world-leading research into the way the brain works, both in health and in mental illness. He and his team use a combination of brain imaging technology, computer modelling, genetics and clinical neuroscience to better understand, predict and diagnose conditions like depression, bipolar disorder, schizophrenia and Alzheimer’s disease. Publication of your online response is subject to the Medical Journal of Australia's editorial discretion. You will be notified by email within five working days should your response be accepted.
Carolyn Fredenburg was just 17 when she took her first summer job as a junior counsellor at the University Settlement Camp on Gull Lake near Gravenhurst. “I saw then the difference the camping experience made to those inner-city kids,” Carolyn recalled recently when she wrote Moorelands to share her memories. “At first, they complained because they could not go to the corner store in the evening for chips and pop and hang out,” Carolyn wrote, but “soon they loved the campfires and sing-songs, the skit nights, the games. “At first they bickered a lot,” she added. “Quickly they learned to cooperate with their cabin mates for all these activities. When it was time to leave, it was hugs all around…” But however important the camping experience, Moorelands is about much more than that, Carolyn noted, pointing out that “Moorelands’ other programs are also extremely important. “In today’s society, with so many parents working multiple jobs to make ends meet, the After-School and Leadership Programs are vitally important in giving young people hope for their future,” she said in her note. “As a society we lag so far behind the Scandinavian countries in the care we provide for our young children. Thank heaven for Moorlands! And the layettes and Christmas hampers are always welcomed by the fortunate recipients,” she wrote, referring to Moorelands’ Baby Bundles and Christmas programs.Raised during the Depression, Carolyn learned that, although she and her family were able to live “comfortably” – her father ran his own business – others were not so lucky. “My parents always emphasized that we were very fortunate, and that as practising Christians we must share with those less fortunate,” Carolyn noted. “Every faith probably has this as a core teaching.” Moorelands “is a great way to do this,” Carolyn noted, “which is why I chose to put Moorlands in my will. Leaving a bequest means that you want to help the wonderful work Moorelands is doing carry on after you are gone.” It’s a “win-win” situation, she notes, referring to the considerable tax savings available for such gifts. “So your estate wins, Moorelands wins and, most importantly, the kids win,” Carolyn said. “I love it! Of course, you would want to talk to your lawyer and accountat about all this. I did, because I thought it was too good to be true.”Got a Moorelands story to share? We’d love to hear it! To share your story, contact Helen – (416) 466-9987 ext. 312 or click the link below.
1969 Was the Era of Flower Power. Is 2009 the Age of Sour Power? When Helen* was twenty years old, freedom was the resounding cry of her generation. Freedom took the form of burning bras, draft cards, and bridges to the older generation. Although it was the 1960s, with the world in crisis (the Vietnam War, the civil rights movement, and the women’s liberation movement), Helen wasn’t scared or anxious to grow up. In fact, she felt empowered to embrace adulthood, to change it all. Helen’s parents had it pretty easy, too. They watched Helen grow from a kid to a teen to a young woman, sent their girl off to college, battled a bit with the “Empty Nest” syndrome and watched her graduate and become employed. They were proud. Fast forward to today: Helen is now a parent with a son named David, who seems to be a far cry from her younger self. I’ve met hundreds of Helens before: baby-boomer females who recall growing up quickly to enter the real world, and are now parents with children who remind them nothing of themselves. Below are my observations of how today’s twentysomethings are different from the young adults of some forty years ago … and how this is affecting the “almost adults” and “Helens” of the world. The new twentysomething is fearful to leave home. Many children have become extremely anxious growing up post-9/11 and are not eager to grow up and leave the nest. Film footage of the World Trade Center collapse played endlessly for days and weeks after that infamous day. It impacted not only the psyche of the nation but a young generation of children and young adults—who once felt safe on American soil. The entire emotional climate of the country changed from “this could never happen here” to “when will this happen again?” How it’s affecting parents: Parenting the emerging adult child has drastically changed. Parents are finding themselves dealing with their children’s anxiety from an early age. In my practice I have seen a dramatic increase of children referred because of fears of the dark, fears of being alone, social anxiety, and fears of attending school. Parents are bringing their children for psychotherapy for anxiety disorders more than ever before. The new twentysomething has a dismal view of the “American Dream.” Young adults are facing an abysmal economy with terrible job prospects. They not only feel powerless to change the world; they don’t even feel able to enter it. The world of adulthood is fraught with obstacles and dangers and when the American Dream seems to have vanished, there’s a lack of motivation to try to reach for the “stars.” How it’s affecting parents: Just when parents thought that being mom and dad would be less demanding, they find themselves continuing to be a chauffeur, cook, and maid. Not only does your child’s dependence continue to grow, but at a time when his or her life has become filled with more commitments and activities. The new twentysomething will live at home … indefinitely. For several reasons, children are opting to attend local colleges while living at home. Others return from college after one or two semesters because of not being able to make it on their own. Recent graduates will also decide to live home, not only because of financial restraints but for the feeling of security. How it’s affecting parents: At a time when parents are ready to retire and live on a fixed income, they are now taking care of their young adult child. While it’s terrible to admit it, for some parents, this is an additional financial stress that they may have not predicted nor prepared for. Plus, forget about remodeling the extra bedroom into an office or gym. That disposable income to live out your retirement dreams is being drained. The new twentysomething is over-indulged. Can your child—regardless of whether they’re twenty or forty years old—accept it when mom says “no”? Probably not. The baby-boomer over-indulgent style of parenting has often been cited as a cause of our children’s difficulty to grow up. Many of the moms I’ve worked with have had a terrible time saying “NO” to their children since they were born. The pattern has been set, and, unfortunately, it may be irreversible. How it’s affecting parents: We’ve wanted to be close to our children and establish friendships with them sometimes at the expense of setting parental limits. To expect or demand that these children go to college, get a job and move out puts all of our parenting goals at risk, or so we think. We now have anxiety about possibly alienating and “losing” our kids if we push them toward independence. So what’s a mother to do? How can parents encourage their children to grow up and look forward to adulthood? - Set a good example: Feel safe and secure and express it to the child. If the adults are worried and anxious, it can’t be expected that the child will feel at ease. - Allow children to rebel against their parents and society. It will help them form their own identities. - Set limits, maintain appropriate expectations of children and STOP trying to be friends with your child! - Encourage self-esteem in children. It helps to build their independence. How can we help young adults rise above the economic crisis? Understandably, the new economy has significantly added to the already frightening world that children are facing. However, as a parent to a child entering the scary workforce, we need to egg our children on to help encourage them to set and meet goals. Parents need to help them change their inflated job expectations and be prepared to enter the workforce at entry-level positions. Give them an ultimatum: If you don’t find yourself a job in six months, you’re cut off financially. Tell them they will no longer have the luxury of remaining dependent children. This sounds harsh and will be very hard to do but it could ultimately be best for the child. What may come when parents change their actions? The good news is that we will see a return to having productive twwentysomethings who will face adulthood and not remain adolescents. They will make financial, societal, and emotional contributions. This may be the silver lining on the cloud of these economic times. Back to Helen. What happened to Helen and her son David? David graduated from college with a degree in business and he—like many recent graduates—was unable to land the job of his dreams. After applying for many jobs, he reluctantly accepted a traineeship, which lasted for only three months. He had little patience to grow with the job and felt a certain entitlement to be able to get what he wanted with ease and few restrictions. He no longer felt that he would be able to get a job that would meet his expectations. As David’s dissatisfaction with his job prospects grew, he got further and further involved with playing Online Poker (a habit he discovered in college). He met some other young men who made a great deal of money playing in poker tournaments. The lure of making easy money, doing what he liked, not having to climb the slow corporate ladder to success appealed to him so much that he began to play professionally. This lifestyle fulfilled David’s need to live in the moment, addressing his anxiety and pessimism about the future. Helen is extremely unhappy about this. She continues to try to instill in David her values of the sixties—of working hard and contributing to society—to no avail. The tension between them continues to grow. *The names and identities of the people in this situation have been changed. By Adrienne Resnick, LCSW, has been a psychotherapist for the past twenty-five years. Originally published on wowowow
Dive into the world of botany with this quick guide on underground, edible plants. By Katie Scott and Kathy Willis Cover courtesy of Templar Company Limited Botanicum (Big Picture Press, 2017) by Katie Scott and Kathy Willis is a scientific and artistic introduction to the world of botany. With vivid illustrations by Scott and descriptive text by Willis, a professor of Biodiversity at the University of Oxford and director of science at the Royal Botanic Gardens, the botanical guide is both educational and enjoyable. Scott is also the illustrator to a sister book, Animalium. The following excerpt discusses the hardy and edible plants that grow underground. Some plants stay alive during cold and dry seasons by storing starches, proteins, and other nutrients underground in roots, rhizomes, or tubers. Many food crops are provided by these belowground storage organs, including the world’s fourth most important food source, the potato, which is a tuber. Root vegetables include carrots, turnips, rutabagas, parsnips, mangel-wurzel, black salsify, and radishes. Below ground, they grow as a swollen root in a variety of shapes. Leaves grow directly from the aboveground shoulder of this tap root, and there is little or no aboveground stem, only leaves. By contrast with root vegetables, rhizomes and tubers grow from leafy plants with aboveground stems. Potato plants are leafy, branched green plants with small white flowers. Plants that grow rhizomes and tubers also grow the normal kind of root. Rhizomes often form unusual shapes, such as the knobby underground part of ginger, and are actually roots merged together, usually growing vertically downward in the soil.The word rhizome derives from the ancient Greek for “mass of roots.” Tubers include potatoes, sweet potatoes, oca, and yams. A tuber is a short, thick, round stem or root that grows underground, usually as an offshoot from the main stem of the plant.Tubers contain all the necessary parts to produce a new plant. If you leave a potato in a kitchen drawer for too long, for example, it will sprout. One other belowground food deserves a mention: peanuts. Peanuts are not actually nuts but the seeds of a legume, a plant in the pea family. Peanut flowers grow in clusters on the stems, just above ground. After they are fertilized, a short stalk at the base of the ovary forms, pushing the seed into the soil, where it develops into a mature peanut pod. Illustration by Katie Scott Plant height: up to 3 feet/1 meter 2: Winged yam Tuber diameter: around 2-1/2 inches/6 centimeters Tuber cut horizontally Winged yams were domesticated in Southeast Asia and the Pacific but are now eaten in many tropical countries. Plant height: up to 61/2 feet/2 meters in flower Root diameter: around 4 inches/10 centimeters Root cut horizontally Tuber length: up to 3 inches/8 centimeters Oca is a crop plant that originated in the Andes, in South America. Root length: 3/4 inch–3 feet/2 centimeters–1 meter The radish is an edible root vegetable that was domesticated in Europe in pre-Roman times. Root length: 51/2–10 inches/14–25 centimeters 7: Black Salsify Root length: 8 inches–3 feet/20 centimeters–1 meter Root diameter: 2–8 inches/5–20 centimeters Stem height: up to 28 inches/ 70 centimeters Pod length: 1-1/8 –2-3/4 inches/3–7 centimeters Shoot height: up to 4 feet/1.2 meters The rhizome of ginger comes from Asia. BOTANICUM. Text copyright © 2016 by Kathy Willis. Design copyright © 2016 by The Templar Company Limited. Illustrations copyright © 2016 by Katie Scott. Reproduced by permission of the publisher, Candlewick Press, Somerville, MA. Delight your taste buds, mind and eyes with beautiful photos and inspirational techniques on everything you need to know to grow, preserve and cook your own heirloom fruits and vegetables. You won’t want to miss the stories about plants passed down from generation to generation. Don’t miss a single issue of Mother Earth Gardener. Published by the editors of MOTHER EARTH NEWS, Mother Earth Gardener provides decades of organic gardening experience from the most trusted voices in the field. Join today and save off the newsstand price! Get one year (4 issues) for only $24.95! (USA only)
At Mount Vernon the numbers of males and females in the slave population were fairly equal. A series of lists made by George Washington in the summer before his death, indicates that roughly two-thirds of the plantation's adult slaves were married.1 These marriages were acknowledged by both the slave community and the Washingtons. However, they were not recognized or protected by the legal system, because slaves were considered property and not persons in the eyes of the law. For Mount Vernon's slaves, marriage represented the opportunity to exercise choice in a life that afforded little, if any, personal control over basic life issues such as occupation, housing, clothing, and freedom of movement. However, even this decision had limitations. When one member of a couple lived at a plantation other than Mount Vernon, the pair planning to marry first needed permission from George Washington, as long-distance marriages necessitated a certain amount of traveling back and forth between the two plantations. Getting the permission of a master would have been in keeping with a 1785 Virginia law that stated that slaves could not travel away from home without a pass or letter of authorization from a master, employer, or overseer.2 Distance was a significant stress factor in slave marriages. Of the 96 married slaves working on Washington's five farms in 1799, only 36 lived in the same household as their spouse and children. Another 38 had spouses living on one of Washington's other farms, dictated by work assignments. The marriages of the Mount Vernon slaves produced a large number of children, causing the population to increase dramatically. The population increased from around fifty slaves in 1759 to more than three hundred in 1799. In 1799, on the four outlying farms, the average age of the slave population was 20.94 years. Only 8.68% of the people were sixty years old or more, while 58.45% were under the age of nineteen. Fully 34.70% of the slaves were younger than nine.3 There were also slaves of mixed race on the estate, and there is evidence that a number of them were the result of relationships between slave women and the free-born men Washington brought to oversee, train, and labor beside the slaves. Mount Vernon was similar in this regard to Virginia as a whole. Around the time of the American Revolution, roughly 5% of Virginia slaves were of a mixed background.4 Mary V. Thompson Mount Vernon Estate and Gardens 1. For the slaves at Mount Vernon in 1799, see "Negroes Belonging to George Washington in his own right and by Marriage," [June 1799] and "A List of Negroes Hired From Mrs. French, 15 July 1799" (hereafter referred to as the 1799 Slave List), in George Washington, The Writings of George Washington, Vol. 37, ed. John C. Fitzpatrick (Washington, DC: United States Government Printing Office, 1944), 256-268, 308-9. 2. Virginia, The Statutes at Large: Being a Collection of All the Laws of Virginia, from the First Session of the Legislature, in the Year 1619, Vol. 13, ed. William Waller Hening (Richmond, VA, 1823), 182; see also a similar law of October 1784 in Virginia, Statutes at Large, Vol. 6, 109. 3. Figures derived from the 1799 Slave List. 4. Philip D. Morgan and Michael L. Nicholls, "Slave Flight: Mount Vernon, Virginia, and the Wider Atlantic World," in George Washington's South, eds. Tamara Harvey and Greg O'Brien (Gainesville, FL: University Press of Florida, 2004), 212.
Murkowski Commends Executive Order on National Monuments U.S. Sen. Lisa Murkowski, R-Alaska, today joined President Donald Trump, Vice President Mike Pence, and Interior Secretary Ryan Zinke for the signing ceremony of an executive order directing the Department of the Interior to conduct a review of national monuments designated under the Antiquities Act since 1996. Secretary Zinke will review onshore and marine monument designations over 100,000 acres in size, and provide recommendations to the president for changes to the scope and size of those monuments within the next 120 days. “I strongly support President Trump’s order to review the largest national monuments designated over the past two decades,” Murkowski said. “During the past administration, we saw the Antiquities Act result in sweeping designations that frequently ignored local opposition. This review is a good step forward in our efforts to reform the monument designation process to ensure the concerns of those who stand to be impacted are heard and respected.” The Obama administration designated a total of 554 million acres—an area five times the size of California, and more than the previous 18 presidents combined—as national and marine monuments. The scale and extent of those designations sharply contrast with the explicit wording of the Antiquities Act, which requires the reservation of “the smallest area compatible with the proper care and management of the objects to be protected.” Murkowski is a leading congressional advocate for Antiquities Act reform. Earlier this year, she and 27 Republican colleagues introduced S. 33, the Improved National Monument Designation Process Act. The bill would facilitate greater local input and require state approval before national monuments can be designated on federal lands and waters. Murkowski is chairman of the Committee on Energy and Natural Resources.
Waxman-Markey Not a Solution to Climate Change WASHINGTON, D.C. – U.S. Sen. Lisa Murkowski, R-Alaska, the ranking Republican member of the Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee, today expressed concern with passage of the Waxman-Markey climate change bill and criticized the process by which it was considered in the House of Representatives. “This bill was forced through the House in a process designed to minimize open, transparent debate and preclude a thorough analysis of what the bill actually does,” Murkowski said. “Elected officials and the public needed a chance to read through the entire bill and consider its merits “The cost of this legislation remains staggering, and the mechanisms within the bill to contain those costs are inadequate. Climate change is a problem we should address, but we must do so in a responsible manner that will safeguard our economy.” Analyses of the Waxman-Markey bill, which passed the House Friday night, vary widely in their estimated costs to consumers and the economy. They also fail to take into account the many last minute special deals for special interests inserted into the bill. “The energy bill passed out of the Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee last week was the result of months of bipartisan work,” Murkowski said. “In contrast, the Waxman-Markey bill was written by a few Democrat leaders in the House and moved forward in a process allowing for little discussion or input from Republicans.” The bill combines a flawed cap-and-trade program with equally problematic energy provisions. The minutia of detail in the bill would insert the Federal government in how each of us leads our daily lives. In addition, the absence of provisions to facilitate the deployment of clean, affordable base-load nuclear power and increased domestic oil and gas development is contradictory to the goals of a clean energy future and energy independence. “To pass a bill that will so affect each of our lives, without most of the Representatives knowing the details of what they were voting for, is wrong and dangerous.” Murkowski continued. “I’m concerned this bill wound up more about passing a bill for political purposes than meaningfully lowering greenhouse gases.”
Vibration Motion Therapy MEDICAL & REHAB Promote Joint Mobility Increase Bone Density HEALTH & FITNESS Shorter Training Sessions Improve Muscle Stregnth Increased Range of Motion Benefits – Whole Body Vibration Improves blood and lymphatic circulation Increases bone density Aids in weight loss Tones muscles, tightens skin, and reduces cellulite Speeds recovery from surgery and trauma Relieves chronic pain Stimulates neurological system and production of human growth hormones Increases flexibility, range of motion, and mobility Reduces joint and ligament stress Assists in preventing osteoporosis Removes toxins and improves immunity Relieves menopausal symptoms Tightens facial muscles Provides benefits of both anaerobic and aerobic exercise Improves overall well-being In Whole Body Vibration, the user stands or uses specific poses on a vibrating platform. Vibrations travel through the body, causing subconscious muscle contractions. What will it do? Recent studies show that WBV training boosted mineral density in postmenopausal women, improved balance in elderly women, and improved muscle strength in elderly adults and women with osteoarthritis in the knee. Short term, WBV improves circulation, causing the muscles to contract and relax and act as a pump to the vessels and lymphatic system. Two studies showed a beneficial widening of blood vessels. NASA studies show that astronauts prevent bone loss if they stand on a vibrating plate for 10 to 20 minutes a day. Whole Body Vibration machines show benefits for those who cannot exercise well on their own, including patients with emphysema, osteoporosis, arthritis and obesity. According to the Ventura Center for Healing, MS and ALS patients who cannot train due to loss of muscle control felt better, had more energy and experienced less pain while using vibration therapy. Who should not use WBV? You should definitely consult a physician if you have a serious cardiovascular problem, pacemaker, recent surgeries, hip, knee and shoulder implants, epilepsy or if you’re pregnant.
How to Bring Music Together® to Your School For School Directors If you're a school director or oversee curriculum decisions, our In-School Services Department is ready to assist you. We can help assess your needs and start you on your way! For School Teachers If you're a school teacher who wants to bring our music program to your school, we’d love to tell you more about our curriculum resources, our comprehensive online training, and how to articulate the benefits of our program to your school administrator. For Individuals not affiliated with a school If you're an individual who wants to bring our music program to the schools in your area, after successfully completing and passing the 3-day Music Together Teacher Training Workshop to become a registered Music Together teacher, our staff will let you know: Music for All Children: Outreach At Music Together, we want all children to experience our curriculum, including those from low-income communities who might not ordinarily have access to music education. To help bring music to as many children as possible, we offer a special rate for qualified schools serving children in need. We're proud to say that our curriculum is also supported by a wide range of funding sources. Please contact us at [email protected] for more information.
Tear gas can be a valuable tool to keep crowds away from your home during civil unrest. At the moment, it can be legally purchased, but during a grid-down scenario or in the event that laws are changed, that may not be an option so learning how to make your own can be a valuable skill. Everything you need to make tear gas is available at any grocery store, and with these instructions, it’s easy to make. 1.) Start with about one pound of hot peppers—the hotter the better. Your best option is the habanero, which can be found in any grocery store in red, orange, yellow and green varieties. This evil little fruit is one of the hottest peppers available and very well may have originated right from Satan’s shorts. 2.) Next you’ll need to dry the peppers. Put on rubber gloves (trust me on this or your next trip to the bathroom will be the most excruciating experience in your life) and cut the peppers in half, then place them on a cookie sheet in the oven at the lowest temperature you can set. (Usually around 150°.) Leave the door cracked and keep an eye on the peppers—it will take a few hours for them to dry. 3.) Once they’ve dried, chop them up with a knife, blender, or food processor, transfer them to a large container, and pour in enough ethyl alcohol (Vodka will work perfectly) to cover the peppers. You can heat this on the stove, but the alcohol can easily catch fire, so I prefer to just place the container in the sun for a few days. Then filter the peppers from the alcohol, and evaporate it down to about 100mL. 4.) Finally, mix the solution with mineral oil at a ratio of 5% pepper oil to 95% mineral oil. The finished solution can be dispersed any way you see fit, such as a spray bottle, Super Soaker, or even mixed into a smoke grenade to produce a cloud of tear gas. Source : howtosurviveit.com Other useful resources: Sold Out After Crisis (Best 37 Items To Hoard For A Long Term Crisis) Family Self Defense (Best Self Defense Strategies For You And Your Family) Blackout USA (EMP survival and preparedness) Conquering the coming collapse (Financial advice and preparedness ) Liberty Generator (Easy DIY to build your own off-grid energy source) Backyard Liberty (Easy and cheap DIY Aquaponic system to grow your organic and living food bank) Bullet Proof Home (A Prepper’s Guide in Safeguarding a Home ) Backyard Innovator (A Self Sustaining Source Of Fresh Meat,Vegetables And Clean Drinking Water)
Funding Your Studies To help fund your further studies there are various options that can help you. Student loans are the most common way to fund further studies and are accessible by people meeting basic tertiary studying requirements. Student loans can cover all of your course fees, up to $1,000.00 per year for course-related costs and up to $175.96 per week for living costs. Inland Revenue Department (IRD) The Inland Revenue Department (IRD) website also has a lot of information about paying off student loans, going overseas whilst you still have a student loan, interest, when you have to start making payments etc. A student allowance is a weekly payment to help with living expenses. Visit Studylink to see factors that might change your eligibility for a student allowance: Scholarships, awards and grants are another great way to fund your studies! BreakOut is database that will search for scholarships, awards and grants that are suitable for you to apply for based on what is relevant to you and what you want to do!
What are you looking for? There are times in life when our friends and loved ones can only help us so much, despite their best intentions. At such times it makes sense to reach out for professional help. Far from a sign of pathology, this is a sign of health as our human vitality reaches for its natural inclination toward survival and thriving. Research shows us that the most important factor in therapy is the relationship between client and therapist. Our first task in therapy is to build a rapport and ensure that we are a good fit for effective therapeutic work to occur. Having a safe space to be seen and heard is a natural and universal human need. I like to work collaboratively to create this for you first and foremost. I use the latest research in affective neuroscience, interpersonal neurobiology, attachment theory (the science of how mammals bond), and somatic (body-based) psychotherapy. In addition to talk therapy, I can provide arts activities unique to your needs to deepen your therapeutic experience in a way that talk alone does not. For more about my background and how I work, click here. No one can bring out the best in us and provoke the worst in us more than those closest to us. With such intimate relationships can come great conflict. We are biologically wired for relationships. In fact, our nervous system registers relational conflict as physical pain. It is a fallacy to think we are to make it alone in the world. Taking the time to address your relationship is in itself a huge step. Wounding and healing both happen in relationships, and so our greatest potential as people can be achieved through interpersonal relationships with those very people who often hurt or trigger us the most. So there is great hope in the struggles you are experiencing. I am a certified Emotionally Focused (EFT) Therapist. EFT is a heavily researched modality and currently the gold standard for relationship therapy. Using EFT, we will look at the patterns of interaction you and your loved one(s) get stuck in and learn to create something new. Using the latest research in attachment theory (the science of how mammals bond), interpersonal neurobiology and affective neuroscience, we work experientially in our sessions to help you feel and understand what happens in you and in your relationship when you and your loved one(s) aren't getting along. This is less about teaching skills and techniques (though you will develop those) and more about helping you have a new experience in the room so that you can do something different outside of our sessions. For more about EFT, click here.
What is the Difference Between a Certificate, a License, and a Resume? A certification is like a degree - it proves you studied, passed a test, and knew something - once. A license is a legal document that allows you to practice in certain locations. A resume displays your accomplishments in a particular related field and serves as a testament to your level of competence. So What is Really Required for Sailing? No matter where you are in the world, if you want to prove your current sailing competency, you must have a sailing resume. Every yacht charter/rental company asks you for a sailing resume. If you present a certificate or a license, they will still ask for a resume. Why? Because certificates and licenses do not prove competency. Instead, a sailing resume documents: sailing theory knowledge, total sailing experience detailing positions of crew or master on various vessels, the recent history of experience, and results of on-the-water assessments. A sailing resume also includes any certificates and licenses. From a sailing resume, a determination can easily be made as to the current competence of a person. In addition to a sailing resume, Mediterranean countries (and some others) require an acceptable sailing license to rent a sailboat in their country. There are very few organizations that can legitimately issue a sailing license to comply with Mediterranean requirements: The RYA can issue a Day Skipper license which is accepted worldwide. The RYA can also issue the International Certificate of Competency (ICC) which was created by the United Nations. NauticEd can issue the Sailing License and Credentials (SLC) which is accepted by all Mediterranean countries and yacht charter companies.No American or Canadian sailing body can issue the ICC as neither country was a signatory to the United Nations Resolution creating the ICC. Instead, Americans and Canadians must rely on either RYA or NauticEd for licensure. The SLC is readily available to USA and Canadian Residents (and other country residents who cannot easily obtain an ICC or Day Skipper) and there is an extensive network of NauticEd sailing schools throughout North America able to offer the practical assessment for the SLC. How Can I Gain an SLC? The NauticEd license has strict competence requirements. To gain the SLC, the candidate must: Once achieved, the SLC is made available instantly in a downloadable PDF in multiple languages. Because the SLC combines assessment, theory, and experience, no additional resume is needed to satisfy charter company requirements. More details on how to gain the NauticEd SLC are here. How Can I Gain an ICC? To gain the ICC, the candidate must either: Even with the ICC, the Candidate should keep in mind that a yacht charter company will still require a sailing resume displaying extensive practical sailing experience as the master of the vessel. More details on how to gain the ICC are here. There is an extensive network of RYA schools throughout the world. However, there are only 3 locations in North America - Pensacola, Toronto and Halifax. **The Bareboat Charter Master bundle of courses online are highly recommended as a prerequisite to an ICC assessment. The NauticEd Sailing Resume and Resume Building Tool The NauticEd resume is an instant snapshot of the competence of a student. Resume building is simple with NauticEd's software. Your resume is continuously built in the background and presented in real time. You never have to spend time updating your resume because it’s always current and automatically formatted in a manner acceptable to yacht charter companies. NauticEd provides this tool as a FREE service to all its students. The NauticEd Sailing Resume contains: You can view our example student, Joseph Sailor, by visiting: https://www.nauticed.org/student_verification and entering his credentials as shown. On this page, a yacht charter company can view your real-time sailing resume when you give them your email address and secret logbook code. There are five Ranks and five Levels in our sailing resume. Sailing Resume Ranks and Levels At any time, the software will give you an indication of how you are progressing. A day out on the water is counted as a minimum of 4 hours underway. For level advancement, at least 50% of a student's time must have been logged as master of the vessel and 50% of a student's time must be on a vessel greater than 20 ft (6m) for Skipper Small Keelboat, 25 ft (7.6m) for Skipper and 28 ft (8.4 m) for Bareboat Charter Master. See our FAQ NauticEd Sailing Certificate to further understand qualifying days. Bareboat Chartering a Yacht on a Sailing Vacation Bareboat Yacht Charter Companies are most interested in those sailing resumes displaying the rank of NauticEd Bareboat Charter Master Level III. This rank and level demonstrates to the charter company that the sailor has an acceptable amount of theory study and practical on-the-water experience. While some other certifying bodies award a student with a bareboat certificate, the amount of practical experience is too little to really qualify for a charter. Charter companies know this and will not immediately accept those certificates. The infographic below illustrate how the Ranks and Levels work together to give a combined competency rating of the NauticEd student. The video further emphasizes the ranks and levels system At NauticEd we recognize you for your diligence and hard work with certifications. Once you reach milestones in your sailing resume, our software automatically generates a sailing certificate that you can download and display. The NauticEd sailing certificate is a living document that morphs over time as you pass online courses, as you log on-the-water experience, and as instructors sign off your assessments to higher competence levels. Unlike other sailing certifications, you'll notice immediately that our sailing certifications are a true and real-time reflection of your resume and thus your competence.Start Now
Vascular Malformation Resection Resection of vascular malformations can be done to get rid of arteriovenous malformations (AVM), and other forms of vascular malformations caused by abnormal blood vessel clusters. These clusters of abnormal blood vessels form during fetal development, and continue to grow as the child grows older. It’s difficult to spot these malformations at first, but at a certain point in a child’s development, the abnormal blood vessels may become apparent, especially when there’s an increase of blood flow through the affected vessels. In cases involving cerebral arteriovenous malformations, where the abnormal blood vessels are located inside the skull, the vascular malformations are not easily detected and require an MRI for proper diagnosis. Having cerebral AVMs is dangerous, because the blood flow from the arteries or veins to smaller capillaries in the brain may be disrupted, which causes oxygen deprivation to the areas served by these capillaries. This can even lead to a buildup of waste that can restrict blood flow completely. If left untreated, it is also possible for a patient with a cerebral AVM to suffer from a stroke, due to a brain hemorrhage when the walls of the AVM rupture or leak. This is why surgery is oftentimes recommended when a patient is diagnosed with an arteriovenous malformation, or AVM in the brain. Candidates for Resection of Vascular Malformations The decision to remove these vascular malformations depends on a number of factors, including the size and location of the lesion, the potential damage it may cause to the patient, as well as the overall health of the person with the malformation. If the benefits of operating on the malformation outweigh the risks a patient may be exposed to, then surgery is definitely the best treatment option available. A relatively healthy patient with a cerebral AVM that is in an easily accessible part of the brain is the ideal candidate for this surgical procedure. In cases where the AVM is at a high risk of rupturing, and poses a serious threat to the patient, neurosurgeons may opt to operate at the soonest possible time in order to prevent a potentially deadly brain hemorrhage. What to Expect During Surgery Resection is a major surgical procedure, and involves cutting off blood supply to the malformation and excising it completely. AVMs are not known to grow back once they’re resected, which is why in most cases, one surgery is enough to deal with the problem. Patients who undergo this type of surgery are placed under general anesthesia. The patient’s head is kept in place with a fixation device, in order to keep the head still during the operation. Depending on the location of the AVM, the surgeon may perform a craniotomy in order to gain access to the abnormal blood vessels. Once the AVM is in clear view, the surgeon proceeds to tie off the malformation in order to cut off blood flow, before carefully removing the AVM in its entirety. Neurosurgeons are careful not to damage the surrounding tissue, healthy blood vessels, and structures in and around the brain when performing the resection, in order to preserve the patient’s neurological functions. Do you have an AVM? Are you interested in undergoing a resection of vascular malformations? Call us today to schedule an appointment with one of our well-trained and highly qualified doctors.
A generosity of spirit that lives on Known for his generosity of spirit during his lifetime, Dr Alan Hewson (1927 – 2017) was a great friend to the Newcastle community, the medical profession and to the University of Newcastle. Generous to the end, Dr Hewson’s legacy will live on at UON thanks to the gifts left in his will. As an esteemed obstetrician and gynaecologist, Dr Hewson was known for his surgical skill and his easy rapport with patients. He was also widely revered as an outstanding clinical teacher – a leader in his field who shared his knowledge and insights with students and peers over the course of his life. His book “Tragedy, Trials and Triumphs: Obstetrics and Gynaecology in Australia in the Twentieth Century” was published the year he died. “There are generations of doctors across Newcastle and Australia who have had the good fortune to learn from Dr Hewson” Professor Brian Kelly, Head of School of Medicine and Public Health said. “Similarly, there are many thousands of patients who remember him for the outstanding and very human medical care he provided. He was the kind of person who made a lasting impression” Professor Kelly said. In his will, Dr Hewson bequeathed his personal and extensive book collection to the University, along with a gift of $50,000 ‘to be used or applied for the general purposes of continuing medical education of medical practitioners in the Hunter regions of New South Wales. “We are honoured to receive these gifts from Dr Hewson,” Professor John Aitken, Pro Vice-Chancellor, Faculty of Health and Medicine said. “He was generous in life and in his death. His memory will live on in the countless students he has helped and will continue to help over many years” he said. Dr Hewson’s books have been gratefully received by the Auchmuty Rare Book Collection and the Friends of the University of Newcastle. Over the past 33 years, the Friends have raised funds through their biennial Book Fair and have funded a number of projects that contribute to the University. Dr Hewson’s support for the University dates back forty years, when he was one of the local founders of our Medical School. His commitment to continuing medical education was reflected in his long standing contribution to the Hunter Postgraduate Medical Institute, and the senior positions he held within the Royal Australian College of Obstetricians and Gynaecologists. UON has been fortunate to have received philanthropic support from the community for more than 50 years. This support is received in many ways and helps provide scholarships for our students, funds vital research and enables community programs. “Leaving a gift in their will has been a way that many of our wonderful community members have chosen to support the work of our University,” Rebecca Hazell, Director of the Office of Alumni and Philanthropy said. “We are most grateful for all of the generous philanthropic support we receive as it really does help to change lives,” Rebecca said. If you wish to learn more about leaving a gift in your will to the University of Newcastle, please contact Maria Pavela, Development Manager (Bequests) on 4985 4163. * Image of Dr Hewson is courtesy of the Newcastle Herald. - University of Newcastle and TAFE NSW join forces for stronger Hunter and Central Coast post-COVID recovery - Call for Entries: 2020 Karen Thrift Prize for Poetry and Lyrics - Criminology expert in police accountability comments on George Floyd case - ‘Felix’ to transform fertility for millions of couples worldwide - Major funding boost to explore the health impacts of recent bushfires
IT’S the little recognised disease that cost new mum Korina Valentine two arms, two legs and a nose when a timely dose of antibiotics could have stopped it fast. Sepsis kills more people than prostate and breast cancer combined but most of the 30,000 Australians who contract the disease each year don’t recognise the symptoms. Nor do their doctors. Many people think they have the flu and miss out on the timely medical help that could save their lives. Antibiotics can treat the infection if it is caught early but over 6400 people a year die because they get treatment too late. Many who survive lose limbs and suffer other health problems. In April last year, a week before she turned 28, Korina Valentine went to her doctor with fever, diarrhoea and vomiting. She was given a shot of anti- nausea drug Maxolon and sent home but her condition deteriorated and 15 hours later she went to Bowral Hospital with critically low blood pressure. A heart attack and a purple rash appeared and the blood infection attacking her body was finally diagnosed at Campbelltown Hospital where she was put into an induced coma and given antibiotics. However, her body had started to shut down as the infection stopped blood flowing to her organs and arms and legs causing tissue death and she had to have both arms and legs amputated. “We know that every hour’s delay in administering antibiotics increases the risk of death by eight per cent,” says Professor Simon Finfer, of The George Institute for Global Health. “It was 15 hours after seeing the GP before we went to the hospital and there is always the question of whether the amputations would be necessary if we had got to hospital earlier,” says Korina’s husband Daniel. Korina spent ten months in four different hospitals as she fought the disease and doctors were not confident she could survive. The mother of a new five month old baby Amelia and a three year old Hayden surprised everyone. “She proved the doctors wrong, she’s a fighter,” says Daniel. “I saw a GP and was taken to four hospitals and the delay in diagnosing sepsis has cost us dearly. Lifesaving antibiotics need to be given immediately to those in need and that can only be done if there is more awareness of sepsis both by the public and health professionals,” Korina says. The local community have raised funds to help Korina’s family buy a wheelchair, a special car and prosthetics and the family says it’s been overwhelmed by the support. The life threatening illness affects more than 30,000 Australians every year. Very few Australians know the key warning signs including fever and high heart rate. Professor Simon Finfer, of The George Institute for Global Health, says it is time sepsis was put at the top of the health agenda. “Despite advances in modern medicine like vaccines, antibiotics, and acute care, sepsis takes the lives of almost one in three people that contract it. But, most Australians don’t even know what sepsis is, let alone what to look out for.” he said. There is no specific test for sepsis however fever and chills, a heart rate over 90 beats per minute, swelling, confusion, failure to pass urine and low blood pressure are signs. A “Sepsis Kills” campaign rolled out in NSW hospital emergency departments has cut death rates, it aims to get patients with signs of the illness hooked up to intravenous antibiotics within one hour of arriving at hospital. Doctors are urged not to wait for test results but to treat the patients while testing is underway, Professor Finfer said. Professor Finfer, who heads the Australian Sepsis Network (ASN), says there was a need for a national awareness campaign to increase public recognition of sepsis and to speed recognition and treatment of sepsis by healthcare workers. Family and friends of Korina Valentine have set up the Reaching4Korina charity to help provide major equipment such as wheel chairs, modified vehicles and prosthetics for those affected by sepsis and also raise awareness. Read more at the reaching4kornia website.
WASHINGTON – After President Donald Trump announced a temporary travel ban in January, academic leaders were swift to condemn it, and to warn that it would shut out some of the world’s most talented scholars. But a national study of admissions officers found that, at least as of May, international students remain interested in studying in the United States, with overall demand holding steady compared to previous years. “The situation is not as dire as what had been predicted,” said Rajika Bhandari of the Institute of International Education, which led the survey along with other higher-education associations. “The entire calendar year has been marked by a great deal of anxiety and concern, as well as speculation, in the higher education sector about whether everything happening nationally may have a significant negative impact on international student enrollment this fall,” with some even worrying about a precipitous drop. The stakes are high: More than a million students from overseas are pursuing a college education in the United States, and they contribute more than $36 billion to the national economy, according to IIE. Trump’s plans, keeping people from several majority Muslim countries from entering the United States to protect national security, are still in flux. Last month, the U.S. Supreme Court agreed to allow a limited version of the ban to take effect, carving out exceptions that appear to exempt university students, faculty and lecturers. The court will consider the case in October. Many university officials have sought to reassure international applicants and help them navigate the shifting national policy. Schools reported a 2 percent drop in the number of international students who were accepted for undergraduate programs beginning in the fall and have committed to attend, from 26 to 24 percent, but that mirrored the drop in the percentage of U.S. students committing to attend. But students from the Middle East reported great concern about getting visas – Trump has promised “extreme vetting” – and about whether they will feel welcome in the United States. University officials remain worried about whether students from the Middle East will be able to come, and whether they will choose to, Bhandari said. The results varied by region and by institution, the survey found. Impact might be greater at the graduate level: Nearly half of all universities reported a substantial drop in the number of accepted international master’s students committing to attend, according to a separate survey by the Council of Graduate Students conducted in May. The undergraduate survey was done by the Institute of International Education in partnership with the American Association of Collegiate Registrars and Admission Officers, the Council of Graduate Schools, the National Association of College Admissions Counselors, and NAFSA: Association of International Educators in May. One hundred and sixty-five colleges responded. It’s a snapshot, Bhandari said, giving a glimpse into the evolving situation nationally as it stood in May. Fall enrollment numbers will be closely watched by university leaders, as well. — The Washington Post
The International Olympic Committee won't be barring all Russian athletes from competing at the 2016 Summer Olympics. The IOC handed down the decision Sunday, roughly a week after a damning independent investigation found that the state-backed doping scandal starting in 2012 extended far beyond just Russia's track and field athletes. Originally, only Russia's track and field team was barred from competing, but many speculated that would expand across all teams after the World Anti-Doping Agency called for a full ban of Russian atheletes. Russia will be sending one track and field athlete to the games, though. Darya Klishina, a Russian long jumper, will be competing independently from the country after receiving special permission from Olympic officials to do so. There's no word yet on Russia's status regarding the 2018 Winter Olympics.
No lake in the world contains such a diversified and distinctive community of cichlid fishes as Lake Malaŵi. The total number of cichlid species in the lake is now estimated at about 1000, which is about 200 more than all the freshwater fish species of the North American Continent combined! And there is every indication that still more remain to be discovered. This fifth, revised, edition of the definitive study of Lake Malaŵi cichlids discusses and illustrates more species than any previous publication. Basing his study on more than 1700 hours of underwater observations all over the lake, the author characterizes the species by their habitat preference, distribution, feeding and breeding behavior, and coloration. More than 1750 excellent photographs illustrate the cichlid fauna of the entire lake. Almost all of these photographs were taken in the lake and show the fishes in their natural habitat. Over the years Malaŵi cichlids, which are among the most colorful freshwater fishes known, have become very popular among aquarists as they are easy to maintain and breed in captivity. And in recent years an ever-increasing number of aquarists, interested in the natural environment of their fishes, have been inspired to visit Malaŵi and observe the cichlids in the lake itself. Only those who have done so can truly understand the exhilaration and feeling of fulfillment this entails, but Malaŵi Cichlids in Their Natural Habitat offers everyone a unique opportunity to share a little of that enjoyment.
Growing concerns about weed resistance were on the minds of many no-tillers, speakers and sponsors during the recent 21st annual National No-Tillage Conference in Indianapolis, Ind. The consensus is that weed resistance is becoming a more alarming issue each year and that these concerns can no longer be ignored. Advice From Australia Those conversations reminded me of a comment made by Australian weed scientist Stephen Powles at one of the earlier National No-Tillage Conferences: “When you are on to a good thing with weed control, don’t stick to it.” Since the introduction of glyphosate-resistant crops in 1996, no new herbicide modes of action have been commercialized. The most recent class of HPPD herbicide inhibitors to reach the market were first commercialized nearly 30 years ago. And while we’ve seen plenty of new herbicides in recent years, they’re either new premixes, formulations of existing active ingredients or new active ingredients added to existing herbicide classes. For years, growers didn’t worry about weed resistance, counting on chemical companies to introduce new herbicide chemistries. But there is no new breakthrough chemistry coming. “This reliance places us in a position where resistance to many herbicide groups could spread rapidly across the region,” says Iowa State University weed scientist Bob Hartzler. “To reduce the impact of resistance, steps must be made to diversify the types of herbicides used, incorporate other management tactics where feasible and use cultural practices that enhance the competitiveness of the crop.” While 24 weed species are resistance to glyphosate, there are 69 triazine-resistant weed species and 127 weed species that are resistant to ALS inhibitors around the world. Russian Roulette Regrets When Australian no-till educator Bill Crabtree spoke at the 2012 National No-Tillage Conference in St. Louis, he recalls getting blank stares from attendees wondering why he was bothering them with concerns about weed resistance. He maintains U.S. farmers are playing Russian roulette with glyphosate. A large-acreage no-tiller in western Australia, Crabtree says his country’s farming experience with herbicide-resistant weeds is littered with regrets. “Our best farmers got resistance first and are now paying a high price for being blasé, since they figured a few escapes were no big deal,” he says. “Australian farmers have lost many herbicides over 30 years due to a lack of rotational herbicide-use patterns and sub-lethal dose rates used with weaker herbicides.” Crabtree recommends rotating glyphosate with other herbicide chemistries such as Liberty. No-tillers need to start listening and rotating herbicide chemistries. Unlike the Aussies, we can’t afford to wait until it’s
Homeland and sacred hunting grounds of the six nations, the 1000 Islands continue to majestically rise through the morning mists and her keep stories of war, romance, smuggling and exploration hidden among the labyrinth of islands. The evocative creation legend of the 1000 Islands begins with the Great Manitou. High above the lands, soaring on his Thunderbird, Great Manitou looked down from the sky and saw that his people were fighting and destroying each other. To help them live in peace, the Great Manitou created a beautiful garden on the shores of the St Lawrence – with the warning that it would be taken away if people returned to their warring ways. The common land was to be kept sacred and no conflict was allowed among the six nations who harvested the rich soils and plentiful rivers. All went well for many years, but eventually old feuds broke out and war again plagued many tribes. The Great Manitou angrily collected the garden in his huge blanket and ascended back to his home in the sky. However, at the last moment his blanket tore open and thousands of pieces of the garden fell into the river below. As he and his thunderbird flew high over the water, each piece of the garden took root and began to grow again, thus creating the Eden-like 1000 Islands we now know today. Today, as our kayaks glide silently past the break wall of Gananoque's harbor, our adventure begins in the heart of the Garden of the Great Spirit. The 1000 Islands offer some of the safest and most scenic paddling routes in Ontario. Be sure to pack a picnic and bathing suit as you'll want to stop at the seemingly endless bays and beaches in the 1000 Islands National Park. Paddling in the 1000 Islands is easily accessible and only a short drive from Ottawa, Toronto, Montreal and the USA. Kayaking outfitters are conveniently located in Gananoque for guided day trips, rental packages and weekend camping. Kayaking gets you up close to everything, where the independence and freedom is unmatched by other watersports. Much magnificent wildlife call this UNESCO Frontenac Arch World Biosphere home. The dense clusters of islands make perfect stepping stones for many migratory species and with 5 overlapping eco-regions, photographers are rarely disappointed with the action and beauty of the landscapes. Aside from the majestic aura of the islands, the living history and rich lineage to Canadian settlement, war of 1812, bootlegging, shipwrecks and romantic castles will keep any history buff entertained for years. For the geologists, the 1000 Islands are made up of an ancient mountain range that spanned from the Algonquin Highlands through to the Adirondacks in the South. This 950 million year old granite was ground down by 3 glaciers, the last of which flooded the valley and left precisely 1864 islands in an 85 km stretch of the St. Lawrence River between Kingston and Brockville. For information on guided tours, weekend camping trips and courses, contact 1000 Islands Kayaking. Day trips run from May 1 to October 31 and include all you kayaking equipment, certified guides, national park permits and a gourmet island lunch. Guided trips are youth and beginner friendly, no experience is necessary. Many waterfront B+B's and romantic accommodations await you for your weekend escape. If you are considering a self-guided kayaking trip in the 1000 Islands, download maps here. Information is also available to assist with route plans, rental packages, firewood drops, campsite and prospector tent reservations. Power boat shuttle services are available for transporting your equipment between National Park Islands.
Hair loss or thinning can have a significant impact on your self-confidence, especially considering 40 percent of those struggling with hair loss are women. Thick, luscious hair is often associated with youth, femininity, and masculinity. There are a variety of causes behind hair loss including genetics, stress, hormonal changes, and autoimmune diseases, but treatment for thinning hair or a receding hairline has been difficult in the past. PRP, or Platelet-Rich Plasma, is an emerging treatment that can effectively stimulate hair growth. If you struggle with noticeable hair loss or thinning, please contact North Texas Plastic Surgery in Dallas today at 817-416-8080 to schedule your consultation. Our board-certified plastic surgeon offers face, breast, and body procedures and a variety of medical spa treatments to patients in Dallas, Plano, Southlake, and Fort Worth, Texas. How PRP for Hair Growth Stimulation is Performed The mechanisms by which Platelet-Rich Plasma therapy works are not completely understood, but a common theory is that it promotes hair follicle growth and thickening by increasing the blood supply. The treatment process for PRP for hair loss involves three steps: - Your blood is drawn. - The blood is put through a centrifuge and spun to separate the rich plasma from your red blood cells. - The PRP is injected into your scalp at the area(s) where you’ve experienced hair loss and thinning. PRP treatments for hair loss (alopecia) can increase the density of your hair follicles, lessen or prevent fall out, and stimulate regrowth in the injected areas. Results from PRP for Hair Growth Stimulation You’ll start to notice results from your PRP hair loss treatments about three months afterward. PRP typically comes in a series, and we recommend a package of four that is followed by a subsequent series four to six months after your first PRP sessions. If you’d like to continue treatments, we can do another round to continue improvement with hair growth. Dr. Obaid or one of our skilled staff of medical professionals may recommend taking an additional supplement such as one containing biotin to strengthen your hair at home and increase your PRP results. There are medical grade shampoo and conditioners that may help fortify your hair as well, improving your results and preventing further hair loss. Preparation and Recovery from PRP Hair Growth Stimulation Preparing for your PRP treatments is simple: You’ll need to avoid NSAID medications such as aspirin and ibuprofen for three days beforehand and come with clean hair and scalp. There’s no downtime so you can return to work and your regular activities right away. PRP for hair growth stimulation typically takes around 45 minutes to complete, so sessions can sometimes be done over your lunch break. You’ll want to avoid massaging your scalp and vigorous shampooing for 48 hours to ensure the PRP stays at the injection sites. Schedule Your PRP Hair Growth Consultation in Dallas Noticeable hair loss and balding can cause insecurities and impact your confidence levels. If you’re interested in PRP treatments for hair loss, please contact Dr. Obaid in Dallas today at 817-416-8080 to schedule your consultation. North Texas Plastic Surgery serves patients in the Fort Worth area including Dallas, Plano and Southlake, Texas.
Humans are excellent two-legged walkers. It's one of the things that make us such successful creatures. And there are some scientists who say we're naturally born runners as well, that our bodies evolved to run. Now, anthropologist Dan Lieberman, one of the proponents of the "human runner" school, concludes that we do it better without shoes. He says human ancestors needed to run well — both away from big animals and after small, tasty ones, for example. He based that view on fossil bones. But lately he's been studying runners — living ones. Video: A Look At Running With And Without Shoes Shoes Or No Shoes, That Is The Question It started at a lecture he gave before the Boston Marathon. A barefoot runner — someone who runs long distances without shoes — peppered the professor with questions he couldn't answer. So Lieberman took him to his lab at Harvard University. He had him run over a flat metal plate that measures the collisional force of a footfall. Lieberman says runners generate a lot of collisional force. "Most runners, when they land and they heel-strike — they land on their heel — they generate this sudden impulse, this sharp spike of force. So it's like someone hitting you on the heel with a hammer, about 1 1/2 to 3 times your body weight," he says. Benton et. al. Most shod runners land on their heels, which generates a sudden, sharp spike of force. Barefoot runners land farther forward, closer to the ball of their foot, which exerts much less force in comparison. Benton et. al. But Lieberman was surprised by the extremely low force readings made by the barefoot runner. "He ran across the force plate, and he didn't have [a high spike], and I thought, gee, that's really amazing, and it kind of makes sense because that spike of force hurts, and I wonder if other barefoot runners do that." So Lieberman tested several groups of runners: Kenyans who'd been walking and running barefoot all their lives; Americans who grew up walking and running in shoes; and some who had switched from shoes to running barefoot. On The Ball Lieberman found that runners in shoes usually landed heel-first. Barefoot runners landed farther forward, either on the ball of their foot or somewhere in the middle of the foot, and then the heel came down — much less collisional force. And people who switched from shoes to barefoot running eventually, without prompting, adopted the barefoot style. Lieberman, who runs marathons himself, says the reason is simple. "It's pain avoidance. It's very easy to do. I mean, your body naturally tells you what to do," he says. Running shoes dampen the shock of a heel-first landing, so that's probably why shod people run that way, Lieberman says. But is that the most efficient way to run? Lieberman thinks not. "Turns out that the way in which barefoot runners run seems to store up more energy," he says. More Spring Out Of The Step To understand how that works, I talked to anthropologist Brian Richmond at George Washington University. He points out that the human foot has an arch with ligaments inside that stretch and contract with every footfall. "It allows the arch of the foot and the calf muscles to act as a better spring and to store up energy, and then give it back in the beginning of the next step," Richmond says. Think of a compressed mattress spring pushed down and then released. Richmond agrees with Lieberman that the front-first landing of barefoot running probably capitalizes on that spring mechanism more than heel-first landing — it gets more spring out of the spring. Richmond, in fact, has discovered fossilized footprints dating back 1.5 million years. Those human ancestors who left them had an arch. They were walking when they left the prints, but Richmond suspects that when they ran, they landed front-first. "It looks like this is how our ancestors have been running for a million years or more," he says. "It's only been in the last 10,000 years that we've had any kind of shoes, really." Lieberman published his findings in the journal Nature. He received research funding from a company that makes "minimal" shoes, which mimic barefoot conditions, but he adds that he received no personal income from the company. He also says he's not taking sides over which style of running is better or safer. "I mean, I think we have to be really, really careful about what we do and don't know. We have not done any injury studies; this is not an injury study," he says. That's next.
Tourists Who Steal Volcanic Rock Are Said To Unleash A Curse LULU GARCIA-NAVARRO, HOST: Now a story about an ancient curse. Millions of tourists visit Hawaii each year. When it's time to go home, they leave with memories, suntans and sometimes a handful of sand or rock slipped into their suitcase. It's hard to blame them, says Jessica Ferracane of Hawaii Volcanoes National Park. The volcanic rock is gorgeous. JESSICA FERRACANE: Dramatic, beautiful fields of smooth ropy black pahoehoe highboy lava as well as rough, clinkery brown lava called a'a. GARCIA-NAVARRO: But some say these souvenirs are the beginning of a nightmare. Pele's curse, named after a Hawaiian Goddess, is rumored to haunt those who steal from her islands. So what do some tourists do when they get home and things start going wrong? Ferracane says they think the only way to rid themselves of the curse is to rid themselves of the rocks. FERRACANE: Every single day, we get boxes of them and envelopes filled with rock sand, even items that aren't natural like plastic ashtrays that might be in the shape of Pele that they've purchased at some, you know, tourist trinket shop. GARCIA-NAVARRO: The Visitors Bureau and post offices around the island all get these packages, and sometimes they come with notes. FERRACANE: Everything from, you know, a simple sorry to really elaborate tales of woe. GARCIA-NAVARRO: There are dozens of these stories online of bad luck people attribute to Pele's curse - health problems, unemployment, a vegetable garden where no plants would grow. But it's unclear where the mythical curse came from. FERRACANE: We've heard it was actually a tour bus driver who was tired of cleaning out his bus, you know, at the end of every day with all these rocks that his tourists would leave behind. GARCIA-NAVARRO: Others say, though, that the park service itself started spreading the rumor to stop people from taking bits of the island. But Ferracane says that even though the myth is, well, just that, there are plenty of real reasons not to take the rocks. FERRACANE: Pohaku or rocks are very significant, whether they are big or small. You know, they serve as the foundation of the a'ina here or the land and also the native Hawaiian culture. GARCIA-NAVARRO: Oh, and one more little thing. Taking anything from a national park is actually illegal. (SOUNDBITE OF DICK MCINTIRE AND RAY KINNEY SONG, "PUA ALOHA") GARCIA-NAVARRO: Tomorrow on MORNING EDITION, we'll hear about the unusual number of sharks that have been spotted off the coast in Southern California. NPR transcripts are created on a rush deadline by Verb8tm, Inc., an NPR contractor, and produced using a proprietary transcription process developed with NPR. This text may not be in its final form and may be updated or revised in the future. Accuracy and availability may vary. The authoritative record of NPR’s programming is the audio record.
Mr Piccoli said the school holidays provide the opportunity to work on projects such as painting, toilet upgrades and classroom refurbishments. “Many of these projects are small but they make a very big difference to our schools,” Mr Piccoli said. “Projects can range from fixing a leaking roof to upgrading access for students with a disability. “In addition to school maintenance projects, work has continued on $95 million worth of capital works including the $20 million relocation of Gosford Public School, a $10 million upgrade of Wangee Park School for Specific Purposes and a $7.9 million upgrade of Killara High School. “When school returns this week 39 new classrooms will be used for the first time at schools including Oran Park Public School, the Marie Bashir Public School and George Bass School for Specific Purposes. “In the 2013/14 budget, $420 million of capital works funding is being invested in NSW public schools. “A four-year, $35 million capital investment and maintenance program will improve facilities at some of the state’s most disadvantaged rural and remote schools.” Mr Piccoli said more than 750,000 NSW public school students will return to school from Wednesday 29 January. “Starting school can be daunting for many students, especially those starting preschool, primary school and high school,” Mr Piccoli said. “Resources to assist with back to school are available online at the Schools A to Z website. “Help is also available to parents and caregivers via the Back-to-School Hotline, 1300 738 338. The hotline will be available between 8:30am and 4:30pm weekdays from Tuesday 28 January until Friday 14 February.”
WEDNESDAY, Jan. 19 (HealthDay News) -- Basal-like breast cancer is not more aggressive among African-American individuals than whites; however, in patients with luminal A cancer, African-American women experience worse outcomes, according to a study published in the Dec. 15 issue of Clinical Cancer Research. Katie M. O'Brien, of the University of North Carolina in Chapel Hill, and colleagues used immunohistochemical markers to subtype 1,149 invasive breast cancer patients (518 African-American, 631 white) in the Carolina Breast Cancer Study. Among whites, cancer subtypes luminal A, luminal B, basal-like, and human epidermal growth factor receptor 2 positive/estrogen receptor negative (HER2+/ER−) were distributed as 64, 11, 11, and 5 percent, respectively. The investigators also found that these subtypes were distributed as 48, 8, 22, and 7 percent, respectively, for African-Americans. Compared to participants with luminal A and B subtypes, breast cancer mortality was higher among participants with HER2+/ER− and basal-like breast cancer. African-Americans had higher breast cancer-specific mortality than whites; however, the effect of race was statistically significant only among women with luminal A breast cancer. Compared with participants with luminal A subtype within racial categories, mortality for participants with basal-like breast cancer was higher among whites than African-Americans. "Although race should not matter after diagnosis, as the authors appropriately note, race does matter. Issues involving racial differences in breast cancer treatment and access to care continue to drive many of the disparities in outcome," writes the author of an accompanying editorial. Germline BRCA1 mutations appear to be associated with breast cancer phenotype Positive Association Between Mammographic Breast Density and Bone Mineral Density in the Postmenopausal Estrogen/Progestin Interventions Study
Session 5: Weapons of Peace: Faith and Salvation Ephesians 6:16-17: "Shield of Faith and Helmet of Salvation" By the end of this session, youth will be able to do the following. Know that by following Christ as the way, the Truth, and the Life brings about our salvation Know that the weapons faith and salvation are very important to help strengthen us in the Lord. Procedures: Grades 6-12 Ask: "What is faith?" Give them a chance to talk about it. Have someone read from Hebrews 11:1. Write it down so everyone can see it and explain that faith is what we hope for and do not see with our physical eyes. But can we see them with our spiritual eyes . Faith Catch: Two youth interlock wrists while one person falls backwards, putting their faith in the person behind them. This activity can be risky. Make sure there is one adult staff member behind each group to be a spotter. When everyone is finished, have them sit down and be quiet for a few moments. Let them openly talk about their experiences. Ask them, "How did it go?" Ask: "Did you keep the faith or did you not trust your partners? Who wouldn’t try it?" Say: "Our relationship with God is very similar. Sometimes, we do not trust in God enough. Sometimes we do not give Him our whole trust and put our whole faith in Him to get us through the rough times or even the good times. We forget about Him and push Him aside. We would rather go to a mall or stay home and sleep sometimes before we go to Church. Being faithful, means keeping our minds and hearts on the Lord." Ask: "How can we use faith as a weapon against the devil? How does it strengthen us in the Lord?" Write their answers on a chalk board or large paper. Conclude by saying: "By having faith in Christ, by living a righteous life like we talked about earlier, and by asking the Holy Spirit to come into our hearts, we attain salvation." Break them off into their groups with these questions. - What do we need to do as Orthodox Christians to gain salvation? - Who can help us with our salvation? - Are we saved by faith alone? - What does it mean to be in union with God, and how do we become united to God? - Give three examples of real life situations where someone can separate themselves from God? Come back and discuss with your group. Conclude by saying: "By using all the weapons we have learned about in our spiritual journeys to Christ, we will encounter many bumps along the way but we must continue to strengthen our spiritual muscles to fight against our spiritual enemies. By knowing that Christ is the truth, by living a righteous life, by understanding scripture and the gospel of peace, and by believing in Christ we will be saved."
In the last decade, “green rooftops” have become an important instrument of urban environmentalism. Green rooftops are typically a bunch of plants literally planted on a roof- a layer of dirt (or another “planting medium”) and a drainage layer are installed over an insulation layer on top of the roof. The benefits of this are more than just a garden in the sky. A rooftop garden dramatically lowers energy costs by providing extra insulation, with the added benefit of prolonging the life of heating and other HVAC systems. Additionally, a collection of them can even help lower the temperature of a city by absorbing heat that is otherwise dispersed around the sweltering downtown canyons. Green rooftops help to collect rainwater as well. This helps to lower the amount of storm run-off that floods sewer systems during rainfalls. In fact, it is estimated that green roofs can absorb (and obviously use) 70-90% of rainwater during the summer. People are beginning to recognize that the collection of rainwater, and what can be done with it, is an important factor of green roofs. Collecting rainwater isn’t new, of course. But people are beginning to recognize that this collection doesn’t have to be merely utilitarian- it can also be beautiful. A roof can become a garden with fully functioning, and functional, ponds. A roof becomes a green roof, and a green roof become blue. Here are a couple of huge benefits of a blue roof. This is especially important in developing cities or places with extensive flooding. Rainwater has to go somewhere, and it generally goes into a river or sewage system (which eventually goes to a natural body of water). A blue roof on every building captures a substantial portion of rainfall, and can store it, dispersing it incrementally or even not at all. A green roof can do this as well, but not as efficiently or comprehensively as a blue roof. It is estimated that a shallow roof pond with an extensive garden can reduce heating costs by as much as 20%, and that is for buildings that haven’t been designed to incorporate new energy models, and thus are naturally inefficient. With newer buildings, specifically designed with green roofs in mind, the benefits can be even greater. It’s one thing to have a bunch of plants and a shallow pond on a roof; it is another thing to make it beautiful. It would be great if green and blue roofs could be sold entirely on environmental benefits, but we both know that’s not always the case. But a blue roof can also provide a gorgeous escape from the urban stew, from the sweat and the grime on street level. The only place to escape from that now is in your office or a store, and really: how relaxing is that? But imagine this. You come off the streets and into the elevator bank, and take it to the top. There you are, 30, 40, 50 stories above it all. But you aren’t on tar-paper and gravel. You’ve stepped into a garden, a jungle, with footpaths carrying you over the soft trickle of water and beguiling you into a thicket of plants. There are some chairs and tables, and you sit next to the pond and eat your lunch or just relax, the sounds of the street faded at this height, muffled by distance and the trees, as remote as someone else’s dream. And it is all natural. The plants are in dirt and are watered by the rain. The water isn’t trucked up here by pipes; it fell from the sky. And there is a lot you can do with a natural pond- you can have waterfalls, running water, anything. It is a new field, and people aren’t yet taking advantage of the aesthetics the way they are with green roofs, but it is a sure bet: soon enough, most buildings will have a blue roof, and the city, that wonderful thicket, will become a more peaceful and relaxing place, with escape a few stories away.
In this project, we will resolve the role of covalently attached oligosaccharides in the conformational transition of the SARS-CoV-2 S protein from a closed, non-infectious state to an open one that can bind to its receptor ACE2 on human cells. The oligosaccharides form a so-called “glycan shield”, which comprises 20% of the mass of the system and contributes to immune system evasion. We will use highly scalable replica-exchange umbrella sampling to map a two-dimensional free-energy landscape of the conformational change in non- and fully-glycosylated states. The large scale of the calculation requires supercomputing at the petascale level as provided by Summit. Furthermore, intermediate states along the opening pathway for the native, glycosylated S protein will be used in an ongoing high-throughput virtual screening effort at ORNL. This project is part of the COVID-19 HPC Consortium. \|Number of Jobs Run To-Date\|\|Node Hours Used To-Date\|\|Number of Jobs Running Now\|\|Nodes in Use Now\|
Wouldn’t we all love to have a nice home garden filled with fresh fruits, vegetables, herbs, and flowers? A home garden can simultaneously cut our budget and shrink out waistlines but actual gardening can become a huge task that involves time, skill, and yard space many people do not have. But you can still have a greener thumb with these unique home gardening products that allow you to grow your own food without a lot of fuss. 1. Back to the Roots at home Mushroom Garden Kits (pictured) are a great way to start growing your own food without worrying about constant care. Each kit is just 19.95 and grows up to 1 1/12 pounds of mushrooms. These amazing kits are made from reclaimed coffee grounds that are packed into a cardboard box for use as fertilizer for the mushrooms to grow. When your kit is fully grown, send Back to the Roots a photo via their facebook page and they will donate a kit to an elementary classroom of your choice. 2. Topsy Turvy Tomato Planters, $38.90, allow you to “plant” tomatoes on your porch or balcony when you simply hang the device up. The set up allows the water and nutrients to flow straight to the roots, resulting in ripe, delicious fruit while keeping it safe from weeds that result in harmful pesticides. The company has also branched out and now makes strawberry, tomato and herb, and hot pepper planters! 3. Want to gift a bouquet of flowers and a card? Why not both at the same time with Botanical Paperworks card as the gift that keeps on giving. You can wish someone congratulations for any occasion or buy yourself some stationary made from post consumer recycled plantable paper and embedded with wildflower seeds. 4. Add some flavor to your meals with an Indoor Herb Garden Kit. Herb Kits make an assortment of grow your own plant kits including culinary, medicinal, and herbal tea kits, all with non-GMO seeds.
We know many people suffer from mental disorders, but what about animals? If you’ve ever suspected your dog is depressed or your cat has a touch of obsessive compulsive disorder, you could be right. Most veterinarians and animal psychologists agree that animals can indeed suffer from various mental disorders, though not in quite the same ways as humans. For example, mental illness in humans is often the result of chemicals in the brain. Animals often display characteristics of mental illness when they’re mistreated or when they’re unable to get what they seek or need. Perhaps this is why animals living in captivity seem to exhibit more compulsive behaviors than those in the wild. Those same veterinarians and animal psychologists also agree that animals wouldn’t suffer from mental disorders if we’d only treat them right. But besides the obvious, do we really know the right way to treat our animal companions? If we did, would anxiety in our cats and dogs be so common? Below, we’ve listed 15 fascinating things you need to know about mental disorders in animals. Military dogs have been known to suffer from PTSD. Just as human soldiers can experience post-traumatic stress disorder, so too can canine soldiers. Countless military dogs have returned from the Middle East conflict exhibiting the same heartbreaking behaviors that so often plague battle-experienced humans. Though all too often, dogs with PTSD are immediately euthanized upon their return to the United States, more and more veterinarians are beginning to develop effective training methods to help dogs in their emotional recovery. Birds have their own forms of depression and anxiety. Stress, overexcitement, and boredom can cause captive birds to exhibit signs of depression and anxiety. Signs of avian depression include over-preening and feather plucking, similar to the human condition of trichotillomania, or compulsive hair plucking. Dogs can have autism. Is it possible for dogs to be autistic? According to a growing number of veterinarians, yes! A 2015 study conducted by the American College of Veterinary Behaviorists found interesting links between autism-like behaviors, such as obsessive tail chasing, and various genetic information. Of 132 bull terriers studied (55 tail-chasing terriers and 77 non tail-chasing terriers), the researchers found that tail chasing is most prevalent in male dogs. It’s often done during a trance-like state and can be considered a form of episodic aggression. Researchers also found that this repeated behavior occurred in dogs with “fragile X syndrome.” Though additonal research is needed to learn more about autism in dogs, it is estimated that between 15 and 60 percent of people with fragile X syndrome land somewhere on the autism spectrum. Rats are binge eaters. A recent study found a correlation between rats and binge eating. When the rats were given food in intervals, they responded by binge eating as much as they could. Alternatively, the rats that were given full-time access to food ate more responsibly. Not surprisingly, the rats that exhibited binge-eating behaviors also had other types of substance-abuse behaviors in later parts of the study. Orangutans can suffer from addiction. Primates such as orangutans are so biologically similar to humans that they often suffer from the same illnesses we do. These include mental disorders like addiction. In one instance, Tori, an orangutan in a zoo, got ahold of a pack of cigarettes. After mimicking the actions of her keepers, Tori became addicted to smoking and had to undergo rehabilitation. House cats exhibit plenty of OCD behavior Jokes about house cats having OCD are common. It’s also pretty accurate. Excessive grooming, pacing, and mewing are all behaviors that indicate a cat is bored, anxious, or even in pain. Researchers believe that these behaviors allow pain-relieving chemicals in the brain to be released, thereby temporarily easing the cat’s anxiety. A cat that is not given enough attention, or which is not stimulated with activity, can begin to exhibit more of this unhealthy behavior. Captive chimps can get anxiety. Strange, compulsive behaviors are so common in lab monkeys they’re practically taken for granted. Zoo monkeys and primates also show number of compulsive behaviors. Recent research has revealed a strong link between the anxiety of living in captivity with mental disorders in chimpanzees. Common behaviors include hitting their own bodies, constant pacing, rocking back and forth, and drinking urine. Bored horses can easily become a danger to themselves. Horses are meant to be active herd animals. Those that spend too much time cooped up alone in stalls or small paddocks often exhibit odd behaviors caused by boredom and anxiety. These behaviors include “cribbing” or chewing on wood, pacing, kicking the walls of their stall, and biting. To help avoid these bad and dangerous habits, it’s important that horses get plenty of exercise, They should have time spent turned out with other horses. Even stimulating products like a ball to play with can help. Racehorses, which often spend 23 hours per day in a stall, are often given goats or sheep to keep them company. Pig anorexia is called Thin Sow Syndrome. Pigs can become so stressed by their environment or social surroundings that they’ve sometimes been known to starve themselves. This odd behavior is so common, in fact, that it even has a name: Thin Sow Syndrome. Similar to anorexia in humans, Thin Sow Syndrome affects pigs with both a poor diet and plenty to eat, and is often observed along with overactivity. Every hamster is a hoarder. We’ve all seen those adorable images of hamsters with full mouths. As cute as this behavior is, it actually stems from the instincts of the pet’s wild ancestors. These ancestors collected stores of food to help the survive in periods of hibernation. So, too does a pet hamster store extra food in its mouth and in the corners of its cage. Worried animals will lose sleep. This one should be obvious to anyone who has ever lived with a dog who was scared of loud noises such as fireworks or a thunderstorm. Animals living in a wide variety of environments, including the wild, have lost sleep due to anxiety, distress, pain, or other kinds of uneasiness. To deal with their insomnia, these animals often pace, cry or whimper, or even hide in tight places. Elephants have been known to enjoy the occasional high. Elephants in the wild have been known to seek out a particular type of berry with hallucinogenic qualities. This often requires them to travel, and older elephants have been observed teaching juveniles how to hunt and eat these berries for themselves. There’s a reason why only captive orcas kill humans. According to research conducted by Dr. Hope Ferdowsian, captive animals such as orcas and elephants commonly suffer from PTSD as a result of harsh training methods meant to “break” them of their natural habits. After what often amounts to inhumane training methods, these animals are left living in much more confined areas than what they’re used to. They have far fewer companions than they would in nature, and they’re unable to do any of the things their wild peers are. These extreme limits are stressful for animals. This stress and depression often manifests itself as aggression and other bad habits. Some animals can commit suicide. Elephants, dolphins, and rats have all been known to commit suicide. Elephants, for example, are often trained using extremely harsh methods. There have been multiple accounts of violently subdued elephants stepping on their own trunks and refusing to move in order to suffocate themselves. As far as we know, healthy animals committing suicide only happens amongst those which are captive, but the reality of this act is far reaching. The idea that an animal can knowingly ends its own life under unbearable conditions goes a long way to suggest that these animals have the intelligence to both analyze a situation and form some sense of a future. Mental illness in animals doesn’t have to be permanent. It’s no coincidence that some of the instances described above involve humans. In many places around the world, including the United States, animals are treated as property. There are few laws that protect them from abuse. But for animals who exhibit mental illness — whether a cruelly treated elephant in captivity or a loved-but-bored canine family member — mental strife does not have to be permanent. Former fighting dogs are just one example. For instance, when 51 pit bulls who had been forced to fight were rescued from Michael Vick’s property, many people viewed them as a threat to public safety. They called for their immediate death. Just after rescue, two of the dogs died of their injuries, but only one was euthanized after being deemed “too emotionally and physically damaged” to save. The remaining 48 became the first of dozens to be rehabilitated and given a new chance for a happy life. The dogs used their second chance to become beloved members of various families, emotional support dogs, and canine breed ambassadors. One even went on to become a therapy dog for children, and was named the 2014 ASPCA Dog of the Year.
In a historic move, Home Minister Amit Shah today announced a resolution assented by the President of the country, clearing the path for the abolition of Article 370 of the Indian constitution that granted Jammu and Kashmir a special status. Alongside, a bill to bifurcate the state into two Union Territories: Jammu and Kashmir with legislature and Ladakh region as another Union Territory without legislature. As per reports, on the passage of the bill, delimitation exercise will also soon be initiated in the state to demarcate Ladakh region from the original Jammu and Kashmir state. The exercise will be managed by the Election Commission of India and seats in the Jammu and Kashmir legislative assembly will be increased to 114 from 107. Provisions under Article 239A that are applicable to Puducherry will also be applicable to the UT of Jammu and Kashmir. — Manu Pubby (@manupubby) August 5, 2019 The Jammu and Kashmir Union Territory will follow the UT model adopted by Puducherry which also has its own legislature. Provisions of Article 239A that are applicable to Puducherry will be applicable to the UT of Jammu and Kashmir as well. The Fourteenth Amendment of the Constitution of India, officially known as The Constitution (Fourteenth Amendment) Act, 1962, incorporated Puducherry as the ninth Union territory of India. The Clause 4 of the Bill sought to insert a new Article 239A in the Constitution, which would empower Parliament to create by law, Legislatures and Councils of Ministers for Union territories of Himachal Pradesh, Manipur, Tripura, Goa, Daman and Diu and Puducherry. Jammu and Kashmir will now join this list of Union Territories. The bill garnered overwhelming support from disparate political parties in the upper house of the parliament. Various political parties such as YSRCP, Shiv Sena, AAP, BSP, BJD and other regional parties have extended their support to the government on the Jammu and Kashmir bifurcation bill.
In Gutierrez v Gutierrez a Mississippi Supreme Court Case the supreme Court of Mississippi evaluated and ruled upon a very complicated spousal support and property debt and asset division family law case. The first major issue the trial court had to undertake was 2nd mortgage that was taken out soley during the marriage under Clayton Frank Gutierrez’s name. The trial court laid out three questions it determined. Clay was the sole person who signed for the 2nd mortgage. Trisha Guterriez did not sign for the 2nd mortgage. In addtion the trial court ruled that the creditor did not make a claim for the enforcement of the 2nd mortgage. The chancellor in Mississippi which would be the trial Court in California made each party responsible for the equal payment of the debt thus each spouse would assume joint responsibility for the 2nd mortgage. Each party on appeal to the Mississippi Supreme court made a different argument based on the 2nd mortgage. Mr. Gutierrez claimed that since he was soley liable for the note and signed for the 2nd mortgage he should be soley paying for the mortgage and not Mrs. Gutierrez. Mrs. Gutierrez appealed claiming she wanted a lump sum spousal support payment rather than monthly payments. Each of their argument strongly relied on the outcome of how the debt and payments on the 2nd mortgage would be handled by the Mississippi Supreme court. Mrs Gutierrez wanted that the 2nd mortgage remained community debt and jointly responsible to the both parties. If so she would gain much more ability to claim more spousal support. Mr. Gutierrez wanted to claim it as his sole responsibility because then he would have more community debt to claim and thus less income to provide more spousal support to Mrs. Gutierrez. In addition, on appeal the Court had to deal with the Contempt issues that were done by Mr. Gutierrez for failing to pay court ordered expenses of Mrs Gutierrez. The complex issue of spousal support and division of marital debt and assets were the main issue the supreme court had to deal with. The reason it was so complicated was that the deb that was to be allocated to either spouses or to one only would be intertwined intimately with any spousal support payment that either spouse would receive or pay out. On appeal the Mississippi Supreme Court held that the Chancellor correctly applied the case law of the prior decisions dealing with the property division and allocation of debt and assets. That prior case law held that although the division of the debts and assets was key to a determination of either a lump sum spousal support award and or monthly payments the chancellor court had discretion based on equity to award either lump sum spousal support or payments based on equity. In addition, the Mississippi Supreme Court held that holding both parties responsible for the 2nd mortgage was correct since the mortgage was taken during the marriage and the Chancellor court did the correct analysis.
1st Sunday of St. Luke In today’s Gospel reading St. Peter with the rest of the holy Apostles were astonished at the catch of fish which they had caught. Christ our Lord had sat in St. Peter’s boat and was teaching the people. The Disciples had worked very hard all night long, but they had caught nothing. St. Peter at the commandment of Christ let down the net and then God’s blessings came, for “they caught a great number of fish” (Luke 5:6). Obedience to God’s Will is man’s first and foremost duty. Second most important is to carry out His Divine Commandments. The godly man strives to conform himself to whatever God wishes. Man through obedience to God identifies himself with God, and his will with God’s Divine Will. The holy Apostle Peter at the greatest moment of his difficult hours of disappointment and depression, showed obedience to Christ. The result is obvious. God blesses the work of all those who struggle with honesty. In our daily struggle to survive there are some moments, when we feel let down. Many times despair and dissolution overcome our hearts, when we hope for some things that do not come right. How many times do we turn to God and not see any results? Did God not hear our prayers? Is He relaxing in His Heavenly Kingdom and does not care for us? No! The answer to these questions lie in that we must not only turn to God, but we must also learn to trust God. St. Peter not only accepted Christ in his fishing boat, but also showed absolute obedience to His commandment. Without a second discussion he threw the nets into the shallow waters of Gennesaret. Because of his obedience God blessed his work. Now, how many times does it happen in our life that we accept Christ not in our boat, but in our hearts, but we are not obedient to Him? How many times do we say that we believe in the Lord, but, yet, we have not made the effort to bow and humble ourselves before Him? How many times do we pray to God, but within our hearts we do not learn to trust Him? How many times do we find ourselves in difficult situations and we ask for God’s help and assistance, but in reality we do not believe in His Providence? How many times do we believe that God will interfere, like magic, to fulfil our wishes? Finally, how many times, when we see no results of Divine intervention, we turn away from God? St. Peter was blessed, because he showed obedience to Christ. God’s blessings came as the result of Peter’s obedience to His Will. The miracle at Gennesaret came about because of St. Peter’s faithfulness. St. Peter knew very well, being an experienced fisherman, that there could be no fish in the shallow waters of Gennesaret. All night long he worked with his collaborafors and, yet, they caught nothing. But, he showed obedience to Christ’s word and he let down the nets. For Christ’s sake he did not hesitate. He did not say, that ‘We are wasting our time’. He just obeyed and trusted Christ’s word. We all work hard. We all run here and there and we struggle to build up our businesses. Some even work after hours even at night. We all strive for our daily bread. But, how many times do we lack success? One works for so many years and puts in his work so much time and money, but at the end he sees everything collapsing. What is the reason? Is it because there is lack of cleverness? Is it because of lack of interest or concern for one’s work? Is it because of evil men sabotaging the work of others? All these reasons are possible. But, the main reason is the lack of true faith and trust in God. In our times, man has learned not to trust God or anyone else, but only himself. We have not surrendered ourselves completely to God’s Divine Providence or we lack of true faith. This is one of the main reason why many Christians do not come every Sunday to Church. Lack of faith is the spiritual illness of today’s society. Lack of faith has as its result that we do not pray every day or even if we do so, then our hearts are not turned to God, but wonder here and there. Lack of faith is the reason why we do not obey God’s Commandments and we do not trust ourselves in His Will. Lack of faith is the reason why man does not believe in God and His Teachings. Lack of faith is the reason why man turns to evil deeds and is disobedient to God’s Word. If we wish to have God’s blessings in our homes, our works and our lives, then we have to turn to Him, bow before Him and trust ourselves to His Divine Providence. Let us imitate St. Peter’s example. Let us show trust and faith in Christ, our Lord and Savior. Let us practice God’s Commandments. Let us be obedient to His Divine Will. This way of life will bring upon us God’s blessings. This is the way for our salvation, to be before God and surrender ourselves to Him. His Eminence Metropolitan Panteleimon of Antinoes His Eminence Metropolitan Panteleimon. as Bishop of Ghana – West Africa blessing the daily food of his people. 1st Sunday of St. Luke
2 ½ cup flour Pinch salt and sugar 250g butter (cold), cut into cubes 2-4 Tbsp cold water 4 cups apples, sliced (about 6-8) 1 lemon, zest and a little juice ½ cup white sugar ¼ cup brown sugar 2 Tbsp ground almonds or flour ½ tsp cinnamon Pinch freshly grated nutmeg 2 Tbsp butter 1 egg separated, dash of milk TO MAKE PASTRY: add the flour, salt and sugar to a food processor and add the cold butter. Pulse until mixture resembles coarse crumbs. With the motor running drizzle in 1-2 tablespoons cold water, watch mixture closely and add one more tablespoon of water if mixture still looks dry and crumbly. If the mixture starts to clump together and form a ball, stop the food processor and feel the mix with your hands. If damp and will hold together remove onto lightly floured bench and bring all the mixture together. Wrap in clingfilm and chill for at least 30 minutes. TO MAKE PIE Preheat oven 200C Prepare the apples by peeling and removing the core, slice into thinish slices and put into large bowl along with spices, sugar, and flour, toss together to evenly mix. Roll the pastry to fit an 18-20cm round pie dish or something similar, you will need to cut one circle larger than the other as the larger one is needed to line the base and sides of the dish and the other to cover the top. Line the pie dish and ensure that you have enough pastry to go up the sides. Place the apples in the pastry, brush the edge of pastry with a little egg wash (egg yolk and dash of milk) and generously layer over the pastry for the top, allowing plenty of pastries to easily attach onto edge as you don’t want to stretch the pastry to fit! Applying a little pressure to the edge so that the pastry sticks together forming a seal. Remove excess pastry with a sharp knife. Brush the surface with remaining egg wash, pierce the surface a few times with the tip of a sharp knife and sprinkle with a little sugar. Bake for 15 minutes at 200C and then reduce temperature to 160C for a further 30 minutes or until pastry is golden and flaky and you can smell cooking apples. Serve with plenty of fresh cream and ice cream! Thanks to Ettrick Gardens for providing the apples for the demonstration. If you would like to download a printable version of this recipe, please click here
Canadian Retailers Get Compostable Replacement for Single-Use Shopping Bags Canada is now offering an option for Canadians where everyone wins: compostable shopping bags at an economical price. OneEarth Packaging is committed to reducing waste and helping Canada's battle of the bag. Refresh Marketing is working in partnership with OneEarth Packaging to bring the compostable shopping bags to grocery and department stores. The bags offer an option of four-color printing to meet any retailer’s brand requirements. Following the ban on plastic bags in Montreal and the introduction of municipal composting programs, Refresh Marketing sought a solution that would complement the spirit of the ban, support city compost programs to collect food scraps, while maintaining convenience and ease of shopping for consumers. These disposable bags are composed of a leak-free design using materials that meet ASTM D6400 composting standards and contain no additives to enhance decomposition. This makes them compliant with municipal composting curbside pick-ups and all composting certifications requirements in Canada. With a look and feel of plastic, yet compatible with all compostable programs, the bags are engineered to breakdown and turn into healthy soil products, just like organic material.
The remains of the Estorm Castle are located on the top a rock over the valley of Sant Esteve de la Sarga and consist of a round tower, nowadays strongly damaged, and a fortified area which enclosed the top of the hill. This tower was part of the defensive line to the north of Montsec d'Ares and has a wide visual control area. First mention in documents dates from 1075 in the will of the lord of Estorm and from 1099 when Pere Ramon I de Pallars gave Estorm to the Canònica de Mur. Epicentre- Centre de Visitants del Pallars Jussà Passeig del Vall , 13 Tel.: 973 653 470
Papierfabrik Palm, Wörth, Germany The plant in Wörth, southwest Germany, is conveniently situated on an industrial site close to the motorways A 5 and A 65 as well as the river Rhine. The paper machine, PM6, which started up in 2002, has a capacity of 650,000 tonnes per annum and is the world's largest machine in this field. To date, three world speed records have been achieved on this machine. This paper mill is one of the most efficient in the world. The site has its own railway sidings and its own loading quay at the Rhine port. Since 2007 a company-owned power plant supplies the paper mill with its own steam and electricity produced on site. Overview - Paper Machines \|Paper Machines\|\|Application\|\|Net Width\|\|Annual Production\| \|PM6\|\|corrugated paper\|\|10.30 m\|\|650,000 tonnes\|
The first question you need to ask when you’re considering breeding lovebirds is what you will do with the chicks. Pairing up your birds without any idea of who will take the babies off you can end badly, so all captive breeding should be carefully and consciously planned well in advance. Once you’re confident that you will be able to find loving homes for your baby birds, the next consideration is whether your birds are in breeding condition… The Happy Couple While some highly-experienced experts claim to be able to tell male lovebirds from females, for all intents and purposes they look identical. In other words, there is no visual way to ascertain whether your two birds are a pair or not. Oddly, lovebirds even form same-sex pairs, so just because your two birds seem to be constantly whispering sweet nothings to one another there is still no guarantee that you have both a male and a female. There are several ways to sex lovebirds, but all will require specialist assistance. Possibly the easiest way to sex lovebirds is to gather blood samples or DNA (such as from shed feathers). These can then be analysed by a laboratory to be certain of their sex. An alternative method is to ask your vet to surgically sex your birds, where he or she will inspect the bird’s cloaca to ascertain their sex. Assuming you’ve confirmed that your two birds are indeed a breeding pair, the next consideration should be for their health and age. It is best not to breed very young birds; most breeders recommend only pairing birds when they reach 10 months of age or greater. The process of producing and incubating eggs, not to mention rearing the young, is an energy-intensive process. It is important, as a result, that your birds are in the very best of health. If not, you risk weakening your lovebirds, which can lead to problems with breeding. Like most cage birds, lovebirds appreciate a nesting box in which to lay their eggs. Opinions vary as to the best type of nest box to use. While some breeders use budgie boxes, most experts prefer to use cockatiel next boxes which offer considerably more space for the female to move around. The base of the nest box should be lined with wood flakes or sawdust to provide a soft base onto which the female can lay her eggs. Furthermore, additional nest-building materials can be provided, such as grass or even palm fronds, which the birds will use to further line the nest box. Egg laying normally commences soon after mating has been observed, with the first egg often produced just 3 or 4 days later. Once egg laying has begun it is normal for one egg to be laid every other day until the clutch is complete. A typical lovebird clutch is between four and six eggs. Once the clutch is complete the female will slink off to the nest box where she will spend almost all her time until hatching occurs. It is normal the female to remain hidden for hours at a time, only appearing to eat or drink, before rapidly returning to the box. It is best to leave the lovebirds to their own devices at this time, or the nest may be abandoned or eggs damaged in the scrabble to escape your gaze. Lovebird eggs normally incubate for a period of around 22-25 days, though there is a large degree of flexibility in this. In other words, don’t assume that eggs won’t hatch just because the time overruns; keep the faith and you’re likely to be rewarded a short time later. Normally you’ll know hatching has occurred as you can hear the chicks audibly chirping from inside the box. Rearing the Young Lovebirds Lovebirds grow up quickly when they’re properly cared for. They’re normally fully weaned by just 8 weeks old; your mission is to give the parents all the help and support that they need. While the youngsters are being reared you should aim to provide additional food to keep them well-fed. Commercial eggfood can be provided, or alternatively you may offer finely-chopped hard-boiled egg which your birds will relish. This calcium-rich food can also be an excellent tonic for nesting females who may otherwise suffer from low calcium levels after egg-laying. If you are hoping for silly-tame baby birds many experts recommend gently removing the babies each day for a short period starting from when they are a week old. Just a few minutes per day is necessary to get them used to being around people. With time and patience you will find such socialized birds much more pleasant to own than those that have been left without human interaction for the first few months of their life. If all goes according to plan, roughly two months after hatching you should find yourself with a clutch of healthy, confiding baby lovebirds, all feeding themselves on seed, and you can begin to distribute them safely to other keepers. Remember that lovebirds are a sociable species, so ideally offer lovebirds in pairs, especially if you have successfully sexed them beforehand. In such a way same-sex pairs can live out happy lives together with no concerns over unplanned egg laying taking place.
Red China (ePub) Mao Crushes Chiang's Kuomintang, 1949 When the world held its breath … It is more than 25 years since the end of the Cold War. It began over 75 years ago, in 1944 – long before the last shots of the Second World War had echoed across the wastelands of Eastern Europe – with the brutal Greek Civil War. The battle lines are no longer drawn, but they linger on, unwittingly or not, in conflict zones such as Syria, Somalia and Ukraine. In an era of mass-produced AK-47s and ICBMs, one such flashpoint was China in 1949 … China. 1949: two vast armies prepare for a final showdown that will decide Asia’s future. One is led by Mao Tse-tung and his military strategists Zhou Enlai and Zhu De. Hardened by years of guerrilla warfare, armed and trained by the Soviets, and determined to emerge victorious, the People’s Liberation Army is poised to strike from its Manchurian stronghold. Opposing them are the teetering divisions of the Kuomintang, the KMT. For two decades Chiang Kai-shek’s regime had sought to fashion China into a modern state. But years spent battling warlords, and enduring Japan’s brutal conquest of their homeland, has left the KMT weak, corrupt, and divided. Millions of Chinese perished during the crucible of the Sino-Japanese War and the long, gruelling years of the Second World War. But the Soviet victory against the Japanese Kwantung Army in 1945 allowed Mao’s Communists to re-arm and prepare for the coming civil war. Within a few short years, the KMT were on the defensive while the Communists possessed the most formidable army in East Asia. The stage was set for China’s rebirth as a communist dictatorship ruled by a megalomaniac who would become the biggest mass-murderer in history. The book itself is a small one at 127 pages. It does however pack a large punch into a small frame. The history of the war between the two from 1945 to 1949 is gone through. The book also goes into the reluctance of the United States to back Chiang and the Kuomintang. This is somewhat surprising given the United States policy in Asia after this (The Korean and Vietnam Wars to stop the spread of Communism). For a short book it also goes through the Soviet Union's involvement with both the Kuomintang and Communists, along with other not well known history. For anyone who is looking to know the broad sweep of this moment in history, or is looking to start delving deeper into it, this book is a must. It is the perfect jumping off place for more reading.A Wargamers Needful Things Read the full review here The Timeline spans the period from 1911 when the Quing Dynasty was overthrown to Mao’s proclamation of the Peoples’’ Republic of China on 10 October 1949. A comprehensive Introduction provides an excellent overview of the major events and players in the 38-year period studied. In addition to continuous coverage with black and white photographs, there are coloured maps of 1934 Asia, Mao’s 1934/5 Long March and Communist offensives from Apr to Oct 49, as well as photographs of 21st century China and Tiawan. Newspaper reports of the time have been strategically embedded in the text.RUSI Victoria This is an excellently readable coverage of the subject. As featured 'On The Book Shelf'Wargames Illustrated, January 2018
Q.1 What is Performance Testing? Ans: Performance testing is a systematic testing approach to find out the performance of an application under load. Performance Testing is a kind of Non-Functional Testing in which more preference is given to the user load and quick response. Q.2 What are the types of Performance Test? Ans: Performance Testing is a very generic term. Under performance testing, there are many types of tests. Following is the list of performance test: - Load Test - Stress Test - Soak Test - Spike Test - Break-Point Test - Step-up Test - Volume Test - Failover Test Q.3 What are the goals of different Performance Test? Ans: Each performance test has some specific performance goal. Following is the summary of performance test and relative goals: - Load Test: To determine the performance of an application at peak user load - Stress Test: To determine the performance of an application at future expected user load - Soak Test: To find-out the memory leakage in the server at average user load - Spike Test: To determine the performance of an application at sudden user load - Break-Point Test: To identify the break-point of an application - Step-up Test: To find out the performance of an application at the different user load in the same test - Volume Test: Specially designed for batch performance testing - Failover Test: To identify the capacity of server nodes in case of failure Q.4 What is Performance Testing Tool? Ans: A performance tester conducts the performance testing with the help of a specific testing tool known as Performance Testing Tool. Some of them are LoadRunner, JMeter, NeoLoad etc. These tools help to script-out the business flows and generate the desired load on the servers. Q. 5 What are the important metrics in Performance Testing? Ans: Some important performance test metrics are: - User Load - Transaction Response Time - Transactions per second - Think Time
After extremist Republican Joe Miller upset incumbent Senator Lisa Murkowski in the GOP primary, many Alaskans panicked over the prospect of having a Senator that wants to greatly diminish the federal government’s role in Alaska. After Senator Murkowski announced a write-in bid to take on Miller and the Democratic nominee, Sitka Mayor Scott McAdams, a new organization emerged to back the incumbent: Alaskans Standing Together. Alaskans Standing Together is a “Super PAC” which can raise unlimited amounts of funds from individuals and corporations, and must disclose its donors to the FEC. The group is solely dedicated towards supporting Senator Murkowski’s reelection campaign and criticizing both of her opponents. So far, Alaskans Standing Together has reported having nine donors: Native American Corporations that have contributed over $800,000 to the group. But these Native American Corporations are also federal contractors, and many of them openly claim that they receive much of their federal money as a result of the legislative efforts of Lisa Murkowski. The corporations say that such money is needed since outside organizations like the California-based Tea Party Express are running hundreds of thousands of dollars worth of ads promoting Joe Miller. But as the Miller and Murkowski squabble over the non-party groups backing their campaigns, only Scott McAdams directly pointed to an important reason for the massive downpour in campaign cash: The Democrat in the race, Scott McAdams, took a different approach, blaming the U.S. Supreme Court for opening up politics to unlimited corporate donations. If he’s elected, McAdams said, he’d move to pass a campaign finance law backed by Democratic leaders in the Senate and President Barack Obama. He also seized on a claim the White House has been hammering in recent weeks: that unlimited corporate money has the potential to give foreign-owned corporations a say in U.S. elections. “As a small state, Alaska can’t afford to allow its elections to be overtaken by corporate spending,” McAdams said. “Unfortunately, Sen. Murkowski has voted to allow corporations, including foreign corporate money, to continue to influence elections.” Outside independent expenditure groups are playing a major role in the Alaska Senate race — and those across the country. In previous elections, such contributions wouldn’t have been legal, but the recent Citizens United Supreme Court decision allows corporate and union donors to inject unlimited amounts of money into politics.
Access to Nature for Human Health and Sustainability Vivian Loftness, FAIA, LEED AP, CPHC \| FAIA, Paul Mellon Chair in Architecture, Carnegie Mellon University Watch This Presentation: In her presentation entitled “Access to Nature for Human Health and Sustainability,” Carnegie Mellon University professor Vivian Loftness addressed the reasons why nature is vitally important for our wellbeing and encouraged us to become better demanders of safe and healthy built environments. Little changes can often be taken for granted, but something as simple as opening the window or turning off the air conditioning can make a difference when it comes to creating sustainable building conditions. Drawing from various studies, Loftness examined key design components that are necessary when creating functional spaces. Specifically, Loftness argued that views of nature, circadian light, solar heat, thermal variability (alliesthesia), natural ventilation and access to outdoor spaces are all elements that need to be considered during the design process. Traditionally, American buildings have been sealed off from nature. Rather than utilizing the inherent benefits that come from the outdoors, the environments we live and work in rarely take full advantage of our available resources. For example, because of its exposure to sunlight, a hospital room facing the southeast may experience a decrease in rates of medication needed, and a change of room temperature can be the deciding factor between someone having more or less creativity or productivity. Loftness suggests we focus on taking steps such as designing around sunshine, maximizing views of nature and creating dynamic thermal conditions. “We know we need fresh air. We could deliver it through the mechanical system, or we could deliver it through open windows. This is my life’s goal—to make operable windows mandatory in all buildings. I cannot believe that we’re taking old buildings that had beautiful operable windows and locking them down.” Even if it comes with pollution and noise, outside air brings in increased levels of oxygen, and this has been shown to increase performance on tasks. However, these are not the only benefits of open windows. “This is not just about getting more oxygen into the room and less carbon dioxide. What other content is there in the outdoor air that we might need? We’re very afraid of the outdoor air because of fine particulates….[and] we’re afraid of the noise that comes with it, but ultimately outdoor air is often better than indoor air.” “We need to design our systems and buildings to support daylight and electric light, to support natural cooling and mechanical air conditioning, to support natural ventilation and filtered ventilation, and we need to design for indoor/outdoor work and learning.” By engaging our environment, Loftness says, we can create functional spaces that reach their maximum potential. “When in doubt, default to nature.” About the Speaker Vivian Loftness, FAIA, LEEDAP, is an internationally renowned researcher, author and educator focused on environmental design and sustainability, climate and regionalism in architecture, and the integration of advanced building systems for health and productivity. Adding to eight book chapters and over 100 journal articles, she edited the reference encyclopedia Sustainable Built Environments, released by Springer Publishing in 2013 and reissued in 2019.
The ancient Hall of Building of the Museums, was realized in the second half of the nineteenth century as a representation place of the Società di Incoraggiamento allo Studio del Disegno. Is characterized by the decorative wealth, absent in the other parts of the Building. Thought for entertaining and to involve the city public, the classroom is crowned from a beautiful loggia or practicable balcony along the whole perimeter and encircled by a pompous gilded wooden handrail carved from the Laboratory Barolo. All around, along the walls perimetrali, framed in building niches, the busts of the famous characters are exposed: a sort of gallery, of local Pantheon. The vast ceiling is painted with allegorical figures in 1899 from Francis Burlazzi, teacher and manager of the the school of sketch and from the painter decorator valsesiano Andrea Bonini. An irreplaceable space of the memory, an environment of prestige where you can welcome the public. It’s a ideal place for events, concerts, conferences and suppers of frill. The place is endowed with a system of basic illumination, plant audio, video projector, platform with table for the chairmen, sat for the guests and adjacent hygienic services.
JOHNSTON, Iowa, June 19, 2018 - Corteva Agriscience™, Agriculture Division of DowDuPont, brand products are synonymous with crops. However, it may come as a surprise that many agricultural crops are dependent on bees, moths and other insects and animals to help pollinate those crops. To celebrate National Pollinator Week and support pollinator health, employees at the Johnston, Iowa Corteva Agriscience campus are gathering on June 22 from 9 a.m. to 3 p.m. to construct a Pollinator Demonstration Garden. A brief program will be conducted at 9:30 a.m. As part of the festivities, First Gentleman Kevin Reynolds, husband of Iowa Governor Kim Reynolds, will be on hand to help plant the garden and to promote his pollinator health and habitat platform. Once established, the pollinator habitat will display examples of pollinator host plants, including a variety of flowering plants, shrubs and tree species. Additionally, a half-acre of prairie directly adjacent to the garden will display a pollinator habitat on a larger scale. The Pollinator Demonstration Garden is not the first time that employees have aided in habitat establishment around campus. Last year, employees led efforts to implement more than six acres of highly-diverse prairie habitat along the bike path that runs through the Johnston campus. The site location was strategic. It was chosen because it’s aesthetically pleasing to path users, reduces water runoff into the adjacent stream, improves soil health, provides habitat for a range of organisms and increases plant biodiversity. In total, the campus has over 10 acres of pollinator habitat, and that number is growing. “We take a holistic approach to improving pollinator health,” said Keri Carstens, global regulatory lead, Seed Applied Technologies and Biologicals, Corteva Agriscience. “While there are many things we can do to support bees, butterflies, and other pollinators, ensuring they have adequate habitat and plentiful food sources is fundamental.” The idea for the Pollinator Demonstration Garden began more than a year ago. As a founding funder of the Honey Bee Health Coalition, Corteva Agriscience looked to expand its impact in the promotion of pollinator health. While hosting the Coalition’s Spring 2017 meeting at its Johnston campus, Corteva Agriscience scientists sought input from the diverse stakeholders that make up the Coalition. Plans were drawn up with experts at Iowa State University, United States Department of Agriculture and the Bee and Butterfly Fund, so the garden could showcase the most beneficial plant species for pollinators in a thoughtfully designed space. Jamie Beyer, a beekeeper and a Lifetime Master Gardner from Boone, Iowa, who will be present for the project planting, is excited about this demonstration garden and the potential it has to showcase to the public the value of providing a wide range of habitat for pollinators. "This is not just about honey bees,” Beyer said. “It is all pollinators that need nectar plants." A majority of the native prairie plugs will be donated by People for Pollinators at the Neil Smith National Wildlife Refuge and will feature coneflower, milkweed, blazing star, bee balm, dogwood and herbs. This mix provides a variety of flower shapes, colors and bloom times. Habitats such as these typically take three to five years to establish, but with the high-visibility of this location, Corteva Agriscience hopes that it will serve as an educational tool, as well. The purpose of the garden is to demonstrate the wide variety of plants that can be incorporated into home and farmstead landscaping, as well as into farm conservation practices such as windbreaks, waterways and buffer strips. “We want to make everyone aware that they can do something,” Carstens said. “Whether you are a farmer, home-owner, apartment dweller or anything in between, there is something you can do to help pollinators.” About Corteva Agriscience™, Agriculture Division of DowDuPont Corteva Agriscience™, Agriculture Division of DowDuPont (NYSE: DWDP), is intended to become an independent, publicly traded company when the previously announced spinoff is complete by June 2019. The division combines the strengths of DuPont Pioneer, DuPont Crop Protection and Dow AgroSciences. Corteva Agriscience™ provides growers around the world with the most complete portfolio in the industry — including some of the most recognized brands in agriculture: Pioneer®, Encirca®, the newly launched Brevant™ Seeds, as well as award-winning Crop Protection products — while bringing new products to market through our solid pipeline of active chemistry and technologies. More information can be found at www.corteva.com. # # # All products, unless otherwise noted, denoted with ™, ℠ or ® are trademarks or registered trademarks of DowDuPont.
Rich Steinberg, Manager of BMW’s Electric Program, explains how BMW uses lightweight, high performance plastics to make it’s new i3 concept car one of the most energy efficient cars ever designed. BMW Makes Luxury Green with the Plastics in New i3 Electric Concept Car Published on August 19, 2015 Article updated on November 2, 2017 6 Innovative Technologies That Could Boost Plastics Recycling Why Do We Innovate? How Do We Measure Sustainability? Innovations in Plastics Contribute to Safety and Sustainability Recycled Plastic Lumber: Coming to a Park Near You
Which Hogwarts House Would You Be Sorted Into Based On Your Muggle Knowledge? Where do you think you belong? Gryffindors are unparalleled in their bravery and courage. You are a natural leader and are usually the first to step up to the plate in a crisis. You like to take risks, and are often rewarded by your ability to go where others cannot. However, you can be a little reckless, so be wary of situations in which you might be out of your depth! Ravenclaws possess the ability to learn quickly and adapt to situations with ease. They also tend to be very wise. You're original and creative, and you know how to use your strengths to your advantage! You have a competitive spirit, which is good for sports such as Quidditch, but don't let it make you a sore loser! Hufflepuffs are known to be hard-working and patient, and so possess a fighting spirit. You understand the importance of dedication and toil, and so are trustworthy and dependable. You are good at maintaining long lasting friendships, because you are kind and fair. Others come to you for advice and comfort. Although you are often selfless, make sure you have time to yourself to relax! Slytherins are very determined and ambitious. They tend to have a clear vision of the future, and are very meticulous and directed when working towards their goals. You are a strong leader, because you possess the ability to stay firm in times of crisis and power through. Although you usually work best individually, remember the importance of close friendships to help you up when you're down!
Institut für Informatik Lehr- und Forschungseinheit für Programmier- und Modellierungssprachen E-Mail: y i n g d i n g . w a n g [at] ifi * lmu * de Winter Term 2019 - Exercise: "Human Computation and Analytics" - (SS 2019) Master-Practical: "Human Computation and Analytics" - (WS 2018/2019) Exercise: "Human Computation and Analytics" - (SS 2018) Master-Practical: "Human Computation and Analytics" - (SS 2018) Master-Seminar: "Physiological Data Analysis for Educational Technologies" - (WS 2017/2018) Exercise: "Human Computation and Analytics" - (SS 2017) Exercise: "Human Computation" - (SS 2017) Master-Practical: "Human Computation and Analytics" - (WS 2016/2017) Exercise: "Human Computation and Analytics" - (WS 2016/2017) Master-Seminar: "Physiological Data Analysis for Educational Technologies" - (SS 2016) Softwareentwicklungspraktikum: "Python mit dem Raspberry Pi" - (WS 2015/2016) Master-Practical: "Technology-Enhanced Learning" - Ubiquitous Feedback and Recommendation - Analysis of Physiological Data - Information Retrieval and Text Mining - Human Computation and Visual Analytics - Learning Analytics for Educational Technologies - Stress Tracking in Learning Activities (Stila) Stress is a common problem in our contemporary society, especially among students and professionals. The goal of project Stila is to provide students and professionals with personalized recommendations aiming at improving their learning performances. To achieve this, stress development of learners needs to be monitored during theirs learning activities. A visual feedback on stress level development based on physiological sensor data, shall be provided to learners. A trend analysis of aggregated sensor data over a period time enables further classification of eustress(positive stress) and distress(negative stress) associated with learning activities. Based on the outcome of individual trend analysis of stress development, feedbacks and recommendations for a particular learning activity can be individually provided to each learner. Project Website: http://stila.pms.ifi.lmu.de/ - Intelligent Recommender of MOOCs (Irom) Massive Open Online Courses (MOOCs) are emerging online learning offers for university students. Due to the large number of MOOCs provided by different MOOC platforms, it is quite difficult for learners to select the MOOCs best fulfilling their needs. The goal of project Irom is to conceive, develop and test an intelligent MOOCs search engine. To this aim, the MOOCs textual description will be analyzed, for example by clustering the term-document vectors derived from the MOOCs descriptions and by using explicit as well as implicit feedback from the MOOCs search engine users. Project Website: http://irom.pms.ifi.lmu.de/ - CodeKōan - A Source Code Analysis Platform Producing faultless, high quality source code is a challenging task, that many programmers strive to excel at performing. Computer science has made great strides in the last decades in developing new techniques for producing better source code. The introduction of programming paradigms -- object oriented, functional and aspect oriented programming -- and technology, such as exceptions and the actor model, has enabled programmers to write the software, which powers our everyday life. Previous research has contributed algorithms and technology to enable writing better software. The goal of project CodeKōan is to put the focus on the most important part of coding: The Programmers. To fulfill this goal, project CodeKōan contributes a search engine, that finds similarities between pieces of source code and code examples in online resources like Stackoverflow. Project Website: http://codekoan.org/ - Yingding Wang, Nikolai Fischer, François Bry: "Pervasive Persuasion for Stress Self-Regulation" In: Proceedings of the 2019 IEEE International Conference on PervasiveComputing and Communications Workshops (PerCom Workshops). IEEE, Kyoto, Japan (11-15 March 2019). - Christof Schramm, Yingding Wang, François Bry: "Codekōan: a source code pattern search engine extracting crowd knowledge" In: CSI-SE '18 Proceedings of the 5th International Workshop on Crowd Sourcing in Software Engineering (pp. 1-8). ACM, Gothenburg, Sweden (May 27 - 27, 2018). - Martin Bogner, François Bry, Niels Heller, Stephan Leutenmayr, Sebastian Mader, Alexander Pohl, Clemens Schefels, Yingding Wang, Christoph Wieser: "Human Collaboration Reshaped: Applications and Perspectives" In: 50 Jahre Universitäts-Informatik in München (pp. 47-73). Springer Vieweg, Berlin, Heidelberg (June 30, 2017). - Tobias Wittmann, Where's it? -- A game for stress self-regulation (B.Sc.) - Nikolai Fischer, Increasing user engagement to foster stress awareness using smart watches (M.Sc.) - Louis Mbuyu, Comparison of categorical properties offered by multiple MOOC platforms -- Using a Web Scraper in Python with Scrapy (B.Sc.) - Anna Hubert, A User-Centered Responsive User Interface for Fostering Stress Awareness -- Implementation and Evaluation of the Web Portal Stila (B.Sc.) - Eugenia Schneider, Interaction System for a MOOC Search Engine -- Design, implementation and summative empirical evaluation of the User Interface (M.Sc.) - Christof Schramm, Recognition of Code Patterns from Stackoverflow Answers in Computer Programs (M.Sc.) - Joseph Birkner, Unsupervised Learning of Joint Neural Embedding Spaces for Queries and Documents (B.Sc.) - Annika Jung, Stress analysis with additional sleep data collected by fitness trackers (B.Sc.) - Benjamin Humpel, Parlance comparison of textual MOOC descriptions -- Applying NLP tools and statistical analysis among different MOOC Platforms - Patrik Hagen, Eustress and Distress Detection from Physiological Data using Supervised Machine Learning (M.Sc.) - Kai Wilker, Multidimensional Clustering of MOOC Offers -- Applying unsupervised learning algorithms FCM and SOM to text description (B.Sc.) - Marcel Heil, Conception and Implementation of a Mobile Application with Fitness Trackers as Supportive Tools for Computed Stress Detection (B.Sc.)
Science & Medicine For Rose Bretecher, Obsessive Compulsive Disorder has never left her handwashing or ordering things, instead she has been overwhelmed by distressing sexual thoughts, ranging from child abuse to sexuality and explicit mental images. Rose tells her story and chats to Dr Claire Gillan, an MQ-funded researcher, about the science behind this condition, how we can transform treatments and what it really means to be 'a little bit OCD'. Ep 12: Tackling the rise in self-harm among young people Ep 11: Can science tell us who's most likely to develop depression? Ep 10: Social media and mental health: The facts behind the headlines Ep 9: Young people's mental health: What's school got to do with it? Ep 8: How can we work together to prevent suicide? Ep 7: Why are women twice as likely to develop anxiety? Ep 6: How does PTSD affect firefighters? And what can we do to stop it? Ep 5: Can magic mushrooms treat depression? Ep 3: The reality of life with social anxiety and the app that could help Ep 2: Could an algorithm end the trial-and-error approach to mental health treatment? Ep 1: Could problems with our immune system cause depression? Anxiety Slayer™ with Shann and Ananga The Angry Therapist Podcast Bryony Gordon's Mad World Code and preview
The Secretary of State made an offer to Adult Social Care authorities. (“Adult Social Care authorities” are local authorities which have functions under Part 1 of the Care Act 2014, namely county councils in England, district councils for an area in England for which there is no county council, London borough councils, the Common Council of the City of London and the Council of the Isles of Scilly). The offer was the option of an Adult Social Care authority being able to charge an additional “precept” on its council tax without holding a referendum, to assist the authority in meeting its expenditure on Adult Social Care from the financial year 2016-17. It was originally made in respect of the financial years up to and including 2019-20. If the Secretary of State chooses to renew this offer in respect of a particular financial year, this is subject to the approval of the House of Commons. Your 2020/21 Council Tax bill explained Your bill shows 2 percentage changes for BCP Council, one for the part of the overall change attributable to general expenditure, and one for the part attributable to the Adult Social Care precept. The percentages show how each element contributes to the overall increase set by BCP Council. As part of harmonisation, BCP Council has increased Council Tax for the Poole area by 1.8% (rounded) for general expenditure and by 2% (rounded) for the Adult Social Care Precept which is specifically for Adult Social Care Services. The government introduced legislation and guidance setting out how the Adult Social Care precept is calculated and shown on Council Tax bills. The percentage increase for the BCP Council element (general expenditure) is calculated on the combined total of the BCP Council and Adult Social Care charges from last year’s bill and is an increase of 1.8% (rounded). The percentage increase for the Adult Social Care element is calculated on the combined total of the BCP Council and Adult Social Care charges from last year’s bill and is an increase of 2% (rounded). While we understand this looks different to how other percentage increases are displayed, the bills have been calculated correctly, in accordance with regulations and guidance, and should be paid as requested. Example - Band D property The following example shows how the percentages have been calculated for 2020-2021 based on a Band D property. \| Detail on bill \|\| 2019-20 bill \|\| Detail on bill \|\| 2020-21 bill \|\| % Age increase \| \| BCP Council \|\| £1,399.99 \|\| BCP Council \|\| £1,366.48 \|\| 1.8% (rounded) \| \| Adult Social Care precept \|\| £101.54 \|\| Adult Social Care Precept \|\| £130.33 \|\| 2% (rounded) \| \| BCP Council - Total \|\| £1,441.53 \|\| BCP Council - Total \|\| £1,496.81 \|\| 3.8% (rounded) \| The BCP Council percentage increase shown above for 2020-21 is calculated based on the total BCP Council charges for 2019-20 (in this example, £1,441.53). The BCP Council increase is calculated as follows: - £1,441.53 x 1.8376% = £26.49 This amount is then added to the 2019-20 BCP Council charge of £1,339.99: - £1,339.99 (last year's BCP Council charge) + £26.49 (this year's increase) = £1,366.48 (2020-21 BCP Council charge) The Adult Social Care percentage increase shown above for 2020-21 is calculated based on the total BCP Council charges for 2019-20 (in this example, £1,441.53). The Adult Social Care precept increase is calculated as follows: - £1,441.53 x 1.997% = £28.79 This amount is then added to the 2019-20 Adult Social Care precept of £104.54 as this is an accumulated charge: - £101.54 (last year's Adult Social Care charge) + £28.79 (this year's increase) = £130.33 (2020-21 Adult Social Care precept) If you experience any difficulty in paying your Council Tax, please contact us on 0345 034 4569. Page last updated: 07 March 2020
Why the Avengers Matter Now How did the old school, more sombre, more tired Avengers of the '80s and '90s become the hip Avengers of the new millennium? Posing the question, and attempting an answer delineates some crucial insights into the perpetuating longevity of pop culture. In 2004, when Brian Michael Bendis took over writing The Avengers, the X-Men had been ruling Marvel Comics’ world since the early to mid-1980s. The X-Men’s mutants had been the cool, edgy, fashionable team for two generations of comic-reading youth; the Avengers by contrast, led by World War II veteran Captain America, were the older, solemn, traditional group. The X-Men regularly had about ten titles per month devoted to them and their various offshoot groups, the Avengers as a team had only the one regular title left. The X-Men, even had a successful movie franchise. However, when Bendis switched from writing the Avengers to the X-Men last year, this balance had clearly changed, even if the X-Men franchise continued to remain relatively successful. The Avengers was the top-grossing movie of 2012. And with the announcement of the new Mighty Avengers title, there will now be eight titles featuring ‘Earth’s Mightiest Heroes’. How did this happen? How did a team that seemed like it was set to become primarily a specialist pleasure for a dwindling readership come to matter? One point to keep in mind through all of this is that the Avengers comicbooks themselves have primarily become more popular in a relative sense rather than an absolute sense. According to sales figures at the Comichron website recent average sales figures per month for the Avengers titles are barely higher than they were back in 2003, and well below where they were from the 1960s to the 1980s. But of course the movie was a big success by any measure, and the various Avengers-related ‘event’ titles (such as ‘Civil War’ and ‘Age of Ultron’) have consistently sold well. At the least, the moniker ‘Avengers’ has become seen as a method of boosting the sales and profile of a title in the same way ‘Spider-Man’ and ‘X-Men’ were during the ‘80s and ‘90s. So, again we need to ask: how did this happen? The obvious point for Marvel fans to make is that, under Bendis, more of the company’s popular characters were included in the team. In Bendis’ first few months after taking over the Avengers, he ‘disassembled’ the old line-up, including (supposedly) killing off a number of long-time Avenger fan favorites. A new title was then launched–the New Avengers–with a line-up that included Avengers stalwarts Captain America and Iron Man, and more controversially, Marvel’s (arguably) two most popular characters in Spider-Man and Wolverine. This move to an ‘all-star line-up’ has been considered as the main impetus for the success of the new title--similar to the success of Grant Morrison’s Justice League book at DC--but the explanation may not be as simple as that. There have been many titles with Spider-Man and/or Wolverine that have failed to ignite; indeed in the early 1990s John Byrne tried an Avengers line-up of Captain America, Iron Man, Spider-Man, and Thor that failed to gain much notice. Hence, Bendis’ relative success, while it is probably in part due to the inclusion of the stars, seems to also be due to a difference in approach. Bendis’ existing popularity as a writer and the launch of a #1 issue certainly helped gain New Avengers some initial notice amongst fans. In my view though, apart from this, the first ‘New Avengers’ storyline was actually a pretty good read. (Sidebar: It was a common occurrence during Bendis’ time on the Avengers’ titles that his first storyline for a new Avengers title would often be his best. This included the Ultron storyline for Mighty Avengers, the Kang/Ultron’ storyline for the relaunched Avengers title in 2010, and probably even the Morgana Le Fey storyline in Dark Avengers, which I thought was consistently his best Avengers title.) Bendis and artist David Finch created a looser and shadier version of Earth’s Mightiest Heroes than what had come before. But related to this, and perhaps the more important point here is that, under Bendis’ watch, characters that had traditionally been on the ‘outside’ of the Avengers’ universe fitted more easily into it. This included not just new members such as Spider-Man and Wolverine, Spider-Woman and Luke Cage, but also non-members (at least at the time) such as Daredevil, Doctor Strange, and the X-Men. In particular, Strange and the X-Men played major roles in Bendis’ second New Avengers storyline (about the Sentry), and would pop up again soon after in Bendis’ first company-wide crossover involving the Avengers, ‘House of M’. ‘House of M’, while not necessarily a standout story, was pivotal in cementing the Avengers as the centre of the Marvel Universe. The Avengers nominally shared top billing for the crossover with the X-Men. However, the Avengers’ advantage in terms of company-wide ‘events’ soon became clear. When Marvel’s heroes gather to contemplate the threat of Magneto and his family, they do not meet at the headquarters of Magneto’s traditional foes the X-Men, or even those of the Fantastic Four. Instead, they gather at the fairly newly established Avengers Tower, which seems perfectly logical given that so many of the major heroes, including the X-Men’s most visible member Wolverine, are now connected to the group. The conclusion of the story is even more important in establishing the Avengers’ prominence. In the midst of battle Magneto’s daughter and former Avenger the Scarlet Witch uses her reality-warping powers to enact her proclamation that there will be ‘no more mutants’. This does not entirely happen, but the mutants’ numbers in the Marvel Universe are substantially reduced, and the X-Men are cordoned off into their own, largely separate section of Marvel, dealing with their own threats and own ‘events’ (for example: ‘Messiah Complex’). The Avengers, meanwhile, would become the centre of every Marvel company-wide ‘event’ for the next decade, including ‘Civil War’, ‘Secret Invasion’, ‘Dark Reign’, ‘Siege’, ‘Fear Itself’ and ‘Age of Ultron’. However, this shift in focus for the Avengers was not without side-effects that some readers -- particularly long-term readers (including myself) -- might have viewed as less than positive. During the events/crossovers, the actual Avengers titles became auxiliary, providing either back stories (as in ‘Secret Invasion’), or focusing on a minor side-plot about one or two members while the larger story happens elsewhere (as in ‘Civil War’ and ‘Fear Itself’). Further, there feels like there is a continual pattern of the team going through an event, followed by a shake-up of the roster, which hardly seems to have time to establish itself before the team goes through another event and roster shake-up. While this is used to intriguing effect post-Civil War when the team splits into the pro-superhero registration Mighty Avengers and the anti-registration New Avengers it becomes rather tired by the time following ‘Fear Itself’ when the X-Men’s Storm, and Quake, are added to the roster (a change that, naturally, does not last long at all). This points to another potential problem, that is, with the addition of dozens of new members over the decade, it became harder to identify who the Avengers were. During the peak of Morrison’s Justice League era it was clear that the League was, at its core, Superman, Batman, Wonder Woman, Flash, Green Lantern, Aquaman, and Martian Manhunter. For Bendis’ Avengers, who was the core? Captain America and Iron Man might be considered part of it since they were both key members of the ‘old’ and ‘new’ Avengers. However they were also the leaders of the two opposing factions in ‘Civil War’, and following that story Captain America disappeared for a long stretch during which he was presumed ‘dead’. Thor too was absent for a long period. Luke Cage, Spider-Man, and Wolverine became stalwarts, but many old time fans considered them interlopers, a view that was reinforced when none of them appeared in the Avengers film. On the other hand, perhaps this fluidity worked in Marvel’s favor in that, unlike the JLA, it could spread the Avengers brand more widely by only requiring a few ‘top’ members to be present in a given book for it to be considered an Avengers title. But that Bendis’ repositioning of the Avengers goes beyond placing them at the centre of the Marvel Universe; it also involved repositioning them as the ‘hip’, the ‘now’ group, which is the position that had been held for two decades by the X-Men. Many of Marvel’s traditional flagship characters -- Captain America, Iron Man, Hulk, the Fantastic Four -- were conservative men in their 30s or 40s, and it was this generation that the ‘old’ Avengers had been built around. By contrast, many of the characters that Bendis built his team around had, like the X-Men, risen to prominence in the late 1970s and early 1980s -- Luke Cage, Iron Fist, Ms. Marvel, Spider-Woman, and Wolverine -- while Spider-Man was easily Marvel’s most prominent hero during that era. Beyond this generational change, quite a number of Bendis’ Avengers scenes revolved around the group hanging around their headquarters like a group of costumed college students, exchanging rapid-fire, irreverent barbs. (This tendency was brilliantly summarized by writer Dan Slott in an issue of Amazing Spider-Man, who claimed that all the Avengers did was sit around and eat Chinese takeout.) This is not to imply that Bendis’ Avengers were removed from adult concerns; for one thing, Cage’s and Jessica Jones’ baby injected a large dose of adult responsibility into what is generally a childless superhero world. But Bendis did lean towards emphasizing that these characters were still mostly in their twenties and early thirties, no longer a generation removed from their core audience. (Part of this change was, of course, because the core comicbook reading audience has become older.) Of course, for most people, the Avengers only came to prominence with the release of their wildly successful movie in 2012. The path by which the Avengers became Hollywood stars–starting with the success of Robert Downey Jr. in Iron Man– was for the most part independent from their renaissance in the comicbooks. However, developments in the comicbooks had some influence–most notably the movie did share some similarities with Mark Millar and Bryan Hitch’s alternate take on Earth’s Mightiest Heroes, The Ultimates, which involved a quasi-military S.H.I.E.L.D. essentially gathering the heroes together as weapons. (More obviously, The Ultimates had a Nick Fury that looked like Samuel L. Jackson; the Avengers film had a Nick Fury that was Samuel L. Jackson.) Further similarities arise in that the elements mentioned above that elevated Bendis’ Avengers to popularity are present to some extent in the film. Like the comics, the Avengers movie is the centre of Marvel’s film franchises, with preceding films like ‘Captain America: The First Avenger’ and ‘Thor’ being to a significant extent set-ups for the eventual Avengers flick. Also, one could easily imagine characters like Robert Downey Jr’s Iron Man and Mark Ruffalo’s Hulk bantering away in a Bendis book. With The Avengers Earth’s Mightiest Heroes have definitely reached their cultural peak, teaming with Christopher Nolan’s Batman movie The Dark Knight Rises to rule the box office in 2012. Whereas once Hollywood had been the end goal for superheroes, now superheroes were the end goal for Hollywood. How long the Avengers can keep the ascendancy is debatable. Marvel has created few new superstar characters in the past 30 years (arguably, Wolverine—who debuted in 1975—was the last one), and so the relative novelty in the comicbooks of teaming all of the stars together is probably fast approaching the point of becoming stale, if it is not already. Similarly, in terms of the film franchise, there is probably a limit to how many times actors like Robert Downey Jr. will suit up -- and moviegoers who only know the Avengers through the films will probably have far less patience than the comicbook readers. But even if the Avengers’ peak in popularity is nearing an end, it has had almost a decade of prominence after it looked very much like its time was well and truly past. Now, if mainstream comics are on their last legs, the Avengers will not be the first on the scrapheap.
Blake Shelton recently released a song called God’s Country. As one hears the lyrics, they hear references to the South, farming communities across the United States and a wide variety of … Blake Shelton recently released a song called God’s Country. As one hears the lyrics, they hear references to the South, farming communities across the United States and a wide variety of activities that make places near and dear to people’s hearts and souls. In an interview published online, Shelton said for him, the song is about being from Oklahoma, the place where he was born. He goes on to say that no matter where a person is from or where they are standing, they are, in his belief, in God’s Country. For me, one who grew up in Alabama, God’s Country is and will forever be Wyoming. I’ve traveled to and lived in many places in the United States. Every one of them offered something special and endearing. But when I hear that song by Shelton, my thoughts always take me back to my days in Wyoming. My latest visit to the state was my first since 2013. And for those of you who knew me when I worked at the Powell Tribune, you will likely remember the love I had for Yellowstone National Park, the Beartooth Mountain Range and the Shoshone River. I was only in Wyoming for a week, and that’s not nearly enough time to do all those aforementioned areas justice through photographs. But I tried, and I hope maybe I captured an image or two that conveys just how much I love the area that always will be, in my mind, God’s Country. (David Dickey served as the Powell Tribune’s sports editor for 3 1/2 years, between 2005 and 2009.)

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