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What civilization invented the microscope? Who founded a microscope in 1665? scientist Robert Hooke Interested in learning more about the microscopic world, scientist Robert Hooke improved the design of the existing compound microscope in 1665. His microscope used three lenses and a stage light, which illuminated and enlarged the specimens. Who invented the first microscope in the 1600s? Around 1600, the microscope was invented, possibly by Hans and Zacharias Jansen. Due to poor lens quality, the early compound microscopes (ones that used two lenses) could only magnify an object up to 20 or 30 times its normal size. Who invented the microscope in 1666? Antoni Van Leeuwenhoek Antoni Van Leeuwenhoek (1635-1723) was a Dutch tradesman who became interested in microscopy while on a visit to London in 1666. Returning home, he began making simple microscopes of the sort that Robert Hooke had described in his, Micrographia, and using them to discover objects invisible to the naked eye. Who invented microscope first time? Two Dutch spectacle-makers and father-and-son team, Hans and Zacharias Janssen, create the first microscope. Robert Hooke’s famous “Micrographia” is published, which outlines Hooke’s various studies using the microscope. Who is the father of microscope? Antoni van Leeuwenhoek Antoni van Leeuwenhoek (1632-1723): father of microscopy. What if microscope was not invented? Microscopes are very important. Diseases would have been more common without them. We would not know as much about egg cell development without them. Our world would be very different in a bad way without the invenion of the microscope. When was Hans Janssen born and died? Zacharias Janssen; also Zacharias Jansen or Sacharias Jansen; 1585 – pre-1632) was a Dutch spectacle-maker who lived most of his life in Middelburg….

High-speed systems at 100 Gbps and higher on a single wavelength are feasible by means of Time Division Multiplexing (TDM). The two choices are Electronic Time Division Multiplexing (EDTM) and Optical Time Division Multiplexing (OTDM). ETDM systems may be limited by electronics, whereas OTDM works with optical short pulses (with a few picoseconds' width) and low-data-rate transmitters of, for example, 40 Gbps. Both take the advantage of employing a single optical source for all channels, thus increasing the channel speed in comparison to the Wavelength Division Multiplexing (WDM) technology. This application example shows the implementation of an Optical-Time-Division Multiplexed (OTDM) system. Four DQPSK channels at 40 Gbps are multiplexed in the time domain after optical modulation producing a 160-Gbps signal. The OTDM transmitter consists of a short pulse source with a 1-to-4 splitter. The four channels are DQPSK-modulated at 40 Gbps and then time-delayed, so that their pulses interleave when combined After amplification, the signal is transmitted over a 100-km SMF. It follows CD compensation, reamplification, filtering and OTDM demultiplexing. the calculated BER for one 40-Gbps DQPSK channel versus OSNR for different launch powers. The demultiplexer uses EA modulators as optical gate to extract the desired channel. These optical gates are driven by a clock recovery module which generates clock signals extracted from the data signal. The nonlinear characteristic of the EA modulators ensures a sharp gating Once the desired channel is selected, the signal is detected by a DQPSK receiver; the received electrical eye diagram of the in-phase (I) component is represented in

Throughout the world, many cultures mark special holidays. Holiday traditions bring people together and allow us to feel a part of family and community. The gifts and food that we share are all about expressing a sense of gratitude, joy, and abundance. Our culture has grown more commercial, and gift giving has become a booming industry. Sometimes the original meaning behind the tradition gets lost, and the gift giving takes on a life of its own. Not only is the pressure on to spend money, but many people also find that when gifts become the focal point of a holiday, it puts too much emphasis on receiving. When the materialistic aspects of the holiday overshadow its meaning, that can leave people feeling empty and wishing for something more. This is why the Whole-Listic Children's Foundation has chosen to compliment Holidays with priceless lessons to share with kids in the community.

The Israel Antiquities Authority has announced the discovery of a pier in the harbor of the city known as Acco/Akko, Ptolemais, and Acre. Remains of a unique and impressive floor were discovered at a depth of one meter underwater in Akko harbor. The remains constitute the first evidence of a low sea level during the Hellenistic period in Akko. The floor remains were discovered during archaeological excavations and inspections that the Israel Antiquities Authority Marine Archaeology Unit is carrying out within the framework of rehabilitating Akko’s southern seawall. The project is being implemented by conservators on behalf of the Old Acre Development Company, Ltd., and is underwritten by the Israel Lands Administration. The scope of the funding that the latter is providing totals several million shekels. As part of the project, a temporary rampart that serves as both a road and dam was built in the sea. The pool of water that formed between the rampart and the seawall was pumped out so as to create dry conditions for rehabilitating the seawall. The part of the floor that has been revealed so far extends for a distance of 15 meters and is 4 meters wide (the full dimensions of the floor have not yet been exposed). The floor was built of rectangular, smoothly dressed kurkar stones that were placed atop a foundation course of roughly hewn kurkar stones arranged next to each other as “headers”. In probes that were conducted beneath the floor, numerous fragments of ceramic jars of Aegean provenance (from Rhodes, Kos and elsewhere) were found that were used to transport wine, as well as tableware and cooking vessels. Among the other artifacts recovered were a Greek style bronze arrowhead and bronze coins that are covered with marine encrustations. A preliminary identification of the finds shows that the floor was constructed in the Hellenistic period (end of the third century until the middle of the second century BCE) as part of a national project. This press release continues here. High-resolution photos of the discovery and its vicinity are available here (zip). For more photos and information about the ancient Acco, see this BiblePlaces page.

The year is 2008 and if you want a reminder of how invisible women’s sport in Australia was just a decade ago, it is worth revisiting the findings from an exhaustive study of the way the media covered sport in this country, conducted by the University of New South Wales for the then-Australian Sports Commission. The research found just nine per cent of the stories in the press, and on radio and TV were about female sport and athletes. And that was the year of the Beijing Olympics when half of Australia’s medal haul of 44 (13 gold, 15 silver and 16 bronze) was won by women. The paucity of reporting was mirrored in the broadcasting of sporting events. In the same year, the numbers of hours of sport (‘live’ or otherwise) featuring women on the free-to-air and subscription TV networks was just 14 per cent. To highlight the disparity, 3,409 hours of cricket was shown on TV in 2008 and just one of those hours was dedicated to the women’s game. Fast forward to 2019, and much has changed for the better. The women’s Big Bash League last season saw some matches pulling TV audiences of close to 300-thousand viewers with a peak of more than 800-thousand tuning in at some stage to the final. The very first match played in the AFLW competition in 2017 attracted a national TV audience of almost 900-thousand viewers. One of the significant triggers for more women’s sport on TV has been the emergence of national leagues in many of the major codes One of the significant triggers for more women’s sport on TV has been the emergence of national leagues in many of the major codes. In 2008, the T20 Cup (later to be replaced by the WBBL), W-League (football/soccer) and Trans-Tasman championship (netball) were just beginning, but there was no sign of the AFLW (started in 2017) and NRLW (started in 2018). All of these leagues as well as the WNBL (basketball) have locked in broadcast deals in 2019 while also exploring other audiences via ‘live’ streaming matches on their own web and social media platforms. Coverage continues to be dominated by the mainstream sports – the male versions, that is – despite Australian women being among the world’s best. The Southern Stars have just returned home after winning the Ashes in England and then clean-sweeping a T20 and ODI series against the West Indies. They will defend their T20 world crown in Australia next year. The Matildas, after winning the 2017 Tournament of Nations against powerhouses the US and Brazil, were voted the Public Choice Team of the Year at the AIS awards in that year. The Diamonds, despite being runners-up at the Netball World Cup this year and the Commonwealth Games in 2018, continue to be a standard bearer for our national sporting teams. The Hockeyroos were also runners-up at the Commonwealth Games and the 2018 Champions Trophy after a period of indifferent international form. And then there are the individuals who are world leaders in their own right. Sam Kerr has just set more scoring records in the US women’s soccer league after winning awards for the best player and international footballer in the same league. Ashleigh Barty’s rise to the top of tennis happened in a hurry after her return to the sport from a sabbatical playing first-class cricket, culminating in her maiden grand slam win at the French Open this year. Stephanie Gilmore has won seven of the past 12 World Surf League titles and fellow Australian, Tyler Wright, took the crown twice in that period. The list could go on – cricketers Meg Lanning, Elyse Perry, Megan Schutt and Alyssa Healy, basketballer Liz Cambage, Jessica Fox in slalom canoeing – but the point is clear. The feats of Australia’s female teams and athletes are world class and their achievements are newsworthy. I am in the final year of a sports media degree at the University of Canberra, and media coverage of sport has been central to what I have learnt and hope to put into practice when I graduate. In researching this piece, I came across an article that might hint at one of the reasons why women’s sport still has a low profile in news coverage. The article from earlier this decade profiled Australian sports journalists and found the profession is dominated by men. And dominated is not too strong a word. If there are so few women in newsrooms, does that mean there are so few voices advocating for – and making editorial decisions about – the coverage of women’s sport? In 2011, women made up slightly more than 10 per cent of sports departments in mainstream news outlets. More recent research from the US and UK suggests that trend has not changed. It begs the question that if there are so few women in newsrooms, does that mean there are so few voices advocating for – and making editorial decisions about – the coverage of women’s sport? As Zelić and Molan recently revealed, acceptance as a sports broadcaster is a fickle thing and subject to the type of scrutiny that most males would not attract But there are still battles to be won. As Zelić and Molan recently revealed, acceptance as a sports broadcaster is a fickle thing and subject to the type of scrutiny that most males would not attract. The encouraging development for me and like-minded female sports media graduates is that there are career paths and role models to follow. All of this suggests the visibility of women in sport in Australia is improving and we appear to have left the dire results of that 2008 research behind. But there is still much more for the media to do to reflect the rise of women’s sport and female athletes in this country.

Pros And Cons Of Carb Counting Carb counting is an easy way to follow a low-carb diet, but the quality of food you’re eating still plays a big role in your overall health. Carb counting can be a helpful application for those looking to follow a low-carb diet Nutrition labels on packaged foods make it easy to count carbs Keeping a target carb number in mind is a tangible measure of how much to eat Keeping track of carbohydrates alone does not necessarily equate to a healthy diet It may be easier to rely on packaged foods with nutrition labels than whole foods like fruits and vegetables, which don’t have carbs listed on them Not all foods contain carbohydrates, but still may be high in calories and fat, such as steak or baconthis can become hard to track if you’re only counting carbs The takeaway here is that carb counting can be a healthy way to manage blood sugar and make it easy to visualize and keep track of your intake, but that the quality of the carbs you’re eating does matter. For best results, focus your carb choices on high-quality, less processed foods such as whole grains, fresh or frozen fruit, and vegetables. The American Diabetes Association recommends carb counting for people with type 1 diabetes on intensive insulin therapy as it helps to improve overall glycemic control. The ADA notes that, when consuming a mixed meal that contains carbohydrate and is high in fat and/or protein, insulin dosing should not be based solely on carbohydrate counting. Understand Cortisol And Its Impact On Blood Glucose We all live stressful lives, but some of us have a harder time reducing or releasing our stress. That fact may play out in restlessness, poor sleep, insomnia, or feelings of anxiety or constant tension. Cortisol is the stress hormone that mediates the fight or flight physiologic response. And it has a direct bearing on our glucose levels. Prolonged cortisol stimulation will raise blood glucose levels, notes Dr. Jason Fung, who wrote an entire chapter on the stress hormone in his 2016 bestseller The Obesity Code.8 In it he describes how cortisol, released from the adrenal glands, sends a message to the body to release glucose to prepare for a perceived threat, spurring gluconeogenesis in the liver. In prehistoric times, that surge of glucose energy was usually used up fighting or fleeing from the threat. But in current days, often that stress goes unreleased, the energy not used, which can lead to prolonged higher glucose levels I, too, discovered the same stress impact, especially with sleep. Since this spring, I am doing yoga in the early evening, focusing on other stress reduction activities and wearing earplugs and an eye shade to help ensure a better night sleep. Doing so drops my FBG back into the normal range the next morning. Drinking a glass or two of wine at night can lower readings, too, because the liver metabolizes the alcohol first before turning to gluconeogenesis, but I dont want to drink daily. Rising Blood Sugar: How To Turn It Around Rising blood sugar signals a need for weight loss and more exercise. Whenever you have routine blood tests at a physical exam, chances are one of the numbers will be a measurement of your glucose, or blood sugar. A normal blood sugar level is less than 100 milligrams per deciliter of blood after an eight-hour fast. You have diabetes if your blood sugar is 126 mg/dL or higher. But between those two numbers lie many opportunities for action. - Research health conditions - Prepare for a doctor’s visit or test - Find the best treatments and procedures for you - Explore options for better nutrition and exercise You May Like: Is 119 High For Fasting Blood Sugar Take A Pass On The Bread Bowl Its obvious that sugary stuff leads to an increase in blood sugar, but starchy foods can do the same thing. Your body processes simple carbs quickly and turns them into sugar, and it needs a lot of insulin to absorb them. That means a bag of Doritos is as likely as a candy bar to cause a spike. If youre in the middle of a blood sugar spike, its best to curtail your carb intake. Check the glycemic index if youre not sure about a food. Surprisingly, popcorn and white potatoes are worse than ice cream, according to the index. If you stick to low-carb/low-glycemic-index foods, your blood sugar will return to normal much more quickly. Ultimately, its best to limit your carb intake. A 2004 study found that a diet of 20 percent carbs, 30 percent protein, and 50 percent fat lowered fasting blood sugar and kept blood sugar from spiking after meals. The occasional baked potato isnt a problem, but frequent trips to the drive-through are not a good idea. Find a few veggie-and-protein-heavy meals and make them your go-tos. Ramp Up Your Movement Each Day Exercise helps improve blood glucose in people with type 2 diabetes by increasing insulin sensitivity and the bodys ability to use glucose as energy, according to the American Diabetes Association. In type 2, exercise helps improve insulin resistance, says James G. Beckerman, MD, a cardiologist in Portland, Oregon. The end result is lower blood sugars. Crandall Snyder tells patients that exercise is like spring cleaning for the body. It takes the stored form of glucose and uses it for energy so the next time you eat carbohydrates there’s a place to put it, she says. Because exercise can immediately reduce blood sugar levels in people with type 2 diabetes, work with your healthcare team to determine the right amount of activity and timing for you. A study published in September 2017 in Frontiers in Endocrinology found exercising 30 minutes after the start of a meal is usually best for maintaining blood sugar controls. Don’t Miss: What Is 14 10 Intermittent Fasting What Is A Prediabetes Diet A diet for prediabetes looks a lot different than a typical American one. I like to tell my clients to reserve half of your plate for vegetables, a quarter of your plate for protein, and a quarter of your plate for healthy carbohydrates, such as whole grains and fruit, says McKittrick. A person with prediabetes should not eat processed carbohydrates that are high in sugar, but instead get carbohydrates from whole grains, fruits, legumes, and starchy vegetables . If you want to cut out carbs, you certainly can, but you dont have to, McKittrick says. They taste good, they give you energy, and usually it’s not sustainable to give them up completely. Also shoot for 25-30-grams of fiber from food each day, as fiber-rich foods such as oatmeal and crunchy vegetables improve insulin resistance and keep you fuller, longer. Take The Medication Unless Your Doctor Tells You Otherwise Your doctor isnt medicating you for the sake of it. There are certain health problems that will require medication to help you control your levels. This is the case with diabetes. Its important to visit your doctor regularly. Arranged for morning appointments when you have your checks to get your morning levels recorded on a regular basis. This way your doctor can see if your medication is still needed and whether there are other things you can do instead. Only stop taking your medication if your doctor tells you so. Youll get a good idea by your glucose levels. Track them yourself to see if theyre getting lower one week to the next. If you see a significant drop, talk to your doctor about your options for cutting back or out your medication and trying more holistic options. If you believe you need a second opinion, dont be afraid to get one from someone reputable. Just follow the advice from those who have the degrees! Also Check: Can I Drink Alcohol During Intermittent Fasting How Can I Treat Low Blood Sugar If youve had low blood sugar without feeling or noticing symptoms , you may need to check your blood sugar more often to see if its low and treat it. Driving with low blood sugar can be dangerous, so be sure to check your blood sugar before you get behind the wheel. Carry supplies for treating low blood sugar with you. If you feel shaky, sweaty, or very hungry or have other symptoms, check your blood sugar. Even if you dont have symptoms but think you may have low blood sugar, check it. If your blood sugar is lower than 70 mg/dL, do one of the following immediately: - Take four glucose tablets. - Drink four ounces of fruit juice. - Drink four ounces of regular soda, not diet soda. - Eat four pieces of hard candy. Wait for 15 minutes and then check your blood sugar again. Do one of the above treatments again until your blood sugar is 70 mg/dL or above and eat a snack if your next meal is an hour or more away. If you have problems with low blood sugar, ask your doctor if your treatment plan needs to be changed. Talk To Your Doctor Or Nurse If you use insulin and your blood sugar is frequently or consistently low, ask your doctor or nurse if you: - Are injecting your insulin the right way - Need a different type of needle - Should change how much insulin you take - Should change the kind of insulin you take DO NOT make any changes without talking to your doctor or nurse first. Sometimes hypoglycemia can be due to taking the wrong medicines. Check your medicines with your pharmacist. Resistant starch found in some potatoes and beans bypasses the small intestine and ferments in the large intestine, which means it doesnt raise glucose levels and promotes the growth of good bacteria in the body, according to Johns Hopkins Medicine. Its a fiber-filled starch and helps with glycemic control, says Joelle Malinowski, RD, a certified diabetes care and education specialist with Ellis Medicine in Schenectady, New York. And the effect will last through your next meal, Weisenberger says. Its called the second-meal effect, she says. Interestingly, resistant starch can change with heat, and some foods, like rice, are higher in resistant starch when cooked and cooled than when cooked and served warm, according to Johns Hopkins Medicine. Resistant starches are also found in: Just be sure to keep carb count in mind when incorporating foods with resistant starch into your diet. Diabetes is a very serious health condition and the one thing it affects the most is diet. People with diabetes need to make sure that they monitor what they eat and when they eat it because it could cause health issues. That is why everyone is asking, will intermittent fasting lower blood sugar? The question is valid, especially if you want to lose weight but are also diabetic. Luckily, there is an answer and even research that backs the results. Also Check: How Do I Unsubscribe From Dofasting How Do I Treat Low Blood Glucose If you begin to feel one or more symptoms of low blood glucose, check your blood glucose level. If your blood glucose level is below your target or less than 70 mg/dL, follow these steps What Else Can I Do To Help Manage My Blood Sugar Levels - Keep track of your blood sugar levels to see what makes them go up or down. - Eat at regular times, and dont skip meals. - Choose foods lower in calories, saturated fat, trans fat, sugar, and salt. - Track your food, drink, and physical activity. - Drink water instead of juice or soda. - Limit alcoholic drinks. - For a sweet treat, choose fruit. - Control your food portions . Also Check: Is Fasting Necessary For A1c Test What Is Diabetic Ketoacidosis If you think you may have low blood sugar, check it even if you dont have symptoms. When too many ketones are produced too fast, they can build up in your body and cause diabetic ketoacidosis, or DKA. DKA is very serious and can cause a coma or even death. Common symptoms of DKA include: - Fast, deep breathing. - Nausea and vomiting. - Stomach pain. If you think you may have DKA, test your urine for ketones. Follow the test kit directions, checking the color of the test strip against the color chart in the kit to see your ketone level. If your ketones are high, . DKA requires treatment in a hospital. DKA happens most in people with type 1 diabetes and is sometimes the first sign of type 1 in people who havent yet been diagnosed. People with type 2 diabetes can also develop DKA, but its less common. Preventing A Low Blood Sugar Level If you have diabetes, you can reduce your chance of getting a low blood sugar level if you: - Check your blood sugar level regularly and be aware of the symptoms of a low blood sugar level so you can treat it quickly. - Always carry a sugary snack or drink with you, such as glucose tablets, a carton of fruit juice or some sweets. If you have a glucagon injection kit, always keep it with you. - Do not skip meals. - Be careful when drinking alcohol. Do not drink large amounts, check your blood sugar level regularly, and eat a carbohydrate snack afterwards. - Be careful when exercising eating a carbohydrate snack before exercise can help to reduce the risk of a hypo. If you take some types of diabetes medicine, your doctor may recommend you take a lower dose before or after doing intense exercise. - Have a carbohydrate snack, such as toast, if your blood sugar level drops too low while you’re asleep If you keep getting a low blood sugar level, talk to your diabetes care team about things you can do to help prevent it. You May Like: Can You Drink Alcohol While Intermittent Fasting A Low Blood Sugar Level Without Diabetes A low blood sugar level is uncommon in people who do not have diabetes. Possible causes include: - a gastric bypass - other medical conditions, such as problems with your hormone levels, pancreas, liver, kidneys, adrenal glands or heart - some medicines, including quinine See a GP if you think you keep getting symptoms of a low blood sugar level. They can arrange some simple tests to check if your blood sugar level is low and try to find out what’s causing it. Talk to your doctor about how to keep your blood sugar levels within your target range. Your doctor may suggest the following: - Be more active. Regular exercise can help keep your blood sugar levels on track. Important: dont exercise if ketones are present in your urine. This can make your blood sugar go even higher. - Take medicine as instructed. If your blood sugar is often high, your doctor may change how much medicine you take or when you take it. - Follow your diabetes meal plan. Ask your doctor or dietitian for help if youre having trouble sticking to it. - Check your blood sugar as directed by your doctor. Check more often if youre sick or if youre concerned about high or low blood sugar. - Talk to your doctor about adjusting how much insulin you take and what types of insulin to use. Have A Protein/fat Snack This is something to try the night before, but you can do it first thing in a morning if youre not going to eat your breakfast right away. Protein and healthy fats break down slowly in the body. This means the length of time you will fast is technically shorter: since it takes more time to get rid of the food and create the empty space. Youll hear that cheese before bed is bad for you. It gives you nightmares because your digestive system is still working while you sleep. Well, sometimes its worth putting up with the initial nightmares to keep your glucose levels to a minimum on a morning. So, what can you do on a morning instead? Start your day with a tablespoon of apple cider vinegar and eat a slice of cheese. The two working together will help to balance out the hormones and get your digestive system working sooner than if you waited for breakfast. Cheese is the protein/fat element, but the apple cider vinegar will have a direct effect on the blood sugar levels. Scientists havent worked out why it is so effective, but it has been proven. Check out more info on what kind of cheese can a diabetic eat here You can also have a handful of nuts to get the same benefit. The nuts will also give you the selenium that your body needs to help balance out some of your hormones. You can keep nuts in your draw beside your bed to grab a handful before you get up!

Credit 101: A Guide for Parents and Teenagers Every parent wants their kids to succeed in life, whether that means having a good friend group, a great work ethic, or solid financial literacy skills. Money management for kids isn’t just about saving up for a big purchase. Kids also need to learn how credit works, and how it can be both a blessing and a curse before they enter adulthood. By teaching your kid about money and credit before they get their own first credit card (at 18 or 19 years old, depending on the province or territory), you’re helping them build a foundation for smart budgeting and spending. You’ll also set them up to understand potential financial consequences that come with bad money habits long before these habits even start. Need more convincing that your tween or teen should learn about credit? According to a StatsCan report released in September 2021, for every $1 of household disposable income, the average Canadian has $1.73 in credit debt. In other words, personal debt levels are rising faster than Canadians’ disposable incomes. So, the sooner you have these conversations with your kids, the better. But don’t worry, credit basics are easier to teach than you might think. In this guide, we’ll cover types of credit; what credit, a credit score, a credit report and a credit check are; and how kids and teens can use credit to their benefit. - Credit is an amount of money available to you to borrow that you’ll have to pay back within a certain amount of time—and often with interest. - A credit check is usually done prior to granting someone a loan. - Credit can come in many forms, and credit cards are one of the most common types. Mortgages, personal loans, and lines of credit are other types of credit. - Using credit responsibly can help you build a good credit history. - Credit can help you pay for items that are hard to save up for, like a car, a post-secondary education, or a house. - A credit report is a summary of a person’s credit and borrowing history. - A credit score is a three-digit number that tells a credit bureau how well a person manages credit, and how risky it might be for a lender to let them borrow money. Simply put, credit is the amount of money you have the ability to borrow and promise to pay back, usually with interest. However, debt is the amount you owe (it could be to a bank, the government, or another person) and needs to be paid back. Explain it to your kids this way: Say you have a credit card with a limit of $1,000. That’s the amount of credit you have available to you. When you buy something with it—like a Nintendo Switch for about $400—that amount you spend is considered debt until you pay everything off. Credit cards are among the most common types of credit, in addition to home mortgages, car loans, and student loans. While credit card balances can (and should) be paid off in full every month, debts like home mortgages and car loans are designed to be longer-term loans and can take years to pay off. How does credit work? When teaching your tween or teen how credit works, explain that an individual (the borrower) borrows an amount of money from a bank (the lender), then must repay that sum (called the principal) in full and with interest within a specific time frame. Payments toward the principal are usually done monthly. If borrowers do not pay back the initial loan in full, and they allow interest to build month after month, their debt will get bigger and bigger—just like a snowball rolling down a hill—and they’ll end up paying much more than the initial cost of the purchase. The lender will usually do a credit check on the borrower’s credit history to see how likely they are to repay the loan in full and on time. If a borrower has a bad credit history, the lender may refuse to give them credit, or only offer it with a higher rate of interest. This means you could pay more for a loan than someone with a better credit history, even if you can pay the entire loan back quickly. Next, you can explain to your tweens and teens that some loans need nothing more than a promise to pay, which are called unsecured loans. Secured loans, on the other hand, require you to guarantee certain assets, such as your house or car, for repayment. Both shorter-term credit, such as credit cards, and longer-term credit, like a home mortgage, have strings attached. Lenders charge credit fees and interest. So, get your teen to stop and think whether it’s worth paying more than the sale price for yet another pair of Chuck Taylor All Stars. Why do you need credit? Of course, you don’t want to completely scare off your kids from using credit. Now’s the time to explain that it can also give your kids financial power by helping them get the things they need immediately, like a car loan. Teens should also think about building a credit history, which lenders usually consider when deciding whether to offer them a loan, credit card, or similar product. To improve their chances of getting approved for credit at a lower, more favourable annual interest rate, it’s necessary to show a good track record. And one way to do that is by using credit responsibly. What are the different types of credit? The most important lesson about credit cards (and any type of credit, really) is that this convenient piece of plastic is not actually free money. Explain to your kids that when they make a purchase with a credit card, they’re borrowing money from the issuer (usually a bank) to pay the vendor (like their favourite coffee shop), and the limit on their card depends on their income, credit rating, and any debt they might already have. Credit cards are a type of “revolving credit,” meaning it lets them repeatedly borrow money up to a set limit and pay it back in full or over time. Used responsibly, credit cards can be a convenient alternative to buying things in cash—and a secure way to buy things online. But if a borrower doesn’t pay their credit card(s) in full each month by the payment due date, they’ll amass interest charges that might get harder and harder to pay down. Credit cards can also be used to take out cash, but borrowers start paying interest on the amount right away. Credit cards are one of the highest-interest-rate ways you can borrow money; they typically charge anywhere between 10 per cent and 30 per cent. This means you’re paying for the ease and convenience of withdrawing cash with a credit card. So, your teen should exercise plenty of discipline. Mortgages are a type of fixed loan, specifically for a home or property. Your kids should know that mortgages are also a secured loan, which means their (future) home guarantees the amount they’re borrowing and acts as security for the bank or other type of lender. If they don’t make the mortgage payments, they could lose their home. Mortgage interest rates vary, depending on different factors, such as your credit score, the state of the economy, and what type of mortgage you get. The standard mortgage length in Canada is calculated at a fixed term of 25 years, and mortgage interest rates are commonly locked in every five years. At the end of 2021, an average five-year mortgage interest rate was just under five per cent. 3. Personal loans A personal loan is a medium- to longer-term loan from a financial institution, such as a bank or credit union. They are commonly used for bigger-ticket items not covered by mortgages, such as a car or home renovations. Interest rates on personal loans vary based on credit history, type of lender, and type of loan, ranging anywhere from around six per cent up to as much as 47 per cent. Personal loans can start at $100 and go all the way up to $50,000, and most repayment terms are between six months and five years. A personal loan can also be open-ended (as opposed to fixed or closed), which means it can be paid off sooner than the payment schedule allows, without paying penalties or extra fees. A personal loan can also be secured or unsecured, so if someone guarantees the loan with an asset such as a home, they have access to lower interest rates and higher credit amounts. 4. Lines of credit Like a credit card, a line of credit is a type of revolving credit, meaning it lets an individual repeatedly borrow money when they need it, up to a set limit, and pay it back over time. Lines of credit usually have a lower interest rate. As of September 2021, the average interest rate on a Canadian secured personal line of credit was 2.5 per cent, compared with 5.7 per cent for an unsecured line of credit. One of the riskier aspects of a line of credit is that the interest rate is often not fixed and can rise, which could make it difficult to pay off debt completely. 5. Payday loans A payday loan, offered by unregulated loan companies and cheque-cashing outlets, are very short-term loans that a borrower promises to pay back with their next couple of paycheques. But these loans come with extremely high interest rates. With a payday loan, someone may be able to borrow up to $1,500. But they could pay $17 for every $100 borrowed, for example, which translates to an annual interest rate of 442 per cent! While payday loans may provide “fast cash” to people with bad credit or no other options as long as they have a job, this type of lending is considered predatory because people who are financially vulnerable may end up trapped in a vicious cycle of debt. Why use credit? While using credit should be done cautiously, there are also many good reasons to take advantage of it. Depending on what type of credit someone gets and how responsibly they use it, credit can help them: - Borrow money instantly to make purchases without having to wait to save up the entire purchase amount - Have an interest-free grace period on new purchases, provided they pay the balance in full by the current month’s due date - Carry less cash and buy things online - Track their spending - Buy big-ticket things they can’t currently afford, such as a vehicle, a post-secondary education, or a home - Automate bill payments - Build their credit score How does a credit report work? A credit report is a summary of a person’s credit and borrowing history. Just like how a report card tracks a student’s school performance, a credit report monitors someone’s credit account. The grades add up, and the overall performance is given a grade-point average, a.k.a. a credit score (more on this below). A credit report is created when someone applies for credit (like a credit card) for the first time. Lenders will send information about an individual’s accounts to credit bureaus such as Equifax Canada and TransUnion Canada, the two main credit agencies in Canada. These are both private companies that collect, store, and share information about personal credit use. Anyone can order a copy of their credit report from both Equifax Canada and TransUnion Canada. Each company may have slightly different information, and requesting a copy has no effect on your credit score. What is a credit score? A credit score is a three-digit number that tells a credit bureau how well a person manages credit, and how risky it might be for a lender to let them borrow money, rent an apartment, get a phone plan, or be approved for a credit card. It’s calculated based on a credit report, and the number generally ranges from 300 to 900. People earn points for using credit responsibly, like paying balances on time, and they lose points if they skip payments or carry a high balance on their credit card. The higher the score, the better their credit interest rate and terms should be. Credit bureaus track how a person uses credit by analyzing public records and information for banks, credit card companies, and other lenders. As their credit report is updated, their credit score changes. According to Equifax Canada, any credit score above 660 is considered good. Teach your kids and teens how to use credit responsibly When a kid or teen sees a credit card, their eyes probably light up. After all, it’s a shiny piece of plastic that you can use to buy whatever your heart desires, right? Don’t we all wish! Here are a few tips your kids should know about the smart way to use credit: - Credit is not your money: A credit card is basically a loan given to someone by their lender. That loan has to be paid back, even if it’s in monthly installments. This is where you can introduce the concept of interest (and combine it with a little math lesson!). - Interest charges increase the price of purchases: With a credit card, unless you pay off the full amount each month, your purchases will cost more than if you had saved up cash before buying. This is true for any type of fixed loan, too, such as a personal, car, or student loan. - Needs versus wants: Teach your kid the difference. Needs are the things people must have to simply survive: food, shelter, clothing, personal care items, and in most cases safe, reliable transportation. Just about everything else can be classified as a want—a bigger wardrobe, treats, gadgets, movies, trips, a phone, or new bike. Help your teen calculate how much money they could save by skipping those $5 frappuccinos. - Practise managing money: Before your kid is old enough to get a credit card, get them in the habit of paying for things with a reloadable prepaid card (loaded with their own money!). The Mydoh Smart Cash Card is not a credit card, but it’s a secure way to give your kid some of the skills and independence they’ll need to start developing good money habits. As a parent, you even get to track and react to their spending activity. - Keep the credit limit low: Low-limit credit cards, from $200 to $500, can be a good move for young people who are just starting to build up their credit. Explain how they can start low and gradually increase their limit, rather than having to reduce their limit, which can hurt their credit score. - Only buy what you can afford: Explain that part of managing credit responsibly is staying below their limit. A good rule of thumb for anyone is that you want your balance to be less than 35 per cent of your available credit, which will help improve your credit score. - Understand the consequences of misusing credit: Help your kid understand there are serious, real-life consequences to not using a credit card responsibly, including additional interest costs, late payment fees, and a bad credit score. Having poor credit can lead to long-term higher rates on car loans, mortgages, or even having a rental agreement denied by a landlord. Why Mydoh is a smart alternative to credit As the Mydoh Smart Cash Card is a reloadable prepaid Visa card, it can be used anywhere Visa is accepted. But unlike an actual credit card, the money your kid spends is money they already have. With Mydoh, tweens and teens can practise spending their own money—that they’ve earned through doing chores and other tasks—without going into debt. Kids can see the amount of money they have in their account, and how much of that hard-earned money they’ll have to part with to buy something. The Mydoh app also comes with a Mydoh Play feature, which helps kids learn everything they need to know about financial literacy—from loans to the cost of living to how to save money—through fun games and trivia. Credit requires trust and accountability. You’re teaching your kid that despite the convenience and independence credit cards and loans provide, they also present risk. Think about it like a partnership between a person and the bank that loans them money. If your teen can learn to use credit when necessary and pay off debt in full or make the monthly loan payments, that partnership can be a beneficial one. And one of the best times to start taking on credit is when they truly understand how it works!

Law Preprofessional Program Law is a professional degree program and is not offered as an undergraduate major, but students applying to Iowa may declare a pre-law designation on their application to receive specialized advising and preparatory course work as undergraduates. This designation means you eventually intend to apply to a law school. Why Study at Iowa? The University of Iowa College of Law has a reputation for excellence. U.S.News & World Report consistently ranks the college in the top 10 public law schools. The college was the first public law school established west of the Mississippi River when founded in 1865. It also was a founding member of the Association of American Law Schools. Graduates and faculty include: - Many distinguished members of the federal, state, and tribal judiciaries - One of the first women to graduate from law school - One of the first African Americans to graduate from law school - The first U.S. attorney of Native American ancestry The college offers a broad and diverse curriculum with particular strengths in public law, international and comparative law, antitrust and economic regulation, intellectual property, and corporate law. Iowa's emphasis on legal writing throughout all three years of study is recognized natioanlly. Students gain a solid foundation for a lifetime of professional growth, including a thorough familiarity with legal principles and the operation of legal institutions, fundamental lawyers’ skills (particularly writing), and an appreciation of the roles of law and lawyers in society. The college cultivates student participation in the learning process and creates regular opportunities for individuals and small groups to engage challenging teachers genuinely interested in each student’s professional development. The College of Law considers applicants with any undergraduate major. If you declare a pre-law designation as an undergraduate student, you will work with a pre-law adviser at the Academic Advising Center. Iowa strongly endorses three educational objectives recommended by a committee of the Association of American Law Schools: - Comprehension and expression in words - A critical understanding of the human institutions and values with which the law deals - Greater power in thinking While planning your undergraduate study, keep these objectives in mind. Don’t sacrifice a broad perspective in order to pursue detailed specialization right now. Once admitted to the JD program, first-year students take a defined curriculum in the fundamental workings of the law and legal principles. In years two and three, students are exposed to a broad array of substantive areas of the law, along with a heavy dose of professional skills training in fact gathering, interviewing, counseling, drafting, transaction planning, negotiation, and litigation. They also concentrate course work on writing and research opportunities in their particular areas of interest. Students also have many opportunities to develop and practice leadership skills. See College of Law in the UI General Catalog to learn more about the JD and LLM degrees and for detailed information about admission to the College of Law. Before beginning law school, you must complete all the requirements for your undergraduate degree. Review our Areas of Study to see the admission requirements associated with your undergraduate degree program. Admission to the College of Law is competitive, and fulfilling the basic admission requirements does not guarantee acceptance. Multiple admission criteria are used to determine which applicants’ admission will best advance the College of Law’s mission. Your undergraduate academic record and Law School Admission Test (LSAT) performance are two important criteria. In the College of Law's most recent entering class, the median Grade-Point Average (GPA) was 3.64 and the median LSAT score was 162. The college recognizes that GPA and test scores may not provide a complete assessment of an applicant’s ability to succeed at studying law, so the admission committee also considers factors such as special academic or professional abilities, extracurricular activities, law-related employment experience, public service commitment, and leadership roles. There is a Law Study and Legal Careers Living-Learning Community in the UI residence halls for first-year students interested in pre-law. Faculty, Facilities, and Resources The college is housed in the Boyd Law Building, high above the western bank of the Iowa River. Small seminar rooms, a newly renovated clinic suite, and special-purpose learning areas are situated throughout the building, allowing students and faculty members to work together in close professional interaction. The largest classroom seats only 100 people. The student lounge, faculty lounge, and faculty offices are located on the same floor, encouraging interaction between students and faculty members. The University of Iowa Law Library offers an exceptional legal research collection of print and electronic resources relating to U.S. domestic, international, foreign, and comparative law. One of the most comprehensive collections of legal materials in the country, it contains more than 1.3 million bound volumes and microform equivalents and over 1 million separately cataloged titles as of July 2012. Particular strengths of the library's collection include U.S. legal materials and government documents, Iowa government documents, legal materials of Great Britain and the present and former British Commonwealth nations, and the laws of Germany, France, and Mexico. College of Law graduates build meaningful and significant lives by integrating rigorous legal training with rich professional and civic engagement. Overall, about half of the college’s living alumni work in private practice, while others use their law degrees to work in the judiciary or in health care, public policy and government, business, and education. The college works with each student who is seeking employment. Individual and small-group counseling is available from the career services staff as well as from alumni. Each year about 92 percent of law graduates are employed nine months after graduation, and bar exam passage rates typically exceed 90 percent. Employers view College of Law students and alumni as high-quality, hard-working, and engaged employees. Each year, nearly 150 employers recruit students through on-campus and consortium-based interview programs. In addition, students create successful paths in judicial clerkships, government, public service, business, and education by networking with alumni and pursuing meaningful work during their first and second summers in law school. The college to which you should apply for your undergraduate degree will vary depending on your major. Review the Areas of Study to determine the application process associated with that major. Indicate your "Pre-Law" interest on your application to receive specialized advising.

Management decisions to increase profitability What does it take to determine if a ranch or farm is making money? Each farm or ranch has its own set of specific circumstances and reasons for being in the business. It could be for quality of life, for investment purposes or for making a profit. Whatever the purpose for being in the business, each operation should have monetary goals for the business. Quality of life goals may include minimizing dollars spent on the operation. Investment goals could state a desired return on investment or, in today's economic conditions, minimizing the declining value of assets. To determine if these goals are being accomplished, each farm or ranch must have some type of financial and production information system. This information will help measure the success of the operation. Please remember, the information gathered by any system only has value if it is used to make management decisions. The basic components of any financial and production information system should include a cash accounting system with depreciation schedule, financial statements, cattle and feed inventories, and production records to measure production performance. - In most operations, a cash accounting system can be handled adequately by computer programs such as Quicken®. This program and others can provide the information to meet tax needs and the basic data for preparing financial statements. However, information prepared for tax purposes does not measure the profitability of a business or its financial position. According to the Farm Financial Standards Guidelines, the minimum statements needed to document financial position and performance are: - • a balance sheet, with both cost and market valuation; - • an accrual adjusted income statement; - • a statement of cash flow; and - • statements of owner equity. Another segment of the information system should be an inventory system. An accurate cattle and feed inventory is essential in measuring production performance and completing financial statements. A complete inventory by category of cattle (cows, bulls, heifers, stockers, etc.) should be done at least twice a year. If only done twice, the inventory should be taken at the beginning of the fiscal year and at the beginning of the breeding season. This inventory should include a record of all deaths, purchases, sales and movements among pastures. These basic areas of information should be addressed in each operation. Too many operations only use tax-based information from which to make decisions or, worse, no information at all. Remember - management decisions cannot be made from tax information. If help is needed in the preparation of this information, contact The Samuel Roberts Noble Foundation.

The cost of insuring German government debt against default has risen sharply in recent weeks, as investors start to assess the potential costs to Germany of keeping the euro zone together. As investors have scrambled to find safe havens inside the euro zone, yields on German government bonds have reached historical lows. But that does not mean that investors are completely confident that Germany’s ability to repay its debts will be unaffected by the crisis that has forced four euro-zone members to ask for financial help. The rise in the cost of insuring German government debt against default is a sign of how worried investors have become about the cost to the currency area’s economic powerhouse of funding those bailouts, with the possibility of more to come. “As the euro debt crisis persists, the perceived creditworthiness of Germany appears to have weakened,” said the Institute for International Finance, which represents more than 450 of the world’s largest private financial firms. “This reflects market concerns that contingent liabilities for many euro area countries may be expected to be put on Germany’s shoulders.” The five-year credit default swap spread on German government bonds has moved steadily wider from lows in March of around 70 basis points, to 104 basis points Tuesday. This means it now costs an average of $104,000 a year to insure $10 million of German debt against default for five years, up from around $70,000 a year. This steep move is in contrast with other safe-haven countries such as the U.K. and U.S., which saw a much smaller increase in the cost of buying default insurance. The CDS spread on German bonds is now over 50 basis points above the spread on U.S. treasury bonds, up from around 40 basis points in March. On the basis of its own economic outlook and debts, that gap should not be as wide, traders said. “It doesn’t make rational sense,” argued a sovereign CDS trader. “Germany should be more like the U.K., U.S. even. It should trade around 50 to 70 basis points according to its real economic strength.” That suggests that it is Germany’s potential exposure to the cost of rescuing other euro-zone members that is driving the rise in insurance costs. Spain’s increasing funding strains, evident from March onwards, marked a whole new level of fear about the euro zone’s future. While Greece, Ireland and Portugal have all been bailed out by the euro zone, they are relatively small economies. Spain is much larger, and Italy larger still. The prospect that either, let alone both, might need help drew investors’ attention to the size of the euro zone’s bailout funds, and the question of whether they were adequate without additional contributions from members such as Germany. “Until Spain came in, the two funds were largely hypothetical, away from investors’ minds,” said Alessandro Giansanti, rates strategist at ING. “Now investors are making calculations of how Germany’s creditworthiness will be affected if the funds are actually used, with the added risk that the money may not be sufficient if Italy enters the picture.” Germany guarantees almost 30% of these funds’ liabilities, and now the possibility of actually using them is very real, as Spain is in danger of losing its access to bond markets and contagion threatens to drag Italy with it. Meanwhile, the German government finds itself having to resist increased international pressure to accept some form of mutualization of euro-zone debt liabilities, which would affect its own creditworthiness. The German government’s debt agency played down the impact on German government debts from growing fiscal problems elsewhere in the euro zone. “I don’t see the risk of a big adjustment for German bond yields in the future,” said a spokesman for the German Finance Agency. “The (bailout) funds do not have an effect on German debt and they will not have an effect, because these two asset classes are totally different.” He added that the rising cost of insuring against default have nothing to do with German creditworthiness, “because nothing has structurally changed”.

Vinpocetine is a chemical substance synthesized from vincamine, a natural constituent found in the leaves of Vinca minor (lesser periwinkle). Where is it found? Vinpocetine is synthesized from vincamine, a constituent of the leaves of Vinca minor (lesser periwinkle) Vinpocetine has been used in connection with the following condition (refer to the individual health concern for complete information): Who is likely to be deficient? Vinpocetine is not an essential nutrient, so no deficiencies are possible. How much is usually taken? Research has typically used 30 to 60 mg per day of vinpocetine. Taking vinpocetine with food appears to dramatically improve its absorption. 1 (To view, roll mouse over the "References" heading; to hide, click on the heading) Are there any side effects or interactions? Studies on vinpocetine report no serious side effects with amounts up to 60 mg per day. 2 Vinpocetine has blood-thinning effects, 3 which suggests that people with bleeding disorders or who are taking anticoagulant or other blood-thinning medications should consult a doctor before taking vinpocetine. However, one study found no such interaction between vinpocetine and the anticoagulant drug warfarin. 4 Are there any drug Certain medicines may interact with vinpocetine. Refer to drug interactions for a list of those medicines.

Call him irresponsible If you need another reason to vote against George Bush, take a look at what he's done to the federal tax system. He's cut taxes, especially for the wealthiest, at a time when the nation can least afford it. I dislike paying taxes as much as the next person -- and I should know, living in Portland, the highest-taxed city west of the Mississippi. But the Bush administration's "idea" of giving the economy a short-term shot in the arm with a temporary tax cut was irresponsible. Its insistence that it's going to cut taxes even further, on a permanent basis, is insanity. The economy faces a familiar set of problems -- economic slowdown, short-term fiscal deficits, and long-term fiscal gaps. The central feature of the administration's approach to resolving these problems is to cut taxes. With moderate adjustments for expiring provisions (which the administration has advocated in the past) and AMT reform (which the administration has claimed it will address in 2005), the administration's proposals would result in deficits in excess of 4 percent of GDP for each of the next 10 years in the nonretirement trust fund portion of the budget. Given the impending shortfalls in the retirement trust funds, this does not appear to us to be a prudent fiscal strategy. Despite its relentless cheerleading for tax cuts, the administration has provided no coherent strategy for addressing the nation's fiscal problems in the medium term or long term. -- Gale & Orszag, "Fath-Based Budgeting," 99 Tax Notes 139 (2003). In short, there is a curious disconnect between public unhappiness with taxes, and public support for the goods and services that taxes buy. Members of the public seem to think we can continue to enjoy government services even if we reduce or abolish the taxes that pay for them. At the federal level, of course, deficit spending makes that possible, at least for a while. But the federal deficit is so large, and growing so rapidly, that serious economic problems are likely to emerge sooner rather than later. Even if we dodge those economic bullets, we'll still be faced with the problem of justifying the inter-generational banditry that is involved when we shift the burden of our spending to the shoulders of our children and grandchildren. -- Field, "The Emperor Has No Clothes," 101 Tax Notes 1125 (2003). And although it was talking about state taxes, the Iowa Catholic Conference gave us some food for thought recently when it said: 1. Spending by the State of Iowa should first assure that the basic needs of all people -- especially those who are poor and vulnerable -- are addressed as a priority before other appropriations are made. Just as in a family's budget, spending for recreation and entertainment should come only after paying for shelter, food, clothing, and other necessities. 2. All citizens have the right and responsibility to contribute to the common good through the payment of taxes. The collection of taxes is an important and justifiable role of government. Taxes are an individual's contribution to the common good. In any society, the common good should be viewed of greater importance than the good of any individual or special interest group. Paying taxes is one way that citizens give something back to society. 3. The State of Iowa should seek and maintain revenues sufficient to meet the basic needs of all, especially the poor and vulnerable. Effective stewardship of resources is always of concern to any branch of government, but even the most careful management of resources cannot overcome a fundamental lack of income. As do prudent families, the State of Iowa should maintain savings for periods when revenues are less than needed. Tax cuts, while popular, should result from a reduction in revenue needs, not as a result of providing favors for special interests. 4. Taxation in any form should be based on one's ability to pay. If Iowa tax policy is to remain faithful to Catholic teachings, it should first assure that the system collects taxes according to one's ability to pay. Catholic social teaching supports a more progressive form of taxation. Our contribution to the common good should reflect our blessings. From those to whom much has been given, much should be expected. Those who make the most profit from our economic system benefit most from the structures and infrastructure that make economic enterprise possible. Tax exemptions and tax incentives should not change the fundamental requirement that taxes should be based on one's ability to pay. 5. All forms of taxation should be fair and just in their treatment of the poor. Taxation can be used as an economic strategy to level income distribution in a society. Systems of taxation can also grant certain advantages to those in different income brackets. Unfortunately, such advantages are often granted on the basis of power and politics rather than on moral principles. Those who are poor should not pay a disproportionate amount of income in the sum total of taxes paid. This is especially true in the case of property and sales tax, which low- and moderate-income people tend to pay in higher percentages of their total income and are therefore considered more regressive taxes. Those who are wealthier should consider their higher tax bracket as part of their Biblical obligation to tend to the "widow and the orphan." Even if I were on the fence on every other issue (which I'm decidedly not), I would still vote against the current administration based on its tax policies alone. UPDATE, 1:46 a.m.: One more shortcoming to note here: the administration's abysmal failure (perhaps intentional) to get the IRS the resources it needs to do a competent job collecting taxes from Americans who knowingly refuse to pay. For 2001, the IRS projects that it lost about $280 billion in tax revenue -- that's with a "b" -- to cheating. That's something like four times what it was in 1992. Individuals who hid income accounted for more than half that amount. I hope that at least some of that dough will be spent in New York at the convention.

Adjust to a different commute. Learn the ropes. Befriend coworkers. Handle a new boss. No doubt you weighed these and other dynamics of changing jobs or returning to work after a period of unemployment. But now that you've accepted the offer, it’s time to consider the other ways the new job may affect your personal life. Even the basics of a daily job routine can trigger significant adjustments. Your schedule and priorities will change for everyone around you: partners or spouses, kids, parents and even friends. From setting the alarm clock to deciding whether dinner is homemade or takeout, tell yourself (and any other people in your home) that flexibility and change will be part of your new work schedule. Follow a New Work Schedule Take some time before Day One to review nonwork commitments and make a list to decide which, if any, may need to be scaled back or changed. What obligations can be shifted to others? For example, could home delivery for groceries or carpooling kids with a friend or neighbor give you some flexibility? Asking for help is vital but can be difficult, particularly for those returning to work after being a family caregiver, says Marjorie Freundlich, a career adviser in Needham, Massachusetts. “The lifestyle changes may mean letting go of control of taking care of your children after school, for instance, and using childcare instead,” she says. “Or with household jobs, redistributing work within the family or hiring help if it’s affordable.” Some tips to adjust to your new schedule: - Start with a trial run of your new commute, making note of gas stations, coffee shops or grocery stores along the way. - Plan and shop for a weekly dinner schedule to simplify meals, but have menus from local eateries on hand in case of unexpected work demands. - Even little adjustments, like making breakfast the night before or programming the speed dial on your cellphone, can reduce stress and let you focus on your new job during the crucial early stages. Changing Jobs, Adjusting Priorities If you’ve been home or unemployed for a long time, your family and friends may have expectations about your availability. Beyond the day-to-day logistics and recalibration, the right mix of work, friends, hobbies, home and family should come together organically. So as your work routine evolves, plan for and meet the added demands on your time. - If you can, plan ahead for birthdays, school vacations and other events that may take you out of the office. - Some couples schedule date nights or other mini-escapes. Why not book a weekend holiday and do something special? It may take months before you accrue vacation time for a longer getaway. - Make a date with friends or family that you haven’t seen in awhile. Let them know you are changing jobs and are settling into a new routine. Mind the Money Beyond the relief of a steady income, beware of financial surprises. Look out for taxes due on unemployment benefits or a spending spree that can undo months of frugality. New clothes, a spa visit or other nice-to-do expenses may feel like a reward but should come only after you’ve managed the essentials. Some tips: - Examine when you need to pay monthly bills. Check the due dates to avoid penalties or late fees and be sure payments match up with your new pay schedule or amount. - When you have a clearer view of how work affects your schedule and dollars, that’s the time to develop a detailed budget, start cutting credit card debt and perhaps reevaluate your insurance coverage. An accountant can help you focus on the bottom line. - Explore your retirement savings options at the new workplace. Consider rolling over your 401k account or creating an Individual Retirement Account, says Eric Liriano, a certified financial planner in Newton, Massachusetts. Keep Moving Ahead at the New Job Greta Roberts, owner of Target Teams, cautions that "there is a ‘grass is greener’ phase" when changing jobs. Just because things are different doesn’t make them better or worse -- and it can be hazardous to cling to the glory days of a shorter commute, simpler routine or familiar workload. “It’s like you never left if you keep looking back," she says. "That was a different place and a different time. Companies want people who are looking forward and want to contribute to change.”

The White House plan to reduce $1.5 trillion from the budget begins with agriculture. The 18 pages that deal with program cuts are part of 80 pages of job creation, tax reform and budget cuts issued Monday as Congress begins its effort to do the same. But after a 145-word preamble about the need to cut spending and make reforms that have not been done “for years,” it all begins with the “Agriculture Sector.” The budget-cutting plan (pdf) begins by paying compliments to agriculture and the fact that “A strong agricultural sector is important to maintaining a strong rural economy.” It says that farm and rural sectors are supported through programs that fund “agricultural research programs, providing assistance to beginning and disadvantaged farmers, pursuing trade agreements and increasing funding for programs to expand U.S. agricultural exports.” But the plan says farm income is high, and while “The administration remains committed to a strong safety net for farmers…there are programs and places where funding is unnecessary or too generous.” At that juncture the plan details cuts to direct payments, crop insurance and conservation, with an added four-year extension to disaster program assistance, as long as farmers have crop insurance and disaster payments do not exceed expected income. Direct payments are totally eliminated in the White House proposal. It says they do not vary with yield, and that is why the program was established, because the world trade organization complained that prior programs promoted crop production and depressed prices in developing countries. The White House plan places blame on the direct payment program for difficulties sustained by beginning farmers, “have priced young Americans out of renting or owning the land needed to enter into farming. In a period of severe fiscal restraint, these payments are no longer defensible, and eliminating them would save the Government roughly $3 billion per year.” Crop insurance, which received $6 billion in cuts in 2010, will be getting another $8.3 billion in cuts under the White House proposal. While the plan says crop insurance “is a foundation for our farm safety net,” the plan says it costs the government $8 billion/year to run. (Keep in mind that the budget cuts being proposed would be over a 10-year period.) While the plan says crop insurance companies agreed to changes that saved $6 billion over 10 years, the administration believes there are additional opportunities for streamlining the administrative costs of the program. There will be a $2 billion cut to the return on investment allowed for crop insurance companies. There will be a $900 million cap on administrative expenses that will save $3.7 billion, and changes to the CAT program will save $600 million. The White House plan proposed to reverse the Congressional action that reduced the premium cost to farmers in an effort to increase participation. It says participation averages about 83% so high premium subsidies are no longer needed, and it will reduce the subsidy level for the higher coverages of crop insurance to save $2 billion/year. Conservation assistance will also be cut by $2 billion, but curiously the plan says federal support for conservation will increase by $60 billion over the next 10 years. The budget cutting document says “The Administration is very supportive of programs that create incentives for private lands conservation and has made great strides in leveraging these resources with those of other Federal agencies towards greater landscape-scale conservation; however, the dramatic increase in funding (roughly 500% since enactment of the Farm Security and Rural Investments Act of 2002) has led to difficulties in program administration and redundancies among our agricultural conservation programs.” The plan says high crop prices have reduced producer demand for certain agricultural programs. Subsequently, “the administration plans to make the budget cuts by better targeting funding to the most cost effective and environmentally beneficial programs and practices.” Mandatory disaster assistance will be extended through 2016, but to be eligible, farmers must purchase crop insurance, and it reworks the SURE program, which was developed as the permanent disaster program in the 2008 Farm Bill. The White House plan says SURE provides financial assistance at levels that are 15% higher than crop insurance; it is proposing a change to limit payments that do not exceed 90% of expected farm income in the absence of a natural disaster. While producer programs consume about 20% of the USDA budget, they will be the only ones cut. There were no cuts proposed to public food aid programs or other parts to the USDA budget. The White House has proposed an extensive budget-cutting program that attempts to reduce the deficit. Agriculture spending will be cut by $13.3 billion. The direct payment program will be eliminated. Crop insurance programs will be cut by $8.3 billion and another $2 billion will be taken from conservation spending, all of which will be over a 10-year period. Additionally the permanent disaster program will be reduced to ensure participants do not profit from it.

My research focuses on the links between climate change, energy and carbon cycling. Switchgrass (Panicum virgatum), a conservation bioenergy crop presents an innovative strategy to not only combat anthropogenic climate change, but also secure a sustainable energy feedstock. As switchgrass becomes integrated as a feasible bioenergy source in Ontario, it is important to understand the implications that this crop has on soil properties. I will be investigating changes in soil properties, specifically soil carbon following the establishment of switchgrass in southeastern Ontario farms. Supervisor: Dr. Neal Scott (and a great group of fellow students in the Facility for Biogeochemical Research on Environmental Change and the Cryosphere)

Microformats and OpenID will kill Facebook’s business model Right now everybody’s talking about Facebook, “the social utility that connects you with the people around you”. Thousands of people register on the site every day, and the mainstream press drones endlessly about whether it’ll get bigger than MySpace, and then presumably take over the world. And even though I haven’t signed up yet, I know from looking over people’s shoulders that an incredible number of my friends and acquaintances are active Facebook users. Perhaps I should just give in, and sign up. But is Facebook really the ultimate social networking site, the last one you’ll ever need to add all your friends to? Of course not: in a year’s time, some other site will be the trendy hangout that you can’t afford to miss out on. But the good news is that this constant migration from network to network isn’t going to carry on for ever — because we now have interoperable, open standards that will make the idea that all your friends need to be on the same social network seem quaint. The combination of microformats and OpenID will allow open websites to compete with the key selling points of walled gardens like Facebook — privacy and network effects — and as a result, kill their business model. As Jason Kottke says, Facebook is the new AOL — a walled garden, which you can’t access from the open internet unless you’re a signed-up, logged-in Facebook user. Signing up to yet another website, and then approving all your friends for the 14th time is clearly a pain, so why do so many people do it? Because walled gardens offer two key features that open websites don’t: privacy and network effects. Privacy: only my friends can see it When you add content to your Facebook profile, you can make sure that only your friends can see it. So the fact that you’re feeling grumpy today isn’t broadcast to the whole world, just to your network — and the photos from the party last night can only be seen by people you trust. This kind of privacy feature isn’t unique to Facebook, of course: you can achieve the same effect using Flickr or Twitter, for example — sites which aren’t usually thought of as walled gardens. But I argue that whenever privacy features are used on these sites, they behave like walled gardens — because in order to restrict access to a network of friends, all of your friends need a profile on that site. You effectively lock out any of your real-life friends that haven’t signed up for that website: a walled garden approach. Network effects: all my friends are already here The success of social networks like Facebook is clearly helped by network effects — the fact that if lots of your friends are already active users, joining looks much more attractive than if you’re the first to join. This applies equally to adding comments to other people’s photos on Flickr and writing on a friend’s “wall” on Facebook. The business model The business model of these walled gardens goes something like this: - Offer our users privacy (and other services). - Exploit network effects to get as many of our users’ friends as possible to join. - Sell advertising to our massive captive audience. At the moment, this model works — just look at Facebook and MySpace. But notice that during the second step, the site isn’t getting users to sign up primarily because they like the service, but because their friends are already on the network. Walled gardens exploit their users’ personal relationships to grow their proprietary systems — and on the internet, that’s never sustainable. An open alternative So what’s the open alternative to this walled garden approach? Microformats for relationships and OpenID for identity. Microformats are “a set of simple, open data formats built upon existing and widely adopted standards” — often referred to as the lowercase semantic web. Jeremy Keith outlines how the existing hCard and XFN microformats could be used to create portable social networks, so that each new website you join could automatically fetch a list of friends from a URL you provide. This wouldn’t have to be hosted on a blog or personal site — a profile page on a site like Flickr could automatically provide this information, just by using microformats in the markup. But what about privacy? OpenID is an open, decentralised identity system. The central idea is that if a person can prove that they own a URL, that’s enough to identify them. Simon Willison describes how OpenId could be used to create decentralised social networks, “with profiles tied together across multiple sites and relationships easily portable between services” — that is, you can restrict access to your group of friends even if they’re not members of your social networking website of choice. If a social networking site combined these approaches, you could instruct it to restrict access to a group of friends that: - Is defined elsewhere, without having to be manually entered, and - Doesn’t require your friends to be members of the site to access your content. This is the killer combination for Facebook’s business model. Goodbye, exponential growth Why am I so sure this will happen? Well, it might not work exactly the way I’ve outlined, but some kind of interoperable, open standard will eventually replace proprietary, closed social networks, because open systems always beat closed ones on the internet. This doesn’t necessarily mean that the sites I’m calling walled gardens are doomed though — they just need to open up, and rethink their business model. Once you remove the exploitation of personal relationships I’ve described above, exponential growth of users is much more difficult to achieve. Now, new users won’t sign up just because their friends’ content is in your system — because they can access it anyway using an open identity system. To get them to sign up, you’ll have to convince them that your service is better than all the others — which means you have to offer the best user experience, not the largest network. Selling advertising to a captive audience also becomes more difficult, because your audience isn’t really captive any more. If your users’ friends use RSS to access content, for example, they won’t see your site at all — and anyway your users are free to migrate to another site whenever they want to, because they now own their data in an open format. Perhaps this will result in more targeted, niche advertising — or even a service charge (gasp!), paid in return for a well designed, pleasurable experience. Either way, the Facebook model will fail — which means that sometime soon, we won’t have to join a new social network every six months. I’m looking forward to it.

A group of Sterling Elementary School students got a chance to spend an entire morning tromping through ditches and playing with trash. By the time they were done, all that was left was a nice, clean roadside. Children from Teri Hoffman's fifth- and sixth-grade class spent about two hours Tuesday morning picking up trash along 10 miles of Swanson River Road. Teams of four or five students and one adult were dropped at 1.7-mile intervals along the road, starting at the boundary to the Kenai National Wildlife Refuge. In all, the fourth- and fifth-graders managed to clean 10.2 miles of road, all the way to the Swanson River. Hoffman said the event reinforces some of the lessons she gives in the classroom. "In my class, we do a lot of outdoor education. After they do this they'll think twice about throwing something out the window," she said. As the class began walking the ditches along the road, fifth-grader Robert Skuse voiced his mixed emotions about the special field trip. "We're missing school, but we still have to pick up garbage," he grumbled as his group began walking. About five minutes later, though, Robert seemed more enthusiastic about the opportunity. "Hey, I found a license plate!" he called to the others in his group, while busily scraping the dirt off a slightly rusted California plate. Then he ran off to show his classmates what he'd found. Robert's partner, Elaina Mercier, wasn't so enthusiastic about Robert's find. Charlie Evans and Angeleah Wood launder trash from the side of Swanson River Road during a class cleanup project Tuesday morning. "Now I have to pick up everything that he misses," she sighed. The class cleanup event was made possible by special funding from Unocal Oil and Gas Company. Unocal produces oil and gas in the Swanson River area. The company also gave the class money for a field trip across Kachemak Bay earlier in the year. Greg Merle, a lead operator in the Swanson River field, volunteered to help direct traffic along the road. He said the cleanup day offers Unocal a chance to give back to the community. "A lot of people that work out here at Swanson River, we like to recreate out here, too. It's a good way Unocal can give back to the community," he said. "We have a commitment to the community, and it's a nice way to positively affect kids." After hiking 1.7 miles and filling up piles of trash bags, the kids took a much needed break at Dolly Varden Lake. After all, the whole point of the cleanup was to make the outdoors more enjoyable. Hoffman said she was thrilled with how the event turned out. "What a great day to be outside picking up trash," she said.

I've written before about my family's chagrin at the notion of my singing in public. And if you've been following along these many months (and who hasn't?) you'll know my epic and inspiring tale of moving from shame to shameless in my willingness to display my poor musical abilities before audiences both willing and otherwise. Lest you think I'm merely being self-deprecating, Jack's dad Karl (a barbershop singer in his spare time) recently responded to my apology to him for offending his ears by saying, "You're not exactly a bad singer, but you do tend to change keys at the beginning of each line, which makes it kind hard to sing along. Once you've chosen a key, however, you're not so bad." This is the highest compliment I've ever received as a singer, other than the time a former girlfriend compared my voice to Andrew Gold's (look him up to enjoy another laugh at my expense). Music is important to all of us and I know few people who don't have a collection of recorded music or a favorite music radio station. If you ask adult people what they like about their music, most shrug and say something like, "It makes me feel good," or "It takes me back," or "It feeds my soul." I have a lot of friends who will tell you it's all about how it fills their body, making them want to dance. Some love making their own music. They have a piano or guitar at home which they say relaxes or inspires them. For most of us, however, the music we we make or enjoy on a day-to-day basis is something we do alone, like singing along to the radio while driving, or perhaps with family members (less critical ones than mine!) and that's a beautiful thing. But the luckiest ones, to my mind, are those of us who get to regularly raise our voices with those of others, be it in praise of god, as a member of a barbershop quartet, or in the company of preschoolers. I'm sure there are all kinds of academic-y explanations for what singing together does for people, but for me it's about creating a moment of unity or oneness with my fellow humans. When our voices rise together in song, be it a Top 40 ditty or a funeral dirge, we do so as a single entity, every voice an equal part of a the greater whole. Every great community needs its songs of unity, be they anthems, fight songs, or the hymns of praise. There was a time when corporations had company songs. Employees are probably too cynical these days, but I still think it's a pity those have gone away. All preschool teachers sing with their children, and if they don't they should. Nothing draws a class together better than singing. With the 2-year-olds it's all about singing the same songs over and over. I've never done the math, but I doubt we have more than two dozen songs in our repertoire, cycling through the same tunes again and again with little variation. Two-year-olds are all about the greatest hits, often complaining if I skip their favorite. Yesterday, as we sang If You're Happy And You Know It yet again, I was taken by how loudly and boldly these little guys were singing, especially Elliott whose voice rose above the rest, off-key, of course, in classic Teacher Tom style. Yes, I was holding up photographs of children with "happy," "sad," "angry" and other expressions working on helping these children, who currently straddle the divide between parallel and interactive play, identify some of the more obvious emotional cues that they'll need for successfully navigating their expanding social world. And yes, each time we sing, "clap your hands," or "stomp your feet," we're giving them practice in the fine art of following instructions. But the real significance of the song is that we're making that song together. With the 3-5 class we also cycle through our larger core collection songs, but as is appropriate for these older children, the songs become more elastic, stretching and bending to suit their growing comfort level and need for variety. Many of the songs we learned as 2-year-olds now have pauses during which the children raise their hands to suggest their own verses or variations; we've moved from merely singing together, to actually composing new songs based upon the old, right on the spot, like a preschool jam session. Sometimes we even make up brand new songs of our own, like during yesterday's hike back from the bus stop when Marcus suggested that we "Stomp, stomp, stomp," "skip, skip, skip," and "hop, hop, hop." It helps that we all by now know a collection of simple tunes to which we can insert new words. I'm the most unlikely song leader in the world, and I love it. Wanna sing along? I'll teach you to do it off-key.

This must become the mantra of the E&P industry, according to Carl Smith, assistant secretary for the Office of Fossil Energy at the U.S. Department of Energy, who was the keynote speaker at the All-Convention Luncheon at this year's GCAGS Annual Meeting in Austin, Texas. "If I could do one thing," said the former independent oil and gas company operator, "I would turn back the clock 50 years and start a comprehensive energy plan for America. "When I was young, I was exposed to basic energy education -- such as geological concepts and where petroleum comes from -- all through school in Oklahoma City," Smith noted. "But we've gotten completely away from that and have gone about 30 years without teaching a generation-and-a-half of people what's involved in everything you do everyday to bring hydrocarbons from some idea in a geologist's mind to the burner tip, gas tank or light switch. "Talk with your friends about what you do," Smith suggested, "and you'll be amazed at how little they know or appreciate how difficult this business is, much less the challenges we face in this country in all forms of energy." The current mix of ignorance, anti-oil bias and ennui about energy issues on the part of the public in general appears to have been spawned sometime during the 1970s, Smith noted. He questioned what the public's attitude might be if the United States depended on foreign sources for 60 percent of its food, air or water as it does for petroleum. "We just sort of whistle along past the graveyard when it comes to energy," Smith lamented. "People seem to think it comes out of the air and the companies put filling stations right over the tanks with no overhead and 100 percent profit. "Then we get a lot of legislation like the Windfall Profits Tax of the late '70s," he continued. "This is so counter-productive, making energy education so critical." The serious, but temporary, pickup in oil and gas drilling a couple of years ago helped to spotlight the dearth of geoscientists brought on by the mass exodus of people from the industry during the devastating downturn of the mid- to late-'80s and the lack of new-hires. Today's students choose to pursue other careers because they perceive E&P to be a low- or no-tech business that is dead/dying and, therefore, has no future. "I walked into an SPE technology conference recently," Smith said, "and it was like walking into NASA. Other than the space industry, this is the most hi-tech industry we have. "If all the young people in this country could see this," he noted, "it would dispel the old notion the industry is dead, and show them there's a definite future here." The numbers in the Fossil Energy office indicate by 2010, the United States will need 30 TCF of gas production annually, with current production pegged at 19 TCF and Canadian gas accounting for the excess required to meet current needs of 22 TCF. To accommodate the predicted future demand and help offset dependence on foreign sources, Smith said it's critical to convince the American people that new areas can be drilled safely and economically to provide affordable, dependable energy without damage to the environment because of the advanced technology. Repeating what has been said for decades, Smith said, "this hasn't gotten out to the public. And this is an immense problem. When they say it's unsafe to drill ANWR (Arctic National Wildlife Refuge) with today's technology, it makes a guy like me who grew up around this business in Oklahoma scratch his head." When new domestic hydrocarbon supplies are tapped with the drillbit, infrastructure needs loom as another major, expensive challenge. Noting that new natural gas reserves are being developed in the Powder River and San Juan basin areas, Smith emphasized it will be costly in terms of pipelines and facilities to move this production to market. He described the existing pipeline infrastructure in the Rockies as "a bunch of dirt roads compared to Oklahoma, Texas and Louisiana, which look like an L.A. freeway system." As domestic energy needs continue to expand, it also becomes necessary to address the fact that no refineries have been built in the United States in 25 years. Opening up areas like ANWR, laying new onshore pipelines and building refineries may not currently sit well with the public at large, but a serious educational effort on the part of industry participants might go far to alter the negative perception of the "It's important to this country to put out an educational message based on science, not myth. There's so much information in textbooks that would curl your hair when energy is even mentioned "No one else knows as much about the industry as you do," Smith continued, "and these issues are only going to be addressed by you. So when the Lions and Rotary need a speaker, do "Be as active as you can be," he encouraged, "and urge your colleagues to step up to the plate."

ABORTION LAW IN AUSTRALIA – STATE BY STATE NB: The Federal government controls importation of drugs used for abortion (such as mifepristone) and provision of Medicare funds for abortion (currently Medicare funds abortions up to 26 weeks gestation) In 2002, the ACT became the first jurisdiction in Australia to legalise abortion in full, when the Stanhope ALP government passed the Crimes (Abolition of Offence of Abortion) Act 2002, removing abortion from the criminal statute books altogether. Abortions prohibited in NSW Crimes Act, but in reality is primarily based upon the Levine ruling of 1971 which declared abortion to be legal if a doctor found 'any economic, social or medical ground or reason' that an abortion was required to avoid a 'serious danger to the pregnant woman's life or to her physical or mental health' at any point during pregnancy. Expanded by the Kirby ruling of 1994. In 2006 a doctor was convicted of two counts of performing an illegal abortion. Legislation in 1974 legalised abortion in the NT if there is risk to the woman's life or health or if it is likely that the child will be physically or mentally disabled. The abortion must be approved by two medical practitioners and must be performed in a hospital. Abortions must be performed before gestational week 14, except when there is a case of serious risk to the woman's health, when abortions are allowed up to week 23. Abortion prohibited under Crimes Act, but the McGuire ruling of 1986 declared abortion to be legal if necessary to preserve the woman from a serious danger to her life or health that would result if the pregnancy continued, and is not disproportionate to the danger being averted. Abortions must be carried out before 22 weeks of pregnancy. Abortions can also be performed if a foetal defect is considered to be ‘inconsistent with life’. In September 2009 a Qld couple were acquitted on charges of procuring and abetting an abortion for themselves, using mifepristone they imported from Europe. Legislation in 1969 legalised abortion in SA when necessary to protect the life or physical or mental health of the woman or in cases when the child was likely to be born with serious disability. Abortions must be performed before 28 weeks. Abortions must be performed in a hospital and be approved by two physicians. From 1925 until 2001, Tasmania's Criminal Code prohibited ‘unlawful abortion’ without actually stating what was lawful or not. In 2001, the Criminal Code was clarified to state that an abortion must be carried out under a set of criteria resembling those of the SA requirements. Abortion was legalised up to 24 weeks in 2008. Abortion after 24 weeks requires two doctors to agree that it is appropriate, based on the women's current and future physical, psychological and social circumstances. Two Perth doctors prosecuted in 1998 for performing an abortion, leading to legalisation of abortion in WA in 1998. On request up to 20 weeks; after 20 weeks only in case of severe medical problems – which must be confirmed by two independently appointed doctors.

The news sites are all a-flutter with the latest news! A doctor has finally found the G-spot! [Insert your favorite joke about it being about time that a man figured out where it is. I'm getting tired of them.] This isn’t the first time that science has flip-flopped on this. Back in 1982, sexologists Alice Kahn Ladas, M.S.S., Ed.D., Beverly Whipple, Ph.D., and John D. Perry, Ph.D published The G Spot: And Other Discoveries about Human Sexuality, popularizing the name and getting the word out about this erogenous zone. And since then, the debate has raged. Some folks are convinced that the Skene’s glands, which surround the urethra and are homologous to the prostate are the G-spot. Others are of the opinion that the place where the legs of the clitoris meet are the G-spot, and it simple happens to be near the Skene’s glands. This most recent research says that there is a small structure, pretty much where you’d expect it, and that it’s different from previously-identified tissues. The difficulty is that this research was based on the dissection of one cadaver, which means that this might not be an accurate description of people in general. And then, of course, there are those who say that the whole G-spot thing is a myth. Given how many people I’ve talked with about the G-spot, I know it exists. For that matter, I have first-hand experience with it (literally). I don’t doubt my experiences, my lovers’ pleasures, or the stories of the hundreds of people who I’ve spoken with. I have to say that I’m of two minds when it comes to this whole issue. As a sex geek, I’m really curious to know what the sexually sensitive tissues are. I think it’s a really interesting question and even if it doesn’t change how sex educators talk about the G-spot or how people enjoy it, I’d like to know. But when it comes down to it, my sex educator side doesn’t really care. I’m much more focused on helping people discover new ways to enjoy sex, craft happier relationships, and release the shame that holds so many of them back. Knowing that someone is having a healthier relationship or more fun during sex (not to mention, more amazing orgasms) makes me really happy. And from that perspective, it doesn’t really matter which bit of tissue is responsible for the yummy sensations. They’re all packed pretty close together and I’m not sure that it’s even possible to stimulate one without the other, so it’s not really relevant which one you’re getting since you’re getting it regardless. But even with my sex educator hat on, there are a few different things about this ongoing issue that do bother me. First, the way that these studies are reported only adds to the confusion. For example, headlines like G-Spot Found? and G-spot ‘does exist’ add to the relentless pressure many people feel around their sexual experiences. For some people, the G-spot can be rather elusive, especially when they don’t have enough information. For example, the G-spot engorges during arousal, making it both easier to locate and more pleasurable. So if your partner isn’t turned on and you just go poking around, it might not work as well as you’d hoped. Unfortunately, plenty of people who don’t know these useful tips get discouraged and upset because of the hype in magazines and news sites. Many of them become convinced that there’s something wrong with them because science has proven that the G-spot exists and they can’t find it. Another big problem I have with the current hype about the G-spot, as well as most of the previous popular articles, is that they’re often based on limited research or bad science. Dr. Petra does a great job explaining that here, here, and here. I understand that news sites are more focused on SEO and getting clicks, but the incessant, breathless prose and headlines make my job harder because they oversimplify the information we have. Sex educators and therapists end up having to deal with the fallout from that and it annoys me. I also think it’s frustrating that most of these news reports ignore the stories of people who experience G-spot pleasure and their partners. Coincidentally, the day before all of this news hit, Good Vibrations released the results of our G-spot survey, in which we asked people to share their experiences of G-spot pleasure. We confirmed many things we’d been hearing from customers for years, as well as discovering a few surprises. Even if you’re a G-spot aficionado, take a look at it. I think you’ll enjoy it. If you want some actual information about the G-spot and how to enjoy it, here are some really good places to get started.

The mechanism was built from the start to be an extremely sturdy truss like structure that could withstand a great amount of torque on its end. All of the aluminum beams used in the structure were bent to provide extra support. It has a square base that goes straight up and out to the larger of the two holes to pass through. Our arm is another truss like structure with two bent beams connected at top and bottom with diagonal supports along the length. At the end of the arm we mounted the motor. We then constructed a lifting mechanism which was loosely attached to the arm which would rotate a second lifting arm that protruded out from it. This second lifting arm rested just under the weight in a perfect location as to lift it completely vertically without any wasted horizontal force being applied to the weight. Then, to add extra torque to the arm we added a counter weight equivalent to all the extra weight we had to spare under 20 ounces to the back side of the lifting mechanism. To get even more torque from this counterweight we extended it from the back of the mechanism using an additional aluminum beam. When we finally tested our structure, the combination of the sturdiness of the structure, the low friction loss due to the loosely attached lifting mechanism, the counterweight extended from the back of the mechanism, and the purely vertical lift, allowed the motor to turn 90 degrees and lift the weight to a height of 2.9 inches. The basic design principles used in our structure is a basic rigid box type with rigid cross braces all made of L members to prevent moments causing bending in the structure. The arm out to the weight is a traditional boom type used on high rise cranes, but we simplified the boom to a more 2 dimensional structure because there were minimal amounts of torque acting on the structure compared to the rigidity of the structure. The lifting mechanism allows us to apply the entire moment from the motor in a vertical direction to the one pound weight. We use a rectangular structure with one side attached to the servo and one side mounted to the boom. Protruding from the vertical side closest to the weight is the lifting arm. This is strategically located to always apply a vertical force to the weight. The horizontal sides are originally at an angle of -20 degrees to the horizontal, and once the servo applies the 100 degree rotation, ends up at an angle of +80 degrees to the horizontal. This angle change is what results in the weight being lifted vertically approximately 6 inch. Theoretically we would only achieve this height in an ideal system with no friction losses. With the friction between members the actual lifting height will be much lower. The energy supplied in the torque by the motor will be reduced by the friction forces that oppose rotation motion on the entire lifting arm. After the first build, there are some design improvements that we want to consider. First adding a counter weight to the lifting mechanism would ease the work load of the servo and allow us to reach a higher maximum height. Second, we would like to rebuild our base structure making it smaller to reduce the overall weight.

Five miles off the southern coast of Oahu, Hawaii, a three-person submersible was lifted off the back of a boat by a mechanical crane. The underwater vehicle floated on the surface of the ocean for a few moments as the crew in the chase boat unhooked the submersible as it prepared for its 550-meter journey into the depths of the ocean. Crisp light blues faded slowly into darker shades of color, and the temperature grew colder in the vast blackness. Even with the underwater lights, the researchers inside could only see 20 meters in front of them, through portholes barely as big as their faces. One of those researchers was Mike Knudsen, the field remediation air monitoring manager for the Chemical Biological Application and Risk Reduction, or CBARR, Business Unit of the U.S. Army Edgewood Chemical Biological Center. Knudsen was part of a CBARR team that supported a multi-phase research effort called the Hawaii Undersea Military Munitions Assessment, known as HUMMA, to investigate sea-disposed military munitions along the Hawaiian coast. “A typical dive is between eight and nine hours in a small metal sphere that is seven feet in diameter, and there are three people in there,” Knudsen said. “It was a small, cold space. But an absolute, can’t-pass-up-opportunity. I was excited.” According to the HUMMA project website, both conventional and chemical munitions were discarded south of Pearl Harbor following World War II, including 16,000 M47A2 100-pound mustard-filled bombs. For two weeks beginning on Nov. 23, CBARR supported its second mission for HUMMA, and provided chemical analysis for nearly 300 samples collected by the submersible, including 165 sediment samples, five water samples and 36 samples of shrimp tissue. “Our job on the dive was to provide chemical warfare material sampling expertise and to help locate items on the bottom of the ocean. One of the big pieces of the job was to watch the sonar to make sure the sub doesn’t run into things or get snagged on other hazards,” said Knudsen, who has made a total of six dives down in the submarine. Old munitions deteriorating on the sea floor decorated the muddy sediment like railroad tracks on the sonar map. There are no plants at these depths and few animals, but every once in a while the crew caught a glimpse of a shark or sting ray. Knudsen attributes the sightings not to luck but to the bait traps used by the submersible to catch shrimp for bio analysis. John Schwarz, CBARR analytical chemistry laboratory manager and project lead, took the equivalent of a mobile analytic platform and stationed it on a boat in order to analyze the collected samples. A glove box was used for sample preparation and MINICAMS accurately monitored air inside the designated laboratory space. All equipment in the designated onboard laboratory, including computer monitors, had to be tied down due to the ship’s movement on the ocean surface. Schwarz said the experience was more unique than anything else he’s done for CBARR. “On the ship we were able to successfully execute the quality of analytical procedures and protocols for samples as we would in our fixed laboratory back at our headquarters at the Aberdeen Proving Ground in Maryland,” Schwarz said. “To me that’s why it was a big achievement. We did it on a boat in the ocean.” While Knudsen and CBARR teammate Jim Swank, the designated explosive ordnance disposal technician of Pine Bluff Arsenal’s (Ark.) Field Technology Branch, spent their days in darkness underwater, Schwarz spent his nights working in the laboratory analyzing samples and clearing them of chemical agents. According to Schwarz, the munitions themselves are too dangerous to lift from the ocean floor and are unlikely to wash ashore due to the depth of their location, where the water temperature hovers around the 40-degree Fahrenheit mark. The possible chemical agent inside the World War I-era weapons would be frozen at that temperature. But there was one thing that was curious about the munitions, Schwarz said. They were home to an increased population of Hawaiian Brisingid sea stars that made the deteriorating munitions a natural habitat. During HUMMA, a few sea stars were collected and sent to Smithsonian scientists to study. CBARR was first brought onto the research team as chemical experts in 2009; two years after the HUMMA project began. The research effort is funded by the U.S. Army and led by the University of Hawaii to investigate the environmental impact of the sea dumped munitions on the surrounding environment. During that time, prime contractor, Environet, and the University of Hawaii mapped the ocean floor and used the Pisces submersible to collect samples within 10 feet of munitions. “The Army considers this research effort extremely important to both helping close data gaps in DOD’s understanding of the effects of chemical munitions in the ocean environment and helping validate and improve upon procedures developed for investigating sea disposal sites, particularly those in deep water,” said Hershell Wolfe, the deputy assistant secretary of the Army for Environment, Safety and Occupational Health, in a November press release. Wolfe recognized Schwarz and the CBARR team in a letter of appreciation dated Jan. 10, 2013, citing “a selfless willingness to duty by working nearly around the clock in support of HUMMA’s demanding mission goals.” University of Hawaii Principal Investigator Margo Edwards, Ph.D., shared a similar sentiment for CBARR’s efforts. In a press release, she stated, “UH’s partnership with the U.S. Army and Environet significantly increased Hawaii’s and the world’s understanding of sea-disposed munitions: how they were disposed in the past and how they have deteriorated right up to the present time. The forthcoming field program will hopefully allow us to expand our understanding of the potential environmental impact of munitions that may contain chemical agent, and develop methods for monitoring and modeling future deterioration.” The Army and University of Hawaii are finalizing the research report for their latest mission. The next phase of the project will evaluate performance differences between human-occupied submersibles and remotely operated vehicles, and also test new sensors and instruments that will improve the visual mapping and sampling of the munitions.

>I wake up >I get dressed >I eat breakfast >I brush my teeth These are 'habituals' in English and not really present at all. They can be true even when you are NOT actually in the process of doing them. You instinctively understood this because you added: >If someone was there while I was doing these things, and asked me at >appropriate intervals what I was doing, I would respond: >I am waking up >I am getting dressed >I am eating breakfast >I am brushing my teeth These are actual 'presents' and would be false statements if you were not in process of doing the stated activities (or about to be doing them) at the time of speaking. This is a common point of confusion for many because their 'gwamma book' may call English 'I wake up' a "present tense" (which it usually isn't) and may call English 'I am waking up' something else like 'progressive' (when it functions as the simple present). Greek uses its 'present indicative' for both the present and for habituals. and you are aware that 'present subjunctive/imperative/infinitive' is a misnomer based on morphology for >I don't know if these "-ing" words are participles or gerunds . For the record, the -ing form in compound verbal forms 'am waking up', etc., are called 'participles'. When used as NOUNS, i.e. referring to the verbal idea as an 'abstract thing' (like the Greek infinitive in KALON ESTIN TO ARISTHSAI), they are called 'gerunds' in English, e.g. " 'EATING BRUNCH' IS NICE". These words like 'verbal', 'nouns', 'participles' or 'gerunds' are "metalanguage", or language being used to describe itself. It helps for students to keep metalanguage about the language separate from the languages themselves and to become aware that they are a second/additional/outside/analytical level of thought when approaching communication. e.g. notice that this message is in English 'about Greek' and is not itself Greek.

The work is quite old (1994), but still eyebrow-raising. The analysis is an extremely daring one, putting the fall of Rome solely down to the demands of excessive taxation, regulation and high inflation. Followers of ancient history will also be most surprised to learn that Antony and Cleopatra were socialists at heart. But the denouement is truly breathtaking. In conclusion, the fall of Rome was fundamentally due to economic deterioration resulting from excessive taxation, inflation, and over-regulation. Higher and higher taxes failed to raise additional revenues because wealthier taxpayers could evade such taxes while the middle class--and its taxpaying capacity--were exterminated. Although the final demise of the Roman Empire in the West (its Eastern half continued on as the Byzantine Empire) was an event of great historical importance, for most Romans it was a relief.So Rome's fall had nothing to do with any of the following: - the enormous strain to Rome's frontiers caused by vast population migrations and powerful incursions by tribes from the north and east - a political class in Rome that was corrupt, venal and deeply dysfunctional - political institutions that were unrepresentative and inflexible - the rise of Christianity - the lack of government institutions capable of keeping generals and governors in check - the fact that as the dangers to Rome's frontiers increased, the army became all-powerful and generals decided who was to be emperor, thus leading to civil wars between rival generals. Many examples in Roman history exist of extortionate taxes destroying communities or causing revolts. But in many cases the problem was not that the tax burden on the average citizen was too much, but that the burden was borne unevenly. It is also a bold claim to make that for most Romans the fall of Rome was a relief. The disintegration of Rome led to chaos throughout Western Europe for centuries afterwards. For example, Italy became a backwater as Rome weakened, its population ravaged by one enemy incursion after another. We don't refer to them as the Dark Ages for no reason. Some may have been better off, but most? So the Romans fail the libertarian test. Thankfully there are many great figures in ancient history for libertarians to admire. Attila the Hun, one of Rome’s greatest enemies, was very effective at cutting through red tape. And necks too. He got things done, and wasn’t constrained by excessive regulation. If Mr The Hun wanted to undertake a new business activity (say conquering a territory, enslaving or slaughtering its entire population), all he had to do was jump on his horse and get on with it. Actually, Attila sounds more like an objectivist than a pure libertarian.

Keeper of India's Conscience He realised that Gandhiji's success in the freedom struggle had showed that it was possible to bring about change without sacrificing one's values. Jayaprakash Narayan was born on October 11, 1902, in Sitabdiara, a village on the border of Uttar Pradesh and Bihar. His father Harsudayal was a junior official in the Canal Department of the State government and was often touring the region. Jayaprakash, called Baul affectionately, was left with his grandmother to study in Sitabdiara. Since there was no high school in the village, Jayaprakash was sent to Patna to study in the Collegiate School. While in school, Jayaprakash read magazines like Saraswati, Prabha and Pratap, books like Bharat- Bharati, and poems by Maithilsharan Gupta and Bharatendu Harishchandra which described the courage and valour of the Rajput kings. Jayaprakash also read the Bhagwad Gita. He excelled in school. His essay, The present state of Hindi in Bihar won a best essay award. He joined the Patna College on a government Jayaprakash was married to Prabhavati, daughter of lawyer and nationalist Brij Kishore Prasad in October 1920. Prabhavati was very independent-minded and on Gandhijis invitation, went to stay at his ashram while Jayaprakash continued his studies. Jayaprakash, along with some friends, went to listen to Maulana Abul Kalam Azad speak about the Non-cooperation movement launched by Gandhiji against the passing of the Rowlatt Act of 1919. The Maulana was a brilliant orator and his call to give up English education was like leaves before a storm: Jayaprakash was swept away and momentarily lifted up to the skies. That brief experience of soaring up with the winds of a great idea left imprints on his inner being. Jayaprakash took the Maulanas words to heart and left Patna College with just 20 days remaining for his examinations. He joined the Bihar Vidyapeeth, a college run by the Congress. Higher Studies in the USA After exhausting the courses at the Vidyapeeth, Jayaprakash decided to go to America to pursue his studies. At age 20, Jayaprakash sailed aboard the cargo ship Janus while Prabhavati remained at Sabarmati. Jayaprakash reached California on October 8, 1922 and gained admission to Berkeley in January 1923. To pay for his education, Jayaprakash picked grapes, set them out to dry, packed fruits at a canning factory, washed dishes, worked as a mechanic at a garage and at a slaughter house, sold lotions and accepted teaching jobs. All these jobs gave Jayaprakash an insight regarding the difficulties the working class faced. Jayaprakash was forced to transfer to Iowa State when fees at Berkeley were doubled. He was forced to transfer to many universities thereafter. He pursued his favourite subject, Sociology and received much help from Professor Edward Ross, the father of Sociology. In Wisconsin, Jayaprakash was introduced to Karl Marxs Das Capital. News of the success of the Russian revolution of 1917 made Jayaprakash conclude that Marxism was the way to alleviate the suffering masses. He delved into books by Indian intellectual and Communist theoretician M.N. Roy. His paper on Sociology, Social Variation, was declared as the best of the year. Following the 1930 Dandi March, most of the top Congress leaders were arrested. Jayaprakash immediately set up an underground office at Bombay to continue Congress work. He travelled all over the nation, printing, distributing and organizing secret meetings. After an underground meeting of the Congress Working Committee in Banaras, Jayaprakash went to Madras where he was arrested. The next day the newspaper headlines screamed, Congress Brain Arrested! In British Jails In the Nasik jail, Jayaprakash had the opportunity to meet thinkers like Ram Manohar Lohia, Asoka Mehta, Minoo Masani, P. Dantwala and Achyut Patwardhan. All of them were impatient for freedom and agreed to steer the Congress towards the goal of Socialism. Jayaprakash was released from jail in 1933. In 1934, Jayaprakash and his friends formed the Congress Socialist Party under the Presidentship of Acharya Narendra Deva and Secretaryship of Jayaprakash himself. The group intended to function as the Socialist wing within the Congress party and aimed to make socialism the goal of the Congress. In a book Why Socialism? (1932), Jayaprakash explained why socialism would be right for India. He was adored by the youth for his idealism. Jayaprakash was arrested for speaking against Indian participation in the Second World War in February 1940 and sent to Deoli detention camp in Rajasthan. Jayaprakash was appalled at the conditions in Deoli. He organized a hunger strike to protest the conditions in 1941. The Government immediately released him. He was again arrested in 1942 for participating in the Quit India movement. In November 1942, Diwali night, Jayaprakash along with five others escaped the prison by scaling a 17 feet high wall while the guards remained distracted by the festivities. A Rs.10,000 reward was offered for Jayaprakashs capture, dead or alive. Jayaprakash escaped to Nepal and organized a guerilla army called the Azad Dasta. Jayaprakash and Ram Manohar Lohia were captured briefly but were rescued by the Azad Dasta members, who set fire to a hut to distract the guards. Both freedom fighters escaped to Bihar. Finally the British closed in on Jayaprakash in Amritsar when he was on his way to Rawalpindi to meet Khan Abdul Gaffar Khan. Jayaprakash was taken to Lahore Fort, notorious as a Torture chamber on September 18, 1943. 16 months of mental and physical torture followed. Jayaprakash was put in solitary confinement for the first month. Then came interrogations, physical torture and humiliation. Jayaprakash was released from jail on April 12, 1946. Jayaprakash returned to a nation he could barely recognize. Talk of partition and riots between Hindu and Muslims dominated the atmosphere. Jayaprakash rushed to Bihar to assist in curbing the riots. He pleaded with the Congress Working Committee not to accept the partition From Marx to Gandhi Independence finally came on August 15, 1947. Within a year Gandhiji was assassinated. Prabhavati hid her sorrow behind the spinning wheel, but Jayaprakashs mind churned (with) grief and horror. He began to see the wisdom in Gandhijis insistence on truth and non-violence. The Socialists led by JP lost to the Congress in the 1952 elections. Nehru invited Jayaprakash to join the Cabinet. When Nehru could give no assurances on the implementation of Jayaprakashs 14 point plan to reform the Constitution, the Administration and Judicial system, nationalize the banks, redistribute land to the landless, revive Swadeshi, and setup cooperatives, Jayaprakash refused the offer. Jayaprakash turned his attention to the trade unions he was President of. He, along with the unions was able to get a minimum wage, pension, medical relief and housing subsidy introduced. At the same time, Jayaprakash was keenly watching events in Russia. The bloody purges and imprisonment convinced Jayaprakash that communism was not for India. He realized that Gandhijis success in the freedom struggle had showed that it was possible to bring about change without sacrificing ones values. On April 19, 1954, at a meeting in Gaya, Jayaprakash made the dramatic announcement of dedicating his life (jeewan daan) to Vinoba Bhaves Sarvodaya movement. He renounced all self-interest, gave up his land in Sitabdiara, and withdrew from all personal activity to devote the rest of his life to the movement. Prabhavati was delighted at this declaration. Jayaprakash set up an ashram at Hazaribagh, a poor and backward village. He gave Gandhian concepts a new dimension by using modern technology to uplift the village. Jayaprakash believed that every village should be like a small republic - politically independent and capable of taking its own decisions. It was a marriage of Gandhian-Indian concepts and modern Western democracy. His thoughful, well-researched and brilliant book, The Reconstruction of Indian Polity, won him the Ramon Magsaysay Award. Taming the Naxals In June 1971, Sarvodaya workers in Muzaffarpur, Bihar, received a letter threatening to kill them. The area was continuously threatened by Naxalites, which was made up of young men. Jayaprakash walked into the heart of Naxal territory armed only with love and sympathy. He knew that the cause of the violence was that the youth were frustrated because of poverty and unemployment. He lived in Musahari block for many months and experimented to alleviate the problems of the Naxals. Jayaprakash was also a key person in acquiring the surrender of dacoits in the Chambal On April 15, 1973, Prabhavati died of cancer, leaving Jayaprakash alone. Call for Total Revolution 1974 ushered in a year of high inflation, unemployment and lack of supplies and essential commodities. Jayaprakash was asked to lead a peaceful agitation by the Navanirman Andolan of Gujarat. On April 8, 1974, at the age of 72, he led a silent procession at Patna. The procession was lathi charged. On June 5, 1974, Jayaprakash addressed a mammoth crowd at Gandhi Maidan in Patna. He declared, This is a revolution, friends! We are not here merely to see the Vidhan Sabha dissolved. That is only one milestone on our journey. But we have a long way to go... After 27 years of freedom, people of this country are wracked by hunger, rising prices, corruption... oppressed by every kind of injustice... it is a Total Revolution we want, nothing less! In Indiras Jail On June 12, 1975, the Allahabad High Court held the Prime Minister, Mrs. Indira Gandhi, guilty on charges of corrupt practice in her election. Jayaprakash advised her to resign until her name was cleared by the Supreme Court. Instead, she clamped Emergency on June 26. Jayaprakash was arrested and sent to Chandigarh where he was kept prisoner in a hospital. My world lies in shambles around me, he cried. As his health worsened, he was moved to a hospital in Bombay. Finally in January 1977, the Emergency was lifted. Fresh elections were declared. Under Jayaprakashs guidance several parties united to form the Janata Party. The party incorporated all of Jayaprakashs goals in its manifesto.

Shabbir Banoobhai (1949 - ) was born in Durban and lived there until his move to Cape Town in 1995. Of necessity he shared the fate of the larger black community of South Africans, and his poetry reflects that struggle. He has also identified with victims of oppressive regimes elsewhere, including the Balkans, where he travelled with a journalist friend on a mission to Sarajevo in 1992. One of the central poems of his latest volume, Sarajevo, for which he received the 2001 Thomas Pringle Award for poetry, records this experience. Shabbir Banoobhai's poetry is interwoven with spiritual, political and personal themes. Douglas Livingstone said of his first volume of poetry: ' An obsessive and talented poet, a precocious master of the word and a fine lyricist to boot, almost every line of the work was subliminally ignited by the ancient great Islamic poets. He shares their prime qualities: sensuality, passion, brilliance of imagery, a holistic approach to nature, and of course, love of God.' Banoobhai's mystical writing has become more clearly directed against narrow-minded and exclusive religious thinking, perhaps influenced by South African society. He has a personal website, Veilsoflight.com, where he writes philosophical meditations, some of which were published under the title Lightmail (2002). His personal poetry is chiefly for his two daughters and his wife, a teacher of Arabic, and for his friends. After his second book was published in 1984, he did not publish again (though he continued to write) until 1999 when he brought out, as a private publication, a book of brief poems and spiritual reflections, Wisdom in a Jug - Reflections of Love. In 2002 he also published Inward moon outward sun, which was launched at Poetry Africa in the same year. Banoobhai has continued to publish prolifically, both in print and on his personal website. These publications include Book of Songs (2004), If I could write - Ramadan letters (2006), Water would suffice - Reflections of love (2007), and A mountain is an upside down valley (2008). yesterday you left the sun behind it did not set it simply burst like a grenade deep inside your mind you left the mountains that you loved you would not have left but they crumpled under the bombs meant for you you left your village and your family but that's not true like your freedom they were taken forcibly away from you you drank water from a stream that was dying saw the reflection of the sky looked for yourself and found a dark rain-cloud drifting by it was then that you left the sun your village and your family behind searched out the door of death blew it up and stepped in yesterday you left death behind the sun is back, mountains really do not die other villages will grow, other families return to live in, love, the land you softened with your blood your eyes are begging-bowls not even the sun can fill they are like the dark spaces that inhabit the universe they devour the light of your people all laughter, even its memory, is gone from their land in you the song of their struggle has become a dirge of bones being crushed ploughed into the ground - to blossom into sunflowers in sealed-off courtyards when you approach, even children are embarrassed the morning hastily retreats behind clouds that promise but deliver no rain - those who have vanquished you no longer bother to notice your outstretched hands. Elleke Boehmer (1961-) was born to Dutch parents in Durban, South Africa in 1961. She was educated in South Africa and at Oxford University. She taught at the School of English at Leeds University and has published four novels: Screens against the Sky (1990), An Immaculate Figure (1993), Bloodlines (2000) and Nile Baby (2008). She has also published short stories in magazines, journals and anthologies. Her research is in postcolonial writing and theory, feminism and the literature of empire, and at the moment she is the Hildred Carlile Professor in Literatures in English at the University of London. Amongst her non-fiction works are Altered state? (1994); Colonial and Postcolonial Literature: Migrant Metaphors (1995), Empire, the National, and the Postcolonial,1890-1920: Resistance in Interaction (2002). Boehmer edited the anthology Empire Writing: An Anthology of Colonial Literature, 1870-1918 (1998), Scouting for Boys: A Handbook for Instruction in Good Citizenship by Robert Baden-Powell (2004) and Cornela Sorabji’s India Calling (2004). She produced a special edition in the journal Kunapipi on the writings of the Anglo-Boer War (1999) and her study Stories of Women: Gender and Narrative in the Postcolonial Nation was published in 2005. Boehmer is also the author of Mandela: A Very Short Introduction (2008), part of highly popular Oxford University Press series. Sipho took up the story-telling thread from Rosandra. It was a good thread, he said, but maybe he could bring it down to earth. He told a story of his grandmother, an upstanding fierce old woman who was a devout Catholic and yet went about the amulets of her ancestors’ faith sewn into the hems of her church dresses. This woman, Lindiswe Frances Nyembe, lived in a township close to the place where the old Indian prophet, the man who believed in justice and peace, what was his name, Gandhi, once set up a communal centre. She used to tell the children in that area – there were many children, many houses in all directions – about this old prophet. She would tell them that his spirit still lived there in that place and they should honour it. But as the years went by the pressure on that land grew very great. There were so many people, so little land, and so much anger in the people that it became more and more difficult to tell them to show respect for that special piece of earth and the spirit of the man who onced lived there. And so the day came, Sipho said, that the people were so severely pressed against the walls of their shacks and – even though their bellies looked like balloons – so hungry, that they moved and built their tin-can homes and cardboard-box shacks even where the prophet’s house had been. And so they forgot about him. And then the grandmother, feeling the anger and distress of the people but also the distress and sadness of the spirit of the place, asked why in this land must everything that was good and strong and long-lasting be trampled into the earth? Why could the prophet’s place not be preserved while at the same time giving room to the people? She asked her children and her grandchildren this question, over and over again, and she went also to the city authorities and asked it there. People could not completely ignore her because she was an old woman and demanded respect. Every so often – to this day, Sipho imagined – she went into town to visit the municipal offices and ask these difficult questions, and every day she prayed, and so she tried to keep a piece of history surviving on the land. (pg. 205) Roy Campbell (1901 - 1957) was born in Durban, the son of Dr Samuel George Campbell. Roy Campbell co-edited (with William Plomer and Laurens van der Post) the magazine entitled Voorslag in 1926. Campbell is the author of a long poem entitled The Flaming Terrapin (1924), as well as poetry collections entitled Adamastor (1930), Flowering Reeds (1933), Mithraic Emblems (1936) and Talking Bronco (1946). He wrote long satirical poems entitled The Wayzgoose (1928) and The Georgiad (1931) on the South African way of life and intellectual climate. Campbell's autobiographical works include Broken Record (1934) and Light on a Dark Horse (1951). He lived in England and Spain before settling permanently in Portugal where he died in a car accident at the age of fifty six. Campbell was fluent in Spanish and translated poems of St John of the Cross, Baudelaire, Lorca, Paco d'Arcos and novels by Ea de Queirs. He also wrote critical studies entitled Lorca (1952) and Wyndham Lewis which was completed in 1931 but first published posthumously in 1985. His non-fiction works on travel and social commentary include Taurine Provence (1932) and Portugal (1957). Campbell also wrote an adventure story for children entitled The Mamba's Precipice (1953). Literary studies on Campbell include David Wright's Roy Campbell (1961), Rowland Smith's Lyric and Polemic: The Literary Personality of Roy Campbell (1973), John Povey's Roy Campbell (1977) and Peter Alexander's Roy Campbell: A Critical Biography (1982). Joseph Pearce is the author of a well received biography and literary study of Campbell entitled Bloomsbury and beyond: The friends and enemies of Roy Campbell (2001, Harper Collins), in which he affirms Campbell's merits as a poet and portrays him as having been greatly under-rated in literary circles. In 2011, Remembering Roy Campbell: The Memoirs of his daughters Anna and Tess, edited by Judith Coullie, was published.

The 1962 Central Pacific Tropical Cyclone Season JULY 29 - AUGUST 2, (TROPICAL DEPRESSION #50) At 8 PM HST on July 29 the Joint Hurricane Warning Center (JHWC) in Hawaii, a coordinated agency composed of the U.S. Weather Bureau Honolulu, the Air Force Kunia Weather Center, and Fleet Weather Central Pearl Harbor issued an advisory on Tropical Depression #50 based on satellite imagery and surface map analysis. It was located at 10.5N 161.9W, about 275 miles north of Palmyra Island. From there it proceeded 840 miles west-northwestward with no significant change in intensity to near 14.0N 177.0W where it dissipated. Advisories on the progress of the depression were issued at regular 6-hour intervals by JHWC throughout its life span. AUGUST 24-31, (HURRICANE "C") Hurricane "C" was first located by Sadler at 1746 GMT on the 24th near 18.0N 139.8W. TIROS V obtained excellent observations of this cyclone on 6 days, and a reasonable track was determined. No conventional data were available, but when first detected by TIROS V the cyclone appeared to be of hurricane intensity with an eye and had reached the southeastern edge of a cold water area identified by stratocumulus clouds. During the next 4 days the storm moved along the edge of the cold water near the 78F climatological mean sea surface isotherm. The storm decreased steadily in size and intensity but probably maintained severe tropical storm strength. During August 28-31 it moved towards increasing sea-surface and air temperatures--assuming mean conditions; from these considerations alone, intensification would have been expected. However, "C" passed under the upper tropical ridge between August 27 and August 29 into a region of southwesterly winds above 20,000 ft. A vertical shearing effect caused disintegration of the storm, and by the 28th there was no wall cloud around the clear center and only weak convective activity to the west. Between August 24 and August 27 while the storm was embedded in deep easterlies, its forward speed was about 12 knots. Its speed dropped to 7 knots and its direction changed to northwest as the storm passed under the upper ridge. After August 29 the remnant shallow vortex was steered west-southwestward at 12 knots by low-level trades. There were no TIROS photographs of storm "C" after August 31. Extrapolation suggests that the decaying vortex passed 200 miles south of Hilo, Hawaii about 1200 GMT on 2 September, but it could not be detected in Hilo's wind and weather time-section. AUGUST 31 - SEPTEMBER 1, (TROPICAL DEPRESSION #63) JHWC issued three advisories on this cyclone, named Tropical Depression #63, first located by satellite imagery at 16.5N 149W. Advisories were discontinued at 16.5N 151W, 275 miles east-southeast of South Point on the Big Island, when it was no longer considered a threat to the State or to shipping. SEPTEMBER 28, (TROPICAL STORM "R") At 2116 GMT on Septgmber 28 a TIROS photo located a tropical cyclone near 9.5N 162.7W, estimated by Sadler as being of severe storm intensity and was designated storm "R". "R" passed about 200 miles north of Palmyra Island and, even at this distance, produced west winds in the lower levels there for 42 hours. Surface winds with westerly components are very rare at Palmyra, occurring in less than one per cent of all observations (Sadler, 1957). RAWINSONDE data at six-hourly intervals, were taken at Palmyra from 18 September - 30 October 1962 in support of Johnston Island nuclear tests. SEPTEMBER 29, (TROPICAL CYCLONE "T") Tropical cyclone "T" was located near 21.0N 140.0W by Sadler in a TIROS photo taken at 1840 GMT on the 29th. This system was estimated to be at least of tropical storm strength. OCTOBER 2, (TROPICAL CYCLONE "X") A tropical cyclone of at least tropical storm strength was located near 13. N 147.6W from TIROS imagery made at 1910 GMT on the 2nd and was designated by Sadler (1963) as storm "X". Although the storm occurred during the time of the Johnston Island nuclear tests there were no observations other than the single TIROS photo which would enable further study of its history. OCTOBER 3, (TROPICAL CYCLONE "Z") Storm "Z" as designated by Sadler was the fifth of this season in the Central Pacific. It was centered near 15.5N 170.5W, about 85 miles southwest of Johnston Island, using TIROS imagery taken at 2033 GMT. Although the center of the storm was quite close to Johnston Island, winds and weather reported there were not unusual. OCTOBER 27, (TROPICAL CYCLONE "A") This tropical cyclone was the last one located in the Central North Pacific by Sadler (1963) from TIROS imagery in 1962. It also was of at least tropical storm intensity and, unfortunately for historical purposes, was also not reported by any conventional means. Sadler located the center near 10N 155W, about 500 miles northeast of Palmyra Island, in a TIROS photo taken at 0124 GMT October 28, and labeled it storm "A".

Troubleshooting Thermal Issues Common cause of blue screens, sudden resets, shutdowns and slowdowns Often when a computer crashes it is because of a thermal issue. A temperature sensor of the CPU or motherboard component has detected that a thermal trip point has been reached and informs the operating system through the ACPI driver that action should be taken. Depending on hardware, operating system version, power policies and other factors, thermal issues can manifest in various ways. Windows might sleep or hibernate the system gracefully, a blue screen may occur or the system may suddenly reset or shutdown without notice. Also a blue screen may occor only because of a side-effect of a thermal issue. Many BIOS setup programs offer a CPU temperature monitoring utility but we suggest using the HWMonitor utility from CPUID for measuring your temperatures of your processors and various system components. About clock speeds and processor throttling If your system is equipped with a CPU with a dynamic processor clock speed feature such as Intel Speedstep or AMD Cool N Quiet, the operating clock speed of the processor might be reduced to unacceptable levels and eventually crash the system. We suggest using the CPUZ Utility from CPUID for measuring your clock speed to check if this is the case. Notebooks and other portable computers If you are using a notebook or other portable system you should always make sure it is placed on a solid surface so that heat can dissipate. A notebook placed on a blanket or cloth is very likely to create thermal issues very soon and cause problems to your computer. Also it is very common for notebooks to collect a lot of dust in the fans so check the information below. Check the fans If a system is getting too hot, you should check the fans. For notebooks it is very common to collect a lot of dust in a short time which blocks the airflow so that heat may build up quickly. You might be able to just blow out the dust from the fans without opening the case. Also a desktop system collects dust over time, if your system gets too hot you should open op the system and remove dust from the fans. Problems caused by dust can manifest in various ways including blue screens, sudden resets, shutdowns and slowdowns.

It is the twenty-first century. Computers are interconnected by a vast and sophisticated infrastructure that covers the world and beyond (our "common" GPS systems are satellite based - see the photo above). Thirty years ago, we were amazed to hear assertions that anything bigger than a toaster might eventually have a microprocessor in it. Today everything is networked - including your physical security technology infrastructure. Due to the computer-based and networked nature of security systems and devices, the security of the technology itself has become an issue. Old assumptions no longer hold true. Aspects of systems that were previously never visible to the customer now are visible. Things never thought to be security holes - because they were never known to the "bad guys" - are now common knowledge. The convergence of Information Technology networks and Physical Security networks is upon us like a rising tide, and security practitioners and technologists need to be ready to deploy and operate technology in that kind of an environment. This article's authors have begun sounding the cry to secure our security systems and their networks. Networks are complex webs of interconnections. We cannot keep thinking of them as a few "point-to-point" connections. Security systems networks interact with business networks that interact with the World Wide Web. How can we NOT think of security when our systems are connected in this way? The figure from RAND Corporation below illustrates the three types of networks across which our corporate and world networks have evolved (purchase the research paper at: ). Network type A depicts centralized networks - the kind used for analog video systems and older access control systems. Type B illustrates decentralized networks, the network architecture that initially most networked access control systems were deployed on. Type C is the distributed network architecture - the architecture of the Internet and of wireless networks - that we now find our security systems deployed on. This includes multiple satellite-based communications networks. Our thinking for design and system operations must take into account the opportunities, requirements and threats that the new network situation presents. This also requires a new set of best practices for security system deployment. Networks for physical security systems should be built and operated to the same standards as the data networks they stand among. Both networks are critical components of a modern enterprise-class network infrastructure. There is no reason that the computers, databases, switches and cabling we use to both enable and defend our physical security should be held to a lesser standard than any modern computing or networking device used for business information purposes. The authors are among those who have decided that examining real security products in realistic deployment situations would be of critical benefit to understanding their requirements for sound deployment. It is long past the time to establish some practical best practice standards for what kinds of network security should be used in our physical security systems. The "bad guys" have already decided that it is time to look at this attractive target (our security systems). It is high time we begin protecting it. The Bp.IP Assessment Criteria Most security products and systems are not designed and deployed with device and network security in mind. The authors have formed the Bp.IP initiative to advance best practices for soundly deploying IP security systems (www.BPforIP.com). We have identified a selected set of deployment criteria to use in establishing a "best practice" example. The point is to establish what we need to do for deployment - be it configuration tuning, compensating controls, or workaround procedures - to address these criteria in an effective manner. The criteria were selected to cover a reasonable but broad sample of enterprise-class networking features that can be judiciously applied to physical security solutions.

Backyard gardening for a healthier family, society-A A +A Friday, November 12, 2010 AFTER attending a Family Development Session (FDS), Hermie S. Dinaga, 32, and Charlie Dinaga, 33, of Barangay San Isidro in Talakag, Bukidnon, both agreed that gardening can provide nutritional needs of the family. They have five children, aged 10, nine, six, four and three years old, who are all sent to school. A backyard gardening was promoted by Pantawid Pamilyang Pilipino Program (4Ps) as a response to one of the programs goals, which is to eradicate extreme poverty and hunger through FDS that are attended by couple beneficiaries on a monthly basis. Hermie and Charlie are identified as couple beneficiaries of 4Ps in their municipality. As beneficiary, they need to comply with the conditions set by the program to continue receiving the conditional cash grant for the nutrition, health and education of their children. Attending monthly meeting and family development sessions is just one of the conditions Hermie and her husband complied. After attending an FDS that discussed about backyard gardening, the couple beneficiary then adopted planting vegetables in their backyard. They realized the importance of eating vegetables in every meal every day. They also believe that it will assist the meager amount Charlie is earning as a banana de-leafer. They made use of the little area outside their rented house, cultivated it and planted the seeds given to them by their Municipal Link provided by the Department of Agriculture. Hermie and her husband have already planted several kinds of vegetables, knowing their value for the families' health. Since Hermie's children are not used to eating vegetables, she decided to prepare and cook vegetables regularly until her children will get used to their taste. "Naningkamot gayud ko nga mapakaon nako ug gulay ang akong mga anak tungod kay maghatag na sa ila ug sakto nga bitamina. Nasayop lang mi sauna sa akong bana kay dili lang namo sila pugson sa pagkaon kay di man sila ganahan. (I tried my best to let my children eat vegetables because it will provide them enough vitamins. Before, we did not encourage them to eat vegetables because they don't like its taste but we learned that it was not a good practice after knowing that vegetables could actually be good for their health )," she said. According to them, it was never too late. They still strongly believe that sooner their children will later like eating vegetables. Every meal, Hermie talked about the nutrients that the vegetables will provide for them. She wants her children to hear from her the importance of eating vegetables. The value of backyard gardening was not only practiced by Hermie and Charlie. At present, almost all 4Ps beneficiaries of the municipality also plant vegetables in their backyard. They also have a communal garden. Even their neighbors appreciate the 4Ps beneficiaries. Some of them also adopted planting vegetables in their backyard. The 4Ps created an unexpected acceptance and practice of the whole society in promoting of backyard gardening in all areas of the program in Northern Mindanao. The beneficiaries were an example to other people around them. Their appreciation to the beneficiaries made them adopt and practice planting vegetables in their backyard.

Social, Cultural, Economic and Political Impacts on Travel Behavior and Demand in China China is the world¨s most populous country and faces rapid land-use change and dramatic urbanization. Because of the rapid increase of private car ownership and decrease of public transit ridership in most cities of the rapidly urbanizing country, the local governments are looking for a method to transfer urban traffic mode from vehicle-based mode to human-based mode and to alleviate traffic congestion in city core. Along with the economy booming, the ownership of private car rapid increases and ridership of public transit decreases in most cities of China, the city governments insist in the belief that controlling ownership of vehicles in city core and encouraging usage of public transit can effectively lessen the traffic congested. For example, a policy of vehicle plate license auction started in 1994 in Shanghai, implementation of BRT lines in Beijing and Hangzhou, and enforcing a rule that allows only vehicles with even-numbered license plates on the streets on alternating days with odd-numbered vehicles in Beijing and Wuhan. In addition, China is a special case in terms of land use and city structures, strong downtown business influences creating a signal city core, where residential facilities are formally more mixed. Rapid internal immigration of floating population from suburban results to unpredictable travel behavior and traffic demands. The majority of trip makers in some secondary cities currently are transit users, the attention to the management and planning of public transit is a key element. However, rising income and development of transportation facilities will inevitably result to dependency on convenient and comfortable private auto. Especially, those policies of traffic demand management in major cities of China seems not effective and reasonable strategies in a long term. There should be standard and advice for balanced development of personal and public transportation in China. The purpose of the propose research is to identify the social, cultural, economic and political impacts on urban travel behavior, to understand how is mode choice related to demographic and socio-economic characteristics and what are the mode choice compositions for work and non- work trips. In short, the research presented here attempts to answer the following key questions: What are the key factors in changing Chinese transport patterns? Will the traditional high-density and mixed land-use planning be effective enough to prevent severe negative impacts of motorization? What is the current situation in Chinese major and secondary cities compared internationally to a large sample of other cities, e.g., western developed cities in U.S., high-income Asian cities, and low-income developing cities? Is it possible for Chinese cities to accommodate the high automobile ownership comparable to those of developed cities in U.S., if yes, how many roads need to be widened and constructed? How much land would be consumed by transport infrastructure and urban sprawl? Is it economically efficient and feasible? What effect would have on the world to satisfy China¨s vast quantity of oil demand? if not, what¨s the solution to approach the balanced development of personal and public transportation? What effect will motorization have on inequities of mobility and accessibility among various segments of the population in Chinese cities? More details and proposed solutions for the issue are discussed in one of my papers published on China City Planning Review.

Some of you may be wondering, who is Ada? Why is the store named after her and why is there a huge painting of her hanging prominently in the store? Well, here is today’s brief history lesson: Ada Lovelace is considered the first computer programmer. She lived from 1815-1852 and was the daughter of the poet Lord Byron and Anne Isabella Milbanke. Although, she never knew her father, she still had his talent for writing and a bit of his eccentric personality. Her mother encouraged her, starting at a young age, to study mathematics. It was extremely rare for a woman, especially of her stature, to study math. There is rumor that her mother encouraged it because she did not want Ada to turn out anything like her poetic, literary father. As a young adult, around the age of 17, Ada became friends with Charles Babbage (). Babbage is credited with inventing the first computer- the Analytical Engine. Ada took an interest in the Analytical Engine and began studying math specific to the machine. She eventually convinced Babbage to let her translate the only article written about the machine from French to English. She also added her own commentary to the article, including some algorithms that could be run on the machine. These algorithms are what are considered the first computer programs. Since Babbage never finished his machine due to mechanical techniques of the day, the algorithms were never run on the machine during their lifetime. However, in 1991, the machine was completed by Doron Swade and everything ran as predicted by Ada and Babbage. Ada died at the young age of 37 from cervical cancer.

ED 347, Environmental Education Instructor: Rebecca Burton, Ph.D. Office: CO 221 Prerequisites: Licensure student in education, ED 201 Required Text: A Guide to Curriculum Planning in Environmental Education, Wisconsin DPI Resource: Wisconsin's Model Academic Standards for Environmental Education Environmental education explores the interactions between people and the environment. In this course you will develop methods of teaching environmental science to elementary and secondary students. Drawing upon your previous experiences in lesson and unit planning, you will incorporate content knowledge with process skills and assessment strategies to create integrated learning experiences in environmental education. You will focus on helping students develop positive environmental behavior. You will learn to facilitate their development of environmental awareness, knowledge, ethics, and citizen action skills and experience. This course is required for degreed educators seeking licensure in early childhood and elementary education and for those seeking secondary education licensure in science and social studies. After successfully completing this course, you will be able to: - Apply environmental education frameworks in designing integrated instructional units - Make meaningful connections between content areas, such as language arts, mathematics, natural and social sciences, and the arts using environmental issues. - Select and design effective teaching and assessment strategies, based on an accurate analysis of learner needs. - Evaluate and use appropriate resources such as prepared projects, computer software, etc. - Evaluate both the unit designed and the process used to design it. - Identify, interpret, and apply problem solving and decision making models based on environmental principles. - Employ teaching strategies that build environmental skills. - Employ appropriate resources in instructional design. - Employ appropriate strategies for discussion of controversial issues. - Identify the contribution of environmental education to the development of a professional teacher. - Communicate an awareness of how to create a safe learning environment. - Use national, state, and district standards to evaluate curriculum design.

"Violent protests against UN peacekeepers and Haiti's government are disrupting efforts to control the cholera epidemic, with fears that unrest will worsen in the runup to next week's election. Riots in the north of the country spread to Port-au-Prince on Thursday, smothering swaths of the capital in choking black smoke from burning barricades. UN staff were forbidden to venture out while crowds roved the streets tearing down election posters, erecting roadblocks and demanding the withdrawal of foreign peacekeepers who are suspected of bringing a disease that has killed 1,100 and infected more than 20,000 since last month. Helicopters clattered over Port-au-Prince today monitoring the city for fresh flareups. Trucks and armoured vehicles with blue-helmeted troops, as well as Haitian police with shields and helmets, patrolled the streets. "This is insane, how are we supposed to contain a cholera outbreak like this?" said one UN administrator. In Cap-Haïtien, a northern city where the riots started earlier this week, people who were vomiting and had diarrhoea were unable to reach treatment clinics. Local media reported that bodies of those who succumbed were left on the streets. "If the country explodes in violence then we will not be able to reach the people we need to," said Julie Schindall, an Oxfam spokeswoman. Haitians believe peacekeepers from Nepal, which has cholera, flushed contaminated faeces from base latrines into the Artibonite river, triggering the outbreak. DNA fingerprinting has confirmed it is a south Asian strain which came from a single source. Travellers from Haiti brought cholera to the neighbouring Dominican Republic and Florida this week but authorities said controls and good sanitation should contain the disease. Ten inmates died in the overcrowded national prison in Port-au-Prince, raising fears for the health of 2,000 other inmates."

There may not be a lot to do in Sandakan itself, but the city is literally surrounded by nature centers and opportunities to enjoy the animals and ecology of Borneo. With a population of just under 500,000 people, Sandakan is Sabah's second largest city. Daily life unfolds on the busy streets which are refreshingly far less touristy than those in Kota Kinabalu. Sandakan is frequently used as a base for animal lovers in search of endangered orangutans, proboscis monkeys, and even rhinoceroses on the muddy Sungai Kinabatangan. The city is well-connected for enjoying the nature attractions around East Sabah; Sandakan is a frequent stopping point for travelers on their way to visit Samporna or dive at Sipadan. Unlike Kuching, Sandakan's waterfront esplanade is a little grubby, however the abundance of excellent seafood and friendly people make up the difference. Orientation in Sandakan Sandakan is quite spread-out, however everything that a traveler needs can be found around the easily-walkable city center. An overabundance of accommodation around the city helps to keep prices in-check; be prepared to decline numerous offers for packaged tours. The bustling Gentingmas Mall complex is located on the left end of the waterfront; a small naval base marks the far right. Hawker stalls and vendors peddling durian fruit and delicious foods can be found nearly everywhere along Jalan Coastal. A new, multi-level Central Market can be found on the far left of the waterfront. The Central Market has fruits, gifts, and delicious food on the second floor. Taxis and minibuses are easily secured for getting to the sites outside of the city. Buses for various locations depart from the front of the Gentingmas Mall as well as the minibus lot on Jalan Coastal. Long-distance buses leave from Batu 2.5 - three miles north of the city. Surprisingly for a city of its size, things wind down early in Sandakan. By 10 p.m. nearly every shop and eatery in the city center is shuttered; the dark streets are quiet. Nightowls can still find cheap food and drinks at the Harbour Bistro Cafe near the naval base on the waterfront. A helpful Tourist Information Office with maps is located inside Wisma Warisan at the junction of Lebuh Tiga and Jalan Utara. Sites and Activities Around Sandakan Other than the Sandakan Memorial Park - starting point of the infamous Japanese Death Marches during World War II - Sandakan's main draws are well away from the noise and concrete. - Labuk Bay Proboscis Monkey Sanctuary: Found only on Borneo, the strange-looking, endangered proboscis monkeys are even harder to spot than orangutans. The monkey sanctuary is located about 40 minutes outside of Sandakan along a very rough road. Admission is $20; bringing a camera inside costs an additional $3.50. Read more about Labuk Bay Proboscis Monkey Sanctuary. - Sandakan Memorial Park: Starting point of the atrocious Japanese Death Marches during World War II, this park is located only six miles from the city center. A museum honors the 2,428 participants - most of which died along the brutal march. A taxi costs around $10; entrance is free. - Gomantong Caves: Located 60 miles outside of Sandakan, the giant Gomantong Caves are one of the most famous sources for the nests used in Chinese bird's nest soup. Watching the harvesters risk their lives to collect the nests is an interesting site. Negotiating buses to the site is difficult; the easiest way to reach Gomantong Caves is via an arranged tour or private car. Ask around Sandakan first to find out if one of the periodic harvests is in progress. - Sungai Kinabatangan: Famous for boat rides with the potential to spot orangutans, proboscis monkeys, and even elephants in the wild, many travelers book tours to Sungai Kinabatangan - the second-longest river in Malaysia - from Sandakan. It is possible to enjoy the river cruises without a tour by taking a minibus (about $11) to the village of Sukau. One minibus a day departs from the lot near the waterfront around 1 p.m. Sepilok Orangutan Rehabilitation Centre Considered to be the foremost place in the world to view highly-endangered orangutans, the Sepilok Orangutan Rehabilitation Centre receives more than 800 visitors a day. Sepilok is located 14 miles outside of Sandakan on the way to Kota Kinabalu. Admission with a camera costs around $13.50. As with the Semenggoh Wildlife Rehabilitation Centre in Sarawak, Sepilok has daily feeding times which allow tourists a better opportunity to see the orangutans. If traveling from Kota Kinabalu, ask the bus driver to drop you at Sepilok rather than Sandakan. Sepilok has reasonably priced accommodation just outside of the rehabilitation center. By Bus: Sandakan is a winding, six-hour bus ride across Sabah from Kota Kinabalu. The beautiful views of Mount Kinabalu on the left side of the road help to break up the monotony of the journey. Many bus companies depart for Sandakan from the North Bus Terminal in Inanam around six miles north of Kota Kinabalu; the one-way ticket costs about $10. You can taxi to the Inanam terminal or opt to save some money by taking a bus (33 cents) from the busy lot adjacent to Wawasan Plaza in the south of Kota Kinabalu. Buses from Kota Kinabalu arrive at Batu 2.5 - a busy bus lot three miles north of the city center. A taxi to the city center costs around $3.50 or you can cram into one of the small minivans on the main road. To catch a minibus, turn left out of the lot and start walking; a ride costs 33 cents. By Air: Sandakan's busy airport (SDK) is just outside of the city; a taxi to town should cost around $10. Air Asia, Malaysia Airlines, and MASWings offer daily flights all over Malaysia. Flights back to Kuala Lumpur are frequently cheaper from Sandakan than from Kota Kinabalu!

Many whalers used tons of equipment to capture the whales and bring them to shore for their blubber, baleen, etc. This will explain some of the equipment whalers used. Harpoon - Harpoon is an arrow-shaped weapon used to spear large fish and whales. long, coiled line is tied to the harpoon. When the harpoon strikes, the weapon's barbed point becomes firmly anchored in the flesh of the target. Factory Ship - A factory ship was a huge vessel that was served by a fleet of catcher boats and was equipped to process a wide variety of whale products. Buoy Boats - These were boats that pulled the whale towards the factory ship. These tools were most important in whaling.

It was interesting to read Magonia 74’s Editorial Notes about the 1970 Warminster photographic hoax, twenty five years after publication of Experimental UFO Hoaxing in MUFOB New Series 2, and we thought that some background information, plus details of a couple of other UFO hoaxes might be of interest for the Hoax Special edition. As recorded in MUFOB the photographic hoax was designed “…to provide those watching on Cradle Hill with a simple visual stimulus, to introduce photographic evidence inconsistent with the stimulus and to observe the effect this evidence had on subsequent investigation, recording and publicity” – in other words to test the investigators who got involved. The motivation and plan came after about two years of investigation by members of the Society for the Investigation of UFO Phenomena (SIUFOP), which formed in 1967 at a time when such groups seemed to be forming frequently – due the high level of interest in the subject in the mid-1960s. It all seems very naïve now but the society started with about ten members, with an average age around 19 years. Like most of the other groups at the time, its members were aware of frequent press reports which, if taken literally, meant that there certainly were odd things to be seen in the sky – there could not be smoke without fire we believed. We set about finding and interviewing witnesses, the first near the South Downs in Sussex. They turned out to be interesting but clearly not the most impressive of observers, with stories that got more elaborate with each telling. Nonetheless we still believed, from the sheer number of sightings being reported, that something really was flying around the skies. So strong was this feeling that we decided to spend a night watching the sky from Chantry Hill, a nearby vantage point on the Downs, with a tripod-mounted camera at the ready. Apart from a few satellites, nothing was seen but we appreciated that statistically it might take more than one night to see something! Undaunted by sub-zero temperatures, four members returned the following evening for a second night of watching. Tired but full of youthful enthusiasm, we drove to the same spot. SIUFOP Newsletter reported : “No sooner had we reached the top of the hill than the driver pointed excitedly to a point of light a few degrees above the horizon. We all saw it. It was a light of a kind that we had never seen before. It moved slowly upwards, across, then disappeared. Two appeared from behind the horizon in the same place as the first was seen, drifting upwards, across, and then darting a little. Up to six were seen dancing around together in a random pattern changing colour from time to time. Time exposure photographs ranging between 5 and 20 seconds were taken. After an hour and a half or so, the dancing lights appeared less frequently and we had run out of film. Convinced that the film contained images of world-shattering importance we rushed home in the early hours to develop it but were puzzled and disappointed by what we saw. We were expecting up to six line-traces to have been recorded on each image (lines caused by photographing a moving light with a long time-exposure) but the images all looked roughly the same with no more than two line-traces per frame. The lights were only a fraction of one degree above the visible horizon too, much lower than thought. A week later we were back at Chantry Hill, no longer tired or so fired-up with faculty-dimming enthusiasm, and observed car headlights on a distant hill – a hill that had not been visible in the weather conditions prevailing the week before. To this day the lights can be seen there; they look so obviously like car headlights it is difficult to believe that tiredness and enthusiasm could have warped our observational skills so much. We had converted the simplest of white lights, moving mostly horizontally, into variously coloured, multiple objects moving vertically. Reasonably good photographs had made analysis possible and were it not for them we would still be retelling stories of the strange lights in the sky; if asked whether they might have been car headlamps we would surely have rejected the possibility. It wasn’t the only time we fooled ourselves either. At around the same period three members of SIUFOP were walking along a dark, frosty, lane surrounded by trees, illuminated only by moonlight and in an area where umpteen odd lights had been reported. They were heading for an interview with a witness but noticed the silhouette of a tall object through the trees to one side. Fully spooked by the circumstances they thought they had stumbled on a landed machine of some sort. Falling over a fence to get a better look they were alarmed to see a red glow at its base and presumed it was about to take off again. They prepared to retreat in haste, although not before taking a photograph with a flashbulb (it was before electronic flashguns were commonplace). The illumination from the flashbulb was enough to identify a sand-washing machine sitting in a quarry; there was also an inhabited workman’s caravan near its base with red curtains in its windows! The photograph is still amusing. Undaunted – we presumed that others had not been so easily fooled – in February 1968 a party set off for Warminster where, according to reputation, we stood a better chance of seeing the real thing. There we met none other than Arthur Shuttlewood who showed us his collection of photographs, supposedly of lights in the sky over the local hills. They consisted of white lines wandering across a black background; some were single, some dotted and some showed multiple images of wiggly lines. On returning home we successfully replicated the three broad styles of the photographs. One had resembled the dotted lines produced by photographing tumbling earth-orbit rocket casings as they passed overhead, periodically reflecting light downwards. Most others were clearly not satellites but the second style could be closely imitated using a small neon bulb (similar to those sometimes fitted to the back of 13 amp plugs). Waving it in a dark room, in front of an open-shuttered camera, gave just the characteristics seen in the Shuttlewood collection. The third style of photograph could be produced by moving the lamp slowly in front of a mirror, again in a dark room in front of an open-shuttered camera. This produced three wiggly lines ‘flying in perfect formation’. The first and brightest image was that of the lamp seen directly by the camera, the second brightest image was a reflection of the lamp from the aluminised (or silvered) back surface of the mirror, and a much fainter third image was a reflection of the lamp from the mirror’s front glass surface. We even developed techniques to help analyse other white-line type photographs. Using an optical microdensitometer made it possible to differentiate between gas-discharge lamps, filament lamps, ‘beam chopped’ lamps and also the nature of their power supplies. Unfortunately we were never allowed to borrow any negatives! Scepticism set in We had found out how easy it was for us, and presumably anyone else, to be fooled by simple earthly lights, including plenty of non-car-headlight example ; we had seen what we were expecting or wanted to see, and did not observe objectively. Few of our interviewees or other investigators, however, seemed to give much credence to the idea that such misperceptions might be commonplace; there was always a let-out “…but he was a trained airline pilot!” or more commonly “…Ah but you haven’t explained this one…” Attending lectures organised by the British UFO Research Association did nothing to stem our increasing belief that, whilst UFOs had undoubtedly been observed by lots of people, scientific evidence that they were observations of something unearthly appeared to be non-existent. Most ufologists disagreed with this viewpoint, siding instead with the then fashionable Extra Terrestrial Hypothesis, claiming that there was plenty of good evidence to support it if scientists would only snap out of their pre-conceived beliefs and take the evidence seriously. Several SIUFOP members were, or were training to be, scientists and felt that such views could be put to a scientific test – ufologists should be tested for their observational and investigational abilities. We thought that the best way to do this was to give them something to see and then observe how they investigated the sighting; in other words to conduct a hoax with scientific intention. On 15 July 1968 BUFORA held a National Skywatch, with twenty nine watching points across Britain. One was at Pewley Downs in Surrey; it was organised locally by the Surrey Investigation Group on Aerial Phenomena (SIGAP) and SIUFOP ensured they saw something whose origin was certain. Just before midnight a parachute flare was launched about 3 miles from Pewley Downs in the direction of Godalming. The watchers saw it but no one took a photograph – no one even had a camera ready. Therefore, to be sure that there was at least one photograph of it, David Simpson had to get his own camera out and take it. Unknown to us, George Hughes, of Amateur Photographer, had been a visitor to the skywatch. He reported : “I wanted to see how such groups carry out there investigations, and to what extent photography was being used. Sadly, it wasn’t; or hardly at all.” Richard Beet, secretary of SIGAP, responded indignantly , pointing out that “… a photograph of a red object was taken by a skywatch official, Mr David Simpson”, giving him instant promotion. On inspecting the photograph Geoffrey Doel, of BUFORA, commented that it could be of a firework. At the following BUFORA meeting, however, the National Skywatch organiser, Edgar Hatvany, dropped this suggestion when he elevated the photograph’s status by proudly waving it saying, “Last year we had a sighting, this year a photograph; next year we will have it in the bag!” “Last year we had a sighting, this year a photograph; next year we will have it in the bag!” One year later In June 1969 SIUFOP went to Warminster, on BUFORA’s next national skywatch day, equipped with some plastic bags and balloon gas (crude helium). The aim was to launch a number of brightly lit torch bulbs and batteries under a single helium-filled plastic bag from Sack Hill, opposite the watchers on Cradle Hill. Our estimate of the bag’s inflated volume and hence buoyancy were not very accurate, however, and it did not take off until we had removed four of its ten battery/lamp packs . It then rose slowly into the sky, drifting silently with the just perceptible wind, crossing the nearby army range at tree-top height. Even we were particularly surprised by the stunning brightness and spectacular image of the small bulbs against a clear black sky, even when a mile or more distant. (It was in the days before small quartz halogen bulbs were available and we powered 2.5-volt bulbs with 4.5-volt batteries, making the bulbs very white for a short while.) The watchers on Cradle Hill were even more impressed, and it was generally rated the best sighting ever seen there. A second balloon was launched a while later on the western side of Cradle Hill and it drifted much closer to the watchers than the first balloon. Excitement on the hill was electric and emotional. Telepathic communication was claimed with the light bulb, which was said to be as bright as a searchlight and also to be metallic with portholes. We were all surprised and almost shocked by the reaction. A few simple components had provoked what seasoned watchers were describing as the best sighting ever made. What did that suggest about the credibility of the other sightings in one of the world’s most famous UFO hotspots? Over the next few weeks we revisited Cradle Hill – it was invariably populated on a Saturday evening – to listen to the gossip. One SIUFOP member had been less than discrete soon after the hoax, letting it be known what had happened. Oddly this explanation was not generally accepted; apparently the objects had changed direction against the wind, so they could not have been lights on a balloon! Also, another sighting was made by three people the following evening where “…the object appeared just like those of Saturday night…” raising the question “Why should any UFO-rigging pranksters hang around Cradle Hill area on Sunday, long after BUFORA members had left?” BUFORA’s Research Bulletin acknowledged the balloon theory and indeed described it accurately but the consensus was against it. The Warminster Photographs Thus we designed a new hoax, to be less deniable, and hence the ‘Warminster Photographs’ came about. In summary, during March 1970 a ground-based purple light was shone from the hill opposite Cradle Hill, a colleague appeared to photograph it, a bogus UFO detector sounded and the film was handed to a stranger who agreed to get it developed. The film had been pre-exposed to show frames of airborne UFOs much stranger than the purple light but they also contained enough serious inconsistencies to allow any competent investigator to question their authenticity. The most experienced investigators in the subject, however, repeatedly pronounced the photographs genuine and failed to spot any of the built-in clues. At a BUFORA meeting some time later David Simpson publicly pointed out that the case was full of anomalies which probably meant it was a hoax. Ivor McKay and John Cleary-Baker, both BUFORA stalwarts, argued otherwise, confidently pointing out that if it had been a hoax the hoaxer would not have made such mistakes; the very presence of the anomalies apparently made it more certain that the case was genuine. A classical heads they win, tails we lose. John Cleary-Baker then launched Project Warminster and unfortunately asked us if we would investigate the Warminster photographs on behalf of his Project. Soon afterwards he sent signed documents giving us all sorts of authorisations; we didn’t do the job very well. “The trouble with this SIUFOP lot is they never come down here to see for themselves” One evening Arthur Shuttlewood was talking to a group of people on Cradle Hill, unaware that we were there; he was moaning about our ‘disbelief’ in the Warminster photographs; “The trouble with this SIUFOP lot is they never come down here to see for themselves” he complained. It was satisfying to have confirmation of what we suspected was probably going on but it was also disillusioning to find out just how poorly investigations were carried out. We had, after all, started out by presuming that there may be something in the sightings. We repeated the experiments with one or two more UFO hoaxes – repeating experiments is a necessary scientific practice – using kites instead of balloons, and single (hence easier to lift) bulbs that were coated on one side so they would appear to flash irregularly as they rotated in the wind on a suspension thread. Electronic timers were added to delay switch-on until the apparatus was well clear of the ground (to stop the hoaxer being illuminated!) and we became expert at flying kites in the dark. In the summer of 1972 there was considerable publicity concerning a forthcoming BBC visit to a skywatch on Cradle Hill. We reverted to balloon technology, albeit much smaller ones than the originals, each carrying just one torch bulb. By then we knew that a single over-run bulb was still an impressive sight at a range of one mile or more against a dark sky. But this time we added photographic flashbulbs to the payload, timed to flash after about 2 minutes. Two balloons were launched, as usual in complete darkness, about 1 minute apart. The weather was perfect – clear and with just the faintest wind blowing – and the balloons carried their winking lights majestically and in tandem across Salisbury plain. We could see across to Cradle Hill and immediately noticed a row of torches, pointing in the direction of the balloons, being flashed on and off. More torches appeared and they were quickly joined by more powerful lights as motorcyclists upended their machines to use the headlamps for even better signalling. The watchers were thus looking directly at the little points of light in the sky when one of the flashbulbs was triggered. Presuming this to be a response to their signalling they flashed even more enthusiastically and were rewarded when the second flashbulb ignited shortly afterwards. The BBC interviewed the watchers who again claimed it to be the best sighting they had ever made, some saying that the UFOs had been communicating with their “random yet intelligent” flashings and that the “explosion of light” was in response to the rows of flashing torches and motorbike headlamps. “These were obviously lights on a silly little balloon that did not and could not replicate the complex flying pattern seen the week before” After the story was broadcast, on BBC Nationwide, we owned up and were subsequently given a studio interview alongside ufologist Rex Dutta. We showed examples of the plastic bags and torch bulbs etcetera but he refused to believe that he had been hoaxed and the BBC therefore asked us to stage a re-enactment. This we did the following weekend, albeit in rather poorer weather conditions. On seeing the balloon-suspended lights for a second time Rex Dutta declared them to be nothing like the lights of the previous week. “These were obviously lights on a silly little balloon that did not and could not replicate the complex flying pattern seen the week before”. He had been investigating these things for 19 years and “any fool could identify a balloon when they saw one”. Our experiences and hoaxes of 30 years ago were very interesting, stimulating and disillusioning at the same time but they also demonstrated to us something useful as well – that human beings tend to see what they want, or expect, to see. Very simple stimuli had provoked an astonishing range of entirely imagined attributes including shapes, sizes, colours, motions and other false effects which tended to grow in order to stop a particular belief being disproved. Most disappointing of all was the low calibre of the investigations being undertaken, partly due to a lack of technical knowledge, no desire to be rigorous and a marked tendency to select only those bits of evidence that most suited a particular belief. Science and scientists At the time, UFO sightings were argued to be evidence of extraterrestrial visitations (and still are in some parts of the world). Science and scientists, we were repeatedly told, should be more open minded and look into this possibility. What seemed to be constantly bypassed though was an appreciation of what constitutes a scientific claim. To demonstrate that a scientific conclusion is valid, testable evidence has to be provided and the quality and repeatability of the evidence required is related to the significance of the conclusion being drawn. To conclude that UFOs represent evidence of extraterrestrial visitations is a very significant claim and this requires correspondingly high quality, rigorous and testable data as evidence. But instead we had (and have) a loose array of unrepeatable sightings which, when scaled against the observational uncertainties and investigative confusion clearly demonstrated by hoaxes, come nowhere near to providing adequate evidence. It is often pointed out that maybe 90% of UFO sightings are explainable if an investigator looks hard enough but that science should concentrate on the unexplained remainder. This is a false argument; the fact that they remain unexplained does not make them better evidence. The point was well illustrated by Alan Hendry in his UFO Handbook. He had good statistical data to show that, apart from them remaining unidentified, there was nothing about the unidentified cases to differentiate them from the identified ones; they had just the same mixture of characteristics. We were aware that our hoaxes were illustrating the characteristics of an existing subject and in the mid 1970s thought that it would be interesting to measure just how easy it might be to create an alternative self-sustaining myth, perhaps triggered by a few pump-priming hoaxes. A while later crop circle stories took hold and again we were confronted with strangely illogical statements like “this circle is too accurate to be a hoax” from the investigators. Just like ufologists they argued that hoaxers (who appeared to be able to replicate any circle on demand) merely got in the way of serious investigations. We were certainly accused of being involved but can say that we did not think up the idea or participate at all! Hoaxes have been a useful tool for testing observational skills and the investigational abilities of ufologists. They have clearly illustrated that humans see what they want to see and that the quality of UFO investigations is generally very poor indeed.

Computer models expose humans as main cause of caribou decline ...em. Some variables included altering the number of wolves (a caribou predator), moose (the main prey of wolves), and edible vegetation in the area. As well, a "natural" model--the ecosystem as it would be without any humans and thus no industrial development--was created, as was a "business as usual" model,... Wolf reintroduction reshapes Yellowstone ecology The 1995 reintroduction of wolves in the northern range of Yellowstone National Park...e of BioScience, argue that fear of predation when wolves are present changes grazing patterns, prompting grazers to avoid sites that deny them easy escape an... Dog genome assembled ...addition to the boxer, nine other dog breeds, four wolves and a coyote were sampled to generate markers that can be used in disease studies in any dog breed. A preliminary set of about 600,000 single nucleotide polymorphisms (SNPs), which amounts to a SNP roughly every 5,000 DNA base pairs, is currently bei... New map predicts where wolves will attack ...have developed a high-tech map that predicts where wolves will prey on livestock, which in turn may allow wi...evealed several similarities among the sites where wolves had preyed on cattle in the past. Each town in the two states was assigned a color-code ranging fr... Study finds wide attitude gap on wolves ...Biology, survey results among people who live with wolves in northern Wisconsin revealed that deeply rooted ...more powerful predictors of their attitudes toward wolves than individual encounters, or losses of pets and livestock. Using a mail-back survey with a pool ... Non-lethal methods can resolve conflicts between bears and humans ...to keep domesticated dogs on home properties. Some wolves simply tolerated the mild electronic shocks and continued to feed "There is no single solution for every situation but individuals and communities should be given a variety of options so they can tailor their responses to their needs and tolerances,"... Helping carnivores and people co-exist and other large carnivores threaten people and liv...h strobe lights and sound recordings can help keep wolves and bears away. "High-technology devices are much more expensive, complicated and limited in effect... Wolves are rebalancing Yellowstone ecosystem CORVALLIS, Ore. - The reintroduction of wolves into Yellowstone National Park may be the key to m...ear and remarkable linkage between the presence of wolves and the health of an entire streamside ecosystem, including two species of cottonwoods and the myria... Gray wolves feed the masses while hunters feed the few (Canis lupus) and human hunters both provide resou...were found at wolf than hunter kills implying that wolves much more than hunters promote ecosystem diversity and, ultimately, the overall health of the Yellow... First extrasolar planets, now extrasolar moons Everyone knows our Moon: lovers stare at it, wolves howl at it, and ESA recently sent SMART-1 to study it. But there are over a hundred other moons in our Solar System, each a world in its own right. A moon is a natural body that travels around a planet. Moons are a by-product of planetary formation ... Predators: an overlooked player in plant-pollinator relationships ...dators can help to shape ecological communities -- wolves promote the growth of young trees through predation on moose, otters keep kelp forests thriving by preying on sea urchins, etc. Yet we have seldom considered the consequences of predation on animals that help plants reproduce. Predation on pollinato... Yellowstone wolves, grizzlies and moose 'dysfunctional' study says ... warns that a proposal to remove grizzly bears and wolves living in the Greater Yellowstone Ecosystem (GYE) ...ting rising population levels of grizzly bears and wolves as evidence of conservation success. However, the authors of the study say that a simple increase i... Scripps Institution researchers develop new approach for designing marine reserves ... Park for the purpose of having more bison or more wolves or more bears so that you can keep hunting them outside the park." The research is part of a larger effort in cooperation with the World Wildlife Fund, Scripps's partner in a decade-long collaboration to apply science to practical solutions for th... Once big bad wolf, now man's best friend: Science studies trace dogs' origins ...w World, the other in the Old, found that Eurasian wolves were dogs' likely forebears. Breeding over the las...ether dogs in the New World were domesticated from wolves there, independently from Old World dogs, or whether the two groups were related. The researchers co... Too many turtles may end up as roadkill ...turtles...in the company of grizzly bears and gray wolves as fauna for which road networks may be a key limiting factor to population recovery efforts." In areas where buffer zones and large roadless areas are not feasible, turtles could be protected from collisions by building road crossings. This work is ... Rabies vaccinations could help save Ethiopian wolf ... research shows that vaccinating a fraction of the wolves could protect this critically endangered species f...protect even the smallest populations of Ethiopian wolves from rabies is both worthwhile and urgent," say Daniel Haydon of the University of Guelph in Ontario... Snowmobiles can stress wildlife ...ss hormones of animals in national parks. "Elk and wolves show physiological stress responses to snowmobiles...coids ("stress hormones") in the feces of elk and wolves in several national parks. When chronically elevated, glucocorticoids can cause adverse effects such... Study suggests global extinction crisis more serious than previously thought ...to scattered remnant groups as, for example, gray wolves and brown bears in the coterminous United States. The study also showed that species differ in their resistance to human disturbance. For example, Pere Davids deer, originally from China, has lost all of its populations and survives only in captivity... Tent caterpillars and their parasites ...ed on these caterpillars would be equivalent to 82 wolves in the same one km2 area. Given the immense scale of the predator-prey battle going in our backyards, parks, and forests, it is not surprising that the forest tent caterpillar is the principal defoliating insect of trembling aspen in the boreal fores... Wolves decline, moose increase ... at Michigan Tech, said the 2002 survey counted 17 wolves on the island, as opposed to 19 last year. The isl...e opportunity for such research. Peterson said the wolves suffered a mortality rate of almost 50 percent this winter and that last year's seven pups kept the ...

Amid a political environment attacking global sustainability initiatives, a new national poll by the American Planning Association released Thursday finds bipartisan support for planning, as well as belief that community planners play a key role in economic recovery. Some political groups have attacked planning and are crafting laws that would bar cooperative planning or ban the word “sustainability.” Results of the new poll show those efforts don’t reflect the primary concerns of U.S. residents, who are focused on jobs and the economy and believe a combination of market forces and planning – not the market alone, or planning alone – best support the economy. “The results confirmed what we already believed: that it was a very vocal minority concerned about Agenda 21,” said Mitchell Silver, president of the American Planning Association and Raleigh’s chief planning and development officer. “Agenda 21” is a voluntary global environmental initiative backed by President George H.W. Bush in 1992. Silver said the APA has spent time this year discussing the initiative and the opposition to it, because it has surfaced in political discussion. In North Carolina it has come up in the N.C. General Assembly and in the N.C. gubernatorial campaign, after GOP candidate Pat McCrory tweeted support for a resolution opposing Agenda 21. The new poll results, though, will help the planning organization focus efforts on economic issues like jobs, Silver said. The most important planning priorities for those surveyed? Jobs, safety, schools, neighborhoods and water quality, according to the poll. “The public in general is speaking loud and clear: ‘We need you to help us plan for economic recovery,’ ” Silver said in an interview. The APA will use results to refocus its mission on those priorities, he said. The poll surveyed 1,300 U.S. residents in March to help determine what the public wants from planners and what perceptions exist. Planners wanted a clear picture amid a squeeze on government budgets and vocal claims by those who see planning as part of a global conspiracy. An example of a question on the issue of planning vs. "market forces" and the results (graphed) are below: Some people believe that community planning is a necessary part of improving the U.S. economy and encouraging job growth, while others believe that "market forces" alone will help the economy and bring more jobs. Which of the following statements comes closest to your belief? Some state and local governments, including Gaston County, have adopted laws that criticize or outlaw any action seen to support Agenda 21. Those critics see the U.N. initiative at minimum as increasing government regulation and at maximum as a U.N. conspiracy to use planners to bring Marxism to the United States. In the N.C. General Assembly, House Joint Resolution 983 calls on North Carolina to not comply with Agenda 21. In Alabama, a new law opposing Agenda 21 bans any local or state government entity from doing business with any organization linked to the initiative. Amid that charged political environment, the new APA poll found bipartisan support for planning, and found a belief that planning can help tackle lingering economic challenges. Amid the poll’s other findings: The vocal Agenda 21 opponents weren’t the sole reason for the poll but were an important driver, said Jason Jordan, legislative director of the national planning organization. “In many cases, it has proven to be enormously disruptive and confrontational,” he said. In addition, it had been 10 years since the organization last conducted a poll, he said, and given the economic and community changes, the group wanted to check in on attitudes toward planning. Planning, in and of itself, has also come under attack in some quarters. The most surprising finding? “We were very heartened at how broad-based the support for planning was across demographic groups and party affiliation,” Jordan said. Only 22 percent of Republicans surveyed believed market forces alone were enough to improve the economy and encourage job growth, while 14 percent of independents and 6 percent of Democrats believed market forces alone were enough. “That runs directly counter to what we're hearing from the critics,” Jordan said. Silver echoed Jordan’s interpretation. “I was surprised at the level of support across demographic groups,” for planners, he said, as well as geographic groups in rural areas, small towns and big cities. It was refreshing to see that when the poll asked specific questions about safety and schools, he said, people responded positively to planning. “When you explain what planners do, people have a better reaction,” he said.

The infernal combustion engine has been with us for a long time - since about 1885. Familiar layouts soon appeared with, for example, six cylinders seen as early as 1902. Multiple valves per cylinder, double overhead cam-shafts, super-chargers, turbo-chargers, and fuel injection are all well and truly pre-war. After that, it might be said that there was no very novel and lasting engine concept (perhaps the Wankel rotary engine excepted) until the oil crisis and stricter anti-pollution laws started a movement towards greater engine efficiency. Engines have grown more efficient and less polluting (if well maintained) since the 1980s but cars and 4WDs grew heavier and bigger in the 1990s as oil prices fell, cancelling out some of the gains. Some day oil will become inordinately expensive to use as a fuel, as OPEC's production squeeze of 2000 reminds us. Getting ready for that day, a number of refinements of, and alternatives to, the internal combustion engine are coming to show-rooms or running in laboratories and in test vehicles. - 4wd.sofcom.com/4WD.html, 4/2000 Direct injection is where fuel is injected (directly) into the cylinders, not mixed with air in the inlet manifold or inlet ports before being drawn into the cylinders. Diesel engines inject fuel either into the cylinder proper or into a small chamber off the cylinder, but direct injection on petrol (gasoline) engines is not new either, e.g. the world war II DB601 aircraft engine (?Me109?) used it . However, petrol direct injection is a recent development in mass produced cars. Mitsubishi released such a system in the 1996 Galant and the 2000 Pajero sold in Japan uses it. (c) 4wd.sofcom.com --> The Australian Orbital Engine Company started work with Mercedes Benz and Siemens in 1998 on a direct injection system for cars that is said to use lower pressures than Mitsubishi's. (Orbital's direct injection is already used in Mercury Marine 2-stroke outboard engines.) The advantages of direct injection are that the fuel can be placed in the combustion space in a more controlled manner than with conventional (inlet) injection systems. "Lean running" is possible by forming a richer cloud in the vicinity of the spark plug. The challenge is to control precisely the amount, size and distribution of the fuel droplets to suit varied driving conditions, and to do this reliably over the life of the vehicle. Lean mixtures also tend to lead to the formation of oxides of Nitrogen, NOx, a pollutant limited by legislation although exhaust gas recirculation can be used to reduce engine temperatures and thus NOx formation to some extent. Electric vehicles are nothing new, many being used in the early 1900s. However batteries remain large, heavy, expensive, slow to recharge and have a limited life. Hybrid systems (below) show much promise, allowing a small efficient petrol engine to carry the "base load" with batteries to cover high power demand. As of 2000, the best bet for electric power seems to be the fuel cell. If an electric current is passed through water, the water is split into hydrogen and oxygen. The fuel cell, as used in space-craft, reverses this reaction combining hydrogen and oxygen to release electrical energy with pure water as a by product. In principal hydrogen could replace petrol and diesel as the fuel for transport. In the short to medium term hydrogen could be produced from hydrocarbons, in the long term power stations, perhaps solar powered, could produce it. The attraction of using the fuel cell to generate electricity, over burning the hydrogen in an internal combustion engine, is that the fuel cell is very efficient indeed, achieving 45% to 60% efficiency (c) 4wd.sofcom.com --> versus a petrol engine's 15% As an interim measure, systems that generate their hydrogen on demand from a liquid hydrocarbon, most likely petrol (gasoline) or methanol, may be adopted. The fuel can be distributed using existing infrastructure. However efficiency falls because of the conversion process, carbon dioxide is a by-product (although CO2 is also produced if fossil-fuel power stations are used to generate hydrogen), and sulphur can poison the fuel cell if it get past the hydrogen generator. A hybrid propulsion system uses a petrol or diesel engine with an electric motor in some combination. One variation is to have the wheels driven only by the electric motor or motors, current coming from batteries. The petrol engine (say) drives a generator to charge the batteries; it can be turned on and off as needed, and can be optimized to run efficiently in a narrow rev' range. Batteries can be smaller than in an all-electric car because they only have to supply current for short periods. The hybrid car still has the range of a conventional petrol or diesel car. A second variation is to have a relatively small petrol engine drive the wheels through a mechanical transmission. An electric motor provides assistance when high power is needed - overtaking and climbing hills. Some engine power is diverted to charging the batteries at times of low power demand. The Honda Insight is one such car, for sale in America from December 1999 (probably being sold at a loss to test the waters). It is said to achieve a low consumption figure of 3.85 litres per 100km. The electric motor can also act as a generator slowing the car - called regenerative braking - to help recharge the batteries and reducing wear on the brakes. As discussed under super-charging below, the efficiency of an engine is generally improved if its expansion ratio is increased, i.e. if as much energy as possible is extracted from the exhaust gases so that they leave the tail-pipe cold and at slow speed. This could be achieved by having an exhaust stroke that is longer than the compression stroke. At first sight this seems to be a geometric impossibility, but it can be managed by sacrificing some of the upward movement of the piston - leaving the inlet valves open for a while. Some of the inlet gases will be expelled back into the inlet manifold, but so what? The compression stroke uses a fraction of the upward movement of the piston, but the power expansion stroke uses its full downward movement. Such tricks have been played with large marine diesel engines for many years, but they only recently became practical on car engines with improved tolerances and electronic controls. The idea was patented by Ralph Miller in the 1940s. Mazda has been fitting 2.3 litre Miller cycle engine to its Eunos 800M since about 1997. The Mazda engine incorporates a super-charger and inter-cooler, the explanation being that this compensates for the effective reduction in engine capacity due to the shorter compression stroke; the super-charger is said to be more efficient at compressing the intake mixture than a full compression stroke would be. (The logical extreme would seem to be to do all the compression with a super-charger, closing the inlet valves just before igniting the mixture, but perhaps super-chargers do not work well at such high pressures?) There is no immediate prospect of steam power making a come back on the road; steam is not the victim of a conspiracy theory, the thermodynamics are just not right. The most recent Australian link with automotive steam seems to be the various experimental Pritchard steam cars built during the 1960s and 1970s, and the Gvang prototype of 1972 (Davis 1987). However as of 2000, a British team is looking at raising the land speed record for a steam powered car. A Stanley steamer set a world land speed record of 127.66mph at Ormond Beach (Daytona) Florida in 1906. This stood until a petrol engined Benz achieved 131mph in 1910. The British team includes Glynne Bowsher who was the chief mechanical designer for the supersonic "car" "The initial target is 150mph but the car is being designed for speeds of 200 mph or more." Super- and Turbo-Charging Forcing more air into a cylinder allows more fuel to be burned, generating more power from an engine of a given weight and size; that's the basic idea behind super-charging and turbo-charging. A super-charger is driven by the engine, either by gears or by a belt from the crank-shaft. Super-charging was popular in 1930s' racing engines - Bentley, Auto-Unions and Mercedes Benz. The latter has revived it in a line of Kompressor models in the 1990s. Even GM Holden has bolted a super-charger to the Commodore V6. Super-charging increases power but not necessarily efficiency; it increases the compression of the intake air but not its expansion after the fuel is burned. Think of a sealed cylinder at room temperature and pressure with the piston at bottom dead centre. As the piston moves up, doing work, the air is compressed and grows hotter. As the piston passes top dead centre it is forced down by the compressed air which grows colder returning to room temperature and pressure. If there were no frictional losses and if the cylinder were perfectly insulated there would be no nett loss of energy. In a working engine, fuel is ignited near top dead centre. This makes the air-fuel mixture hotter than ever, which increases the pressure even more, and drives the piston down strongly. Now when the piston nears the bottom the gases are still relatively hot and under some pressure, i.e. they contain residual energy which is simply dumped into the exhaust system and wasted. Having said that, if the super-charger is used intermittently for high power demand only, it can allow the use of a smaller, An engine's efficiency can be improved if its expansion ratio is increased. In principle, this could be done by feeding the exhaust gases into a second (larger) low-pressure cylinder - forming a compound engine - but the extra weight, size and complexity make this impractical in a car engine (but note that double and triple expansion designs were common in large steam engines). A common alternative is to drive a turbine from the exhaust gases. Invariably (?) the turbine is used to drive a compressor, giving us a turbo-charged engine. By a happy accident, the turbine extracts most power at wide throttle openings just when high boost is wanted. The modern turbo-charging craze, arguably begun by Audi, has generally been promoted as increasing power rather than efficiency. No law says that the turbine must drive a compressor. It could assist in driving the crankshaft and such designs, also called compound engines, did appear in aircraft piston engines: A super-charger was driven from the crankshaft and an exhaust-gas turbine helped the pistons to turn the crankshaft and thus the propeller and, of course, the super-charger. Some "eccentrics" have recently rediscovered the logical progression to the gas turbine and jet engine: Remove the role of the reciprocating piston, replacing it with a fixed combustion chamber. Apparently it is possible to make a crude gas turbine from an automotive turbo-charger although extracting any useful power from it is another matter. Do not try this at home - there is no little danger of hot, sharp bits of metal escaping at high speed. Some car makers such as did experiment with gas turbines but the poor fuel economy of car-sized units was the main stumbling block. The 4-stroke engine has effectively pushed the 2-stroke engine aside in petrol (gasoline) driven cars. The 2-stroke gives twice as many bangs per revolution - more power for less weight - but pollution is a problem with some fuel and lubricating oil escaping into the exhaust unless direct injection is adopted together with a sealed sump. The Orbital Engine Company has put their direct injection system into 2-stroke outboard motors for boats. On the other hand, the 2-stroke diesel engine is alive and well - in some trucks. A 2-stroke needs the intake air to be lightly pressurized to blow out the last exhaust gases from the cylinder and a super-charger can manage this quite well. Diesels inject fuel into the cylinder near top dead centre when all the valves are closed. One wonders if a 2-stroke petrol engine with a super-charger and direct injection might be a goer. Inlet and outlet valves in all (?) production engines are operated by camshafts - either on the side of the block acting via pushrods and rocker arms, or single (sohc) or double (dohc) overhead camshafts. Audi has been leading the pack towards no less than five valves per cylinder - three inlet and two outlet valves (although F1 and sports-car racing engines remain on four per cylinder). Toyota seems to have been the first to offer 4 valves per cylinder in a passenger diesel 4WD. High power is developed at high rev's and requires inlet valves, in particular, to open wider and for longer. Engines with these characteristics typically develop maximum torque at high rev's and can be inflexible and difficult to drive. Various systems became available from manufacturers such as Honda from the 1980s to vary Springs, to close the valves, have been with us since the year dot. Some racing engines have had desmodromic valve systems - valves opened and closed by cams. Since the 1990s+/- formula one engines and some experimental engines have used compressed gas instead of valve springs - it must be lighter and faster acting. We probably will not see this on production cars. In the late 1990s, Mercedes Benz has been experimenting with electrically operated valves, i.e. opened and closed by solenoids. The advantage is completely variable valve timing without any mechanical complexity. In fact it has been possible to do away with the throttle, controlling the amount of air entering the cylinders through the valve timing. There must be questions over reliability. 2000 February: Saab showed a prototype variable compression engine at the Geneva Motor Show. This engine tries to solve the problem of being both a small, fuel-efficient engine and a large, powerful engine by changing its geometry. Devised by Per Gillbrand 20 years ago, the Saab Variable Compression (SVC) engine can vary its compression ratio between 8.0:1, for wide throttle, high-power settings and 14.0:1, for light throttle, fuel efficient operation. The trick is made possible by tilting the "monohead" (head and cylinders) by up to 4° about an axis on the left of the engine (in the diagram). This changes the distance of the cylinder head from the crank by a few millimetres - enough to change the cylinder volume at top dead centre by nearly a factor of two. By itself, lowering the compression ratio would not increase power at all but it enables the super-charger to switch to a higher boost pressure without any danger of pre-ignition. Squeezing more air into the cylinders allows more fuel to be burned - more power. The 1.6 litre, 5-cylinder prototype delivers 168kW of power and 305Nm of torque. Boost pressure varies up to a maximum of 2.8 bar. In effect, the engine can behave like a 1.6-litre motor out of a shopping trolley or like a 3+ litre engine on demand. (e.g. The 3.2 litre V6 in the 1999 Mercedes ML320 produces 160kW.) A. J. Appleby. The electrochemical engine for vehicles. Scientific American, p58, July 1999. S. O'Ciardhubhain. An injection of petrol economy. The Engineer, p46, 30 November 1995.

Foods that promote sleep It's now known that there are certain foods that promote sleep. These are tryptophan-containing foods, because tryptophan is the amino acid that the body uses to make serotonin, the neurotransmitter that slows down nerve traffic so your brain isn't so busy. Foods that promote sleep do so mainly because of simple carbohydrates and simple sugars which trigger the output of insulin and it's this physiological response that brings about a sleepy mindset and post-meal siesta. Why should I be aware of this? Good sleep is imperative for general functioning and overall emotional stability. Foods that promote sleep are natural ways of curing insomnia. All about foods that promote sleep Carbohydrates when consumed with tryptophan-containing foods stimulate the release of insulin. When insulin is released it helps clear those amino acids from the bloodstream which compete with tryptophan, allowing more of this natural sleep-inducing amino acid to enter the brain and manufacture sleep- inducing substances, such as serotonin and melatonin. Eating a high-protein meal without accompanying carbohydrates may keep you awake, since protein-rich foods also contain the amino acid, tyrosine, which perks up the brain. For dinner and bedtime snacks, eat a meal or snack that is high in complex carbohydrates, with a small amount of protein that contains just enough tryptophan to relax the brain. An all- carbohydrate snack, especially one high in junk sugars, makes you miss out on the sleep-inducing effects of tryptophan. The best bedtime snack is one that has both complex carbohydrates and protein, and perhaps some calcium. Calcium helps the brain use the tryptophan to manufacture melatonin. This explains why dairy products, which contain both tryptophan and calcium, are one of the top sleep-inducing foods. What can I do? Good choices for a healthy sleep include scrambled eggs and cheese. Hummus and Tuna fish sandwiches are a great food for falling asleep shortly after eating, as are meats, poultry, seafood, pasta, and nuts. Spaghetti, with tomato sauce or lasagna, also induces sleep. However, use minimum garlic and heavy spices. Best dinners for sleep The following can help promote sleep: - pasta with parmesan cheese - scrambled eggs and cheese - tofu stirfry - hummus with whole wheat pita bread - seafood, pasta, and cottage cheese - meats and poultry with veggies - tuna salad sandwich - chili with beans, not spicy - sesame seeds (rich in tryptophan) sprinkled on salad with tuna chunks, and whole wheat crackers Lighter meals are more conducive to a restful night's sleep. For some, highly-seasoned foods (e.g., hot peppers and garlic) interfere with sleep, especially if you suffer from heartburn. It is equally important to avoid certain food if you're having trouble sleeping. Caffeinated beverages are a big cause for sleeplessness. Coffee should not only be taken in moderation but avoided after lunch. Tea can also contain caffeine, so try out some of the herbal brands. Otherwise, stick to one of the options with less caffeine, such as green tea. Power and energy drinks, as well as highly caffeinated sodas should be avoided as well. Although many people believe that eating at night will keep you awake, recent science says that eating certain foods before bed can actually help you enjoy better sleep!

The Geography of Wargames The geographical information is usually obtained from a playing map, assuming that the game has one. Most do. Even those that don't have one often require that the player construct some type of playing surface. The Order of Battle is nothing more than a list of the units or entities that took part in the original event. The situational information is the scenario, that is, the set-up of the forces, the conditions of victory and any additional factors such as the state of the weather, etc. The dynamic potential information in a game represents the players' perception of the first three information elements in light of where they may go. The first thing a player generally does when he obtains any game is to lay it out and quickly digest geographic, Order of Battle and situational information. Computers have yet another advantage in this area in that a player can even more quickly take a look around, although computer wargames also hide a lot from the player. Once the game is given a good looking at, the player then obtains what he is really looking for, the dynamic potential of the game: where the game might go, and what it might do. There are certain things the gamer should be aware of when he attempts to obtain information from a game. We tend to look for more in a game than is there. This is rather typical of most people's relationship with printed matter. The attitude is "if it's in print, it must be right." Computers compound this because you can't even read the print carefully, the computer does some mumbo jumbo inside the box and gives you an answer based on who knows what. Without casting too many aspersions on my work or the work of others, I would like to offer the following cautionary advice when you are examining games. Geography, as with most things, is very much subject to individual interpretation. There are two primary things to keep in mind when examining a geographical game map. First, it often has a grid, most often a hexagonal grid, superimposed over it. This means that each "cell" of geographical information is at least the size of a 16mm (diameter) hexagon. The normal "cell" of information in a traditional nongame map is normally smaller than a tenth of a millimeter (if you look closely at a map under a magnifying glass, you will see the little colored dots which the printing process uses to show where the water stops and the land begins). The second point is that in most historical situations, only very large ("gross") terrain features had any significant effect on operations. Thus, a great deal of detail on a map will often get in the way of providing an accurate simulation. The designer usually feels obliged to justify all of this detail. Often the gamer will be equally expectant that all of this detail be put to some use or otherwise why bother him with it. There is an unspoken assumption that only that which is essential is displayed. It is normally considered a bad design if information is included in the game that does not contribute to one's understanding of what is going on. Given these two points in geography, it should in most cases be fairly easy for the game designer to represent the key geographical elements. The gamer should be aware that, if he is sufficiently well read in the subject of the game, he should expect that the geographical elements spotlighted in the written histories should also be represented in the game. If anything, the game will, in addition to confirming the importance of a particular piece of terrain, also show in more detail why the terrain was important. It is often the case that the game will show another element of the terrain that could have been important, but because it was not used, was not important in the original battle. An example of this is the Ardennes region of Belgium in 1940 and 1944. In 1940, the Germans dashed through the Ardennes with motorized forces, crossed the Meuse river and proceeded to cut off the bulk of the British and French armies in Belgium. In this case, the Ardennes was not an obstacle, although it certainly could have been. This was proven in 1944 when the Germans again attacked in the Ardennes, but this time they were not able to move right through because American forces were already there and fought tenaciously even though outnumbered. The Americans eventually stopped the Germans cold. Any historical simulation on the 1940 campaign would have to allow for the realistic possibility of the Germans being stopped in the Ardennes and then suffering the disadvantages of having to attack through that particularly rugged terrain. Most designers, when they are dealing with terrain, go to one or more maps and do little more than place a blank hex grid over the map, shine some light behind the map and the hex sheet and then trace the terrain features, making decisions on the spot as to what to include and what not to include. The only other decision is to make sure that the terrain is unambiguously distributed in the different hexagonal "cells." These terrain analysis decisions are made on the basis of historical experience. It takes a little practice, although looking at existing games and historical maps of the areas the game represents, will help. The game designer then plays the game with this hex grid map. If it feels right and he does it right, that's your map. Often, additional detail will be added purely for historical interest. These details may be things such as additional town names that were mentioned in most historical accounts or the names of other geographical features that either do not necessarily need names (the names of forests or mountains) or might be useful for the player as points of reference when playing the game. Computer game designers generally use a scanner to copy the details of a paper map into a computer file that can then be edited to show what the designer wants to pop up onto the screen. Before scanner technology matured in the late 1980s, the programmer would painstakingly build a computer map with a "paint" program. The source would be a paper map, or even a wargame map on the same subject. Many computer game maps either use hexes to regulate movement and position (just like paper games). If the hex grid is not shown in the screen, it is implied. Some games give you the option of showing the hex grid or not. The thing to keep in mind is that the game designer is not God. The game designer does not create terrain. He is merely supposed to represent it on paper. If he does it right, it will seem right to the player. If he does it wrong, you will sense this when you look at the map. To give you a better idea of the various ways terrain can be represented on a map, take a look at the Metz game map included in this book. Order of Battle Order of Battle information can also do with a bit of scrutiny on the part of the gamer. As with the game map, the Order of Battle information must be "aggregated" a bit. As with the map, the scale of the game determines how much detail will go into the Order of Battle. The larger the scale, the more similar all of the units become. On the lowest scales (tactical) a much larger amount of differentiation among units is usually necessary. No matter what the level, however, not every specific unit will be likely to show up in the game as an individual unit in the game. This is usually done partially for reasons of realism and partially for reasons of playability. Many small or otherwise functionally insignificant units are not necessary to the play of the game and thus the designer will not include them. If there are a number of such minor units included in the game, I would consider that to be sloppy design since they will get in the way of play, depriving the player of the ability to learn from the game. A great number of insignificant units has a direct effect upon playability and it is often a sign of good design when the number of playing pieces is kept to the minimum necessary to accurately represent the situation without unduly compromising historical information. Often, an effective compromise is to print a detailed Order of Battle in comparison to the actual Order of Battle used in the game. Computer wargames have more options in this area. If the game has good Artificial Intelligence (AI), you can have a lot of small, but historically accurate, units running around. Good AI will relieve the player of the burden of telling each unit exactly what to do at all times. For example, good AI would enable you to order a dozen or so related units (say, all the battalions of an infantry division) to attack in a certain direction until an objective is reached or a certain level of losses are taken. The AI would then apply tactics appropriate for the troops you are commanding and carry out the orders. You could then go on to the next group of battalions or attend to some more critical aspect of the game. Not all computer games have this feature and a major drawback of many computer games is trying to force the player to spend a lot of time dealing with many individual units. The Order of Battle included with the Drive on Metz game is pretty representative of what you'll find in most games. Situational realism is pretty straightforward. Once the game provides the geography in the form of a playing map, the units involved in the form of playing pieces, any player can (and some do) create the situation (game) from the written sources. In other words, at this point the player could just open a book on the battle and use the game map and playing pieces without even looking at the game rules. Many players do this. Computer wargames have had to cope with this situation also (aside from the problem of computer users not wanting to read instruction manuals). Many games, especially the smaller ones, have but one scenario and that is represented by the instructions for the game's one and only set-up. Any "what if?" activity on the part of the player is expected to come out of the actual play. As with any historical game, the players may start out as the original participants did, but rarely will they make the same moves as the historical antagonists and equally rarely will they come up with the same precise historical outcome (although often the side that won historically will usually win in the game). A more diligent designer will provide additional scenarios each of which will expand upon some aspect of the situation that could have easily been different. Often, there were additional units for either side that could have been present at the battle or units that were present that might not have been there or might have been present in different strength for the historical battle. In addition, units may have been deployed differently. All of these elements should be included in a scenario. The scenario section is also a good place to display a lot of purely historical information. See the Drive on Metz rules for a sample of what a scenario looks like. The dynamic potential of the game is the sum total of the players' overall perception of the game, particularly after examining its main elements. The rules are often fairly standard. This rules standardization is a common convention among designers, primarily to make it relatively easy for the gamer to play (and the designer to design). Each game does require a certain amount of special rules that will cause the player to expend a certain amount of energy to absorb. Computer wargames follow the same pattern, with similar sets of commands and menus used in a great many games (often from the same publisher, or designer). "Reading" games rather than playing them is quite common. Always has been. Many gamers "collect" games. They buy them, but never play them. This does not mean that they are not used. Quite often, the hobbyist will spend several hours with the game. The usual procedure is to lay out the map, examine the pieces, read the rules and scenarios and perhaps place the pieces on the map, but that is generally as far as it goes. The player has been satisfied with experiencing the dynamic potential. By dynamic I mean how and to what limits the various elements of the game may be manipulated. Every historical situation has this dynamic potential. Most history books or films are presented as a linear rendering of what went on, so there is no potential for exercising this dynamic. A game, of course, is just the opposite. Its elements are meant to be exercised and a player will often do this in his head with the aid of the game components. In terms of player interaction, there are three types of games: the one or two-player game (by far the most common), the multiplayer game and the role-playing game. Each of these has a different dynamic potential. What I spoke about above was primarily the one or two-player game. The multi-player game has a markedly different dynamic potential in that you are not only playing against a historical situation, but also against a group of individuals. This group (three or more people) creates a dramatically different dynamism in the game as the individuals are less restricted by the game situation because so much of the activity is dependent not on the game system but the cooperation of one or more of the other players. For this reason multi-player games tend to be essentially simpler in their mechanics than the traditional two-player game. There are very practical reasons for this. Since more people are playing, the sequence of playing for any individual causes every one of the other players to wait until that sequence is finished. If the total time it takes for every player to get through his sequence of play is too long, most players will lose interest. This is not to say that realistic multi-player games are not available. It is just that the dynamic of the game is against it. Thus, the dynamic of an individual gamer examining a multi-player game is normally considerably less than that of a two-player game. This is not the case with multi-player games played on remote computer systems like GEnie, private BBSs (Bulletin Board Systems), Prodigy or Compuserve. As these games are computerized and player actions (nearly) simultaneous they are quite lively and addictive. The down side is the price: six dollars an hour and up (except for some games on Prodigy, which has a low flat monthly fee, but has a dismal selection of offerings). Role-playing games, on the other hand, have considerable dynamic potential when viewed by an individual player. This is one reason for such games' popularity. Most role-playing games to date, however, have been almost exclusively fantasy or science fiction in nature. This is mainly because the first successful role-playing game published (Dungeons and Dragons) just happened to be based on a fantasy-type situation (mostly the medieval influenced Middle Earth world created by Tolkien). The essence of the role-playing game is that one player, the gamesmaster, does most of the work. The other players have a relatively simple "menu" of activities in which they may partake. These activities are generally restricted to movement and responding to whatever the gamesmaster throws at them. The gamers' responses take them into rather extensive rule booklets which consist primarily of charts and tables. The charts and tables, as any charts and tables, are crammed with information. An appropriate analogy would be a class in auto mechanics in which the instructor, using a demonstration engine, continually made certain components of the engine malfunction and then challenged the students to go through their manuals as well as their previous experience to come up with the most efficient solution to the problem he had created. Historical role-playing games have been tried. In 1979, Commando and NATO Division Commander were published. A few other followed in the 1980s. The RPG concept applied to wargaming subjects never really caught on. There are some military oriented computer RPGs, with more in the works all the time. But, again, fantasy beats reality in the market place even when a computer is used.

: of, relating to, or characteristic of black Americans or their culture : designed for or controlled by blacks First Known Use of SOUL Immaterial aspect or essence of a person, conjoined with the body during life and separable at death. The concept of a soul is found in nearly all cultures and religions, though the interpretations of its nature vary considerably. The ancient Egyptians conceived of a dual soul, one surviving death but remaining near the body, while the other proceeded to the realm of the dead. The early Hebrews did not consider the soul as distinct from the body, but later Jewish writers perceived the two as separate. Christian theology adopted the Greek concept of an immortal soul, adding the notion that God created the soul and infused it into the body at conception. In Islam the soul is believed to come into existence at the same time as the body but is everlasting and subject to eternal bliss or torment after the death of the body. In Hinduism each soul, or atman, was created at the beginning of time and imprisoned in an earthly body; at death the soul is said to pass to a new body according to the laws of karma. Buddhism negates the idea of a soul, asserting that any sense of an individual self is illusory.

What’s in a Bean? There are two primary coffee types – Arabica which is 75% of the world’s production, and Robusta. Green Mountain Coffee uses only the top 10% of Arabica beans, all are hand picked and more uniform in size, shape and color which allows even roasting and therefore very little bitterness. Arabica beans have more flavor and aroma and less caffeine (half the amount) and are usually grown at higher elevations. Most are grown between 1,000 to 6,000 feet – the higher the altitude the better because it produces denser, more flavorful coffee. The Roasting Process Roasting is what makes coffee taste like coffee. The longer the coffee is in the roaster, the darker the coffee will become. One of the most important processes in roasting is carmelization of sugars which accounts for many tastes and aromatic qualities of coffee. If you roast different sized beans together or with beans that are broken, then some will burn and cause a bitterness to the whole batch. At Green Mountain, all the beans are hand picked and sorted based upon size and ripeness to insure uniform roasting, which makes the coffee smooth not bitter! Green Mountain’s roasting process distinguishes it from other specialty coffee companies. Each bean type has a specific roasting profile (roast time and temperature) to maximize a particular coffee’s taste characteristics. Green Mountain utilizes state-of-the-art roasting software to more exactly duplicate specific roasts to offer consistent taste. The roasting process is designed to maximize the flavors inherent in the coffee itself without overshadowing the subtleties of a particular coffee’s taste. The company uses Probat convection air roasters which are the best in the business. THREE STEPS TO BREWING GREAT COFFEE STEP ONE: Great coffee begins with great water. Since a cup of coffee is 98% water, using pure water is a critical element of brewing delicious coffee. Regular tap water contains dissolved minerals and organic compounds as well as tastes(chlorine) and odors that contribute to your coffee's taste. Too much inorganic material can degrade the taste of your coffee no matter how flavorful the beans. STEP TWO: Brew time & temperature. Brewing great coffee is a simple process where flavor is extracted from ground coffee beans using hot water. A coffee brewer must deliver a steady supply of very hot water at a brewing temperature of 180-205 degrees F. Only commercial brewers heat at such high temperatures. STEP THREE: Fresh, quality coffee beans. The best gourmet specialty coffees are made from the top 10% of Arabica beans, grown at higher elevations (usually 1,000-6,000 feet), hand picked and sorted based upon size and ripeness to insure uniform roasting, which makes the coffee smooth (not bitter)!

Lift the Cell Phone Ban Stop thinking classroom disruption. Start thinking powerful (and free) teaching tool. By David Rapp Cell phones could become the next big learning tool in the classroom. So why have schools been so slow to embrace them? Without a doubt, cell phones can cause serious disruption in the classroom. From urgent text messages flying across the room to lessons interrupted by rap-song ringtones, these gadgets are responsible for nationwide frustration among educators. And, in extreme cases, students have used their cell phones to cheat on tests and harass other students, even during class time. While such disturbances are certainly a nuisance in school, not all teachers see cell phones as the enemy. In fact, for some, they’ve become a teaching solution. Cell Phone Solution between the alarms, calls, and text-messaging, it’s easy to see why some classrooms have implemented a no-cell phone policy. But educators know that with students, cell phone use in inevitable, so why not use the devices for good? Many schools in Asia and the United Kingdom—where they’ve been using high-speed 3G, or third-generation, cellular networks years longer than the United States—have already turned cell phones into teaching tools. Recently, several school districts in North America have done the same. At the Craik School in Saskatchewan, Canada, such an experiment turned into an integral part of the curriculum. Craik’s program started with a discussion in the staff room between the school’s principal, Gord Taylor, and teacher Carla Dolman. Many of the children had received cell phones for Christmas, and the phones had become a distraction. “So we tossed out the idea of rather than looking at them as an evil thing,” says Taylor, “that we look at them as a tool for learning.” They realized that the text message and alarm functions would be useful for reminding students of homework assignments and tests, for example. They decided to run a pilot project with eighth and ninth graders. Testing the Waters initially, only about 40 percent of the class had cell phones, but kids who had them were willing to share. The text message function was mainly used at first, but as Dolman became more familiar with the myriad functions, it became clear that these gadgets had a lot more classroom potential. Video and sound recording came into play, and the phones’ Bluetooth networking capabilities allowed for easy information sharing. Dolman found they worked perfectly for her classes’ “lit circles,” in which the students divide into smaller groups to discuss different aspects of a particular book. Previously, she found it difficult to monitor each of the different groups simultaneously. But kids who had video functions on their phones could record their discussions then Bluetooth it to Dolman’s phone, and she could watch each individual discussion, without missing a moment. Dolman says such problems like class disruption were minimal. “It’s a stereotype of teenagers—that you can’t trust them with a cell phone. Our experience was that if you give them the opportunity to use them, and you give them guidelines to go with that use, you won’t have problems.” Principal Taylor agrees. “The one thing we really stressed with the kids was the whole idea of appropriate use,” he says. “They make darn sure that the volume is turned off. A lot of adults need to learn that.” As for the kids, they loved using the phones for class work, but parents in the district have had mixed reactions, says Taylor. “Some thought we were crazy, and were very strongly opposed to it, and some embraced the idea initially. As time went on, about 90 percent came to say it was a good idea. They didn’t see it as a gadget, or as a replacement for learning, they saw it as a tool for learning.” Taylor’s colleagues have been more enthusiastic. “In our school division there are about 90 principals and about 600 teachers, and I would say that out of the principals, there were about 15 to 20 that really were gung-ho and wanted to know what we were doing.” The rest, Taylor says, thought the program was innovative and at least worth a try. “There were no negative thoughts on it whatsoever.” Taylor sees the cell phone as a necessary tool to teach to kids. “We would be burying our heads in the sand if we said that cell phones were not a part of everyday life,” he says. “I don’t know a businessman out there who doesn’t carry a cell phone. I don’t know a lawyer or accountant out there who doesn’t carry a cell phone. Why wouldn’t we have them in schools?” Given the example of the Craik School, why haven’t more American teachers embraced cell phone use in the classroom? In fact, few U.S. schools are even considering their use. Liz Kolb, author of the recently released book Toys to Tools: Connecting Student Cell Phones to Education (ISTE, 2008), says that Americans have traditionally seen cell phones as nothing more than a social toy. “We hear stories about students using cell phones in negative ways, like posting videos of teachers to YouTube, or cheating via text messaging,” she says. Many teachers simply don’t know the teaching potential cell phones have, Kolb says. “There are some teachers who have never sent a text message, so the fear of their students knowing more than them about a tool in the classroom is often very inhibiting.” Professional development, Kolb says, is a necessity for normalizing the idea of classroom cell phones. Matt Cook, a math and science teacher in the Keller Independent School District, near Fort Worth, Texas, knows his cell phone inside and out. He’s used it to document results in his classroom. In fact, his familiarity with cell phone tech sparked his imagination, and led him to get in touch with Verizon and AT&T, as well as software company GoKnow, based in Ann Arbor, Michigan. All three companies have agreed to donate technology to the district for a pilot program to use cell phones in fifth-grade classrooms. (Other cell phone companies are certainly interested in classroom possibilities. Qualcomm has a similar program in the works called K-Nect.) “I firmly believe that to prepare kids for their future, we need to start speaking the language of kids,” says Cook. “They’re using this stuff anyway—let’s teach them how to use it productively.” The GoKnow software turns the students’ smartphones into computers, allowing students to use word processors, spreadsheets, and art programs, among others, on their cell phones. For example, every child learns the concept of the water cycle: how water moves on, above, and below Earth’s surface through the processes of evaporation, condensation, precipitation, and so on. With GoKnow’s cell-based applications, a student could draw a concept map showing the relationship between the processes, create an animation illustrating how it all looks, and write up a text report on what they’ve learned—all centralized on a desktop-like interface on the smartphone’s screen. At the end of the day, the students can upload all their work online. “The kids sync their phone up to the server. The parents can look at the work they’ve done, and the teachers can make annotations and grade the work, all online,” says Cook. Elliot Soloway, founder of GoKnow, sees the key to popularizing cell phone use in classrooms is to make it easy to integrate into a school’s existing curriculum. GoKnow’s software has been engineered to make the process as easy as possible, he says. “We can do this in eight minutes with a teacher. Sit down with your paper-and-pencil lesson, and we’re going to show you how to transform that lesson into a cell phone–based lesson you can integrate with your existing curriculum.” Soloway says that if the Keller program is successful, smartphones could become a part of the curriculum in neighboring districts. “We’ve talked to other districts in Texas that are watching,” he says. If cell phones in classrooms do catch on, the schools would, in effect, be getting low-cost computers into their students’ hands. Dolman thinks that the possibilities for cell phones will only increase as kids become more familiar with the technology. “The more we discover what we can do with them, the more valuable they are. If you can harness what students are interested in, you have massive amounts of potential. And if you can get that into the classroom, you’re set.”

The Large Intestine and Guilt The allopathic view of the large intestine The colon is about 5 feet long and is the terminal part of the intestinal tube or alimentary canal. Whilst the upper parts of the small intestine are devoted to producing enzymes that breakdown the foods we eat, the latter parts are dedicated to absorbing the nutrients produced. The small intestine gives into the large intestine down by the right hip with the ascending colon passing up the right of the torso, the transverse colon passing across the abdomen under the ribs and the descending colon passing down the left of the abdominal cavity. The descending colon opens into the rectum where the stool is temporarily stored until it is convenient to defecate and the anus through which the waste is excreted. The primary role of the large intestine is to absorb water from the liquid chyme converting it into solid faeces ready for excretion. In fact, approximately 1.4 litres (2.5 pints) of water is recovered in this way every day. Billions of bacteria within the colon also perform the important function of synthesising the vitamins K and B, as well as producing hydrogen, carbon dioxide, hydrogen sulphide and methane gases as a by product of fermentation. The lining of the colon secretes mucous to lubricate the intestine, to package the toxic stool and to ease the passage of faeces. The region where the ascending colon turns to become the transverse colon is a simple 90 degree turn known as the hepatic flexure because it is next to the liver. The portion where the ascending colon then turns into the descending colon is known as the splenic flexure because it is near to the spleen. This flexure is more complex and turns in two different planes through 90 degrees. This flexure can trap waste gases and solid material and can also act as a source of pain which will be felt under the ribs on the left hand side of the abdomen. A variety of different kinds of muscular movements in the wall of the colon propel faeces along towards the rectum. These types of movement include haustral churning where the colon segments into pockets and turns the contents over; peristaltic contractions whereby segments form that move the contents along and mass movements which are wave-like contractions that move the contents of the large intestine around en masse ready for expulsion. Mass movements often occur in response to eating as part of the gastrocolic (linked stomach-colon) reflex. The last portion of the large intestine is the rectum and this is normally empty except just before and during defecation. Below the rectum lies the anus which is about 4 cm long and lined with vertical ridges called columns. In the wall of the anal canal are two strong rings of muscle called the internal and external sphincters which act like valves and relax during defecation. The external sphincter is under conscious control and the internal sphincter relaxes in response. With age and toxicity these sphincters may malfunction so that very elderly or sick people are often incontinent. Disorders of the large intestine Crohn's disease is an inflammatory bowel disease that can affect any part of the gastrointestinal tract including the colon. Colon polyps although typically non-cancerous can occasionally develop into colon cancer. Diverticulitis occurs when the contents of the colon collect in pouches or diverticulae and this can lead to pain. Parasitic infections including roundworms and tape worms can be harboured in the cavity formed within the intestine whilst feeding on the nutrients supplied. Symptoms include an itchy anus, especially at night and erratic bowel habits. Irritable bowel syndrome is a basket term given to disorders of the colon in which there may be alternating diarrhoea and constipation, spasms, pain and flatulence. This may be due to food intolerances, a deficiency of digestive enzymes, a ‘leaky gut’ primarily caused by the yeast, Candida albicans, parasites or historic emotional issues. Ulcerative colitis is a chronic inflammatory bowel disease in which ulcers form in the colon lining. The naturopathic view of the colon In naturopathic terms, health is thought to begin and end with the healthy function of the large intestine or colon. The toxic load that a poorly functioning bowel places upon the liver is probably key to all chronic ailments and true recovery necessarily involves tackling this aspect first. According to the dictates of iridology, any build-up in the transverse colon leads to the toxins travelling upwards to the brain. Very few people have healthy bowels even though they may imagine that they do if they don't suffer from overt pain or problems. However, most people carry several pounds of waste matter in accretions around their colon only some of this is expelled every day - like squeezing toothpaste from a tube. In addition, the natural health world also differs with allopathic opinion on some of the following essential points: The ileocaecal valve This is a muscular sphincter that guards the junction between the small and large intestines. This sphincter allows the periodic passage of chyme but prevents back flow of toxic waste from the large intestine into the small intestine where it would be absorbed. This valve can frequently malfunction leading to pain and if stuck closed can cause constipation and if stuck open can lead to toxic back flow which slowly poisons the system. Sometimes the ileocaecal valve (ICV) can open and close, but not in a synchronous way. This pain of a malfunctioning ICV can be very sharp and sometimes persistent and may be mistaken for appendicitis. The allopathic world either does not recognise the existence of this valve or regards it as being unimportant, whereas the naturopathic world says that diagnosing and treating a malfunctioning ICV is crucial to establishing health. And also that this valve often acts as a 'fuse' for an overloaded system and frequently becomes dysfunctional in order to preserve more vital bodily functions. The houston valve is another muscular sphincter which is intended to support the weight of the stool and if this valve is not functioning correctly this too can cause pain on the left hand side of the body between the hip crest and navel or may lead to the urgent need to defecate. Malfunction of both ICV and houston valves can be fixed (at least temporarily) by applying firm and deep pressure to the area. This can be done by a therapist, a partner or even by yourself. The appendix This is a small worm-shaped outgrowth of the large intestine just below where the small intestine enters. Whilst the allopathic world regards the appendix as serving no important function and as therefore being dispensable, the naturopathic world regards it as serving important functions primarily as part of the immune and lymphatic systems. It is thought to act as a reservoir of friendly bacteria to reseed the colon after diarrhoea and also to monitor and 'sterilise' the chyme as it empties from the small to the large intestine preventing parasitic infections establishing. The body hologram Like all other parts of the body, the colon is thought to act as a hologram with each part being related to other body parts. This means that hearing problems, for example, are related to a specific part of the ascending colon. It also means that as historic emotional issues are resolved, there may be an associated release of faecal matter after which the colon may start to function more effectively. Conversely, if toxic wastes are removed from these areas using colonic hydrotherapy or a cleanse there may be an emotional release and an improvement in the related condition may follow. The Traditional Chinese Medicine view of the large intestine In Traditional Chinese Medicine the yang (male) large intestine is paired with the yin (female) lungs - both organs of excretion. And both are classified as metal elements which are affected by sadness and worry. The large intestine is associated with muscular strength and vitality and is regarded as working with the lymphatic system to clear metabolic by-products from the muscles, thereby preventing muscular aches and fatigue. Excessive consumption of cold and raw foods can cause internal cold leading to diarrhoea and loose stools, whereas excessive amounts of greasy or hot foods can cause internal damp heat leading to foul, urgent and /or loose stools with burning. Emotional associations: Guilt and regret The large intestine is primarily associated with the emotions of guilt, regret and of failing to let go. Guilt may be experienced as a result of an individual believing that they are wholly or partially responsible for violating a moral code. The emotion may be the result of something that the individual did or failed to do and is closely related to the concept of regret. The feeling of guilt can be very persistent and may be driven by conscience and often occurs in people suffering with anxiety and/or depression. Sigmund Freud felt that guilt was the result of a struggle between the ego (the 'selfish' self) and the superego which carries all the parental and societal norms. Whilst Freud did not agree that guilt had its origins with a punishing 'god', he did think that some people may be responsible for unconsciously attracting the situations about which they subsequently felt guilty. The evolutionary explanation is that by feeling guilty after harming another or failing to reciprocate a kindness, the cohesiveness of the tribe or group is maintained. Guilt often also prompts us to demonstrate regret or sorrow and this can make reconciliation and forgiveness by those we perceive we have harmed possible. It also means that the offending individual is less likely to be on the receiving end of possibly violent retaliatory action and is therefore more likely to survive. However, the more cooperative the group, the more the individuals involved may be prone to feelings of guilt, regret, anxiety and depression. There is also the collective guilt experienced by a whole group or people that have harmed another group or people such as that felt by the Germans after the Second World War. Individuals tend to want to avoid this collective guilt by refusing to identify with the group that caused the harm, denying the harm done or justifying their actions in order to maintain a positive self-image, but some may be prompted to engage in acts of reconciliation with those that the group has harmed. When we see others suffering or carrying out an action we empathise through a system of ‘mirror neurons’. This empathy prompts us into thinking that we should do something to relieve the suffering of others and may explain the fact that man can be fairly altruistic. If we cannot help, or fail to help another who is suffering, we experience feelings of guilt. Individuals who completely lack the ability to empathise with others or to feel guilt or regret for the harm they have inflicted are referred to as psychopaths or sociopaths. Such people rationalise their behaviour, blame others or use denial. Early life empathic care is thought to be extremely important to proper emotional development and such individuals may have lacked this critical developmental process. Certainly the vast majority of criminals are found to have organic brain damage possibly sustained during early life neglect or abuse. In addition to being punished for your actions, being forgiven, making amends or expressing sincere remorse may alleviate feelings of guilt and regret. Intellectualising the feeling or understanding that the source of the feeling is illogical or irrelevant may also resolve these persistent feelings. The large intestine meridian The large intestine meridian starts on tip of first finger, runs up the outside of the arm and elbow, over the top of the shoulder, up either side of the neck and jaw and terminates next the nostrils. Symptoms experienced along the meridian may indicate an underlying problem with the large intestine. The large intestine meridian is partnered with the lung meridian which means that a sluggish large intestine may cause over-function of the lungs which may manifest as asthma or hiccups, for example. The reverse is also true so that under-function of the lungs may cause loose stools or diarrhoea. Muscles associated with the large intestine The muscles associated with the large intestine meridian include the paired leg muscles of fascia lata, hamstrings and quadratus lumborum. Fascia lata flexes and bends the thigh and draws the leg away sideways and weakness of these muscles will cause the legs to bow. The hamstrings cause the legs to flex and turn the leg sideways when the knee is bent and weakness of these muscles may cause bowed or knock-kneed legs. Quadratus lumborum flexes the legs in relation to the torso and stabilises the lower back. Weakness of this muscle will cause a pronounced lumbar curve or lower back pain. In short, weakness of the legs or chronic lower back pain may have its origins in the functions of the large intestine. Certainly, a series of colonic hydrotherapy sessions has been known to relieve back pain and this may be a direct result of relief of pressure of the bowel contents on the adjacent muscles of the spine. The neurolymphatic points associated with the large intestine run down the outside of the thigh from the hip to the knee, the inner part of the upper thigh and are also found in the small of the back. These points are associated with the colon such that the ascending colon and the right side of the transverse colon are reflected on the outer right thigh. The points relating to the ileocaecal valve are near the hip and those relating to the right hand side of the transverse colon are near the knee. The same is true of the left hand side so that the left side of the transverse colon is represented near the knee and the descending colon ending with the Houston valve is near the knee. Rubbing these points vigorously can help to promote improved bowel function if you are constipated. Also, any points that are particularly tender may give you clues as to which part of the colon is congested. Any points that are tender need rubbing! Other TCM large intestine associations The functions associated with the large intestine meridian are most active between 5 and 7 a.m. This means that ideally one of the first actions of your day should be to evacuate the stool formed from the food consumed the previous day. The large intestine is associated with the base or root chakra and this chakra is also associated with home, family and grounding. It also governs the functions of the adrenal glands, the kidneys, the legs and the spine.

The vast majority of Iraqis who fled their country have no plans to return even though violence is way down, many hoping instead to resettle in the West. The trends, uncovered on the basis of scores of interviews by The Associated Press and confirmed by Iraqi government and United Nations figures, raise the possibility that countries like Syria and Egypt – poor themselves – could face a significant refugee problem for years to come. Iraq may never, or at least not for years, recover much of the urban, educated, predominantly Sunni Muslim and Christian middle-class whose skills would be vital to its rebuilding. The ranks of doctors and other medical professions have been particularly hard-hit by the refugee flight. "Life here is better. My children can play outside and I know they'll come back. You never know what's going to happen there," said Taghrid Hadi, who fled Iraq in September 2006 after gunmen kidnapped and killed her husband, dumping his mutilated body outside their home just north of Baghdad. Hadi, 34, has no intention of returning home. She and other relatives are waiting for word on their applications to be resettled in a third country. Where? "Anywhere but Iraq, I don't care where," she said. More than 2 million refugees remain outside Iraq, mostly in the Sunni countries of Syria, Jordan and Egypt, according to the International Organization of Migration and the U.N. High Commissioner for Refugees. Only about 16,000 refugees – less than 1 percent – have returned from abroad, said Karim al-Saedi, an Iraqi Migration Ministry official. Besides Iraqis who fled abroad, approximately 1.6 million people have left their homes to take refuge in other parts of Iraq since 2006. They too have been slow to return: About 297,000, or 18 percent, are believed to have gone back, according to an April report by the International Organization of Migration. In Syria, which has the greatest refugee population – estimated by the government at 1.2 million – only 670 people have asked to benefit from the U.N.'s Voluntary Repatriation Program launched in October to help Iraqis return home, says Philippe Leclerc, acting representative for the U.N. High Commissioner for Refugees in Damascus. "The situation in Iraq is still extremely fragile," making many reluctant to return, Leclerc said. While violence is dramatically down from its height in 2006-2007, the fragility has been clear in the past week, with a string of suicide bombings targeting Shiite areas of Baghdad. In the latest, two car bombs tore through a crowded commercial district, killing 51 people on Wednesday. Refugees say the lack of basic services and continuing unemployment in Iraq are also reasons they prefer to stay put in neighboring countries, where – even if their savings are running low and their status uncertain – many can find schools and under-the-table jobs. Also, Sunni-Shiite sectarian divisions remain deep in Iraq. Some refugees have returned home only to find the hatreds too strong, prompting them to leave again. Batoul Saleh, a Sunni retired teacher who fled to Cairo with her daughter three years ago, went back to Baghdad in late 2007 only to find that a Shiite man and his family had taken over her house in the mainly Shiite Shula district. The man told her his own father's home was taken over by Sunnis 30 years ago "and it's payback time," Saleh said.

Design of the sequence target used for the computational screen. The bulk of the sequence is the genomic region for BRCA1 (or BRCA2), each of which is more than 80,000 bp in length. For each mutation, we created a sequence with 100 bp of normal sequence flanking the mutation on either side, and concatenated that sequence to the normal region, as shown on the right below the arrows pointing to mutations. This created an artificial index sequence against which all raw sequence reads were aligned. The alignment program, Bowtie, aligned each read to the location of its best match. Reads containing mutations aligned to the mutated portion of the index on the right, while normal reads aligned to the normal BRCA sequence on the left. The small line segments shown below the index illustrate how the reads pile up along the sequence, with gaps in coverage indicating locations where no read matches the index sequence.

Today’s Topic: N.C. Christmas trees and poinsettias Agriculture Commissioner Steve Troxler sits down each week with Southern Farm Network’s Rhonda Garrison to discuss “Today’s Topic.” Christmas decorations were on display in some stores before Halloween, but the season for holiday greenery really kicks into gear now that Thanksgiving has passed. Choose-and-cut tree farms are now open in the mountains and foothills for families hoping to find the perfect Christmas tree for their house. Commissioner Troxler says a cold fall and good amount of moisture have helped N.C. growers produce an excellent crop of trees this year, leading to an ample supply and selection of trees to fit any budget. North Carolina ranks second in the nation in Christmas tree production, and more than 5 million trees are harvested each year. Christmas trees accounted for $75 million in farm income in 2011. The state is well-known for producing Fraser firs, because elevation and climate in western counties create perfect growing conditions for this tree. But North Carolina growers also produce a wide variety of trees, including blue spruce, red cedar, white pine and a number of different cypress trees. North Carolina is also the second-largest producer of another holiday decorating favorite, poinsettias. In 2011, the state produced more than 4.4 million poinsettias and generated cash receipts of $17.6 million. Holiday greenery is available at choose-and-cut tree farms, farmers markets and retail locations across North Carolina. You can find Christmas trees and poinsettias by searching ncfarmfresh.com.

People with no access to an electrical grid or power source (generators, solar panels) have no access to the internet or to 21st century business opportunities, and nearby educational facilities are probably inadequate to prepare them for success in a hot, flat, crowded world. Thomas Friedman argues in his book Hot, Flat, and Crowded that environmental and climate factors will make life exponentially more difficult in undeveloped areas of the world, as lack of access to electricity and education will keep even talented and ambitious people from escaping parts of the world devastated by drought, deforestation, or other environmental catastrophes. I don’t recall much news coverage of this issue, and the author contends it hasn’t received widespread attention. My August 2009 Internet search turned up a number of recent sources on the topic, though, including: Energy Poverty 101 (from Center for American Progress) Energy Poverty Action (from the World Economic Forum) Both of these documents, and others, cite health and environmental problems arising from the need to burn “biomass” such as wood or dung for fuel and heat (CO2 emissions and deforestation problems from biomass burning were highlighted in the previous post). Next on Sunroom Desk: Yet another threat to the rainforest – biodiversity loss.

Universal Fighting Game Guide: Understanding Combos Systems Part 2 – Putting It All Together Welcome back to part 2 of a mini-series of combo systems posts within In Third Person’s Universal Fighting Game Guide. Part 1 dealt with the elements that make up a combo system in most fighting games, which you can find here. This post will take those fundamental elements and try to outline a process you can use to help you establish a knowledge and execution foundation to build your combo abilities on. Where to begin When you are learning the combo systems of a fighting game that is new to you, you’ll want to start slow. At first, you’ll simply want to know what moves connect with each other as a combo and why any given series of moves works as a combo rather than as staccatto attacks that your opponent can react to. I’d recommend starting out by doing one of two things: 1) Read a gameplay systems guide for the game you’re playing 2) Mess around in training mode to see what does and does not work If you’re a veteran fighting game player and have a working knowledge of systems like cancels, links and juggles, you may be fine doing step 2 before step 1. In any case, I think that these are the first two steps you should take if you want to take combos seriously. Where can you find a gameplay systems guide? First off, check the manual. Some manuals are pretty good about explaining the intricacies of their combo systems, while others don’t really have any sort of manual. Some fighting games now have tutorials, but some of them are terrible and most games don’t have a tutorial at all. BlazBlue: Continuum Shift has an awesome tutorial mode, but it’s still worth investing some time to read a gameplay systems guide. Please refrain from skipping straight to the character-specific combo sections of a guide at this point, as memorizing specific combos now is going to stunt your growth if you don’t understand the building blocks that take you to that point. Your best bet though for finding a gameplay systems guide is online from such major fighting game communities as (but not limited to) Shoryuken, Tekken Zaibatsu and Dustloop. You might also be alright with guides from major sites like IGN or MyCheats. If you’re willing to buy an actual strategy guide, those can be great as well. Just be warned that not all strategy guides are created equal. For instance, the word on the street is that the official Marvel vs. Capcom 3 guide is great, and the official Mortal Kombat strategy guide is not so hot. Check out the combo sections of these guides and see what systems govern your ability to combo your opponent. Odds are, the game your playing has some sort of mix of elements outlined in the first post, such as cancels, links or juggles. Most games usually have unique names or twists to the core systems in the first post, but the gist of how they work usually is the same. So if you’re playing something like Marvel vs. Capcom 3 and you read about an X-Factor cancel, the concept behind how it works is still the same as any cancel in any other game. Time in the lab Once you’ve read through the combo portion of the gameplay systems guide, you’ll want to develop a ground-level and practical understanding of how each of the game’s combo systems works. What I like to do is pick a character I’m comfortable with, go to training mode, and explore each element of a combo system individually. For each of the different systems, here are some of the questions I want to answer myself through experimenting in training mode: - What moves link together? - How strict in general are the timing of links? - What is the spacing required for specific link combos to work? - What initial moves create the most amount of time to link a second move? - What follow-up moves are quick enough to take advantage of the hit stun from an initial hit? - What moves don’t link? - What moves do I think can link but I don’t have the knowledge/execution to connect in a combo? - What normal moves have the ability to cancel? - What is the timing and spacing required for specific cancel combos to work? - When I find a move that can cancel, what can I cancel into? - Do I need to input a specific command to get something to cancel, such as X-Factor cancelling? - What sequences of buttons trigger a target combo? - What state will my character and opposing character be when I’ve completed the combo? - What are the guidelines that govern what moves chain together? - What specific inputs trigger a chain combo? - When I find a chain combo, what variants of it can I create? - Can I chain from normal moves to special moves? - What moves trigger a juggle state? - What moves can take advantage of a juggled opponent? - How long of a combo can I string together before damage scaling really matters? - Can I find shorter combos that do more damage and are less affected by damage scaling? Hit Stun Scaling - How long can I carry a combo before hit stun scaling makes it impossible to continue? - How can I work around hit stun to keep a combo going long enough to get the damage I want? - What can I do to stop a combo breaker? - What can I do to minimize the damage a combo breaker will do when it’s triggered? This sounds like a very clinical process, but that isn’t necessarily the case. I don’t write up a physical check-list to track my progress, but I mess around in training mode with different moves and scenarios to see what works, what doesn’t and understand why a certain outcome occurred when I inputted a series of moves. By the end of this process, you should have a base-level working knowledge of each combo system as an isolated unit. Putting it all together This is where the magic happens. You’ve put in the time to learn each combo system in a silo. You’ve probably already come up with a few short combos based on each system. Now it’s time to put it all together. The majority of combos you’ll ever execute will contain any combination of links, chains, cancels, target combos and or juggles. With the knowledge you have from the previous step, try and take those short combos you created yourself in the above step and connect them together. Remember that link combo? Maybe the end hit of that link combo can cancel into something else. Maybe the special move you cancelled into causes your opponent to go into a juggle state, which allows you to hit them in the air. Even at this point, I would refrain from consulting a guide to read combos. You’re better off making your own combos with your new-found knowledge of how all the pieces work. Once you have a few combos, get creative. Can you find a way to start a combo differently? A way to end it differently? A way that puts you in a good position to get another good opening for a combo? Can you make the combo better by using a move that requires super meter? There are so many considerations you can take, and they’re all fun to take if your base understanding of the combo systems are sound. At this point, go nuts. Let your creativity run free and see what you can come up with.

Girls’ Day at the Audi Training Department in Neckarsulm Girls from secondary schools in the region get a insight into industrial careers on Girls’ Day at the Audi Training Department in Neckarsulm. Real-world examples show technical and technology-related career opportunities. By participating in the eighth nationwide Girls’ Day, Audi hopes to spark young women’s interest in the company’s industrial vocational training: “We’ve had good experience with training girls and we’d like to improve our proportion of young women,” said Andrea Fiess, director of training at Neckarsulm. Girls’ Day offers Audi a good opportunity to make girls aware of the possibilities offered by technical career fields and to attract future female job applicants. More than 200 girls from 22 schools in the region surrounding the Neckarsulm location receive information on industrial jobs that require training, such as “electrical engineer for automation technology” or “body and vehicle construction mechanic”. “Audi offers girls interesting opportunities to enter the workforce and to advance, particularly in technical and technology-related fields,” Fiess said. With the use of real-world examples in the training department’s workshops, the participants learn how interesting jobs such as working at a bench vice can be. The young women can get better acquainted with individual occupations through dialog with trainers and trainees, which can provide them with important guidance in selecting their careers. Young women in Germany are particularly well-educated. Nonetheless, only a small proportion of female students select a field with a technical focus when choosing what to study. About 125,000 girls participate in Girls’ Day throughout Germany, at more than 7,500 companies and institutions from industry, the trades, research, politics and the media. AUDI AG sold a total of 964,151 cars in 2007 and thus achieved its twelfth consecutive record year. With revenue of €33,617 million and profit before tax of €2,915 million, the company attained its best figures ever. Audi produces vehicles in Ingolstadt and Neckarsulm (Germany), Györ (Hungary), Changchun (China) and Brussels (Belgium). At the end of 2007, production of the Audi A6 started in Aurangabad, India. The company is active in more than 100 markets worldwide. AUDI AG’s wholly owned subsidiaries include Automobili Lamborghini Hoolding S.p.A. in Sant’Agata Bolognese, Italy, and quattro GmbH in Neckarsulm. Audi employs about 54,000 people worldwide, including 45,000 in Germany. The brand with the four rings invests more than € 2 billion each year in order to sustain the company’s technological lead embodied in its “Vorsprung durch Technik” slogan. Audi plans to significantly increase the number of models in its portfolio by 2015, from the 26 currently on offer to 40.

main breeds of our birds consist of Rhode Island Red, Barred Rock, and Buff Orpington. We have about 100 hens that are a constant source of entertainment. They are very friendly and always underfoot. We have a nesting room inside the barn with nesting boxes lining the wall and an entrance to go outside whenever they want. Our birds are free to go out as they please no mater what the weather is. We do have a fence around their lot outside to protect the birds from pretators. We have lots of weasels and possoms in the area and do our best to protect our birds. We feed our hens a poultry layer mix from the local feed mill. It's not organic, but it is all natural. We supplement their feed with flax seed and oats. They go crazy over the oats! The flax seed increases the amount of omega-3 fatty acids in the eggs. We also feed them dried, crushed up eggshells (along with oyster shells) which are high in calcium. It's a good recycling program for all the eggs our family eats! 10 Heath Benefits Eggs are great for the eyes. According to one study, an egg a day may prevent macular degeneraton due to the carotenoid content, specifically lutein and zeaxanthin. Both nutrients are more readily available to our bodies from eggs than from other sources. 2. In another study, researchers found that people who eat eggs every day lower their risk of developing cataracts, also because of the lutein and zeaxanthin in 3. One egg contains 6 grams of high-quality protein and all 9 essential amino acids. 4. According to a study by the Harvard School of Public Health, there is no significant link between egg consumption and heart disease. In fact, according to one study, regular consumption of eggs may help prevent blood clots, stroke, and heart attacks. 5. They are a good source of choline. One egg yolk has about 300 micrograms of choline. Choline is an important nutrient that helps regulate the brain, nervous system, and cardiovascular system. 6. They contain the right kind of fat. One egg contains just 5 grams of fat and only 1.5 grams of that is saturated fat. 7. New research shows that, contrary to previous belief, moderate consumption of eggs does not have a negative impact on cholesterol. In fact, recent studies have shown that regular consumption of two eggs per day does not affect a person's lipid profile and may, in fact, improve it. Research suggests that it is saturated fat that raises cholesterol rather than dietary cholesterol. 8. Eggs are one of the only foods that contain naturally occurring vitamin D. 9. Eggs may prevent breast cancer. In one study, women who consumed at least 6 eggs per week lowered their risk of breast cancer by 44%. 10. Eggs promote healthy hair and nails because of their high sulphur content and wide array of vitamins and minerals. Many people find their hair growing faster after adding eggs to their diet, especially if they were previously deficient in foods containing sulphur or Omega-3 Fatty Acids: Fact Sheet There are many health benefits of omega-3 fatty acids. Research shows strong evidence that the omega-3s EPA and DHA can boost heart health and lower triglycerides. And there are compelling studies showing that omega-3 fatty acids may help with other conditions -- rheumatoid arthritis, depression, and many more. Just what are omega-3 fatty acids exactly? How much do you need? And what do all those abbreviations -- EPA, DHA, and ALA -- really mean? Here's a rundown of the essential omega-3 risk of heart attack and strokes. Foods with omega-3s are “the functional foods I think are worth the extra pennies,” says Gerbstadt. At the supermarket, look for whole foods rich in omega-3s like salmon, walnuts and flax, as well as functional foods such as omega-3-rich eggs, breads, milk, soy milk, and cereal.

Do you or does someone you know suffer from menstrual cramps each month? Don’t you want to have a strategy to reduce or eliminate them each month? Cramps are described as a dull aching pain in the lower abdomen. Often women experience cramps, called dysmenorrhea, a week before or in the first couple of days of your menstrual cycle. When I work with women that have a history of menstrual cramps I create a two-tier strategy to address the pain and also any hormonal imbalances that might be the cause of the pain. When a women is in pain I always create a short-term approach and a long-term approach to address their problem. In the short-term approach I want to help them alleviate their pain, as quickly as possible. In the long-term approach I want to resolve the hormonal problem permanently if possible. In the short-term strategy for cramps we want to get rid of the pain. The pain is often caused because of cramping in the muscles of the uterus as it is shedding the inner lining called endometrium. The endometrium sheds what we call our period. This is the bleeding that we see each month. In order to shed the lining, the muscles of the uterus must contract and release repeatedly for a few days before we actually see our periods. This is why women experience pain days before their periods start. During this process our body produces hormone-like substances called prostaglandins that can increase pain and inflammation in the uterus. The higher the levels are in our body, the more pain is produced during PMS. As part of the short-term plan, I suggest supplements and foods that will reduce pain. Foods are always my first choice as medicine. Multiples servings of colorful fruits and vegetables and eating lean proteins, deep water fish and plant-based proteins are good choices. Foods that are rich in calcium and magnesium help relieve muscle contractions. Examples of foods that are high in magnesium are Swiss chard, spinach, summer squash, pumpkin seeds, broccoli and other green leafy vegetables. Calcium-rich foods are beans, almonds and dark green, leafy vegetables such as spinach and kale.

7 August 2012 - Since the long-awaited Bujagali project started producing 250 MW in June 2012, power cuts in Uganda have fallen sharply. For the first time in a decade, Uganda enjoys a near-sufficient electricity supply, reports Radio Netherlands Worldwide. The new hydropower Bujagali output means the country produces roughly 700 MW, according to Uganda’s energy ministry spokesman Matovu Bukenya. “We are very happy with this project,” he says. Bujagali Energy Limited, the company that sponsored the dam’s construction, will also operate it for the next 30 years. After that period, the structure will be sold off to the government of Uganda for one US dollar. “Currently, we are producing to our maximum capacity during peak hours, but the water levels in the lake are not affected at all,” says William Groth of Bujagali Energy Limited, referring to some fears that water levels in Lake Victoria would drop. “The energy we produce here with water is three times cheaper than what came from thermal generators and it is cleaner.” During the most biting times of Uganda’s energy shortage, the country had to resort to generators powered by expensive diesel, which was imported by road from Kenya. Still, power cuts came as no surprise. During the peak of the shortage, just before last Christmas, the national electricity company Umeme published newspaper ads announcing which parts of the country would be cut off from electricity for six-, 12- or 24-hour periods. Sporadic riots broke out in Kampala’s city centre, where traders worried that blackouts were hurting business. Named after the Bujagali waterfall in the Nile River, the dam had a long history of setbacks. A previous contractor abandoned the project at the turn of the millennium, thereby causing a years-long delay. Environmentalists have vehemently opposed the project, citing water evaporation and the aforementioned concern about Lake Victoria’s water level. Then there was the traditional ceremony to relocate the Spirit of Bujagali, whom some locals believe exists as a protectorate of the community. Yet today, power cuts and load shedding, as the rotating system of living without electricity became known, have become rare. While Bukenya has expressed his satisfaction with Bujagali, he notes that, “with a growth in energy consumption of 10% a year we cannot be entirely comfortable.” Uganda plans to build two more hydropower dams in the Nile River. “The bidding process for the next project, to be located at the Karuma Falls in northern Uganda, is ongoing,” Bukenya says. “We are compensating the people who have to make way for this 600 MW dam.” After Karuma, Bukenya adds, there are hydropower plant plans for another spot along the Nile. That dam is to be built at Ayago, a location within the Murchison Falls National Park.

There are few companies that can afford to not label themselves as green and something similar is happening to the word social. From corporate social responsibility to social business to social investment, previously limited to charitable activities and workers' rights, social is on the march to becoming the new green. As with any label, ubiquity is as much a measure of success as a sign of abuse. And as with green we have to smarten up and learn to ask the right questions. For social impact some judge by good intention, while others measure by human development indicators or complicated calculations on social rates of return. Yet all of these are lacking in precision or comparability. Can there be a common denominator for a celebrity-packed fundraising campaign and a local after-school initiative for kids from broken homes? After many battles, the green movement has come up with such a principle that underpins even the most complex measurements and certifications. Every child learns that we must not use more resources than the planet can provide and regenerate. Sustainability is the gold standard of green. Can there be anything remotely as simple for social impact? Yes. In the same way that we must preserve nature's capacity to sustain itself in the face of growing resource demands, we must also reinforce our communities' ability to solve the inevitable social challenges that come with ever faster change. And solving more problems requires more active problem solvers. Like an ecosystem in a downward spiral, any group that does not manage to generate changemakers for the good of all is going to be left behind, regardless of how much money it may throw at its problems. Because, after all, money is not a renewable resource like changemaking is. It is this ability to inspire, empower and multiply active problem solvers that lies at the heart of the success of every great social solution from the Grameen Bank to Frontline SMS, from TeachFirst to Roots of Empathy (or many other leading social entrepreneurs in Ashoka's network). Whether the challenge is lifting people out of poverty or empowering young people, a true social solution breeds more co-creators to propel itself forward, not more dependants. Like the sustainability principle, this insight has profound implications beyond the citizen sector and for sustainable business. In fact, it tears down many of the walls between the sectors. Take the encyclopaedia business: run until recently by an oligopoly with an elite knowledge creation process unchanged since the French enlightenment project of Diderot's Encyclopédie, it has been completely replaced by Jimmy Wales's army of Wikipedia contributors. In turn these contributors have given rise to the next wave of knowledge businesses, drastically reducing the barriers to knowledge for the good of all. Similarly, Facebook innovates by opening itself up to millions of (unpaid) co-creating app developers and community curators who make users choose to spend one in seven online minutes there. Because of this mechanism the platform is not only valued at $100bn but also enables social causes to build communities more easily than ever. Beyond web businesses, the trajectory is the same. Even the venerable IBM now re-imagines itself as a relatively small core of professionals with growing clouds of volunteers and contractors around it. It is this trend towards a team of teams' architecture of our economy that explains how one quarter of the US workforce are now freelancers. Put simply, the openness for and proportion of changemakers in an organisation now defines competitiveness. And whatever our day job, we are all also freelancers in this new marketplace. Consequently, much like organisations need a business model to attract investors, they increasingly need a "social model", a reason why people should want to engage with them. Any executive without a plan to empower his staff, turn stakeholders into co-creators, and create hybrid value chains with social innovators opening up new markets may find himself a freelancer soon. Perhaps most importantly, cities and communities are competitors for the same resources. An inner city that succeeds in creating places and initiatives that make people want to spend time with each other and share causes will be ahead of the curve. Places like East London Tech City already understand that they need to become magnets for changemakers launching new ideas and businesses. More than anything, though, they need to attract social entrepreneurs who ensure that no one is left behind and everyone is a player. Nothing attracts changemakers like changemakers. And why should any brilliant graduate work behind the walls of a bank rather than in an ecosystem of entrepreneurial minds changing the world? The City of London vs. an east London of changemakers. Which one looks more like Detroit, left behind by change, which one more like Bangalore? Place your bets, ladies and gentlemen.

15 schools built in flood-hit Muzaffargarh 27 April 2012 Children make their way to a school built by IR “In collaboration with the government and school committees, we have ensured that children are engaged in both the curricular and extracurricular activities” Country Director Dr Fayaz Ahmad Islamabad, April 24, 2012: “Under its Rehabilitating Infrastructure for Supporting Education (RISE) Project, Islamic Relief Pakistan has constructed 15 worst flood-hit schools in district Muzaffargarh” said Country Director Dr. Fayaz Ahmad here on Tuesday. He said that it is vital to invest in the education system of the country to work in order to towards Millennium Development Goals (MDGs). It is furthermore vital all children get free education, especially the victims of disasters who need particular care. So far, Islamic Relief has constructed 15 schools for boys and girls in flood-hit district Muzaffargarh and worked on revitalization of walls, installed water pumps, hand pumps, filtration plants, constructed solid waste collection, arranged teachers training, renovated playgrounds, conducted training of school councils, distributed school items, stationery, school bags, and playing kits. “In collaboration with the government and school committees, we have ensured that children are engaged in both the curricular and extracurricular activities” Dr Fayaz Ahmad added. Head of Humanitarian Programme, Umair Hasan, said it is estimated that around 20 million children in Pakistan are not in schools and the education system is below standard, particularly in areas affected by the disaster. We need to ensure free and quality education for all children; the most vulnerable and disadvantaged especially need to be prioritized because the social and economic development of Pakistan depends on the success of its education. Islamic Relief is investing in children and their education through its emergency and long-term development programmes to in order achieve positive socio-economic impacts. Girls at their school bult by IR It is also necessary to curb the dropout ratio and Islamic Relief is encouraging parents and communities to ensure that all local children are enrolled in the school. A special focus is being placed on enrolling girls, highlighted Dr Ahmad. “The right of children to receive an education is enshrined in the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child and Pakistan is a signatory to it. It is therefore vital that all children in Pakistan, both boys and girls, have equal opportunity to attend school in which to continue their education or in some cases commence their education”.

Health advocates gathered at the New Orleans Vieux Carre Restaurant to discuss African American women who account for the majority of new HIV/AIDS cases and Sexually Transmitted Diseases among women. The Black Women for Wellness Foundation sponsored the event on Friday, July 11. HIV/STD reports indicated that 2.8 million new cases of Chlamydia and HIV/AIDS infections are among women, but majority of the women who make up these new cases are African American. African American women are more likely than Hispanics and any other race to become infected with HIV/AIDS and other STDs. The influence of alcohol and drugs are the main factors with African American women contracting this life threatening virus, since substances put them in bad situations where they make poor judgments about sex, say medical experts. Homosexuality within the African American community is also putting them at higher risk than others due to partners who engage in unprotected intercourse with other men without telling their female partners about them. One speaker mentioned that prominent homosexual Caucasians are more likely to embrace their homosexual lifestyle than African American men who appear on mainstream television and other public spotlights. “We aren’t talking to each other about this issue,” Tony Wafford, National Director of Program for Action Network said. “Black men aren’t talking to women, and we need more open and honest dialogue [among each other]. One woman said the Hip Hop culture has a big influence on sexual behaviors causing the HIV/AIDS epidemic in the Black community and Wafford agrees. He said the Hip Hop culture speaks bluntly about sexual activities. Because of the misguidance of the Hip Hop culture embracing promiscuity and unsafe sexual behaviors among youth and young adults, HIV and STDs will continue to skyrocket. Wafford said Hip Hop is not the only genre that talks about sex in their music. He said other genres like Jazz and Rock n Roll talked about sex, but not in ways where sex is dehumanizing. “We had music that talked about sex since the beginning of time,” Wafford said. “But for example [when] Billie Holiday would sing, ‘Come put a little sugar in my bowl, we knew what she was talking about.” Health Educator Erika Siever, Department of Public Health said it’s the lack of education and support inside the households and the mainstream media that does not own up to their responsibility about sexual intercourse. “[Most of the time], parents don’t know how AIDS is spreading,” Siever said. “We also need to address them in schools, and movies could show some areas of responsibility when it comes to sex as well. We need to educate our kids about condoms. Show a guy actually putting on a condom [in the movies]. We need to show the image of responsibility.” Cleo Manago, CEO of the AmASSI Health Cultural and Leadership Training Center said Black people allow racism and other disparities to distract them from HIV/AIDS epidemic. He said Black people have experienced inner generational trauma and stress that has not been resolved. Because of the numerous distractions relating to racism in Black America, adults aren’t talking to children about the significance of safe sex. Since the 1980s, Blacks have yet to be sufficiently protected against HIV. “We are too distracted by race methodology in this society to be focused and alarmed about HIV/AIDS,” Manago said. “It shouldn’t be based on statistics, but the quality of life we see among Black people.”

In 1962, politicians attempting to put things right in the pharmaceutical sector accidentally created the perfect raw material for drug development, and the basis to transform this raw material into the perfect product. But to complete the perfect market needs one extra element – a perfect consumer. By continuing an innovation put in place in 1951, the prescription-only status for all new drugs, the 1962 regulations did just this. Initially prescription-only status was a police function introduced in 1914 for drugs of abuse. It was extended to all new drugs in 1951 because these new and effective drugs were thought likely to come with significant risks and doctors as a body would be skeptical of the benefits of new drugs and cautious using them. It was also thought they would be able to quarry the appropriate information out of drug companies about medicines, or otherwise generate the appropriate information to make the use of these unavoidably risky drugs as safe as possible. From 1951 to 1962, the idea of making new drugs available on prescription only was hotly contested – was it appropriate to treat the citizens of a free country as though they were addicts? The thrust of regulation up to 1962 had been focused on the accuracy of the labeling of over-the-counter drugs. Regulating prescription only compounds broke new ground in 1962, and it is not clear that anyone knew what the likely consequences might be. Nowhere else in the regulatory arena have regulators attempt to constrain the use of products that are sold to a professional body only. It is clear that in 1962, Congress had no wish to regulate the practice of medicine, but prescription-only status has made this unavoidable. The intrusion of “government” into clinical practice has extended from the thin end of this wedge. It is now common to find administrators who know nothing about medical practice dictating to doctors what the content of clinical encounters must be. Regulators claim all they are doing is regulating the wording used by pharmaceutical companies that may be misleading to consumers, just as they have done since 1906. But in this case the consumers are doctors and the regulator is undertaking to all but guarantee wording about the compound, written by pharmaceutical companies. Where in fact there is advertising, doctors see authoritative scientific statements. Before the 1962 regulations were passed, Senator Kefauver noted that prescription only status created a unique market: “He who buys does not order and he who orders does not buy”. The fact that thalidomide had been available over the counter in Germany where its hazards came to light may have influenced the decision making process and allayed concerns about prescription only arrangements. No-one considered the possibility that the risks of thalidomide had come to light precisely because the drug had been over the counter, and doctors had no incentive to hide the risks of over-the-counter drugs. Linked to the prescription-only status of drugs and the development of controlled trials the regulations also encouraged pharmaceutical companies to develop medicines for disease indications. As ever the thrust of regulation was to enhance safety, and one of the apparent ways to do this was to restrict the use of medicines to conditions that in themselves posed a greater risk than the risk stemming from the chemicals used to treat them so that there would be a favorable risk benefit ratio. What was not anticipated was that if pharmaceutical companies were restricted to selling medicines for diseases only, one option for them was to begin to convert what had been a series of vicissitudes of everyday life and normal variation in terms of beauty and functionality into a set of diseases. We could all be made diseased and indeed there was no reason why we couldn’t all be given several different diseases. And so we have all become depressed, osteoporotic and have hyperlipidemia (hypercholesterolemia) where otherwise we might have had burn-out, aging bones that could be managed by exercise, and a diet-related issue that is only significant against a background of more important cardiac risk factors. We are all about to get a rash of auto-immune disorders we never knew we had, as back-aches become ankylosing spondilitis, and depression becomes an inflammatory disorder. For companies an unexpected benefit of this restriction was that they had to learn to speak the language of doctors – diseases. They have learnt to do this to an extent that medicine fails to appreciate. A huge range of vicissitudes have been transformed into illnesses, acute illnesses have become chronic and the moral imperative to treat that is brought to conditions like tuberculosis has been co-opted to the sales of almost any pharmaceutical product for indications no matter how trivial. Where patients might be wary of taking chemicals, they are increasingly faced with doctors attempting to persuade them that this chemical will correct some abnormality and that they are almost duty bound to take it. Kefauver recognized the risks inherent in third party buying arrangements. These are well-recognized and form a major part of conservative arguments against government involvement in areas such as healthcare. The market will simply not work efficiently if the person ordering doesn’t also buy and benefit from or suffer the consequences of their purchase. If this is not the case, at the very least those doing the buying should be trained in the hazards of what they are doing. In 1962, it was clear there were risks in such an arrangement even though the third party was seen as an independent professional who most people thought would be working on behalf of their patient, almost to the extent that a pilot flying a plane works on behalf of those entrusted to her care. Since 1962, professional discretion has been all but outlawed and doctors prescribing choices are dictated to them not by market pressure but by a system that mandates the use of the latest and most expensive on-patent medicines, the medicines on which there is the least data as regards safety. Doctors may be the only significant group of buyers who are not trained in the pitfalls of buying for a third party. Their background means that they do not even realize that they are not trained in an area of huge consequence for them and their patients. Recent estimates suggest that companies spend over $50,000 per annum per doctors marketing to doctors. This figure could likely be greatly increased if the cost of “scientific” articles were also included in the mix. Doctors in other words are subject to a greater concentration of marketing power than any other group of people on earth. But, just as they know nothing about buying for a third party, so also no doctors are trained to recognize the way companies market to them. Both doctors and patients fail to realize that doctors are the consumers of medicines and that they consume by putting pills in patients mouths. In so doing they consume without consequences or side effects. Companies fully appreciate this and exploit it. If the patient has a problem, company marketing ensures doctors will have to hand a great deal of evidence suggesting that any problems are part of the patient’s illness rather than a consequence of treatment. Evidence based medicine is deployed to relegate any reports of difficulties from doctors or patients to the status of anecdotes. Companies also work closely on the psychology of individual doctors, categorizing them in terms of whether they are likely to innovate with medicines, want to adhere to guidelines, or merge with the crowd. The approach to each doctor takes this categorization into account. Doctors rarely if ever know how they are profiled, and rarely if ever realize that the adverts and gimmicks and presentations they dismiss are aimed at others not them, and are indeed working on them in so far as they give doctors the impression that they disregard company promotional efforts. But whatever the orientation of the doctor there is another set of pitches designed for him or her that he is likely inhaling with the air he breathes. Finally, doctors appear to be more susceptible to the effects of branding than even teenagers faced with choice of designer outfits. This happens because the development of branding feeds into the most powerful bias in medicine. Brands unlike drugs come free of side effects. The temptation for a doctor is to go with the brand, because no-one wants to give a patient something that might injure them. But this is a form of thinking that reduces doctors to playing at doctors and nurses rather than engaging in medicine. There is some token resistance to using the brand name of drugs in academic articles, but medical textbooks quickly incorporate brands such as SSRIs, statins, and quite meaningless designations such as atypical antipsychotics. More to the point, where academic meetings in the 1950s and 1960s routinely featured symposia on the hazards of using certain drug groups, it would now be as rare as finding snow in the Sahara to find a symposium at an academic meeting today about the hazards of treatment unless the symposium was sponsored by the makers of a competing product. Quite aside from transforming doctors into the perfect consumer in this sense, in 1962 it was not appreciated how much a mechanism designed to improve safety might in fact do just the opposite by transforming clinical encounters into hostage situations. Making drugs available on prescription only means that patients have nowhere else to go to get a medicine they need or think they need. They effectively become a hostage rather than a patient and risk the development of Stockholm syndrome. In 1962 Stockholm syndrome had not yet been described. It is now known that people whose lives are at risk and who are isolated (anyone with an illness), when held hostage by kind captors concerned about their welfare (as doctors are increasingly trained to be) are highly likely to identify with their captors and want to keep them happy. In these circumstances, especially when the patient finds their condition worsening, it becomes very difficult to raise the possibility that what the doctor has done in good faith to help might in fact be causing problems. It seems more and more likely that the safety consequences of turning patients into hostages outweigh the risks inherent in the drugs that doctors prescribe. The evidence that treatment induced adverse events have now become a leading source of death and disability point just this way. Meanwhile there is not a medical course on earth that trains doctors to recognize their capacity to induce Stockholm syndrome. Someday soon your doctor is likely to suggest Humira for your backache or Enbrel for your ‘nerves’ - or some succeeding biologic drug. Drugs that have triple the reporting rate of serious side effects of antidepressants and antipsychotics. Your doctor will come up with this idea, unaware as to where it came from. He will likely be pleased with the idea of trying something new and he won’t be aware of any discomfort on treatment. You won’t report anything to disturb his equanimity. He might think it prudent to withhold information about cancer and serious infection rates on these drugs in your interest, unaware that “There is simply no constitutional basis for recognition of a right on the part of physicians to control patient access to information concerning the possible side effects of prescription drugs” (1). He will think he has a right to withhold this information from you and a God-given right to prescription privileges that bring with them annual remuneration rates of several hundred thousand dollars per year. He is the best possible partner any drug company could have, and ideal consumer rolled into one.

ABSTRACT: Parkinson's disease (PD) is a neurodegenerative disease in which the etiology of 90 percent of the patients is unknown. Pesticide exposure is a major risk factor for PD, and paraquat (PQ), pyridaben (PY) and maneb (MN) are amongst the most widely used pesticides. We studied mRNA expression using transcriptome sequencing (RNA-Seq) in the ventral midbrain (VMB) and striatum (STR) of PQ, PY and paraquat+maneb (MNPQ) treated mice, followed by pathway analysis. We found concordance of signaling pathways between the three pesticide models in both the VMB and STR as well as concordance in these two brain areas. The concordant signaling pathways with relevance to PD pathogenesis were e.g. axonal guidance signaling, Wnt/β-catenin signaling, as well as pathways not previously linked to PD, e.g. basal cell carcinoma, human embryonic stem cell pluripotency and role of macrophages, fibroblasts and endothelial cells in rheumatoid arthritis. Human PD pathways previously identified by expression analysis, concordant with VMB pathways identified in our study were axonal guidance signaling, Wnt/β-catenin signaling, IL-6 signaling, ephrin receptor signaling, TGF-β signaling, PPAR signaling and G-protein coupled receptor signaling. Human PD pathways concordant with the STR pathways in our study were Wnt/β-catenin signaling, axonal guidance signaling and G-protein coupled receptor signaling. Peroxisome proliferator activated receptor delta (Ppard) and G-Protein Coupled Receptors (GPCRs) were common genes in VMB and STR identified by network analysis. In conclusion, the pesticides PQ, PY and MNPQ elicit common signaling pathways in the VMB and STR in mice, which are concordant with known signaling pathways identified in human PD, suggesting that these pathways contribute to the pathogenesis of idiopathic PD. The analysis of these networks and pathways may therefore lead to improved understanding of disease pathogenesis, and potential novel therapeutic targets.

RIT is a leader in the growing arena of on-demand publishing Gloomy predictions regarding the future of print in the Internet age are highly exaggerated. Print is alive and thriving – and the Internet is fueling the industry. Online innovators are making it easier than ever to publish books and other printed materials – and the definition of publishing is expanding to include products never before imagined. “There’s the possibility of doing radical new things,” says Frank Cost ’87 (computer science), professor of digital publishing and printing, co-director of the RIT Printing Industry Center and associate dean of RIT’s College of Imaging Arts and Sciences. He’s personally explored a few of the possibilities. “I sort of stumbled into an obsessive publishing binge,” he says. It started in January, when he was preparing to present a program on “The Book as a Child of the Internet” for Xerox. Cost’s “instant books” – each created in less than a day – include a multi-image self-portrait called Facing Myself and a biographical photo-tour of his daughter Elaine’s room. He’s given the presentation in England, India, and at Rochester’s Writers & Books “Future of the Book” conference. “People get really excited about the creative possibilities when they realize that they have easy access to this new technology,” says Cost, who last year published The New Medium of Print: Material Communication in the Internet Age through Cary Graphic Arts Press, RIT’s university press, which publishes scholarly content. Cost’s “instant books” are among a growing number of publications by faculty, staff and students produced through OpenBook@RIT, a new online publishing venture between RIT Libraries, Lulu.com and ColorCentric Corp. (The Web address is .) RIT is the first university to partner with Lulu.com, the world’s fastest-growing source of print-on-demand books. Founded in 2002 by CEO Bob Young (who previously co-founded software company Red Hat), Lulu.com now lists more than 45,000 titles. More than 1,000 new items are added each month. Lulu.com is one a growing number of online publishers. Others are iUniverse.com (affiliated with Barnes & Noble), authorhouse.com, BookSurge.com (recently acquired by Amazon.com) and a new entry, Blurb.com. Getting published is remarkably simple: Basically, individuals upload their books to a Web site where they are made available for purchase. The cost to list a book online can be minimal (Lulu charges nothing). The publisher takes a cut of profits after expenses including printing and any fees have been deducted. Through the Web site, customers anywhere can buy a download of the book (the author may allow free downloads), or purchase a printed copy. The author sets the price. A photo story of a 6-year-old motorcross rider. • Special Effects Photography; Andrew Davidhazy Samples of traditional photographic special effects not based on post-capture computer manipulation, with photos by students in RIT’s School of Photographic Arts and Science. • Projeto Conexao Felipe Camarao; Millard Schisler A group of RIT photography students visited and photographed a community project in Natal, Brazil that works with children and preserving the local cultural heritage. Produced for the organization, this book is in Portuguese. • Views Down Under; Marianne Buehler A calendar of photos taken on the South Island of New Zealand. • Swimming with Sharks; Jeanne Nagle A short-story collection. • The MEGAtome; Jonathan Berman This pamphlet answers deep spiritual questions, and is part of the MEGAtome, holy book of the MEGAgodonian religion. Huge growth is anticipated in the “photo space” – digital photo albums, memory books, greeting cards, posters, calendars and other materials – such as Frank Cost’s “instant books” – based on color images. “We think the photo-finishing market is going to explode,” Lacagnina says. Orders come via Web portals including Qoop.com, Flickr.com, Myspace.com, Facebook.com, Photobucket.com, Lulu.com and others. An example of what’s possible is Two Years Abroad by Miguel Samper ’03 (information technology). After graduation, Samper spent a year living and working in New Zealand, then visited Nepal, China, Vietnam, Laos, Cambodia, Thailand and Australia, hiking and living out of a backpack. The book, a collection of his memorable photos, was self-produced using Adobe Photoshop and Adobe InDesign. “I had the technical background to do that,” he says. “Publishing this way was a great opportunity. You have complete control.” The experience also gave him a business idea. This summer, Samper will be producing photo books for two private camps, which campers and anyone interested will be able to buy online. Samper’s father, NTID media specialist Jorge Samper, has also published photo books through Lulu.com, including family wedding albums and baby pictures. This kind of material isn’t destined for the best-seller list, but it’s a good example of what’s possible. “The technology makes the book as a personal expression so easy,” says Cost. “We’ve never thought of using a book this way.” Lacagnina calls this “disruptive technology” – it shakes up the traditional publishing industry, where big companies and agents control who gets to publish a book. Big companies can’t afford to take too many risks because conventional publishing – involving the printing of thousands of books at a time in the hope they’ll sell – is very expensive. But that severely limits the sharing of ideas and creative expression. The future of publishing, Lulu.com CEO Bob Young has said, belongs to “niche-busters – books targeting a niche rather than mass market.” “On-demand publishing gives power to the individual,” says Lacagnina. “We know this is getting the attention of the traditional publishing world.” “There are 6 billion people on this world, and each one of them has a story,” he adds. “Now they can all get published.” The RIT cross-country team had a mission: Run a 2,730-mile continuous relay from the Pacific Ocean to the coast of the Atlantic in less than two weeks. Mission accomplished in 12 days, 3 hours and 48 minutes. The team’s amazing feat is documented in Coast to Coast: The Story of the 2004 Transcontinental Relay Run by Ryan Pancoast ’05 (illustration). His 17 teammates contributed passages. “The team knew it was essential to put the events of the run onto paper before our memories faded,” said Pancoast, of Stratford, Conn. “I was elected to head the project, but soon after I began compiling the runners’ stories, collecting photographs and writing a day-by-day account, I realized that creating a book like this was, at times, more daunting than running across the country.” Jim Castor, assistant sports editor of the Rochester Democrat and Chronicle, and Marianne Buehler, head of publishing and scholarship support services at RIT’s Wallace Library, served as editors for the Coast to Coast project. The run, which took place in November 2004, helped commemorate RIT’s 175th anniversary and also paid tribute to a 1979 coast-to-coast run celebrating the university’s 150th anniversary. The 1979 team completed its run in 14 days, 4 hours, and 8 minutes, which at the time was listed in the Guinness Book of World Records.

Small Business SEO – Pick a cheerleader! The tactic that I’m going to describe to you here is one that I learned from a webinar somewhere selling an SEO product that automates this process. While this is a legitimate SEO strategy, paying for backlinks may be considered more of a “black hat” tactic. Just a little fyi before we dig in here. Placing links on major sites back to your pages. In short, that’s what we are going to do. I’m going to go over a few little tricks that I learned from a webinar by DigitalMarketer.com Small Business SEO – You Tube is my new Girlfriend So we are going to go through posting a video on youtube.com, and some the of specific details of how to do this in a way that optimizes the SEO results that we get for that post. Here are the steps we are going to take. - Create a short 2-3 minute video related to our site and selected keyword phrase. - Create a transcript of the video’s contents - Pick a title that is “stacked” with our keyword phrase - Write an optimized description for the video with a link back to our home page. - Upload the video to youtube, using our selected title and description - Once uploaded, we go back into the description and add a recursive link - Pay to generate traffic to the video – black hat Small Business SEO – Youtube: Step 1 – Creating a Video This part can be a bit scary for some people. Everyone thinks they have to put themselves on camera, and that is just not true. The guys over a digital marketer have some great suggestions for creating videos. The one I really like is a screen capture video, where you do a simple text-based powerpoint presentation with a voice-over. So pick a topic that you can heavily lace with your keyword phrase and start making your short 2-3 minute presentation. You are going to be surprised how quickly 2-3 minutes go by. And trust me, the more of these you do, easier it is going to be. These little videos are like little GOLD Small Business SEO nuggets. (ps…if you have the money, you can always just go to fiverr.com or elance.com and pay someone to make you a short video.) Small Business SEO – Youtube: Step 2 – Transcript This is important because we are going to include this transcript with our video upload and it will help to emphasize the keyword phrase for which we are trying to rank. If you are paying someone to do your video, but you want to keep control, go ahead and write the transcript first, then give it to the person making the video. Small Business SEO – Youtube: Step 3 – Pick a “stacked” Title When we upload our video to youtube we want to stack our title with our keyword phrase. So if your keyword phrase is “Vintage Clothing”, you may do a video with this title, “Vintage Clothing Care Instructions for Vintage Clothing.” Sometimes your title is going to look a little funny, but that’s ok. The point is that if we can get that key phrase in there twice, and make it look ok, then do it. This is only going to help our video to rank higher on youtube for “Vintage Clothing”, and in turn will help increase our main website’s visibility. Small Business SEO – Youtube: Step 4 – Write an optimized description When you upload your video to youtube, you are going to have to write a short description. We want to do several key things. First, make sure to start your description with your keyword phrase, and include your keywords in that description in several places without sounding completely weird. Next, make sure you have a link back to your main website in the description. This is the key thing that we are really getting out of this. Google is going to see that there is a video on youtube, that is ranking for the search term, and also pointing back to your site, which we also want to rank for that search term. Small Business SEO – Youtube: Step 5 – Upload the video At this point you should be able to upload the video, and fill out all of the information that we’ve just gone over. You also want to make sure and include that transcript. Small Business SEO – Youtube: Step 6 – Add recursive link I personally can’t vouch for if this really helps that much, but people I trust say it does, so I’m going with it. After your video is uploaded, go back and edit the description. Make sure to add a link to the url of the youtube video in the description as well. Small Business SEO – Youtube: Step 7 – Get some traffic So everthing we’ve done so far is pretty legit. What we are doing here is long-form SEO strategy. It takes some time, but each little bit helps. If you did 1 video per day for 20-30 days, all linking back to your site, you will definitely see some results. There is one strategy that we can take at this point to fast-forward our success. There are two parts here. The first is that we can go to fiverr.com and pay for someone to create 500+ backlinks to our youtube video. IMPORTANT!!! Don’t go paying someone to create links back to your site. If google sees 500 links back to your site, they’re gong to know that there is NO WAY that you got popular that quickly. We want links back the Youtube video, which links back to your site. Google doesn’t mind if youtube gets 500 links, because youtube is the “Cheerleader!” She is already popular, and you are just riding on her coat-tails. The second part uses a software that auto-submits your video to a BUNCH of video sites. Go to fiverr.com and search for “traffic geyser.” You can pay someone who has a TrafficGeyser.com account to submit your video for you. I would also recommend just going to trafficgeyser.com and filling out their information request. I can’t vouch personally for their system, as I do not have an account, but I’m on their email list and David Koenigs, the founder has sent me some really great free information. All very helpful stuff. Small Business SEO – Youtube: Final Thoughts To review, we’ve created a small video. We’ve linked it back to our main site, and we’ve paid some other people to create links to our youtube video. We’ve probably spent 2-3 hours of our own time, and paid $10 bucks on fiverr.com to get some backlinks. If we do this for 10 days, we end up spending $100 bucks, and have some really powerful backlinks to our site. Think about this…in the end you would have 5000 backlinks to 10 youtube videos, all linking back to your site. That’s one big powerful funnel. Small Business SEO – Dating Around! So the example we went over today only applies to youtube. If your brain is racing like crazy at this point it is because you are thinking of other sites like amazon.com (yes, you can publish ebooks VERY easily on Amazon.com), and wikipedia.com (Be careful with wikipedia, but if you have great content on a topic, it could be a linked source in an article). Another one that I’ve heard of is to create a post on an open .edu forum. Google LOVES the credibility of .edu backlinks. That’s it for now. I hope I’ve given you some good information to get you started. I cannot take credit for coming up with any of this stuff, so below are some of the sites that I gathered this information from. While all of these sites have GREAT information, I try to remind people not to get too excited when they hear about a product that will get them to #1 on Google. It IS work. There are some great tools out there that make some processes easier for you, but you MUST remember that they are only tools. You need to have fundamentals. One analogy I like is this: in your business, would you hire a head accountant because they knew how to use quickbooks, or would you rather have someone with an accounting degree, who knew the debits and credits of each transaction, and also knew quickbooks. Tools can only get you so far, but you will fall on your face without fundamentals.

These edible flowers have a texture that's soft and delicate when raw or steamed, crisp and toothsome when fried — and especially delectable when encasing dollops of soft, white cheese. I don't mean to be churlish, but I often find that the joy of edible flowers mostly comes upfront, when you see their lovely, unexpected colors on your plate. "We're beautiful and safe to eat," they seem to cry. Yet I find their allure sometimes falls short. Cucumbery borage has a fishy aftertaste. Nasturtiums expertly hide insects, and violets are so vanishingly subtle they practically aren't there. Just because you can eat something doesn't always mean you should. Jumbo-size zucchini blossoms seem to promise more of the same. On the vine, they unfurl like a Kleenex crumpling in reverse. For a few brief days of pollination, bees wander around the vast yellow blooms like shoppers at Kmart. Then the Kleenex crumples again, its base shielding a small green torpedo that rapidly advances toward blimpdom. Before you can say "ratatouille," a fleet of foot-long submersibles has collected beneath the massing heart-shaped leaves. They dare you to dispose of them in the compost or any other way you can think of. ("The only time we lock our cars around here is during zucchini season," remarks my uncle in rural Vermont, in a nod to local wisdom.) Zucchini blossoms, though, haven't got the polleny, not-quite-foodlike flavor profile of many flowers. They're mild and squashy, with a texture that's soft and delicate when raw or steamed, crisp and toothsome when fried. They're produced in crazy, profligate profusion. And if nothing else, plucking those blossoms during their brief summer window is a highly effective form of zucchini birth control. The zucchini is a New World vegetable. I like to imagine it was some exasperated grandmother in pre-colonial Mexico who first stripped the overly prolific zucchini plant of its blossoms and dropped them in hot oil, because what doesn't taste good dropped in hot oil? But I really have no idea. What I do know is that as good as a fried zucchini blossom is, it's even better if you stuff it with some kind of soft white cheese — ricotta, mozzarella, goat cheese. When the blossom, lovingly twisted shut, hits the hot oil, several magical things happen at once — the cheese begins to soften, picking up the flavors of whatever herbs you've added as it warms. The outside of the flower rapidly crisps, like a fine layer of pastry. And if you've got a little squashlet attached to the end of the flower? Well, now it's a tasty and tender little cooked squashlet, with the pristine, vegetal flavor we so miss when it gets to be the size of a baseball bat. As Jamie Oliver says in his recipe: bloody delicious. No question, zucchini blossoms are an ingenious and elegant packaging material — tastier than wonton wrappers, prettier than parchment, way less crazy-making than phyllo. And they fry up into crumbly golden shells. On the other hand, who among us doesn't find deep-frying guilt-inducing and messy? So I'm including a couple of other recipes using techniques — baking and poaching — that won't send you to the confessional unless you just can't stop eating them. It's a real risk, but there, I'm afraid, you're on your own. The only thing is this: zucchini blossoms are nearly as fragile as the Kleenex they resemble. Before and after they open, they're easy to tear, soft and ever so delicate. They're at their most manageable when they've just finished opening, when, in accordance with some mysterious directive, each petal unfurls to its tip. If they haven't yet arrived at the climactic moment, tease them open with a chopstick. Then you can squeeze in your soft white cheese filling using a plastic bag with a hole cut in the corner. Now I have a blushing confession to make: not a single zucchini blossom was harmed in the writing of this article. Well, I bought a zucchini plant at the nursery a month ago. But then, as you'll recall if you live on the East Coast, came week upon week of celestial lectures on the subject of rain. I left the garden to its own weedy devices and forgot about the zucchini plant, leaving the poor little guy in the shed to wither and die while I played card games with the kids. Fortunately, I had a number of fine pumpkin and buttercup squash plants, the fruits of a more industrious spring. These, it turns out, are thoroughly interchangeable with zucchini blossoms; I defy anyone to tell the difference in a blind taste test. They busted out in yellow bloom just in time, making these recipes possible. I had just arrived at the last recipe and my last blossom — a whorled bubble of a squash blossom, just past its prime and already twirling shut on the end — when I noticed it was emitting a curious, intermittent buzz. Cautiously, I teased the twisted, tissue-thin petals apart with my chopstick — and discovered a very small, very confused honeybee, supercooled from three hours in the fridge and completely covered in pollen. We stepped outside and I gingerly released him, holding the petals open by the very tips of my fingers. Undaunted by his adventure, he took wing, making what I can only describe as a beeline for the garden. There he would attend an August banquet of flowers, each more delicious than the last. If an insect can have an expression, his was one of rapture. And — just for once — I knew how he felt.

Illinois Secretary of State Jesse White on Tuesday set up a task force to strengthen the state's teen driving laws, an effort that may result in doubling the length of time young drivers hold a learner's permit and extending the ban on night driving for 16 year olds. The 27-member task force will focus on proposing legislation this fall aimed at reducing vehicle crashes among young drivers--the No. 1 killer of teens. Comprised of lawmakers, traffic safety experts, law enforcement officials and a father whose son was killed in a car crash, the committee will conduct statewide hearings in Springfield, Carbondale and Chicago over the next 45 days to examine the issue of teen driving, White said. Committee members also will review the Graduated Driver License laws of Illinois and other states, examine recent studies on the effectiveness of GDL laws and consider proposals from traffic safety organizations to enhance teen driving laws. "I created this task force with one clear mission," White said, "to develop legislation that will strengthen Illinois' GDL law in a manner that enhances the safety of young, novice drivers and reduces fatal crashes involving teen drivers." Illinois' GDL law prohibits 16 year olds from driving after 11 p.m. Sunday through Thursday and after midnight on Friday and Saturday. But research from the Center for Injury Research and Policy at Johns Hopkins University shows that the likelihood of 16- and 17-year-old drivers being involved in fatal crashes is three times higher from 10 p.m. to midnight than from 6 a.m. to 10 p.m. In addition, the mandatory learner's permit period set by Illinois GDL law is only three months, among the shortest in the U.S. The standard minimum in most states is six months, a length of time experts contend gives young drivers important, adult-supervised experience under diverse conditions. White said he may propose extending the three-month holding period to six months and moving the night driving restriction for 16 year olds to 10 p.m. - - -

I was in Argentina last week by Brazil Soybean project, which despite its name has acquired an international character, and I could travel more than 1,500 kilometers and talk to some producers and institutions. What I saw was the suffering of Argentines over a crop full of uncertainty, and what is worse, with indications that some producers leave farming areas due to losses followed by two seasons. The previous season had significant losses for both soybeans as for corn. In soybean there was a 22.6% drop in production and, in corn, 31.16%. Considering the breakdown of the previous crop and 60% of the areas are leased, were recorded losses between $ 200 to $ 300 per hectare, so Argentine producers are at their limit. To make matters worse, the country has embittered inflation of 25%, 26% and 29% in the last three years, which directly impacts on production costs, since 40% of the cost of the producer (freight and agricultural operations) are paid in Argentine Pesos . And with the prospect of another year of losses, reaching 50% in provinces to the north, we can say that there are producers who no longer have to continue the activity. Besides inflation, the tax burden is too high, impacting farmers' income by 40% (retentions of 35% on the value of soybeans and 5% in income taxes). In Brazil the producers know this story very well, so much so that some regions in the past 10 years have lost the same reasons, 50% of producers who kept her activity. In Fields Julius-MT, my county, for example, were 166 producers in 2003 and today we are only 47, and half of these do not reside in the county, and as a result much of the area is absorbed by larger groups. In the case of Argentina, which until November predicted a record crop, climate saw his greatest enemy, entering December with excess rain and flooding in various regions. As a result of the 19.7 million hectares potential 2.2% were not planted and who planted 6.7% were committed to the flooding, leaving an estimated area of 18 million hectares to be harvested. Prolonged rains caused late planting stay in 28% of regions. In some, the delay was 10 to 36 days depending on the region, which is compromising productivity. Data from research institutes in Argentina show falls around 30 kg per day late or 30 days late planting in loss of 15 sacks. Not enough to flood areas, then came the drought in some regions experiencing up to 60 days without rain. In Santa Fe, a province that borders south to Buenos Aires, some areas have seen the last rains on December 15, which translates into longer breaks 30% to 40% in productivity. Importantly, 60% of Argentine areas are leased and the lease amount is around 30 bushels of soybeans per hectare, unlike what we have in Brazil where leases have a maximum of 15 bags per hectare. Due to all these problems crop Argentina before expected 55 million tonnes, not expected to exceed 48 million. Already we can even estimate an average productivity that should not be much above 2.6 tonnes per hectare. Producers make promises and pray for the rains come and the damage is not larger. Until now, the provinces of Tucumán and Santiago were the most affected and should be the ones that most producers will lose ultimately with crop loss of 50%, direct taxes that reach 40% of production and a lease that reaches 60% of costs total inflation of 29%, it becomes impossible to continue production.

Gerald Rudolph Ford, Jr., became the 38th president of the United States on Aug. 9, 1974, after Richard M. Nixon resigned to avoid probable impeachment as a result of the Watergate affair. For 25 years a Republican member of Congress without national ambitions, Ford had been appointed vice-president in 1973 by President Nixon to replace Spiro T. Agnew, who resigned after being accused of bribery and of violations of the income tax laws. The only child of Leslie and Dorothy Gardner King, Ford was born on July 14, 1913, in Omaha, Nebr., and was originally named Leslie Lynch King, Jr. His parents were divorced when he was two years old, and his mother moved to Grand Rapids, Mich., where she met and married a business executive named Gerald R. Ford, who formally adopted the young boy and gave him his name. In school, young Ford was a good student and an excellent athlete. He became a star center on the University of Michigan football team and graduated from the university in 1935 with a B average. After graduation, he took a job as a football and boxing coach at Yale University. He was soon admitted to the Yale Law School, finishing in the top third of his class. With the outbreak of World War II, his fledgling law practice in Grand Rapids was interrupted. He entered the navy, served aboard an aircraft carrier in the Pacific, and was discharged at the end of the war with the rank of lieutenant commander. Ford returned to Grand Rapids and resumed his law practice. In 1948 he married Elizabeth ("Betty") Bloomer Warren, a fashion coordinator and former dance student whose first marriage had ended a year earlier in divorce. In the same year he entered the Republican primary in Michigan, upset the incumbent representative from the state's Fifth District, and easily won election to the U.S. House of Representatives in November. He won reelection every two years thereafter, until he resigned in 1973 to become vice-president. In the House, Ford gained a reputation as a moderately conservative, hardworking, and loyally partisan member of the Republican party, who made up for his lack of legislative brilliance by providing effective personal service to his Michigan constituents. In 1965 he was chosen as House Republican leader. Had the Republicans gained a majority of the seats while he was party leader, he would certainly have been named Speaker of the House. After Spiro Agnew resigned on Oct. 10, 1973, however, Nixon nominated Ford as vice-president under the provisions of the 25th Amendment to the U.S. Constitution, the first time that the procedures outlined in the amendment were utilized. Following congressional approval of his appointment, Ford was sworn in on Dec. 6, 1973. A little more than eight months later, Nixon resigned after the House Judiciary Committee voted to recommend his impeachment. Ford automatically succeeded him and thus became the first president in U.S. history who had not been chosen in a national election either as president or as vice-president. Nevertheless, Ford's unaffected personal style and his attempts to bring the presidency closer to the public were well received by the American people. His political problems began four weeks after he took office, when he issued a full pardon to Nixon for any crimes he might have committed as president. In addition, the Ford administration was faced with a major economic slump, in which inflation was uniquely combined with recession to produce stagflation. Ford engaged, moreover, in a running battle with the Democratic Congress. During his two and a half years as president, he vetoed 61 bills that had been passed by Congress. Only 12 of the vetoes were overridden. The resultant popular impression that the government in Washington was deadlocked probably hurt Ford's reelection chances. In foreign relations he generally followed his predecessor's policies. Major events during Ford's administration included the collapse of South Vietnam in 1975 and, in the same year, the overthrow of the Lon Nol regime in Cambodia (Kampuchea) by Communist forces. The latter led to the Mayagüez incident, in which a small force of U.S. Marines were sent to recapture the U.S. freighter Mayagüez and its crew, which had been seized by Cambodian forces. Ford received the Republican nomination for the presidency in 1976, despite a serious challenge in state presidential primary elections by former California governor Ronald Reagan. At the beginning of the fall campaign, he trailed the Democratic nominee, Jimmy Carter of Georgia, by ten points in the Gallup Poll, but after a vigorous campaign in the final weeks, Ford lost to Carter by only 2.1 percent of the popular vote. Although disappointed, he retired from public office with characteristic good grace. He remains active in corporate and charitable affairs.

Children can have hyperacusis. They often are unable to describe it very well using words, and instead use body or emotional gestures (crying, screaming, hitting, biting) to communicate. They may also simply try to 'get away'. Research shows that about 17-20% of all children with autism or Asperger's or similar conditions will also have hyperacusis. Common signs include crying in noisy environments, clasping hands over the ears, fear of noise or noisy objects, self-harm when exposed to loud noise, i.e. vacuum cleaners, and reluctance to participate in noisy or loud activities, i.e. watch parades, birthday parties, musical presentations, etc. Children free of these conditions also can aquire hyperacusis, particularly following frequent or severe ear infections, head injuries, viruses, or medication adverse reactions, or unknown causes. Hyperacusis, sound annoyance, and loudness hypersensitivity in children. The objective of the present study was to estimate the prevalence of hyperacusis among school-aged children. We define hyperacusis as lowered loudness discomfort levels (LDL) associated with an abnormal annoyance to sounds. We used questionnaires, interviews, and estimates of LDL in a study of 506 children from 5 to 12 years of age from 15 different schools. Participants with LDL in the lowest 5th percentile were classified as having loudness hypersensitivity; an abnormal annoyance to sounds if they responded "yes" to the question "Are you bothered by any kind of sounds or noise?" could describe the sound, and were able to identify at least 10 sounds from a list of 20 as being annoying. Phonophobia was defined as a fear of sound. Children with LDL in the lowest 5th percentile typically had LDLs lower than 90 dB HL; 42% of the participants in this group were bothered by sounds and 3.2% had hyperacusis. Fifty percent of the participants with hyperacusis had tinnitus and mild hearing loss in the left ear was an associated risk factor. Phonophobia was experienced by 9% of the children. It is concluded that hyperacusis in children is prevalent, and should be considered in clinical examinations. Many times, it is the subjective observations from parents, teachers, or care givers that is used to support a diagnosis of hyperacusis. Frequently, primary care physicians find it difficult to diagnose hyperacusis as a primary symtpom and will refer to an ear specialist. Since 1997, our clinic has been fitting children with bilateral broadband signal generators, open ear canal styles, or preprogrammed personal listening devices such as MP3 players, in patients as young as four years old. Our data, collected over 14 years, shows that about 2/3s of the children who try out these devices, benefit signficantly. Other young children have been helped by using gentle environmental sound sculpting, with fans, fountains, music, nature sounds, and so on, provided at home and at school, to help the children recover or improve their hyperacusis. For some children, the sound acts like a masking therapy, removing some of the difficulties with sudden sounds or persistent intruding and irritating noises. The devices can be soothing and comforting for some children, raising the ambient noise levels which can create a calmer auditory environment.

Bassist Julian Euell was born on May 23, 1929 in New York City. He first began playing bass in 1944, served in the Army from 1945-47 and after his discharge began playing with Sonny Rollins, Jackie McLean and Art Taylor that same year. He quit music in ’49 for steady work in the post office eventually studying under Charles Mingus in ’52 and attending Julliard fro 1953 to 1956. He also took classes at NYU, earned a bachelor’s degree from Columbia University and subsequently taught there. His musical associations during the fifties were with Elmo Hope, Benny Harris, Charlie Rouse, Joe Roland, Freddie Redd, Gigi Gryce and Phineas Newborn. Leaving music again late in the decade he found employment in New Jersey as a social worker. Though less active at this time he continued to perform with Mal Waldron, Randy Weston, Abbey Lincoln, Charles Mingus and Kenny Dorham. In the 1960s Euell worked in Harlem directing an arts program and then returned to school, receiving a Ph.D. from George Washington University in 1973. He was Assistant Secretary for Public Service at the Smithsonian from 1970-1982, and was partly responsible for the institution’s increasing interest in jazz history. From 1983 to 1988 he directed the Oakland Museum History-Arts-Science and from 1991-95 was director of the Louis Armstrong House. He returned to semi-regular performing in the 1980s and 1990s. Rufus Harley, Jr. was born near Raleigh, North Carolina on May 20, 1936 of mixed Cherokee and African ancestry but at an early age his mother relocated with him to North Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. At age 12 he began playing the C melody saxophone and the trumpet and ten years later he was studying saxophone, flute, oboe and clarinet. His interest in the bagpipes came when he saw the Black Watch perform during President Kennedy’s funeral in 1963. Traveling to New York he bought a set in a pawnshop for $120 and quickly adapted it to the idiom of jazz, blues and funk. Harley made his Scottish great Highland bagpipe debut in 1964 and over the next five years released four albums for Atlantic records and recorded as a sideman during that period and into the seventies with Herbie Mann, Sonny Stitt, and Sonny Rollins. He would later record with Laurie Anderson on “Big Science” in 1982, The Roots album “Do You Want More?!!!??!” in 1995 as a result of an appearance on the Arsenio Hall show. Rufus often wore Scottish garb including kilt and a Viking style horned helmet. After watching him on television, a Scottish family gave him his MacLeod tartan, which he wore for the rest of his life. His bagpipe technique was unorthodox in that he placed the drones over his right shoulder instead of his left and favored a B-flat minor key. Residing in the Germantown neighborhood of Philadelphia, when not working as a maintenance worker for the housing authority, Rufus gave presentations in area public schools, toured around the world, appeared on television shows like “What’s My Line” and “To Tell The Truth”, and had small roles in films “You’re A Big Boy Now” and “Eddie and the Cruisers”. In addition to bagpipes when recording, he would play tenor saxophone, electric soprano saxophone and flute. Rufus Harley passed away at Philadelphia’s Albert Einstein Medical Center on July 31, 2006 of prostate cancer. In memoriam a documentary titled “Pipes of Peace” gives an intimate profile and a posthumous retrospective “Courage – The Atlantic Recordings containing all four albums was released in a limited edition. Born May 19, 1935 in Tulsa, Oklahoma bassist Cecil McBee studied clarinet at school before switching to the bass at 17 and began playing in local clubs. After matriculating through Ohio Central State University with a degree in music, he spent two years in the army conducting the band at Fort Knox. Cecil McBee was working with Dinah Washington by 1959, three years later moved to Detroit and worked with Paul Winters folk-rock band, then moved to New York in the mid-60s where his jazz career took an earnest turn. He began working with Miles Davis, Andrew Hill, Sam Rivers, Jackie McLean, Wayne Shorter, Charles Lloyd, Yusef Lateef, Keith Jarrett, Freddie Hubbard, Wood Shaw and Alice Coltrane all by the time 1972 arrived. In 1975 he started his own group and made a number of recordings, became a member of the group Almanac but is best known for his as a sideman over the past several decades. One of the most influential bassist in jazz, Cecil McBee teaches at the New England Conservatory in Boston, Massachusetts and remains one of post-bops versatile bassist who delivers a rich, full-bodied tone. Kai Chresten Winding was born in Aarhus, Denmark on May 18, 1922 and when he was 12 his family immigrated to the United States. Graduating from Stuyvesant High School in 1940 and immediately commence on a professional path in Shorty Allen’s band. He followed with stints in the bands of Sonny Durham and Alvino Rey prior to service in the Coast Guard during WWII. After the war, Winding worked with Benny Goodman, Stan Kenton, and participated in the Birth of the Cool sessions. In 1954 he joined forces with J.J. Johnson and the collaboration produced some of the greatest trombone duet recordings, first on Savoy then Columbia. During this period he arranged and composed many of the songs they recorded and experimented with different instrumentation in brass ensembles and used a trombonium during an octet session. During the 1960s, Kai had a long stint at Verve Records working with Creed Taylor that produced his hit recording “More” the theme from the movie Mondo Caine. In the 1970s and early 1980s, Kai recorded for a number of independent record labels, conducted clinics, wrote instructional jazz trombone books, played jazz concerts and even reunited with Johnson for a live concert in Japan. Kai Winding, jazz trombonist, composer and arranger died of a brain tumor in New York City on May 6, 1983. Betty Carter was born Lillie Mae Jones on May 16, 1929 in Flint, Michigan but grew up in Detroit. The first music she heard was church music as her father led a choir. She studied piano at the Detroit Conservatory and winning a talent contest became a regular on the local club circuit. By 16 she was singing with Charlie Parker and would later perform with Dizzy Gillespie and Miles Davis. Honing her scatting while touring with Lionel Hampton in the late 40s, it was Hampton’s wife Gladys who nicknamed her “Betty Bebop”, a name she reportedly detested. In the fifties she recorded with King Pleasure and Ray Bryant, and released her first solo LP, Out There With Betty Carter in 1958. Although her career was eclipsed somewhat through the 60s and 70s, she made a series of duets with Ray Charles that rendered “Baby, It’s Cold Outside” which brought her a modicum of new recognition. She established Bet-Car in 1970, her own record label, after an A&R man attempted to run off with her master recordings. Her private label produced some of her most famous recordings including the double album “The Audience With Betty Carter”. In the last decade of her life she won a Grammy for “Look What I Got”, appeared on the Cosby show, performed at the White House, was awarded the National Medal of Arts by President Clinton and headlined Verve’s 50th Anniversary at Carnegie Hall. Betty Carter remained active in jazz until her death from pancreatic cancer on September 26, 1998 at the age of 69. The singer renowned for her improvisational technique and idiosyncratic vocal style was devoted to the jazz idiom. Her fellow vocalist Carmen McRae once claimed: “There’s really only one jazz singer – only one Betty Carter”.

Military History of the Fifteenth Kansas Volunteer Cavalry This Regiment dates its origin with the Lawrence Massacre. Some time prior to that heartrending atrocity, Gov. Carney had received authority from the War Department to organize a cavalry force, to be devoted to the protection of the then exposed border of Kansas. Town after town had been sacked and burned: hundreds of Kansas men robbed and murdered; whole communities in the border tier of counties had been, day and night, subject to the most fearful and startling seasons of unrest; until, without adequate protection, it became evident that the rich counties of eastern Kansas would be come depopulated. This condition of things culminated, August 21st, 1863, in the Quantreil raid upon the unarmed and unsuspecting people of the city of Lawrence, of whom one hundred and forty-three were murdered in cold blood, and the business portion of the town laid in ashes. Gov. Carney at once commissioned Col. C. R. Jennison to recruit a regiment of Cavalry. Col. Jennison forthwith opened a general rendezvous at Leavenworth, and enlisting Capt. Geo. H. Hoyt, formerly of Co. K, of the Seventh and at that time better known as the "chief Kansas Red Leg," made a hasty recruiting tour through the State, speaking with success at Wyandotte, Olathe, Paola, Osawatomie, Mound City, Fort Scott, Garnett, Prairie City, Lawrence, Topeka, Oskaloosa, Atchison, Elwood and Saint Joseph, Mo. The regiment was filled, and a surplus battalion turned over as the nucleus of the 16th regiment, within one month. Two companies each from Iowa and Illinois were declined, the Executives of those States refusing to allow them to enter organizations outside those raised by them respectively. Company A.Mustered into the service early in September, and officered by Captain John A. Wanless; 1st Lieut. James Wilson, of Johnson county; 2d Lieut, D. Wallingford, of Leavenworth county. The men were enlisted in Franklin and Johnson counties, and among them were a number of Shawnees, who proved to be good and brave soldiers. Company B.Mustered with the following officers: Capt. Jno. L. Thompson; 1st Lieut, John Murphy; 2d Lieut., R. J. Wood. A large proportion of this company were veterans of the regular army. Company C.Recruited in Leavenworth, Jefferson and Miami counties, and entered the service with the following officers: Captain, B. F. Simpson; 1st Lieut., J. H. Phillips; 2d Lieut., Jason Smith. Lieut. Smith subsequently resigned, and Q. M. Sergeant Farnsworth was promoted to the vacancy. Company D.Recruited at large through the State, and mustered with the following officers: Captain, T. J. Hurd; 1st Lieut., N. Ellis; 2d Lieut., L. J. Beam. Company E.Principally recruited in Wyandotte county, and officered as follows: Captain, Curtis Johnson; 1st Lieut. John T. Smith; 2d Lieut., W. H. Bisbee. Company F.Recruited in Shawnee, Jefferson and Leavenworth counties. Its officers were as follows: Captain, O. A. Curtis; 1st Lieut., T. J. Bragg; 2d Lieut., R. F. Bowman. Company G.Part of a battalion originally recruited by Major R. H. Hunt for the 2d Kansas. Its officers were: Captain, C. O. Smith; 1st Lieut., F. M. Hall, 2d Lieut., H. L. Barker. Many of these men were enlisted in Buchanan county, Mo. Company H.Like Co. G, it was recruited in Northern Kansas and Missouri, and mustered with the following officers: Captain, O. F. Dunlap, 1st Lieut., R. M. Fisk; 2d Lieut., F. E. Smith. This company never served with the balance of the regiment until 1865. Company I.Recruited in Leavenworth county. Its officers were: Capt., S. W. Greer; 1st Lieut., S. S. Nichols; 2d Lieutenant, W. H. Morris. Company K.Recruited in Leavenworth and Johnson counties. Its officers were as follows: Captain, Joseph B. Swain, 1st Lieut., Geo. W. Roberts; 2d Lieut, John H. Roberts. Company L.Recruited at large in the State, and organized with the following officers: Captain, D. D. Rooks; 1st Lieutenant A. Donavan: 2d Lieutenant, Orloff Norton. Company M.Recruited in Linn county, Kansas, and Jackson county, Mo. Its officers were: Captain, E. B. Metz; 1st Lieut., Emmett Goss; 2d Lieut., W. A. Johnson. The organization of the regiment was completed by the muster-in of the following Field and Staff officers: ColonelC. R. Jennison. Lieutenant ColonelGeo. H. Hoyt. MajorsR. H. Hunt, John M. Laing, H. C. Haas. SurgeonA. E. Deming. Assistant SurgeonE. Twiss ChaplainB. L. Reed. QuartermasterGeo. W. Carpeter. The regiment went into camp on the "Blue Grass," below Fort Leavenworth, where it was partially mounted and armed. The first arms received however, were Hall's carbines and sabres, insufficient in numbers, and the former particularly worthless, and long before condemned by the Army Board. With such as these about one-half of the regiment was armedthat is, for a total of over eleven hundred men we were furnished six hundred and sisty-six rusty breech-loading carbines of the worst pattern extant, with about the same number of heavy cavalry sabres, a weapon almost as useless in a border campaign as a four-inch brass pistol. With these, however, we managed to get along for a time, the squadrons using them alternately for the purposes of drill and guard duty. Having no stables a number of horses died, and all of them suffered very much in appearance during the portion of the winter we remained in camp. In November two of the companies were assigned to duty in the city and laid out a camp in one of the western additions, one or two were sent to Paola and Fort Scott, while in the following month the remainder (with the exception of Co. C, which had been on duty between Kansas City and Independence since its organization) were ordered to Fort Riley for the winter. Camp was accordingly broken up, and a portion of the command started westward. Many were detained for the purpose of having the horses shod, as the state of the weather rendered a march impossible in the condition they were in. But before all arrangements had been concluded the order was countermanded, and such as were already on the march came back. Some of them were quartered at Leavenworth, of which Colonel Jennison had meantime taken command, while others were distributed between the various posts in Southern Kansas as far south as Leroy, during the march to which point, and pending the erection of suitable quarters, some of the men were badly frozen. Co. E was not with the regiment during its first months of service, and Co. H afterwards served its term out in another district. After it had dwindled down to a beggarly total of about six hundred, (the remainder being out of my district or on detailed or garrison service in it), the Fifteenth was, for the first time, brought into the field against its natural enemiesthe rebels and bushwhackers under Gen. Price, in Missourimore than a year after its organization, and after its animals were worn out on escort duty and bootless scouts, and it had comparatively lost the esprit du corps so necessary to a healthy military condition. Colonel Jennison remained in command at Fort Leavenworth until August 1864, during which time the various companies of the regiment were stationed along the eastern and southern border of the State, in sub-districts under the command of officers of other regiments, nearly as follows: At Olathe, Paola, Coldwater Grove, Trading Post, Fort Scott, Osaage Mission and Humboldt, while one company (H) was at Fort Riley. In February, 1864, Colonel Jennison received an invoice of new arms for the regiment, and during the same month and the following, one thousand sharp's improved breech-loading carbines were issued, with plenty of ammunition. As the men were not generally provided with sabres, he made an effort to procure revolvers, but was informed that the Department had decided to arm cavalry regiments with either carbines and sabres or sabres and revolvers. In May, 1864, Maj. Deming, surgeon, died at Fort Leavenworth, and was succeded by Assistant Surgeon Twiss, whose place was filled by Samuel Ashmore, then a private in F company. These are all the changes that occurred up to this time, except in Co. L, Lieut. Norton having been promoted to the captaincy vice Rooks, deceased March 15th, and the dismissals in company K, by virtue of which Turner and Ayres were commissioned as Lieutenants in that company. During the succeeding two months nothing occurred where-with to write history for the Fifteenth. There were, indeed, some bushwhacking disturbances by Anderson, Thornton, &c., in North Missouri, and an expedition was sent from Fort Leavenworth to Platte country with comparatively unimportant results. Rebel recruiting in that neighborhood was, however, broken up, and the various detachments of greybacks thereabouts scattered and driven southward. Colonel Holliday, Adjutant General of the State, in his Report for 1864, refers to the regiment as follows: "The bloody massacre at Lawrence on the 21st of August, 1863, prompted the patriotic citizens of Kansas to renewed efforts for the suppression of the rebellion, and the unanimity with which they co-operated at that time with his Excellency Gov. Carney in strengthening the power of the Government, resulted in the organization of the Fifteenth regiment of volunteers, cavalry. This regiment was raised in the fall of that year, principally through the agency of the gallant Colonel Jennison, formerly of the 7th, and Lieut. Colonel Hoyt. It was made up of men whose ardent attachment to the cause of freedom and the maintenance of the General Government, peculiarly qualified them as zealous and efficient guardians of the public welfare in the district of country where their duty called them. Always on the alert for bushwhackers and guerrillas, they have frequently administered such good and wholesome admonition to them as to cause the name of the 15th to become a terror to those enemies of the human race." Patient of endurance, and fearless almost to desperation in the face of the enemy, they have added laurele to the memory of their slain, and converted the appellation of 'jayhawkers' into one of honor and fame. The 15th was almost constantly in the presence of the enemy during the late invasion of Missouri, retarding his advance or hastening his retreat by following closely upon and striking terror and dismay into his broken and disorganized hordes. Except the battles included in the invasion above referred to, the 15th has not participated in many of importance, but from the hazardous and arduous duties it has been required to perform, its numbers have been considerably reduced. "The many outrages from which the sudden and unexpected presence of the 15th has saved the people of Kansas, will ever remind them of the gratitude they owe the soldiers of this gallant regiment." In August, 1864, Col. Jennison was relieved from duty at Fort Leavenworth and ordered to Mound City, where he was placed in command of the 1st subdistrict of Southern Kansas, under Brig. General McKan, and subsequently Maj. General Sykes. Under this order of things, Colonel Blair retained command at Fort Scott. Lieut. Colonel Hoyt was given the troops in and west of Neosho Valley, with headquarters at Humboldt, while Major Laing commanded in Linn and Anderson counties, until events caused a concentration of our forces at Fort Scott in anticipation of advance by the rebels subsequent to the capture of the train at Cabin Creek, when the sub-district was transferred to "the field." All these precautionary measures, however urgent, were not destined to be tested, as the enemy's force was soon after withdrawn south of the Arkansas, and the necessity for defensive concentration passed away, and about the 1st of October the troops at and in the vicinity of Fort Scott were ordered to return to their previous stations on the border. The following report of a portion of the operations of the command to which the 15th was attached having been officially made by Colonel Jennison is appended, because it involves the history of the regiment in connection with the memorable campaign of the rebel General Price: "About the 5th of October orders were received relative to the invasion of Missouri by the trans-Missiesippi army under Gen. Price by the eastern border of the State, and of his occupation of Pilot Knob and the retreat of General Ewing. The troops in Kansas were again to be concentrated to meet any possible emergency, and I at once directed the garrisons west and south to march for Mound City, there to await further orders. On the 8th a portion of the regiment arrived from Humboldt and the stations west, but the forces at Fort Scott and Osage Mission remained in camp until the orders came for us to march northward. I reached, in accordance with orders from Gen. Curtis, Hickman's Mills on the 11th of October, and on the 15th the 1st Division of the Army of the Border was organized. My Brigade, the 1st, consisted of the 15th regiment, numbering only six hundred men, a Battalion of the 3d Wisconsin, and a battery of 12 pdwr. mountain howitzers. Colonel Moonlight had command of the 2d Brigade, Colonel Blair of the 3d, and Colonel Ford of the 4th, (afterwards organized). We left Hickman's Mills on the 16th, previous to which the Division was reduced to light marching order, with only such supplies as could be carried by the men on horseback. All extra blankets and clothing was left at the Mills to follow with the train, and as far as I am aware they are following yet, as I do not know that anything has been seen since. |" 'Headquarters, St. Louis, October 10.| |" 'Price's movements are not known, but he has avaowed his intention to go to Leavenworth. If he will try this, it will enable our columns under Mower and Smith and our cavalry to get between them and the Osage, and they will suffer. They spread and stretch out for subsistence; therefore your cavalry can possibly strike the heads of their columns and part and retard their march. The telegraph lines are so interrupted that it will be difficult to communicate with you.W. S. Rosecrans. Major General| |" 'Maj. General Curtis, Leavenworth.'| "The 1st Brigade reached Lexington on the 18th, going into camp at the Fair Grounds south of the city, while the 2d entered the town, routing a detachment of rebels who held possession and were recruiting under authority of General Sterling Price. The headquarters of the 15th were established in a large brick house on the west side of the road, the property of General Tom Shields, of the rebel army. That evening a requisition for supper was served on the remaining 'chattels' of the gallant rebel, and the feathered effects of the homestead suffered to some extent. "During the forenoon of the 19th our pickets were driven in and the information reached headquarters that the enemy were advancing in three columns by the Dover road, the Sedalia road and the river road. The two Brigades were at once disposed to meet them, while companies E and F were sent in the front as skirmishers on the Sedalia road. Here the rebel army was first met, and a brisk fire was at once commenced from small arms and a section of the howitzer battery under Lieut. Murphy, Co. B, 15th. The rebel advance guard, four or five hundred strong, were driven back to the main column. Two companies of the 11th were in the meantime engaged on the Dover road, and one company of the same regiment scouted the road south towards Warrensburg. Towards dark the enemy forced a passage to the city, the 2d Brigade having been withdrawn, and the order for the whole Division to retire in the direction of Independence was given. The 17th regiment with companies E and F of the 15th, formed the rear guard, the latter having been cut off, and only rejoining the command after the retrograde movement had commenced. The sharp, resonant reports of the rifled ordnance in our front were an intimation to 'move on' not to be disregarded. Until long after dark the exultant columns of the enemy pressed on our rear, protected by the 11th and the two companies of the 15th. Many instances of personal gallantry made this movement particularly memorable. "The action of Captain Curtis in cutting his way through and joining his command should entitle him to something better than a cell in the Missouri penitentiary and zebra pants. Cos. A and D of the 16th were also engaged here, and the conduct of Captain Ames and his Indian troops was especially praiseworthy. Here the enemy's force was first developed since his attack on Pilot Knob and his column of about thirty thousand men was sucessfully checked, to the great advantage of General Curtis, who was thereby enabled to bring his militia into training for the probable exigencies of the immediate future. "Among the incidents worthy of notice during this movement was the action of Lieut. Murphy and Sergeant Patterson of the howitzer battery, from my published report of the campaign. It is given as a worthy tribute to the soldierly worth of the officers mentioned. "The retrograde movement was conducted with the utmost good order, notwithstanding the difficulties of the road and the darkness of the night, during which nothing of consequence was abandoned, and officers and men discharged their duties with as much equanimity as though there was not an army of thirty thousand pressing closely upon their rear. Owing to the darkness of the night and the inequalities of the road, an accident occurred by which the limber of one of the howitzers was broken, and before it could be repaired the entire column had passed. Lieutenant Murphy and Sergeant Patterson remained with the piece and succeeded in bringing it away in the face of the fire of the enemy's pressing column.' "A similar incident is also recorded by Colonel Moonlight. "About 2 a. m. of the 20th we halted a few miles east of the Little Blue, and the worn Division was soon enjoying itself in overcoats on the ground. "At sunrise on the 20th we moved towards Independence, leaving a battalion at the bridge, with orders to burn it upon the first appearance of the enemy. I think that by bringing up all of general Curtis' force we might have held the line of the Little Blue until the arrival of General Pleasanton's forces, when Price would have been forced to retreat by way of Pleasant Hill, where he would have been met by General Smith's infantry, and the campaign closed a month sooner. "As it was, Colonel Moonlight, with a portion of the 2d Brigade and a detachment of the 15th, under Major Laing, at the bridge, was left at the crossing of the Little Blue, while the remainder moved into Independence, which it reached on the evening of the 20th, amid a severe snow storm, worn out, hungry, wet and chilled. The forces were quartered in the court house and the vacant houses throughout the town. That night, it may well be said was an anxious one. Our reserve force, or rather the main army in point of numbers, was scarcely to be depended on in case of disaster, it being almost wholly composed of militia, a great majority of whom were inexperienced in drill and discipline, and unused to the harsh realities of war, at each moment drawing nearer to the Kansas border, followed by a superior force of the enemy, temporarily checked, it is true, but not successfully resisted. "The enemy commenced the attack upon the 2d Brigade and the detachment at the bridge early in the morning, of which the forces in Independence were immediately informed, and the 1st Division, to which a fourth Brigade, under Colonel Ford, of the 2d Colorado, was now attached, was at once moved out, reaching the field about 10 a. m. of the 21st. They found that the Blue, being easily fordable, had been forced by the enemy, and Colonel Moonlight driven back some two miles, manfully contesting the ground before an overwhelming force. A new line was formed, of which, dismounted, the 1st Brigade formed the extreme right. This action was fought entirely in the timber, and was of a very irregular character, the nature of the ground forbidding any maneuvers for position, and the sharpshooters kept us from sparring much for wind. The action continued fitfully until after dark, our endeavors looking only to a temporary hindrance of the rebel advance in order to form lines of defence in our rear, as well as to keep the enemy employed, if possible, until Peasanton's forces could come up. About 7 p. m. the last of our Division passed through Independence, closely followed by the rebels, who occupied the city that night. "The conduct of the 1st Brigade throughout this trying occasion was all that could have been expected of its numbers. Lieut. Col. Hoyt and Major Laing, of the 15th, are worthy of special mention in this connection, together with Lieuts. Markle and Bisbee, the latter of whom, though previously injured during the action, remained on the field and in the discharge of his duties throughout. Major J. N. Smith, 2d Colorado, was killed in this engagement, and Lieut. Dickson, 3d Wisconsin, was supposed to have been mortally wounded. A number of officers were wounded, including Capt. Gregg, of the 14th, Lieut. Spencer, 2d Colorado, and Frank J. Evold, volunteer aid to Col. Ford, who afterwards died. On the rebel side, George Todd, a notorious bushwhacker, was killed. Without subsistence or forage, we reached the fortified line of the Big Blue, extending northeast and southwest about six miles. "On the morning of Saturday, the 22d, the 1st Brigade was ordered to Byron's Ford, about five miles southwest of the crossing of the Blue, on the Independence road. Here it was joined by one or two companies of militia, which rendered good service in aiding us to obstruct the ford by felling trees, etc. The position seemed a strong one, but the force totally inadequate to hold it, as it must have been evident that from the nature of the crossings northward, a heavy force of the enemy would endeavor to force a passage here as well as further south. About 10 a. m. Captain Swain was sent across the river with instructions to proceed in the direction of Independence, and if prevented from rejoining the command by the ford, to fall back towards Hickman's Mills. Major Laing was also sent out with a battalion to reconnoitre the situation further up the stream, with the same instructions. Neither of these detachments returned until after the battle of Westport. "About 12 m. our outposts south of the ford gave notice of the approach of the enemy in heavy force, and almost immediately his advance commenced an attack on our lines at the crossing. The howitzer commanded the road and kept up an incessant firing. At this point, with seven companies, we held them in check for about four or five hours, when, about 3 o'clock, they having succeeded in crossing both above and below our position, we found ourselves effectually flanked, right and left, and were compelled to retire in the direction of Westpost. Messenger after messenger had been despatched to General Blunt, informing him of the extent of operations against us at the ford, be we failed to receive reinforcements. Driven from this position, we moved out into the open country near the State line, from whence it was plainly apparent that a large force had succeeded in crossing at Russell's ford, and was advancing towards Kansas, with the evident intention of taking Westport by the flank. At the line road the 1st Brigade was joined by the 2d, and together they moved to the open prairie about four miles below Westport. At this time Shelby's Division of the rebel army was all across the Blue, and moving in column, with a strong force of flankers, towards Kansas. Almost upon the line the 1st and 2d Brigades met them, the engagement becoming at once animated and general. The 14th K, S, M., Col. Harvey, being formed on the high ground in our rear, presented to the rebels the appearance of a strong reserve corps, it being evident that their endeavors were mainly directed to holding their advance line west of the Blue until the arrival of further support. This affair was carried through almost entirely by skirmishers, eight companies of the 11h and 15th being deployed to the front, the latter under Captains Johnson and Wanless of that regiment. The line pressed the rebels steadily eastward until they disappeared about dark in the timber along the stream. Our forces then retired to Westport, bivouacking between that place and Kansas City. "The detachments sent out from Byron's Ford had not been heard from, and it was feared they had been unfortunate enough to fall into the hands of the enemy, it appeared afterwards, however, that Captain Swain had proceeded to the forks of the Indepencence and Raytown roads, where he remained until the rebels had passed between him and the ford, as well as to the south. Then moving rapidly to the west, they passed the head of the rebel column at a gallop. Heading for Hickman's Mills, they passed round that point into Kansas and rejoined the command on Monday, near Santa Fe. "Replenishing its ammunition the 1st Brigade, then reduced to six companies, or about four hundred men, marched, about 5 o'clock on the morning of the 23d, from Westport directly south, crossing Brush Creek and deploying soon after daylight, its first skirmish line in a cornfield south of Bent's house, on the right of the road, the howitzers being left with the other batteries in and adjacent to the road. The 2d Brigade was on the extreme right of the line as then formed. Our skirmish lines soon encountered the enemy swarming through the cornfields and in the timber southwest of Warnell's, and the battle of Westport was speedily opened. Meanwhile the thunders of artillery to the left told that our lines were engaged along the entire front. After a contest of varying fortunes for some minutes on our right, the 1st Brigade was withdrawn to the timber in the rear of Bent's house, perhaps an eighth of a mile from its former position, while the 2d Brigade took the road to the right leading to Shawnee Mission, and passed down through Kansas on the rebel flank. After this, our entire line was pressed back to the north bank of Brush creek, where the entire available force was rallied for a general advance. Pushing forward rapidly through the valley, we soon regained our original position, driving the rebels at all points, until our entire line was fairly out of the timber and occupied the open country, our skirmishers swarming along the fences and stone walls with which the position was so thickly intersected. In spite of the determined resistance of the enemy, our forces moved steadily forward until, about a mile to the east and south, a heavy body of cavalry was visible emerging from the timber, when a general charge was ordered. Swinging into a trot and then a gallop, six companies of the 15th, under Lieut. Colonel Hoyt, took the left of the road, myself the right, with the 3d Wisconsin batalion, two companies of the 2d Colorado and one of the 15th. The 4th Brigade, under Colonel Ford, was also led by 'fighting Jim' in a dashing charge well up to the front. Then, when both armies were in plain sight upon the prairie, the rebels broke, and in thorough disorder began a precipitous retreat, which was hastened by the well-served artillery and dashing onsets of Pleasanton's forces on their right and rear. This, briefly told, is how the battle of Westport was fought and won. "The 1st Brigade kept its advance until nightfall, and about sundown came upon the rebel van near Santa Fe, skirmishing with it until dark, when we gave over the pursuit and attended to the pressing physical wants of both men and horses. At sunrise next morning, October 24th, the Army of the Border resumed the pursuit, but as the 1st Brigade did not again encounter the enemy until the afternoon of the 28th, I will omit further details of the pursuit during the interval. We had been in the saddle almost constantly since leaving Lexington. "From a recent publication'The Army of the Border'before proceeding, I copy a paragraph relative to the pursuit from Westport: "The pursuit of the retreating rebels was maintained by Colonel Jennison with the 1st Brigade and a battalion of the 2d Colorado. Captain Greene, who kept fearlessly on their heels for ten miles, skirmishing to the crossing of the Blue, four miles beyond Little Santa Fe, where, just at sundown, a stand was made by General Fagan, who opened on our daring troops with three rifled guns, and compelled them to desist from further pursuit.' "On the 24th we reached the Trading Post, Linn county, where the character of the retreating enemy was plainly apparent. They had burned nouses and murdered the inhabitants, and in one instance a large spring, the only supply of water in the vicinity, had been choked up and rendered useless by dragging a dead horse into it. The desolation which followed the rebel army in Kansas is first described by an article from the Mound City Sentinel, whose editor was on the spot soon after the army passed. That paper thus describes the condition of the border and some of the brutalities enacted: 'Along the line of the rebel army every house within reach of the main body or flankers was robbed of everything it contained. All kinds of clothing was taken, and even the flannel in some instances taken from infants. Every morsel of food, cooked and uncooked, was consumed, destroyed or taken along, and all the stock that could be led or driven was taken; in fact everything valuable and not valuable was taken, so that these men and families whose hard fate it was to be in the way, were left stripped of every comfort and necessary of life. The retreat of the rebel army is marked not only by robbery and desolation of the wildest kind, but the fiends were not content with that. Six miles north of the Trading Post they murdered Samuel A. Long, aged 56 years. He was previously robbed of his money. Three miles north of the Trading Post John Williams, a preacher, aged sixty years, was indecently mutilated and then hung. Five miles north of the Post Richard B. Vernon was murdered, and in the vicinity of the Post, John Miller, aged sixty-five, was killed. Many other citizens, all unarmed, as these were, were shot at.' "Another writer thus gives testimony: 'In an extent of six miles wide, through which the rebels passed in Linn county, every house was plundered of all kinds of provisions, blankets, clothing, and all articles, valuable or worthless, that could be carried off. Even the flannel was taken from infants in two cases to our knowledge, and two young ladies were stripped of every article of clothing except one under garment each. A woman who was holding a sick child had the shawl torn rudely from about it.' 'I can honestly assert here that until these outrages were forced upon our notice no rebel was killed by the 1st Brigade except in battle, and no retaliatory measures adopted. An attempt was made, however, to fasten upon 'Jennison's men' the stigma of indiscriminate murders on account of an occurrence which transpired the evening subsequent to the battle of Westport. In Col. Veale's report among one list of killed are placed the names of two menRobert Rolls and David Fults as killed by Jennison's men, without a word of explanation as to how, when, or where, or under what circumstances these men, belonging to the Kansas militia, were killed. The case of David Fults excited great indignation, and under the supposition that it was 'some of Jennison's work.' General Curtis ordered an investigation. When it was ascertained that some other than Jennison or 'Jennison's men' killed the man, no further indignation was apparent. I will not encumber these pages with the different statements of the affair, but only remark that, from the testimony, David Fults was shot by order of Colonel Moonlight, the latter believing him to have been a rebel. I would also remark, that if it was deemed right for Col. Moonlight to order an execution almost under the eyes of the commanding General, it could not have been such a henious offence for Col. Jennison to order the killing of known bushwhackers when there was no superior officer present. In the Fults case, however, the investigation absolved Colonel Jennison from all responsibility in the premises. To resume the march. "On the night of the 25th the 1st Brigade bivouacked a few miles northeast of Fort Scott, to which post it was ordered for supplies early next morning. After halting for this purpose an hour or two, we again took up the route and that night reached Shanghai, twenty-seven miles distant, making Carthage by nightfall of the 27th. A cold, chilly night had closed in as we approached this somewhat famous town, in which were yet visible some monuments of the war in the shape of solitary chimneys and desolated fields. Passing through the town, we halted when about three miles distant from camp. We were then not more than twelve miles distant from the main rear guard of the rebel army, and not more than five from a small detachment of cavalry that had been detailed to observe our movements. While the regiment was going into camp our scouts caught somewhere in the woods a lanky specimen of a greyback who could give no satisfactory or proper account of himself, but from papers in his possession it was evident that he belonged to the engineer (2) corps of the ragged rebs ahead. I ordered him to be securely guarded during the night, intending to send him to headquarters in the morning; but in some inexplicable manner the fellow managed to hang himself to an apple tree before sunrise, or somebody else hung him there. A rigid examination was made into the affair by General Curtis, but for once the hero of Pea Ridge found himself at fault on the scent, and let the matter drop. I do not propose to attempt a justification of the execution of this man, nor do I condemn, in toto, the retaliatory spirit exhibited therein by the men of the command under the circumstances. That they had good provocation will be seen soon. "Soon after we made this camp a detail was sent out in the direction of the rebel army, with orders to bring in any skulkers or stragglers, as well as to ascertain the nature of a light some distance ahead. They soon returned, and with them, or in advance, a number of the State militia taken prisoners at or near Hickman's Mills, and who had that day been paroled and sent back by the rebels. The condition of these men was really terrible. They had walked about twelve miles, barefooted, over frozen ground, their feet were frost-bitten and bleeding, they were without coats, hats, or blankets, and almost famished and worn out. They had been driven like cattle at the rate of forty and fifty miles a day, had been starved and stripped of all clothing, except such as would barely suffice to cover their nakedness, and when they could walk no further, were paroled and left on the road without food, or clothing, or shelter, or fire. Such pitiable objects I hope I may never see again. They ate hard tack (of which our commissary alone consisted) with the eagerness of famishing animals, and hugged the fire as closely as if it wea their last chance. These men live in our midst now. Ask them if the picture is overdrawn. "Perhaps the men who caused this misery, who inflicted this wanton cruelty, were entitled to mercy, to forbearance, to kind treatment: but he who imagines that the 15th would behold such an outrage without the application of the principle of the lex talionis in some way, is ignorant of the motives of its enlistment, and must deem its memory poor, indeed. It remembered the martyred dead of Lawrence, and that night it saw again the fierce flames curling around the dwellings of defenceless non-combatants. This is why skulking, whining rebels were shot and hung at Carthage, and 'it wasn't a very good time for hanging, either.' As long as the names of Andersonville and Tyler, Belle Isle and Libby, and other prison pens of patriotism remain, the heart is rotten and the lip is foul that frames one word to condemn the gallant 15th in exterminating the viperish brood. "Early next morning, the 28th, the pursuit was renewed, the 2d Colorado, with the battery, and the 18th in advance of us. About noon we passed through Granby, the site of the famous lead mines of Missouri and formerly the home of the guerrilla Livingstone, who had extensive property to the mines. The smelting shops had long ago been destroyed, the shafts were in many cases filled up, and the once flourishing town was desolate. One or two old women remained, and numberless tow-headed urchins, rebels in future, should the war last long enough. Here the General receivedor somebody dida welcome announcement, something in this sise:'Look hyar, mister, Pap Price said he'd waid fer you uns down thar at Newtonia, and fight yer till yer got enuff of it.' Well, old Pap did wait, or at least some of his army, but I have never heard that the boast was accomplished. "I was not myself a witness of the hard-fought battle of Newtonia, nor a participant. Two evenings previous I had been rather severely kicked by a mule, and not, supposing a battle at all imminent, had accepted a seat in an ambulance with Gen. Curtis, neither of us being aware of the fight until it was over. For a report of this contest, then, I shall be obliged to derive my information from verbal accounts communicated next day. "The 16th Kansas and 2d Colorado were first upon the field and immediately began the attack. These were closely followed by the colorado Independent Battery of 10-pdwr. Parrots, which took position on a hill about two miles distant and immediately opened a rapid fire with fuse shell, the practice with which was generally exact and did good execution.In a few minutes after the 15th came up, and receiving no orders, took position on the right of our line, where it seemed an attempt would be made by the rebels to flank the two regiments then engaged against the entire force of the enemy, who was endeavoring to get his train into the timber on the Pineville road. This had been to some extent accomplished when the 15th arrived, and their more particular attentions were devoted to the audacious battalions in their rear. The battle of Newtonia was fought for four hours by not more than eight hundred men against a rebel fighting force of fourteen thousand, in five lines of battle, and in part protected by timber." The above vivid description by Col. Jennison, takes the reader nearly to the close of the Price campaign. It is, perhaps, proper to add that the 1st Brigade (Jennison's) in the battle of Newtonia, was led by Lieut. Col. Hoyt, of the 15th, who was recommended by Maj. Gen. Blunt for promotion on account of "gallant and meritorious conduct" in that engagement, and who was for that reason brevetted Colonel and Brigadier General. At this period of the history of the regiment, W. F. Cloud was appointed Colonel, and the author of this brief sketch had no longer any connection with it.

Wallets can be pesky business. The last thing you want to have is an embarrassing moment- your wallet so stuffed to the brim with receipts that one big gust of wind will send its contents flying through the streets. Credit cards: Ideally, consumers should own just one credit card. “The whole idea that you need more than one credit card is a fallacy,”. “Cancelling your second credit card will hurt your credit score in the short term, but in the long term, it’s better for you.” If you have more than one, lock the rest in a safe”. “If your wallet gets stolen, ask to have your credit card account numbers changed,”. Also, cut up expired credit cards. “An identity thief can still use them to steal your identity,”. “That’s something people think is just harmless and it’s not.” Sensitive information: Never store your PIN or your passwords in your wallet. “Surprisingly, a lot of people actually keep their debit card’s PIN in their wallet right next to their debit card,”. “That’s just setting yourself up for disaster.” Cash: Keep as much as you’re comfortable losing, . Tova advises keeping no more than $50. “Use cash for small purchases such as a pack of gum, especially if your bank charges debit card fees,”. It’s also good to have some cash on hand for emergencies. Receipts: Receipts for the week are fine, “but there’s nothing worse than seeing a wallet stuffed with receipts from the last year.” Just be careful you’re not keeping receipts with too much personal information on them. Check to make sure you’re not carrying around receipts that list your entire credit card number. Bad forms of identification: Never carry your Social Security card or your passport in your wallet,. If your wallet gets stolen with either inside, identity theft is likely to follow suit. “If you’re traveling outside of the country, Xerox your passport and put the real one back in the hotel safe,”. Old hotel room keys: In the past, the barcode stored your credit card information. “Some hotels have been changing that, but it’s something where it’s not 100 percent,”. So either turn the key in when you’re checking out, or cut it up. Credit card offers: These should be shredded if you don’t plan to use them. The same goes for credit card checks, which are checks used to borrow against your line of credit for quick cash. “It would be a bad thing if they ended up in the wrong hands,”. Medicare card: Seniors often carry their Medicare card, which lists their Social Security number. Make a photocopy of the card, white out your Social Security number, and only carry the copy. If your wallet gets stolen, you should file a police report immediately, then contact all three credit-reporting agencies, your credit card companies, and your bank.

Refuse to let the darkness win. s e r e n d i p i t y ORIGIN 1754: coined by Horace Walpole in a letter, stating that he formed the word “serendipity” from a Persian fairy tale, The Three Princes of Serendip, whose heroes “were always making discoveries, by accidents and sagacity, of things they were not in quest of.” The fairy tale dates back to a famous poem, The Eight Paradises, written in 1302 AD by Amir Khusro. More than anything I must have flowers, always and always. ~ Claude Monet “The cure for anything is salt water – tears, sweat, or the sea.” - Isak Dinesen, Seven Gothic Tales The Poppy is the most transparent and delicate of all blossoms… The rest, nearly all of them, depend on the texture of their surface for colour. But the Poppy is painted glass; it never glows as brightly as when the sun shines through it…it is a flame, and warms the wind like a blown ruby…. When the flower opens, it seems a deliverance from torture. ~ John Ruskin Happy Floral Design Day: February 28th (pictured: Bromeliad, Orchid) As if we needed an excuse to talk about flowers! More than sixty years ago, Carl Rittner founded the Rittners School of Floral Design in Boston, MA. February 28th is Carl Rittner’s birthday, and is now the designated day we celebrate the art form of flower arranging. The ancient Egyptians were probably the first to decorate with flowers, as early as 2500 BC, by placing cut flowers in vases. Formal arrangements were also created for burial processions, and garlands were left in the tombs of loved ones. The Greeks made laurel wreaths and presented them to the winners of ancient Olympic competitions, and to military commanders after successful victories. Laurel wreaths were also presented to notable poets of ancient academia (the word “laureate” in “poet laureate” refers to the honor of being acknowledged with a laurel wreath). The Europeans didn’t begin the techniques of flower arranging until 1000 AD, after emerging from the Dark Ages. As the world emerges from a Recession, the importance of flowers is ever more relevant: they are beautiful, affordable, readily available, and make meaningful gifts for dozens of special occasions - not to mention for our own personal pleasure. And it seems it has always been this way. “I perhaps owe having become a painter to flowers.” - Claude Monet

Introduction to Avian Influenza (AI) - Avian Influenza (AI) is a disease of birds, not humans. But humans can occasionally be affected. - There are both high pathogenic (HPAI) and low pathogenic (LPAI) forms and many strains. - LPAI does not always show up as disease in birds. However, it is present in some areas of the global wildfowl population. - LPAI can mutate into HPAI, especially when introduced into poultry populations. - Some strains of HPAI spread easily between birds and cause illness, with a high death rate, very quickly in poultry populations. - In rare cases, some HPAI strains can lead to severe illness and deaths in humans usually where there has been close contact with infected birds. - There are a limited number of reported cases of human-to-human spread of AI. - There is a possibility that were an individual to be infected with human and bird flu viruses there may be the potential for the virus to combine and produce a more dangerous variant which could spread from human to human. - It is therefore very important to ensure that any outbreak of AI is controlled quickly and that workers and veterinarians in close contact with infected birds are well protected. The Department of Agriculture and Rural Development (DARD) has a contingency plan in place to ensure that this is so. - DARD and key stakeholders are working closely together to ensure that the NI response to current circumstances is proportionate, appropriate and comprehensive. Key stakeholders agree that good vigilance and a high standard of biosecurity are required at the moment.

ACE GROUP DESCRIPTIONS In the context of this group, participants will learn to identify their body's cognitive and physical response to anxiety and recognize situations in which chronic worry interferes with daily activities. By monitoring anxious symptoms, sharing experiences with group members, and practicing new techniques outside of session, participants will develop a set of skills to manage anxiety. Through imagery and relaxation, they will increase their repertoire of ways to comfort and soothe themselves. Art Therapy Group Another form for identifying and expressing feelings is through art therapy. In this group, participants will utilize art to communicate more fully with themselves and other group members. They will be asked to express a theme such as comfort or anger through some form of art. Time will be saved for talking about feelings about images with others in the group. Behavior Therapy Group This group is a skills-oriented group focused on developing behavioral skills that are specifically useful for decreasing bingeing and purging symptoms. The group also focuses on stages of readiness to change and on developing strategies that increase your motivation and desire to change eating disordered behaviors. Body Acceptance Group This group employs both psychoeducational and experiential techniques to help members increase their appreciation of their physical selves, decrease obsessive concern about physical appearance, and enhance their awareness of their bodies as the instrument through which we all work, play, create and relate. Emphasis will be upon broadening self-image to include more than simply physical appearance. The children’s group is an activity-oriented group designed for participants ages 9-12, wherein the focus of therapy is on experiential exercises to help facilitate the development of age-appropriate social and problem-solving skills. The activities encompass both individual and group work to promote healthy behavioral changes and a positive self-image. While not a part of regular weekly programming, the children’s group can be organized and incorporated into participants’ treatment schedules upon recommendation by the ACE team. Cognitive Therapy Group Most of us have learned ways to talk to ourselves that may inhibit our growth, healing and well-being. This group helps the participant to learn the automatic nature of his/her thoughts and ways they may be incorrect or based on past experiences which are no longer current. The patient will learn to monitor and control his/her mood by learning to modify self-statements about food, self, and others. This group is separated into an introductory, skills-based group and a longer-term, process group to help apply skills to daily living. The groups are designed to help individuals who are ready to eliminate the symptoms of binge eating or compulsive overeating by exploring the relationship between feelings and food. Participants gain awareness of ways food is used to meet needs and identify ways to break the cycle of symptoms. Emotions Management Group Many individuals with eating problems have lost the ability to identify and express feelings. In this group, skills are taught for healthy emotion management (anger, grief, anxiety) and the opportunity is given to practice this expression within the safety of the group. Participants in this group often share intense feelings and help others develop plans for expressing feelings outside the program. This group involves exercises called "initiatives," which involve group problem-solving and cooperation. These initiatives are designed to address individual and group issues, achieve personal growth/awareness, and promote behavioral changes. During participation, issues and roles may emerge which are explored in group discussions. The primary responsibility of the group is to establish and maintain physical and emotional safety in which personal risk-taking is appropriate. As the group increases its ownership and responsibility for building group safety, greater physical and emotional challenges can be attempted. Experiential Yoga Group This group uses gentle Hatha yoga and yoga nidra (meditation/relaxation) to integrate themes of recovery into a yoga practice focusing on breath work, postures and body awareness. Participants identify intentions for each group such as balance, flexibility, acceptance or being gentle with yourself. Often what shows up in this practice (our reactive patterns and judgments) has implications for the over all recovery process. Gaining insight and awareness into our self defeating patterns will help us transcend our misperceptions and achieve greater self acceptance. Faith in Recovery Group This group is for people who are invested in exploring how their personal faith can be a strength in the recovery process. The group will strive to create an environment of mutual respect and hope. Members are encouraged to share specific “steps of faith” they have taken and plan to take, ways they hope to grow in faith, and ways that their faith is providing strength to them. Group members are also encouraged to explore and be honest about struggles with regard to faith. The group focuses on a different topic each week relevant to strengthening personal faith (e.g., gratitude, forgiveness, prayer/meditation, having faith in the midst of pain or adversity). Group members of all faith backgrounds are welcome and encouraged to share their personal experiences of faith. Family Support Group A free support group where parents, spouses and other adult family members of patients, can meet to get support and ideas for helping their loved one through recovery from other family members and staff at ACE. Family members also receive tools for taking care of themselves in order to be of the best help to their loved one. This group is free to families and loved ones of current ACE patients. Intuitive Eating Group As an eating disorder begins, food moves beyond the role of nourishment for the body and becomes the object of rules, regulations and judgments that dominate your life. This group teaches participants to make peace with food by relearning to trust the body and its signals. Through ten simple -- but not always easy -- principles, this group teaches how to break the cycle of restricting and bingeing. In addition to using handouts, the group teaches specific skills and allows for discussing personal application. Each group member is also encouraged to have his or her own copy of the book Intuitive Eating by Evelyn Tribole and Elyse Resch. Meal Process Group During the evening, participants of ACE will have a meal together. They will be asked to bring a meal with them which may be heated in the microwave. They will eat their meal with a therapist and other ACE participants, after which members will talk about their feelings regarding the meal. Participants are encouraged to speak openly about any feelings so that they will not carry them home with them that evening. The goal is for a relaxed, healthy eating experience. Mindful Eating Meal Process Group This meal group is partnered with the Connections Group. You will practice mindful eating in a supportive setting and reconnect with your body’s cues for hunger, fullness and satiety. Mindfulness Skills Group This skills-based group is designed to help participants learn and practice mindfulness skills in two primary domains. Interpersonal Skills focus on increasing awareness of interpersonal style, examining currently held myths about relationships, and learning the most effective ways of relating interpersonally. Emotion Regulation Skills focus on developing effectiveness in identifying, coping with and expressing emotion, and learning skills related to tolerating distress. Additionally, participants learn specific strategies to build and experience positive emotions. Participants are educated on the physiology of emotions and how to increase control within the emotional realm. Multi-Family Meal Group Based in the Maudsley Method of family-based treatment, families attend this group together in an effort to “bring to life” in treatment the issues they discuss in other places. Facilitators join the families in a meal, providing direct feedback and solutions for making the refeeding process more successful. Multi-Family Process/Experiential Group Following the meal, families get the opportunity to participate in learning, process and experiential activities specifically designed to identify challenges in the family dynamic and to strengthen them. Activities are designed to help teach communication skills, develop healthy boundaries, and facilitate healthy growth and development. New Patient Orientation New patients coming to treatment often need help from family or loved ones, and the Saturday orientation allows your support system to become informed and acclimated to their role in your treatment. The structure of this time is both educational and interactive. Questions are welcomed so families can voice their need for direction in the process of supporting you in a journey of recovery. The nutritionist leads this group to both educate about physiological aspects of eating and dieting and to help in personal meal planning. The patient may be asked to bring a proposed meal plan to be discussed in order to help determine what meals to bring to ACE for meal process group. Positive Focus Group In this group, participants will work on identifying and building unique strengths. It is based on the belief that there is a "wonderful you" inside of everyone that needs to be developed. Participants struggling with an eating disorder may not be focusing enough on their unique strengths and talents. They will be encouraged to talk about their positive characteristics and to focus on doing things that bring a sense of pleasure, creativity, or self-esteem. Recovery Skills Group This group is designed primarily for people in the Day Program to educate them on various topics regarding one's eating disorder. There is evidence from research that education about eating disorders is an important component of the treatment process. This group will include the use of live, videotaped lectures, and practical application activities. Many people with eating problems find it difficult to relax. This group gives the participants the opportunity to relax several times a week during the program as well as teach them how to utilize these skills during the stressful times of everyday life. Oftentimes, individuals with eating disorders use food, or the abstinence from food, as a way of calming themselves. They will be taught such healthy ways to relax as breathing exercises, muscle relaxation and the use of imagery for relaxing. This group places emphasis on taking time in one’s life to focus on healthy strategies to make life enjoyable. Examples of topics discussed are: time management, healthy relationships and how to deal with difficult emotions like anger more effectively. This group is a dynamic group, which utilizes various creative media to explore issues related to eating disorders. The creative process challenges you to express yourself in new ways, often making difficult topics easier to discuss. You will develop a vocabulary of symbolic images that allow deeper processing. In each group session, individuality is considered in determining the various topics, from which you may choose. Through artistic media and writing exercises, you will gain confidence in self-expression and self-knowledge. This group is designed for ACE participants aged 12 to 20. The Adolescent Group encompasses aspects of all the groups at ACE with a focus on how particular issues specifically apply to individuals in this age range. In addition to providing a safe, therapeutic atmosphere to explore individual issues and develop new skills, emphasis is placed on understanding the various functions that eating problems may serve, learning new coping mechanisms, understanding and improving family dynamics, and developing more effective ways of relating interpersonally. Weekend Planning Group This group focuses on coping skills and problem-solving skills as well as planning and preparation for activities outside of ACE. You will be encouraged to brainstorm healthy activities in which you can engage during the weekend and after hours, particularly self-soothing activities. Group discussion will also address barriers you face outside of treatment that impede your recovery and strategies you can use to overcome these dilemmas. Women's Process Group This group is for adult women over the age of 25 years who are working on challenges related to their eating disorder and mid-life issues. The group focuses on improving relationships with one's self and with others. Specific issues include trust, grief and loss, relationships, and self-esteem. The group provides a safe environment for women to learn to integrate personal growth with relationships and career.

MLA Citations in an Essay The term MLA is concerned to Modern Language Association (MLA) format mentions writers in several areas, generally notably the citations of sources. MLA style of n essay calls for the use of in-text citations close to the information you are borrowing, which is corresponding to full-length citations on your "Works Cited" document. The MLA publishes two handbooks which cover every conceivable citation situation, while writers will most frequently deal with books, periodicals & electronic sources. MLA style explains information for formatting manuscripts or by means of the English language in writing. MLA style also offers writers with a referencing system their sources by parenthetical citation in their essays & Works Cited Writers who correctly use MLA also make their credibility by representing accountability to their source material. Most essentially, the use of MLA style may protect writers from accusations of copying, which is the focused or accidental non- credited use of source material by some other writers. APA format & styling of an Essay APA also full named as American Psychological Association is usually used to cite of sources within the social sciences. The essay must be typed, double-spaced on standard-sized paper (8.5" x 11") with 1" margins on all sides. You should keep a clear font that is very much readable. APA usually recommends using 12 pt. Times New Roman font. It includes a page header (also called as the "running head") at the top of every page. To generate a page header-running head, put in a page numbers flush right. Then you can type "TITLE OF YOUR PAPER" in the header flush left writing in all capital letters. Then the running head is a summarized version of your paper's title and may not exceed 50 characters involving spacing and punctuation. Harvard Format Styling of an Essay The Harvard styling is more similar to the APA (called as American Psychological Association) format but it keeps two main differences. The Harvard styling does not keep a manual and there are a variety of versions that may be followed. Thus, one ordinary element that is adhered to in Harvard writing format is using author name/ or date system when citing as articles, reference books, and other Similar to the APA style, Harvard essay styling format uses an in-text citation & bibliography at the last part or end of the essay. During citing a reference in the body of an essay, the author’s name and year of publication is incorporated and this information is enclosed in brackets. Bibliographic references are placed in alphabetic order and hold the name of the published or you can say unpublished material together with and the publisher. Information in the reference is interrelated on what is incorporated in the cited passage. The other kinds and format of essay are given below • Analytical Essay • Descriptive Essay • Argumentative Essay • Critical Essay • Narrative Essay • Compare/Contrast Essay • Process Essay

Show cars were all the rage in the 1950s, the genesis of their genre being General Motors' 1938 Buick Y-Job. With volume production resumed in the decade after World War II, the American automakers did their best to design exciting future-focused concepts to intrigue the car-buying public and drive them into showrooms. Chrysler did their part when Virgil Exner, the firm's styling director, teamed up with Turin, Italy's, Carrozzeria Ghia to turn out a number of show-stopping concepts, one of which was the dashing 1954 De Soto Adventurer II Coupe. Chrysler's first Exner-designed, Ghia-built concept was the 1951 K-310, and this was followed by seven other show cars in just a few years. Noted automotive historian Michael Lamm discussed these cars in Special Interest Autos #137 : "What's recognized today, 40 years later, but still not much talked about, is the fact that Exner & Company did not design each and every show car Chrysler exhibited. Half a dozen had their origins inside Ghia, and at least two others were done by Briggs Manufacturing Co. Briggs was at that time an independent body supplier to Chrysler Corp." The De Soto Adventurer II Coupe was the second Ghia-designed and -built show car for Chrysler. This long, sleek car was penned by trained aeronautical engineer Giovanni Savonuzzi, and it featured his "Supersonic look." The Adventurer II was not the first car to use his "Supersonic" design theme--that was an Alfa Romeo-powered 1953 Conrero racing coupe that ran in the Mille Miglia. The design was re-worked to suit a 1953 Fiat 8V, which was shown in Paris and inspired an estimated 12 copies. The "Supersonic look" was also used on a 1954 Jaguar XK120, an Alfa Romeo 1900, two Jaguar XK140s and a 1956 Aston Martin DB2/4 Mk II. It was one of the "Supersonic" Ghia-bodied Fiat 8Vs that caught Virgil Exner's fancy, and he decided to have such a design built on a Chrysler chassis to give De Soto another show car. Our feature car was built over a period of nine months at a cost of $35,000, and its massive 214.3-inch-long body rested on a 125.5-inch wheelbase. The Coupe's compact greenhouse sported a curved front window and an unusual retractable rear window, which dropped nearly entirely into the trunk area. Inside, this two-seater had a beautiful and sporty engine-turned instrument panel, an inlaid wood-rim steering wheel and full leather upholstery, also covering the custom-fitted luggage mounted in the rear area. Under the hood was a 276.1-cubic-inch, two-barrel Ball & Ball-carbureted, 170hp De Soto Hemi V-8 mated to a two-speed, column-shifted PowerFlite automatic. Vacuum-assisted four-wheel drum brakes hid behind 15-inch chromed wire wheels, and a 3.54:1 rear axle ratio helped move the roughly 3,800-pound car smartly. Unlike many show cars of its day, the one-off Adventurer II was not destroyed after its time on the turntable. Mohammed V, the King of Morocco, drove it for a short period in 1956, but reportedly decided not to buy it; the Chrysler dealer in Casablanca eventually sold it to Art Spanjian, a U.S. citizen stationed there in the military, who imported it into the U.S. It was sold to Armand Archer in 1960, and has since passed through museums and private collections, most recently being displayed at the 2010 Pebble Beach Concours d'Elegance alongside other Carrozzeria Ghia masterpieces.

1. What is the aim of MTN-013/IPM 026? MTN-013/IPM 026 is a Phase I study that aims to evaluate the safety of a vaginal ring being developed as a possible method for protecting women against HIV infection through vaginal sex. Vaginal rings are products designed to allow for the slow delivery of a drug or multiple drugs to cells inside the vagina over a period of weeks or months. MTN-013/IPM 026 is the first clinical trial of a vaginal ring containing two antiretroviral (ARV) drugs: dapivirine and maraviroc. Because each works against HIV in a different way, it is thought that a ring with both agents may offer greater protection against HIV than a ring containing either drug alone. Before researchers can conduct a trial to determine whether the dapivirine-maraviroc ring is effective in preventing HIV, they first must know that it is safe and acceptable for women to use. In addition, it is important to know how much of each drug is taken up by the cells usually targeted by HIV and whether drug levels are sustained throughout the four weeks that the ring is worn. MTN-013/IPM 026 will involve 48 HIV-negative women who will be randomly assigned to use either the combination dapivirine-maraviroc ring, a ring containing maraviroc alone, a ring that contains dapivirine alone, or one with no active product. The dapivirine-only ring has already been studied extensively and is to be evaluated in a Phase III effectiveness trial called ASPIRE that is expected to begin May or June 2012, as well as in another large study called The Ring Study. The maraviroc-only and dapivirine-maraviroc rings, on the other hand, are being tested in humans for the first time in MTN-013/IPM 026. 2. What is unique about MTN-013/IPM 026? In testing a vaginal ring containing maraviroc, MTN-013/ IPM 026 is the first clinical trial of a vaginal microbicide based on a type of ARV called an entry inhibitor. Entry inhibitors block HIV from being able to enter human cells. To date, all other clinical trials of ARV-based microbicides have focused on ARVs called nucleoside or non-nucleoside reverse transcriptase inhibitors (NRTIs or NNRTIs).These include tenofovir (an NRTI) formulated as a vaginal gel and dapivirine (an NNRTI) formulated as either a vaginal gel or a ring. MTN-013/ IPM 026 is also the first clinical study of a vaginal microbicide containing two active drugs. A ring with two drugs, each having a different mechanism of action against HIV, potentially may be more effective in defending against HIV than a ring with a single drug. Similarly, to be effective, the treatment of HIV typically requires at least three drugs used in combination. 3. Why is this study important? Of the 34 million people living with HIV, half are women. The majority of women acquire HIV through unprotected heterosexual intercourse with an infected partner. In fact, women are twice as likely as their male partners to acquire HIV during sex, due in part to biological factors that make them more susceptible. Young women are especially vulnerable. In southern Africa, young women are up to five times more likely to become infected with HIV than young men. Efforts to promote abstinence, monogamy and the use of condoms have not been enough to stop the HIV epidemic nor are these methods practical in most settings. There is an urgent need for effective prevention strategies that women can control themselves. Toward this end, vaginal microbicides are HIV prevention products being developed especially for use by women to help reduce their risk of HIV infection through vaginal sex. To date, clinical trials have primarily focused on microbicides formulated as vaginal gels, with a gel based on the ARV tenofovir having been studied the most. . Tenofovir gel was found safe and effective in reducing the risk of HIV in women who used it before and after vaginal sex in a study called CAPRISA 004. Yet, researchers conducting another trial called VOICE stopped testing tenofovir gel after an interim data review determined that while safe, it was not effective among the women in the study who were asked to use the gel every day.Tenofovir gel continues to be evaluated in FACTS 001, a Phase III trial testing the same regimen of tenofovir gel used in CAPRISA 004. But for some women, a microbicide in the form of a vaginal ring, which can be used monthly, may be more suited to their particular needs or lifestyles, and therefore, more likely to be used. A product only has a chance of being effective if it is used and used properly. Of the vaginal rings being developed for HIV prevention, the dapivirine ring is the farthest along, with two large-scale trials set to launch by May or June 2012. MTN-013/ IPM 026 represents an important step toward the development of a safe and effective product that employs a drug that works differently than either dapivirine or tenofovir. Moreover, the study is important for determining whether a combination ring can be considered for further study in larger clinical trials. 4. Who is conducting and funding the study? MTN-013/IPM 026 is a study of the Microbicide Trials Network (MTN), an HIV/AIDS clinical trials network funded by the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases (NIAID), the Eunice Kennedy Shriver National Institute of Child Health and Human Development and the National Institute of Mental Health (NIMH), all components of the U.S. National Institutes of Health (NIH). NIAID and NIMH are the main sponsors of the study. As co-sponsor and the developer of the rings being tested in the trial, the International Partnership for Microbicides (IPM), a non-profit product development partnership based in Silver Spring, Maryland, is providing the study products for free. Leading the study is Beatrice A. Chen, M.D., M.P.H., of the University of Pittsburgh School of Medicine and Magee-Womens Hospital of UPMC, who is protocol chair; with Lori Panther, M.D., M.P.H., of the Fenway Institute and Harvard University in Boston, as protocol co-chair. 5. Where is MTN-013/IPM 026 being conducted? MTN-013/IPM 026 is being conducted at three NIAID-funded clinical research sites affiliated with the MTN: the University of Pittsburgh, Fenway Institute and the University of Alabama at Birmingham. 6. When did the trial begin and how long will it last? The study began screening potential participants in November 2011 and is expected to take less than a year to complete, with results available early 2013. 7. What is the difference between a vaginal microbicide and a vaginal ring? Microbicides are products designed to prevent or reduce the sexual transmission of HIV or other sexually transmitted infections (STIs) when applied topically inside the vagina or rectum. A microbicide can be formulated in many ways, such as a vaginal or rectal gel or cream, or as a vaginal ring that once inserted releases the active ingredient gradually over time. Vaginal rings that are being developed for HIV prevention are seen as alternatives to microbicides formulated as a gel, which would be used every day or at the time of sex. Different microbicide products are being tested in clinical trials, including in trials being conducted by the MTN, although none is currently approved or available for general use. The rings that are being developed for HIV prevention have a similar look and feel to vaginal ring products that are used for contraceptive delivery or hormone replacement and licensed in both the U.S. and Europe. 8. What rings are being studied in MTN-013/IPM 026? Researchers conducting MTN-013/IPM 026 are testing three vaginal rings: a ring that contains 25mg of the ARV dapivirine; a ring that contains 100mg of the ARV maraviroc; and a ring containing both a 25-mg dose of dapivirine and a 100-mg dose of maraviroc. A fourth ring, a placebo, contains no active drug. Each of the rings is made of silicone elastomer and measure 56mm (about 2 ¼ inches) in diameter and 7.7mm thick (¼inch). Dapivirine, also known as TMC120, is a type of ARV that inhibits the ability of HIV to replicate. Dapivirine was initially being tested by Tibotec Pharmaceuticals, one of the Janssen pharmaceutical companies, as an oral therapeutic agent to be used in the treatment of HIV, but it was determined to be a more promising drug for prevention of HIV infection. In 2004, Tibotec assigned a royalty-free license to IPM to develop dapivirine as a vaginal microbicide for the prevention of HIV in developing countries. Since then, 15 clinical safety studies of dapivirine, formulated as either a vaginal gel or a vaginal ring, have been conducted by IPM and its partners (most studies have been in women, with one study in men, MTN-012/IPM 10, conducted by the MTN.). Studies of the dapivirine ring show that it can deliver high concentrations of active drug to vaginal tissue for a month or longer, with only trace amounts of the drug being absorbed elsewhere in the body. Furthermore, studies to date have found that use of the dapivirine ring is safe and well-tolerated by women, and that among women in Africa, the vaginal ring itself is highly acceptable as a potential method for HIV prevention. In mid-2012, the MTN expects to launch ASPIRE, a Phase III trial of the dapivirine ring that will enroll approximately 3,476 women at sites in Malawi, Uganda, South Africa, Zambia and Zimbabwe. As part of its strategy to license the dapivirine ring, IPM will conduct The Ring Study (IPM 027) in parallel with the ASPIRE, and collect long-term safety and efficacy data among approximately 1,650 women at multiple research centers in Africa. Maraviroc is an ARV marketed under the trade names Selzentry® in the United States and Celsentri® in Europe for use in combination with other oral ARVs for treating people infected with HIV. It works by blocking a molecule, called a receptor, on the surface of cells that the most common strains of HIV use for gaining entry. IPM is developing maraviroc as a topical microbicide for women in developing countries through a 2008 non-exclusive, royalty-free licensing agreement now held by ViiV Healthcare. Because maraviroc is licensed as an oral drug, there is extensive preclinical and clinical safety information as well as data on its efficacy since being approved for treatment of HIV in 2007. IPM considers maraviroc a highly promising compound because it is active against HIV strains that are resistant to other ARVs. IPM has completed several preclinical studies of maraviroc and is exploring its development as a microbicide formulated as a vaginal ring both alone and in combination with dapivirine or tenofovir. The MTN-013/IPM 026 study will be the first time that a maraviroc-based microbicide will be evaluated in humans. Combination dapivirine-maraviroc ring IPM has conducted extensive preclinical studies of a dapivirine-maraviroc vaginal ring, that combined with the large portfolio and clinical experience using maraviroc in the treatment setting and the encouraging research on the dapivirine ring to date, support its further evaluation in a Phase I clinical study. 9. How is MTN-013/IPM 026 designed? MTN-013/IPM 026 is a Phase I study that will enroll 48 HIV-negative women between the ages of 18 and 40 who agree to use contraception and remain sexually abstinent throughout their participation in the trial. Participants will be randomized to use one of the four rings being tested in the trial: a combination dapivirine-maraviroc ring, dapivirine-only ring, maraviroc-only ring, or a placebo ring with no active drug. Women will insert the ring into the vagina themselves (or with the assistance of a clinician) on the day they enroll and will remove it after 28 days of use. To determine if the rings are safe and how much of the drug or drugs is absorbed in the blood, vaginal fluid and cervical tissue, different tests will be performed daily in the first week and weekly thereafter. Each study visit will include a physical exam, and pelvic exams will be performed at other intervals during the study and small tissue samples of the cervix will be taken. Similar tests and procedures will be conducted at regular intervals during a 24-day follow-up period after the ring has been removed. To assess women’s adherence to and acceptability of the ring, participants will be asked questions about what they liked or didn’t like about the ring, whether it was easy to insert and remove, whether they were aware of the ring or found it comfortable during daily activities and about their willingness to use a vaginal ring in the future, if one were available, to protect against HIV infection. 10. What will be done to ensure the safety of participants in MTN-013/IPM 026? MTN-013/IPM 026 was designed according to the most rigorous international medical practice and ethical standards and includes numerous measures, beginning at the site level, intended to protect the safety and well-being of participants. Potential volunteers will be carefully screened by study staff to ensure that only women for whom it would be safe to participate are enrolled. Site staff will provide continuous close safety monitoring of all study participants. As with all NIH-funded studies, MTN-013/IPM 026 incorporates a multi-tiered safety review process that includes strict national and international standards and procedures for monitoring and reporting. Prior to implementation, the protocol underwent extensive and rigorous review by NIAID, the U.S. Food and Drug Administration and the institutional review boards (IRBs) at each trial site. IRBs ensure that studies are scientifically valid and ethically conducted and they provide oversight throughout the duration of a trial. Because this is the first study of the maraviroc ring and dapivirine-maraviroc ring, participants will be strongly urged to remain sexually abstinent during the study. 11. Will women participating in the study provide informed consent? Yes. Women who volunteer to join MTN-013/IPM 026 will be educated about all the study procedures, any possible risks, benefits and alternatives to participation as well as the study’s time requirements. Study staff will also explain that women do not have to take part in the study and can leave it at any time, without consequence. This process is called “informed consent” and it will occur prior to screening, again at enrollment, and continue throughout the duration of the study.

Promoting Type-1 CD4+ T Cell Immune Responses Against Tumor-Associated Antigen MAGE-A6 One of the main challenges facing tumor immunologists is to develop strategies that would effectively stimulate Type-1 anti-tumor T cell responses, which have been correlated with better clinical outcome and prolonged survival of cancer patients. As CD4+ T cells were shown to play a critical role in mediating these responses, it was of interest to examine novel ways of effectively stimulating and enhancing Type-1 CD4+ T cell responses. For these studies I used MAGE-A6, a tumor associated antigen (TAA) expressed by a broad range of human cancer types. Two novel MAGE-A6 T-helper epitopes were identified and were shown to be recognized by CD4+ T cells isolated from the majority of normal donors or patients with melanoma, regardless of their HLA genotype (i.e. poly-DR presented epitopes). Furthermore, peptide-specific T cells also recognized autologous monocytes pulsed with recombinant MAGE-A6 protein, supporting the natural processing and MHC presentation of these epitopes. Interestingly, one of the novel MAGE-A6 epitopes possesses a high-degree of homology with a microbial peptide. CD4+ T cells stimulated in vitro with this microbial peptide cross-reacted against the MAGE-A6 homologue peptide, and could recognize naturally-processed MAGE-A6 epitopes more effectively than T cells stimulated with MAGE-A6 peptides. This study showed that it is possible to stimulate, and even enhance tumor-specific T cell responses using microbial epitopes that are homologous to TAA-derived peptides. In the final study, human dendritic cells (DC) were engineered to secrete high levels of IFN-×-inducing cytokines IL-12p70 and IL-18 via recombinant adenoviral infection to generate an in vitro stimulus capable of promoting previously deficient patient Th1-type responses. DC engineered to secrete both of these cytokines simultaneously (DC.IL-12/18) were highly effective at stimulating MAGE-A6-specific Th1-type CD4+ T cell responses from patients with melanoma, particularly when loaded with MAGE-A6 protein. Poly-DR presented epitopes and MAGE-A6 protein defined in this thesis, if loaded onto DC.IL-12/18, could prove clinically useful as a vaccine modality capable of promoting the recovery and/or enhancement of tumor antigen-specific, Th1-type CD4+ T cell responses in the majority of patients harboring MAGE-A6+ cancers.

A complete medical history may help to reveal recent exposure to a kennel or other dogs. However, it will be difficult in some situations to differentiate this virus from the common "Kennel Cough" virus mentioned above. Diagnostic tests are needed to recognize it and exclude other diseases. These tests may include: A chest X-ray may be recommended to determine if pneumonia is present. Routine laboratory blood tests-a complete blood count (CBC) or blood chemistry panel is not necessary unless your pet is showing signs of generalized illness, fever or loss of appetite. A fecal flotation should be done to exclude intestinal parasites. Blood titers – Testing for the virus is being done through veterinary diagnostic centers. The test can be performed by using testing respiratory secretions at the time of disease onset or by blood samples. According to Dr. Crawford, blood testing recommendations include that a sample be submitted during the first week of illness (acute sample) followed by another sample 2 – 3 weeks later (convalescent sample). Diagnosis is based on a four-fold increase in antibody titers from acute to convalescent phase. They need 1/2 ml of serum for this test. For more information about sample submission, talk to your veterinarian (also, they can go to ). With the sample, the lab is also requesting additional information to help them characterize the disease and locations. Antibodies are generally not detectable during the first week of clinical signs but are detectable after the first week and for up to 2 years after infection. If an acute sample is not available, exposure can be confirmed by the presence of antibodies in a convalescent sample. Therapy is controversial because in the early stages, it is difficult to determine if this virus is the new virus or kennel cough virus. Most infected dogs will recover with no treatment. A small percentage of dogs will develop severe and possibly fatal pneumonia. It has been recommended that all dogs with a fever and cough should have appropriate blood tests submitted and treated aggressively to minimize fatalities. Treatment may include the following: Antibiotics are used in some patients, especially if a secondary bacterial infection is likely. Intravenous fluid therapy has been used and associated with improvement and less fatalities in affected pets. Antiviral drugs such as amantidine and tamiflu may be effective, however, their usefulness in this syndrome may be limited as they are most effective if given before infection or exposure or in the very early stages of infection. Cough suppressants may be appropriate for some pets. Your veterinarian can discuss the pros and cons of this treatment. Injections or pills (butorphanol) are often used, but occasionally, a stronger medicine is needed (codeine-related) to break the cough cycle. Don't use over-the-counter human medicine without first speaking to your veterinarian. Dogs should be kept in isolation if treated in the hospital and very good disinfection measures need to be used.

For seventy-six years, ever since Pluto was discovered in 1930, we had 9 planets in our Solar System. This all changed in 2006 when Pluto was demoted to the category of dwarf planets. Mercury was only the second smallest planet back when there were 9. Mercury is closer to Earth than a number of other planets, but we cannot get a very good look at it because of its proximity to the Sun. Astronomers cannot use the Hubble Space Telescope to look at the planet because the Sun’s light would permanently damage the piece of equipment. Venus is the brightest of all 9 planets. The only objects brighter in the Solar System are the Sun and the Moon. Venus is so bright that it can actually cast shadows. If the Moon is not out one night, you may be able to find some shadows thrown by the planet. Earth is the densest of all planets in our Solar System. Our planet is composed mostly of iron, silicon, magnesium, and oxygen. Almost one-third of the planet (32.1%) is iron. There is nearly as much oxygen in the planet – 30.1%. There are lesser amounts of silicon (15.1%) and magnesium (13.9%). The materials are not spread equally throughout the planet. For example, most of the iron is in the core of the planet. Ever since astronomers spotted what looked like canals on Mars, they have been searching for water and signs of life. While life has not been discovered yet, scientists have found deposits of water underneath the surface of the planet. Not only is Jupiter the largest and most massive planet in our Solar System, but it is also the fastest spinning planet. Jupiter completes a full rotation in about 10 hours. The planet has actually flattened slightly at both ends due to the speed at which it spins. Saturn does not have the most moons of any planet in our Solar System – that distinction goes to Jupiter with 63 moons – but Saturn comes in a close second with 60 moons. When Galileo first saw Saturn with a telescope, he thought that the planet’s rings were moons. Astronomers were not able to determine what the rings were until they developed better telescopes. Uranus is the only planet to rotate on its side. This planet has the greatest axial tilt of any planet in our Solar System – 98°. As a result of this extreme tilt, the north pole is in darkness for 42 years then it gets 42 years of light before repeating the cycle. Neptune is quite a bit larger than Earth, but its gravity is very similar. If you could stand on Neptune – you cannot because it does not actually have a surface – then you would only experience approximately 17% more gravity than you would standing on Earth. Pluto, which was discovered in 1930, was the ninth planet. Pluto was by far the smallest planet. In fact, Pluto is even smaller than the Earth’s moon. This tiny planet was also the coldest one. Although its temperatures can drop to -240°C, the average temperatures on Pluto are -219°C.

Bateke Plateaus, Gabon Swaths of green, undulating grasslands and gallery forests atop massive sand dunes are the headwaters of the major rivers in Gabon and southern Congo. Rainwater percolates through the hills and eventually becomes the Mpassa, Djoumou, and Ogooue rivers in Gabon and the Alima and Lefini rivers in Congo. Forest elephants attracted by the mineral-rich sands have created a vast clearing, called Jobo Bai, which they visit repeatedly. In addition, there are healthy populations of gorillas, chimpanzees, several species of monkeys, buffalos, crocodiles, storks and other water birds, wild orchids, and butterflies. - The landscape contains three protected areas: the Plateaux Batéké National Park in Gabon covers more than 1,400 square miles, and the contiguous Lefini Reserve and Lesio-Louna Gorilla Sanctuary cover approximately 2,600 square miles in Congo. Illegal and commercial hunting, slashing and burning of forest islands, unsustainable agricultural practices, lack of clear management systems for wildlife reserves, demand for food and employment for local people all endanger the wildlife and the landscape. Where there are access roads, harvesting for firewood and artisanal logging threaten forest and gallery forest habitats. WCS is working with the governments of Gabon and the Republic of Congo to create a park in Congo contiguous with Plateaux Batéké National Park in Gabon that will form a trans-boundary reserve to protect wildlife on both sides of the border. Survey teams have traversed the proposed national park area, collecting data on the presence of large mammals and indicators of human activities. This information will be used to advise government officials as they consider gazetting the area as a national park. WCS is also working with communities around the national parks to help them sustainably manage their natural resources adjacent to and within the protected areas. In Congo, the Lefini Reserve (170 miles north of the capital Brazzaville) harbors a small population of elephants, accessible by road to tourists. WCS is working with the park managers and local communities to protect these elephants and educate the urban population about the rich biodiversity in this landscape.

Over the last week I’ve been having some involved discussions with people about the topic of conventional medicine steamrolling the alternative sector of health. If you have a health issue and you seek help from a conventional doctor, what are the chances that you’ll be offered a full range of choices about your health condition? By full range of choices, I’m referring to accurate facts and information about conventional treatment you’ll receive, as well as information about alternative treatments. I’m here to tell you that chance is almost zero. Doctors are liable for everything they say, and for the most part, you won’t receive encouragement or information about alternative treatments from conventional medical doctors. Steve Jobs passed away last week, and the world has been talking about it ever since. Dr. Mercola, M.D. shared a very informative interview on his site with Dr. Nicholas Gonzalez, M.D. who has treated cancer patients successfully for the last 25 years with alternative therapies. Dr. Mercola and Dr. Gonzalez discuss the fact that Steve Jobs delved into alternative treatment, and was even recommended by his own acupuncturist to seek out Dr. Gonzalez’s help. Natural News talks about the life of secrecy maintained by Jobs and the fact that he received a liver transplant. What rights do we have as consumers and patients? The American Medical Association claims to provide informed consent to patients. But is this really happening to the full extent that it should in clinical settings? By law, this ethical principle must be carried out in modern medical practice with medical interventions involving risk of injury or death. “Implicit in the concept of informed consent is the right to refuse consent or, in the case of vaccination laws, the right to exercise conscientious, personal belief or philosophical exemption to mandatory use of one or more vaccines.” (Source, National Vaccine Information Center). By law, informed consent must be applied to every person who receives medical treatment and be informed of all possible risks and side-effects of any drug, surgery, or procedure. Just as Barbara Loe Fisher advocates for the recognition of patient and consumer rights to be informed and educated about the ingredients and side-effects of vaccines through the National Vaccine Information Center, patients should be informed about all risks and side-effects (not just whatever the drug company is putting on the label) of treatments such as chemotherapy drugs and radiation. Even though informed consent is the law, these facts are often glossed over or omitted altogether. Patients should also be granted the choice to seek alternative therapies and treatments – without reproach, criticism, or dissuasion. Current law states the following: “To satisfy informed consent in biomedicine, physicians must disclose the nature of the problem, the purpose of the proposed treatment and the probability of its benefits and risks, as well as the probability of benefits and risks of alternative treatments or doing nothing. Whether such disclosure must, or should, encompass complementary and alternative modalities has not yet been addressed in the literature.” - Source, Complimentary & Alternative Medicine Law Blog, Michael H. Cohen, Esq. It’s perfectly legal, however, for medical professionals to exert authority to use coercion, threats, and intimidation to influence patients into choosing treatments that are have a proven track record of being unsafe and risky, and even without fully explaining the consequences of such activities. This act has the effect of violating deep-seated beliefs patients may have. This is especially true where vaccines are concerned, and if patients or parents of children decide that vaccination in general – or more commonly, a particular vaccine – is not necessary or appropriate for their children. The role conventional medicine plays in health decisions Although a lot of Steve Jobs’ personal activities were concealed, he was reported to have used alternative therapies during the early stages of his disease. His acupuncturist urged him to see Dr. Gonzalez, and he chose not to. Somewhere along the way, his attitude was shifted and then his willingness to pursue alternative therapies diminished. I believe it was pressure from powerful entities within the conventional medical community, which is the predominant force in the world in terms of getting medical treatment. Billions of people will read Steve’s story and be influenced by him. Many will still believe chemotherapy, radiation, and liver transplants are effective, even though he died. Some people might say to themselves, “Steve couldn’t beat cancer, so maybe I can’t either”. But that’s not the attitude people should have. You will also hear people who say that they or someone else they know survived chemotherapy and radiation treatment. But even the statistics on chemotherapy show that the expected life span after receiving this treatment is about 5 years. Those treatments aren’t solving the problem though. You can remove “the cancer” but you haven’t actually solved the reason for it being there. I’m not implying we are capable of escaping death; sooner or later, we’ll all meet that fate. What it does mean is that while we are here, we have choices and options about our health. That’s what conventional medicine doesn’t give us. It is built on fear, coercion, and threats, if those methodologies are not used. It gives credence only to anything involving surgery, drugs, or other conventional treatments. The system thinks nothing of stealing people’s confidence in themselves…their own intuition of their own bodies and conscience…of respect, and of their own dignity of researching, deciding, and choosing for themselves. And why? Because of the enormous profit to be made from selling drugs, expensive surgeries and other procedures. Money and privilege are no guarantee you’ll have access to sound, reliable information from medical professionals who have your best interest at heart. Wealth doesn’t preclude anyone from making a bad decision…including anything influenced by conventional medicine. I believe this is what happened to Mr. Jobs. Even with all his money, he wasn’t impervious to this force, nor did he have the proper support he needed to continue with alternatives. Alternatives in managing disease Dr. Natasha Campbell-McBride, a revolutionary in treatment of chronic and fatal diseases believes that the body is resilient and can heal from anything. In her book, Dr. Lawrence Wilson, M.D. Like Dr. Gonzalez, Dr. Wilson has worked with the late Dr. William Kelley, a pioneer in alternative cancer treatment. Anyone can and should do these therapies singly or as a complete health care protocol. However, if you have chronic or terminal health issues, I recommend obtaining guidance from a trained practitioner who has experience in detox, nutrition, and healing from disease. I personally know and have worked for a nutritional consultant who uses this same protocol and is successful at healing late-stage cancer treatments. I’ve heard people say that chemo and radiation “works”, but from what I know about health, I know it doesn’t actually solve the cause of the cancer. That’s why cancer can return. In order to destroy tumors, cancer drugs suppress and weaken the immune system. Dr. Gonzalez says that the drugs which kill tumors don’t help the body to successfully remove the toxins left over in the body, which cause a lot of damage and often that’s what ends up killing patients who don’t survive from chemotherapy and radiation treatments. Like many others, the cancer industry keeps going because it’s a money-making machine. It uses propaganda and marketing to its advantage to get people to hold fund-raising events and donate billions upon billions each year. The alternative cancer treatment industry is simply not making the kind of money generated in the conventional cancer industry. This branch of health appeared as a result of frustration with the conventional system, and because people who needed help weren’t getting results they needed. Alternative medicine’s methods of treatment and education are vastly different. Unlike conventional medicine, it is based on hope, faith, support, trust, due diligence, healing, respect for the client, and prevention. In the Dr. Gonzalez interview, he revealed after his death from pancreatic cancer some years ago, the wife of actor Michael Landon donated $38 million dollars to the oncologist that was treating her husband. Dr. Gonazlez also talks about other physicians who are decorated as heroes and given accolades by the press, even though their patients have died. How crazy is this? Properly used alternative treatments are safe and effective for cancer and other diseases, and save lives…and yet, they are shunned and criticized. Why? Because there is no profit in healing, only treating sickness. Even Steve Jobs couldn’t escape that reality – and maybe even more so because he had unlimited resources. The blame for all of this certainly doesn’t rest on Steve Jobs; it’s obvious that even with all his influence and money, the mainstream medical camp won him over. Most ordinary people don’t have the resources he did, so it’s infinitely harder for us to counteract the effects of conventional medicine’s influence. It is with a very heavy heart that I bid farewell to Mr. Jobs. What a truly terrible waste. And, what a waste for so many others, who were and are deprived of confidence in their own ability to choose for themselves – a freedom of choice that is an inalienable right for human beings. Remember – if you don’t have the right to stand up for yourself, someone else will. Do you want another person making that decision for you?

These mid-19th century lithographic plates come (variously) from the original Dutch and later German editions of a 4-volume work by the eccentric but brilliant Dutch naturalist, Franz Junghuhn. The title roughly translates to 'The Geography and Flora of Java'. Although the scenes in Indonesia depicted are the same in each edition, new lithographic stones with more detail were prepared for the later version, which also features better printing quality. I've chosen those later ones where possible, except when the age-related damage was more extensive or too difficult to remedy. Rather than repeat or paraphrase myself, I recommend seeing the Merapi Volcano post from a couple of months ago for more detail about Junghuhn and some biographical links. His life story really is fascinating. - 'Java: Deszelfs Dedaante, Bekleeding en Inwendige Structuur' (1851-1854) is available from the Botanicus website. - 'Java: Seine Gestalt, Pflanzendecke und Innere Bauart' (1857) is also online at Botanicus. - And in general: links / posts / feeds / bookmarks / twitter.

Many teens have made the transition from Facebook to Twitter after Facebook became infamous for fostering drama and fights. Now they are realizing that where teens go, drama follows. Every time I go on Twitter I see what teens call “indirect tweets” — tweets that are clearly directed toward a certain person, except the author neglected to tag that person in the tweet. These tweets are rarely positive. “Indirects,” or “subtweets,” have actually changed the way teens argue, gossip, bully, and the way they use Twitter. Nowadays, when two people are having some sort of argument, chances are they’re going to bring it to Twitter, as the rest of the world (or at least their followers) looks on with a mixture of aggravation, amusement, and secondhand embarrassment. One of the stupidest scenarios of indirect tweeting is when people have an extended argument by subtweeting back and forth. You might as well tag each other, or better yet, oh I don’t know, text? Call? Actually talk in person? Another thing that makes me want to throw my phone or computer when I see it is when someone tweets something like, “Subtweeting about me? Try tagging me next time,” noticeably absent of an @ symbol. Come on. Indirecting about someone indirecting about you? Please explain this logic to me. Fighting over Twitter is basically the same thing as having an argument in the middle of a crowd. Except worse because those tweets can be saved on the Internet forever, even if you delete them. Why publicly embarrass yourself ? When you trash someone, it reflects who you are, not who they are. Doing that only shows your own insecurities.

Konditor Meister Launches First Commercial Solar Array in Braintree The project has 235 panels and will generate enough power to cover half of the bakery's energy use for the year. Running a bakery requires many kilowatts of electricity to keep cakes, pastries and other desserts cool around-the-clock. Konditor Meister, on Wood Road in Braintree, plans to save on those costs – to the tune of about $13,000 annually – by taking advantage of a particularly friendly renewable energy environment in Massachusetts. The bakery has installed Braintree's first commercial rooftop solar array, consisting of 235 panels that will offset 50 percent of its energy usage, and will also finish construction of solar panel-topped carports by next month. "The economic environment [for solar] has never been better," said Invaleon CEO Tom Wu, whose alternative energy company is working with Konditor Meister. Massachusetts provides a 30 percent tax credit for such projects, Wu said, with that incentive scheduled to expire in 2016. In addition, the state has a program in which systems like Konditor Meister's produce Solar Renewable Energy Credits that can be sold at high value to energy suppliers. That program also has a limited capacity, and is about halfway filled, Wu said. “Konditor Meister has been at the Wood Road location for over 16 years and has experienced an increase in its electricity demands due to the refrigeration and mixers,” owner Gunther Moesinger said in a statement. “With the support of federal, state and local government, the investment in solar energy is very cost effective." Moesinger said he expects to make back his initial investment in two to three years, much faster than the typical seven to eight that commercial projects of Konditor Meister's size take. When the carports are finished, the solar array will produce 98 Kw with a total of 340 solar panels, equalling more than 115,000 kilowatt-hours annually. That second phase also offers shade for Konditor Meister customer’s cars and will eliminate more than 110,000 pounds of annual carbon dioxide (CO2) emissions, which is the equivalent of taking approximately 21 cars permanently off Braintree’s roads, according to a press release. “We tell customers to leave their car A/C on during hot days so that their cakes do not melt once they get inside their cars,” Moesinger said, “By not having to run their A/C while they’re parked, customers will be able to offset over 1,500 gallons of gasoline each year.” Wu and Moesinger have worked closely with the Town of Braintree and the Braintree Electric Light Department on the project. BELD recently began a renewable energy initiative itself and "is excited to see Konditor Meister making such a significant investment in renewable energy," GM Bill Bottiggi said. "Here at Braintree Electric we have been increasing our renewable and zero greenhouse gas emitting portfolios substantially over the last few years," Bottiggi added. "Currently we participate in Hydro, Wind, Solar, Landfill Gas, and Nuclear projects. Combined the projects total to over 23 percent of our power supply needs.”

Maternal Serum Screening and Prenatal Diagnosis Requisition Form Maternal Serum Screening CPT Codes Maternal Serum Screening and Amniotic Fluid Assays * Why is the Quadruple Screen important? This blood test is recommended for screening in all pregnancies and is important because it enables: - Detection of a high proportion of certain birth defects such as: - Neural tube defects — detects 95-100% of anencephaly and 80-90% of spina bifida [AFP test only] - Down syndrome — detects over 80% [combined AFP, hCG, inhibin, estriol] - Identification of some pregnancies now known previously to be at increased risk of certain serious complications - Early recognition of 30-40% of twin (or multiple) pregnancies What is a Neural Tube Defect? Defects in the development of the brain (called anencephaly) or the spinal cord (called spina bifida) are collectively described as neural tube defects (NTDs). Almost all babies with anencephaly die within hours or days of birth. Those born with spina bifida often survive, but because of damage to the spinal cord the vast majority develop handicaps varying from total paralysis from the waist down (associated with lack of bladder and bowel control) to some cases with only mild impairment of walking. Hydrocephalus (an accumulation of fluid in the brain) occurs in 80-90% of these children. Affected children with spina bifida require continuous medical and surgical care and often have a shorter life span. Mental retardation is a frequent complication. What is Down Syndrome? Humans have 46 chromosomes in each cell. During analysis they are arranged in 23 pairs, each pair being numbered. About 95% of children born with Down syndrome have an extra chromosome present in each cell which belongs to the number 21 group. Individuals with Down syndrome are always mentally retarded, have characteristic facial features and frequently have other birth defects. All individuals with Down syndrome require care throughout their lives. Maternal serum must be obtained in a Red or Tiger Top tube, minimum 5cc. In order for the quad calculations to be done and accurately reported the following information must be clearly provided on the accompanying requisition: - Patient Name - Patient (or Egg Donor) DOB - Date Specimen obtained - Patient LMP or - Ultrasound DATE & Gestational Age at the time of US - Evidence of Diabetes - Singleton, twins or multiple pregnancy - RACE of mother - Maternal WEIGHT at the time specimen obtained

Green eLearning: From electronic to energy-efficient» Okay, let’s face it. From a literary perspective it might not be considered the greatest creative genius to simply add a lower case letter to a word in order to create a brand or product name. I don’t want to go into the endless reiterations of iPad, iPhone, iBook, eCommerce etc… we’re all more than familiar with those neologisms than we may even want to be. Shakespeare and his literary colleagues might be turning in their graves, or who knows – maybe they’d gladly accept those artificial formations into their treasure trove of vocabulary without batting an eye. But this is speculation. The main thing is this: They work. They buzz. That’s it. So, to make a long story short. What is eLearning? The term actually refers to “electronic learning”. One might argue that most if not even all advanced forms of learning these days include electronics or technology to at least some degree. And maybe this is the reason why this term compared to its siblings iPad and eCommerce is not heard as often in common parlance. The fact that learning is connected to technology is an obvious fact, especially to younger learners who take it for granted that things are electronic and even more so, that they are digital, online and connected. As a teacher at Learn Out Live in particular, technology for me is the medium of teaching. It is as obvious a fact as walls and books are in a physical school. And I have to disagree here with the popular phrase of Marshall McLuhan that “the medium is the message.” At least for our case this is not true. Technology is simply a given for modern human beings. Learning always means making the best out of all the possible givens and aligning them towards a maximum of growth and efficiency in information processing. Having said that… eLearning is green! Yes, the “e” means also ecological. Let’s look at an example: Living in one of the bustling cities on this planet I see everyday hundreds of students migrating from home to school and back, but there of course many more than I can see : There are three big universities in Berlin. One of the oldest is the Humboldt University, it has about 30.000 students and 4000 persons on staff. Then there is the FU with also about 30.000 students and about 5.000 persons on staff. Then there is the TU with also roughly 30.000 students and 7000 on staff. Do the math! Considering the fact that most students and personnel of those three universities do not live in walking distance to their study or workplace (like in most cities) it means that every day about 100.0000 people are commuting through the city with trains, buses, cars, trams, motorcycles and subways. And those are just the universities. Add 831 public schools with 320870 students plus staff from headmasters down to caretakers. Add all other secondary or private schooling institutions for both children and grown-ups. Most of them involve commuting. If you thought that commuting starts with work life, think again. The numbers above are just to give you an example for one city. Add all cities of all countries and what you get is quite a LOT of traffic, energy and time spent not even on learning itself, but just getting to the place of learning or supporting its hungry infrastructure. Add to this the actual impact education facilities all over the planet have on the environment in terms of heating, electricity and other resources. No matter how you calculate, eLearning is 100 % green. I know there are arguments that using computers and the Internet is one of the worst contributing factors to global warming, but that’s a blunt one for the simple reason that all big universities, schools and other educational facilities use computers and the net on top of all their other resources. In other words: In current times it is not any longer a question whether we pollute or environment or not. We actually do! If you still don’t believe this, even the best of education will not help you. The question is one of reducing emissions, making things more efficient, friendly and greener in general. How to do this is really up to each and every person. At Learn Out Live we do our share by giving people all over the planet the opportunity to study in the most energy-efficient way possible, reducing environmental impact by eradicating commuting to language schools, exchanging paper copies for digital documents and physical products for digital goods.

We're used to robots -- in their place. Think of a car factory; the image that comes to mind is probably not the assembly line of yore, but instead pivoting robot arms doing mind-numbingly repetitive tasks with great precision. But other than vacuum cleaners and the odd robotic pet, robots are mostly absent from our daily lives. Are we ready for that to change, with robots sharing our highways and homes? We'd better be, because they're coming. On May 7, Nevada became the first state to issue a license for self-driven cars. These Google-developed cars are also known as autonomous vehicles, but make no mistake: They are robots. The Google robot cars drive themselves using an onboard computer, cameras and a Velodyne 64-beam laser range finder mounted on the roof. This constantly creates a detailed 3D map of the environment. The car then combines its "vision" of its surroundings with GPS data to drive itself while avoiding obstacles and respecting traffic laws. Why does Google think we need robot cars? As Jay Nancarrow, a Google spokesperson, explained, "Over 1.2 million people are killed in traffic worldwide every year, and we think autonomous technology can significantly reduce that number."

Theme by nostrich. One could write their dissertation on this topic as there are numerous avenues to explore. For the sake of time and space I am only going to touch on the highlights. As a parent who trains jiu jitsu I can say from experience that it is great for “ALL” kids. Kids have an endless supply of energy which needs to be channeled in meaningful directions which allows them the opportunity to have thoughtful play that keeps them entertained and out of trouble. Kids are like sponges and are able to soak up information easily since they have not established set biases. Working with kids at an early age is crucial in helping to establish their self esteem, cognitive skills and confidence. So why jiu jitus you ask. Jiu jitsu is physical yet controlled, this allows the kids the opportunity to expel much of that adolescent energy as they build muscle coordination, flexibility, stamina, respect, humility, and self restraint in a safe and supervised environment. However, as physical as jiu jitsu might be it is as much mental if not more. Jiu jitsu is similar to solving a life size puzzle, technique requires mental practice and repetition, and as the child’s library of techniques expand so will the need to solve more complex puzzles. These puzzles I speak of is the ability to link multiple techniques together, respond with the proper counter to the opponents attack, and the development of a personal style and strategy. The cognitive skills used in training jiu jitsu are similar to that of a chess player. And we can not forget the self confidence that kids gain from such physical accomplishments, which can serve to keep them from being bullied in school and less inclined to be involved in school yard brawls. Kids love to grapple, it comes natural to them to roll around on the ground and horse play, so I say why not get them into an environment which lends to this natural act. Kids classes are a great opportunity for your child to make many new friends and usually are right after school making it very conveient. Many academies have free trial periods where your child can test the waters so to speak, if you have the opportunity I encourage you to take advantage of the offer if available.

Interface Engineering overcame design challenge of incorporating new systems into old buildings By Sam Bennett For Interface Engineering, the White Stag Block was no run-of-the-mill renovation. Interface, which won an ACEC Grand Award for the White Stag Block project, faced the challenge of designing modern, energy-efficient systems into 117,000 square feet of space of buildings a century old. The buildings were being redesigned to accommodate the University of Oregon’s schools of architecture and journalism. The firm was responsible for the mechanical, electrical and plumbing design for the shell and core of the Old Town project, as well as for tenant improvements. Interface began the project with three neglected buildings adjacent to each other, with varied floor-to-ceiling heights. Aiming for Leadership and Energy and Environmental Design gold certification, Interface had to design a way to provide a rainwater retention tank as well as a storm water retention tank. Interface proposed that the storm water retention tank double as rainwater harvesting storage–rather than having two tanks in the shared basement that would need to also accommodate mechanical, electrical and plumbing equipment. Interface also had limited access to put mechanical equipment on the roof of the historic structures. The building lacked cooling equipment prior to the renovation. The roof was not designed to hold the extra weight and adding an equipment room to the roof would have been prohibitively expensive. So Interface designed the basement space to accommodate them, where the storm water and rainwater storage tanks were stored. To avoid making costly seismic upgrades, the air handling systems and new transformers (required because of an overloaded, outdated power grid) had to be placed in the basement. Within the buildings, the mechanical systems were designed to be exposed and work around historic pillars in the building. Ductwork had to detour around such obstacles and varying heights of ceilings, and also needed to have a symmetrical look that fit with the era of the buildings. Some of the ceilings were just 8 feet high. By making all these adjustments, the system achieved 30 percent greater efficiency than industry standards. Adding to the complexity is that the building had to accommodate a variety of users, including classrooms, a computer lab, offices and a cafe–each with different HVAC and lighting needs. Interface managed to meet the tenants’ needs while keeping the historic integrity of the building. Interface also served as a consultant to the building’s property managers when structuring tenant leases, and the firm assisted with creating the building management budget. The project’s initial budget was $35 million and the final cost was $37 million. The mechanical, electrical and plumbing budget began at $5 million, and the final cost was $5.6 million. Other issues that made design more challenging included fire damage in one of the buildings, leaking windows and low clearance in the basement. Overall, Interface’s designers and engineers contributed 18 of the project’s 44 LEED points toward gold certification.

An "aware action" done in a special cultural environment is a sub set of "Practice" and is called art. The "Practice" art demands a recipient or recipients that are one of the goals of the artistic tradition. Dō (道) is a subset of "Practice" in martial arts at which the recipient in non other then the practitioner him or herself. "Practice", as a defining container for the martial arts, is not connected solely to the confrontation with others. Other disciplines that are founded on actions and body participation such as carpentry, gardening, skateboarding etc. share much of the basic intent of these kind of actions.

A few decades back, the term ‘a Jewish invention’ meant one thing. If the inventor was a Jew, then it was a Jewish invention. Things have changed. Nowadays, kosherlamps®, briefcase-sized fold-up shtenders, tefillin-friendly sweaters, and a host of other ingenious (and, arguably, useful) innovations specifically created for the Jewish consumer have redefined the term. With all these new ‘Jewish inventions,’ there is more interest than ever in the often misunderstood subject of Jewish copyright, trademark, and patent law. In fact, recently, a number of excellent books and articles have been published about the subject. And while historically this area of Jewish monetary law has seen more than its fair share of knock-down, drag-out controversies, when the dust has settled, a number of basic principles and guidelines emerge. Recently, I, myself, had what I think is a great idea for a new Jewish invention. I was in the process of purchasing a relatively expensive (at least for me it was expensive) pair of tefillin for my soon-to-be thirteen year old son. More than once the thought crossed my mind that there was a reasonable chance that this expensive pair of tefillin would at some point be forgotten or misplaced by my boy, who was, after all, just a typical thirteen year old. Young adolescents are not particularly known for their sense of responsibility. This got me to thinking. What if there could be some small and cheap GPS-like device that could be placed in every tefillin bag? If the tefillin were to be lost, the owner could call a telephone number and punch in his tracking number to initiate a search. The system would then locate the tefillin and call the owner. In its computer-generated voice, the system could say something like, “Relax. Your tefillin are located at the Lakewood Bus Terminal. Would you like directions how to get there? If yes, press 1. To hear this message in Yiddish, press 2.” Great idea, no? I even thought of a catchy name for it, the Tefillin Trakker. To be honest, I do not have any plans to do anything with this idea except to use it for this article. The time, money, and effort that would be required to bring the Tefillin Trakker to market are too much for me. However, it does serve as a good case study to illustrate the principles of Jewish patent law. So let us ask the following question. According to Jewish monetary law, if any of you out there after reading this article would decide that you wanted to develop the Tefillin Trakker into a marketable product, could I legally stop you from doing so since it was my idea? Often, the simplest questions are the most difficult to answer, and such is the case with regard to this one. In fact, the central concept underlying this question has been at the center of a debate among the halachic authorities for the last one hundred and fifty years. Put simply, our question boils down to the following issue. According to the Torah, is it possible to legally own an idea? Is an idea a legally recognized ‘something’ that to some extent exists in our physical world, or is it something too intangible, too spiritual, for it to be a legally recognized entity? Surprisingly, there is no open discussion of this question in the Talmud or in any of the earlier halachic authorities. In fact, the first person to clearly express his opinion on this issue was the Sho’el U’meishiv, Rabbi Yosef Shaul Nathanson, who lived during the mid-1800s. In one of his teshuvos (m.k.,1,44), he states that logic dictates that the Torah recognizes the sole and complete ownership that an author or inventor has over his ‘intellectual property.’ Importantly, the Sho’el U’meishiv does not offer any proof from earlier sources for his position. A number of authorities clearly argue against the validity of this concept. The Shu”t Maharsham (2,202), the Shu”t Kol Aryeh (ch.m., 134-135), and the Shu”t Imrei Aish (y.d., 88) all are of the opinion that an idea is not an ‘ownable’ entity. They argue that since there is no indication for the concept of intellectual property from any earlier authorities, its validity is highly questionable. Furthermore, they argue that to the contrary, logic would dictate that one cannot own something as intangible as an idea. An indication as to how well-established this disagreement is among our halachic authorities is the fact that while Rabbi Shlomo Zalman Auerbach, zt”l, was of the opinion that intellectual property is not a Torah concept, Rabbi Yosef Shalom Eliashiv, shlit”a, ybmcl”c, rules that the Torah does recognize intellectual property ownership. Let us now return to our question about the Tefillin Trakker. It would seem that taking my idea for the Tefillin Trakker without my permission would be an act of theft according to the authorities that agree with the Sho’el U’meishiv. Granted, there is a dissenting lenient opinion. However, acting with stringency would definitely be appropriate since transgressing a Torah prohibition is at stake. However, there is another important factor still to be considered. As brilliant an idea as the Tefillin Trakker is, I have to admit that it is really nothing more than extending an already existing technology to a new application. It is not a truly new idea. Nor is it an idea that involved a tremendous amount of technical expertise or creativity. A number of contemporary authorities make the point that for an idea to be owned by its creator there must not be a reasonable chance that someone else will arrive at the same idea. It must be a truly new and unique product of its creator’s mind. According to this criterion, my Tefillin Trakker idea would not qualify as intellectual property even according to the opinion of the Sho’el U’meishiv. Although my control over the Tefillin Trakker idea seems to be in jeopardy, all is not lost. I still might try to apply for a patent for the Tefillin Trakker at the U.S. patent office. Assuming that I receive the patent, will that patent protect me in a Jewish court of law? The answer to this question is most emphatically ‘Yes!’ The reasoning behind this answer touches upon an issue that has far-reaching consequences for Jewish monetary law. Let’s face it. We Jews do our business based on the customs of the land, minhag hamedina. We certainly are well acquainted with them. In fact, when two Jews interact in the marketplace, the Torah assumes that they are doing their business based on the prevailing customs that apply to that marketplace, even if those customs have no basis in Torah law. The Torah accepts this behavior as a valid way of doing business between Jews. This is true except when a particular custom is in direct contradiction to a Torah law. Then, the Torah’s law takes precedence. One of the greatest challenges facing a Jewish court is to know when and how to apply this concept of minhag hamedina. Let us apply the principle of minhag hamedina to our case. Even if patent protection might not be the letter of Torah law, it certainly does not directly contradict any Torah law. In fact, it is most definitely in the spirit of the Torah to try to protect someone’s idea from being taken away from him. Therefore, the Torah would consider patent protection to be a valid minhag hamedina. Furthermore, since the custom of patent protection has been accepted by all modern Western countries, a Jewish court would consider this to be the operating custom among Jews as well. So, if I would succeed in registering my Tefillin Trakker with the U.S. patent office, I would be fairly confident that a Jewish bais din would side with me against anyone who would want to steal it from me. There is one more important point to be made. Assume for a moment that I neglected to obtain a patent for my new invention. Further assume that I invested a lot of money and time into developing the Tefillin Trakker until it was almost ready to be marketed. At this point if someone were to acquire copies of the technical drawings or marketing plans for the Tefillin Trakker they would have obtained a significant gain from my money and efforts. In this scenario, all authorities agree that I have the right to stop that person from competing with me until I make a reasonable profit on my initial investment. Although I might not own the exclusive rights to the Tefillin Trakker, the competition does not have the right to negatively affect my livelihood by unfairly benefitting from my money and efforts. This principle is the reason why even those halachic authorities that argue with the opinion of the Sho’el U’meishiv strictly forbid industrial espionage.

What is Acrolein? It is a chemical that appears as a yellow or colorless liquid and has an unpleasant odor. It is classified under the category of volatile organic compounds. The substance is also known by other names like - Ethanal: 2-propenal - Acrylic aldehyde - Ethylene Aldehyde - Allyl Aldehyde How Is Acrolein Produced? The various sources of this chemical substance have been discussed below: This substance exists naturally in some pesticides and livestock feeds. It is also produced due to atmospheric reactions of 1,3-butadiene. The substance is industrially prepared by oxidation of Propene. This helps produce several million tons of Acrolein on a yearly basis. Heating glycerol to 280 °C makes it decompose into Acrolein. It is also possible to produce this compound on a lab scale by the chemical reaction of Potassium Bisulfate and Glycerol (Glycerine). Small amounts of this chemical can naturally be formed in the environment due to the decomposition of some pollutants in external air on combustion of tobacco or gasoline. It is also formed when pyrolyzed vegetable and animal fats are burnt. A natural byproduct of fires, it is one of various acute toxicants that firefighters have to endure. The chemical structure of this compound is given as: Picture 1 - Acrolein In words, it can be represented as H2C = CHCHO. Read on to know all about the physical as well as the chemical properties of this chemical. The substance has a density of 0.843 g/cm3 at 20°C. The chemical is found to boil at a temperature of 53°C. The compound melts at a temperature of -88°C. The substance has a vapor pressure of 210 mm Hg at 20°C. The chemical has an odor threshold of 160 ppb (370 mg/m3). It is soluble in ethanol as well as diethyl ether. It is also soluble in 2-3 parts of water. The chemical has a specific gravity of 0.8621 at 0°C. The flashpoint of this compound is found to be less than -18°C by the Open Cup Method. It is an unstable compound which is stabilized with Hydroquine. It may form unstable peroxides over a period of time. It is reactive with acids, alkalis and oxidizing agents. The substance polymerizes to form a plastic solid known as Disacryl in the presence of bright light, strong acid or alkali. The auto-ignition temperature of this compound is 233°C. The molecular weight of this substance is 56.06 g/mole. Its color varies from transparent to light yellow. The pH value of this chemical is 7 (Neutral) in 1% soln/water. The compound is miscible with benzene, ketones and lower alcohols. The various uses of the substance are listed as follows: - It is mainly used as a chemical intermediate in the manufacture of acrylic acid as well as its esters. - This compound is normally used to make pesticides and other chemicals. - It is also used an algicide and aquatic herbicide in irrigation canals. - It is used in oil wells as a microbiocide. - It is used in the production of perfumes and plastics. - This substance is used to make colloidal forms of metals. - The chemical is used as a slimicide in manufacturing paper. - Due to its pungent odor, it is used in methyl chloride refrigerant as a warning agent. - The material has been used in poisonous gas mixtures for military purposes. - It is also used in water treatment ponds, liquid hydrocarbon fuels and cooling-water towers. Accidental inhalation of the spray mist or liquid of this chemical can produce acute irritation in the respiratory tract and even lead to its damage. An affected individual may suffer from choking, coughing and shortness of breath. It is an acute pulmonary irritant. Accidental ingestion of this compound can be extremely damaging for health. The mucus membranes of the mouth can suffer inflammation and irritation and suffer damage. The substance can have chronic health effects on human beings. This may result in health hazards such as damage to vital organs like eyes, skin, lungs and the upper respiratory tract. The following safety measures should be followed in case of accidental exposure to this substance. In case of accidental skin contact with this chemical, contaminated clothes and shoes should at once be removed. The affected area should immediately be cleaned with a disinfectant soap and flushed under cold, running water for at least 15 minutes. An antibacterial cream or emollient should be used to cover the affected skin region. If irritation and redness fail to subside, medical attention should immediately be sought. Contaminated shoes and clothes should be cleaned and washed thoroughly before reuse. In case of accidental exposure of eyes to this chemical, any contact lenses should be removed as soon as possible. Eyes should be flushed with enough water for at least 15 minutes, keeping the lids open. It is always better to use cold water for cleaning. Victims of accidental inhalation should immediately be transferred to a fresh, airy region. If breathing is difficult, medical attention should be sought and artificial respiration should be provided. People who accidentally consume this material should not be forced to vomit unless instructed by a physician. Such people should not take anything by mouth. Their clothes and accessories such as shoes, ties and belts should be loosened. Medical attention should immediately be sought for such individuals. The substance should be stored in cool, well-ventilated and isolated areas. It should be kept in tightly sealed and closed containers away from all possible sources of ignition. Acrolein storage should not be done at above 8°C. Personal Safety Precautions People handling this material should wear proper protective gear, comprising of - Face shield, for the face - Goggles, for the eyes - Vapor respirator, to prevent accidental inhalation - Gloves, to protect the hands - Boots, to safeguard the feet

Partnerships between local universities and technology companies like Google, Intel and Microsoft are turning Pittsburgh, the former steel town, into a high-tech hub. According to the Pittsburgh Technology Council, research and technology companies now employ 213,000 people in the region and generate a $10.8 billion payroll. "Craig Street has been dubbed Silicon Alley," said Andrew Moore, a Google lab director and former Carnegie Mellon professor, referring to a city street near Carnegie Mellon. Moore said graduates used to leave Pittsburgh because it lacked good career opportunities. "Having a Google office here is a great way of getting a hold of great talent," he added. Google's office is housed in Carnegie Mellon's four-story Collaborative Innovation Center (CIC), which is a partnership between Carnegie Mellon, the Carnegie Museums, and local economic development organizations and is funded by the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania. Home to a handful of other industry partners including Apple and Intel, the facility integrates corporate, university and government researchers who work together there to develop new technologies, business ventures and jobs. "The fact that global leaders like Google, Apple and Intel are locating in Pittsburgh shows the powerful draw of the universities' talent and technology, as well as the region's attractiveness as an R&D location," said Don Smith, university director for economic development at Carnegie Mellon. "University-community partnerships like the CIC allow the region to maximize the economic development impact of its outstanding research universities." Research at Carnegie Mellon alone has spawned more than 170 start-up companies since 1995, a key factor in predicting a region's economic future. In January 2007, Pittsburgh was listed as one of Wired Magazine's 10 Top Tech Towns.

Another ground beef recall. See the January 25, 2013 USDA Department of Agriculture news release, "Michigan Retail Store Recalls Ground Beef Products Due To Possible Salmonella Contamination." Gab Halal Foods, a Troy, Mich. retail store, is recalling approximately 550 pounds of ground beef products that may be contaminated with a strain of Salmonella Typhimurium, the U.S. Department of Agriculture's Food Safety and Inspection Service (FSIS) announced today. The products subject to recall are: Various size bags of ground beef, wrapped in clear plastic. These products were produced between Dec. 4, 2012, and Dec. 10, 2012, and distributed to a restaurant in Macomb County, Mich., and sold directly to consumers at Gab Halal Foods. These products were sold without a label. Check out the site, "Ground Beef Recall: 16 People Sick From Salmonella In 5 States." According to that article in the Huffington Post, the USDA reports that at least 16 people in five states have been sickened by salmonella food poisoning linked to ground beef and half were hospitalized. Most of the illnesses have been in Michigan, but a few cases were scattered in Arizona, Illinois, Iowa and Wisconsin. The problem is the raw ground beef dish eaten by many Middle Eastern peoples called kibbeh. See, Lebanese Kibbe Recipes : NPR. Last month, customers of a wide variety of ethnic groups ate the raw ground beef dish at a suburban Detroit, Michigan restaurant that remains unidentified. The federal government is warning people not to eat raw meat. According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), the cases are linked to last week's recall of more than 1,000 pounds of ground beef from two Michigan businesses. Those businesses are named by the USDA as the Troy-based Gab Halal Foods and Sterling Heights-based Jouni Meats. The government warns restaurants not to serve raw meat to the public The FSIS investigation found that there is a link between this illness cluster and the ground beef products from Gab Halal Foods, as well as another retail store, Jouni Meats, Inc., which recalled ground beef products on January 24, 2013). If you're eating ground beef in any public restaurant, be sure to asked the food handlers to cook the meat. Kibbeh nea (also spelled kebbeh nayyeh) is popular all over the Middle East. See the site, Kibbeh - Best Stuffed Kibbeh Part 1 of 2 (Kibbe Tutorial) - YouTube. Kibbeh can be baked or prepared with raw ground meat, usually ground lamb but also beef is used. People buying meat from a halal store often are the Arabic, Muslim, and Middle Eastern communities of the area who buy from ethnic food stores and prepare ethnic foods such as kibbeh nea using raw ground meat. Many prefer to buy meat from halal meat stores rather than from supermarkets for the general public because the meat is slaughtered in a special way according to religious laws and the customer knows the ground meat is not mixed with pork. Based on epidemiologic and trace back investigations, 7 case-patients with the same outbreak strain have been identified in Ariz. and Mich. with illness onset dates ranging from December 9, 2012, to December 13, 2012. The 7 case-patients consumed raw beef kibbeh on December 7, 2012, and December 8, 2012. It is not known at this time if this outbreak strain has any drug resistance. Results are pending. FSIS is continuing to work with public health partners and CDC on this investigation. FSIS will continue to provide information as it becomes available. FSIS and the company are concerned that some product may be frozen and in consumers' freezers FSIS routinely conducts recall effectiveness checks (including at restaurants) to ensure that steps are taken to make certain that the product is no longer available to consumers. Consumption of food contaminated with Salmonella can cause salmonellosis, one of the most common bacterial food-borne illnesses. The most common symptoms of salmonellosis are diarrhea, abdominal cramps, and fever within 12 to 72 hours. The illness usually lasts 4 to 7 days. In some persons, however, the diarrhea may be so severe that the patient needs to be hospitalized. Older adults, infants, and persons with weakened immune systems are more likely to develop a severe illness. Individuals concerned about an illness should contact their health care provider. FSIS advises all consumers to safely prepare their raw meat products, including fresh and frozen, and only consume ground beef that has been cooked to a temperature of 160° F. The only way to confirm that ground beef is cooked to a temperature high enough to kill harmful bacteria is to use a food thermometer that measures internal temperature. Consumers with food safety questions can "Ask Karen," the FSIS virtual representative available 24 hours a day at AskKaren.gov or via smartphone at m.askkaren.gov. "Ask Karen" live chat services are available Monday through Friday from 10 a.m. to 4 p.m. ET. The toll-free USDA Meat and Poultry Hotline is available in English and Spanish and can be reached from l0 a.m. to 4 p.m. (Eastern Time) Monday through Friday. Recorded food safety messages are available 24 hours a day. The FSIS site of the USDA contains the phone numbers to call. Or check out the information online at the online Electronic Consumer Complaint Monitoring System which can be accessed 24 hours a day at this site. USDA recommendations for preventing salmonellosis Wash hands before and after handling raw meat and poultry with warm/hot (preferred) or cold soapy running water by rubbing hands together vigorously for at least 20 seconds. Also wash cutting boards, dishes and utensils with hot (preferred), soapy water and clean up any spills right away. The mechanical action of vigorous rubbing of hands and utensils/surfaces creates friction that helps to dislodge bacteria and viruses from hands and surfaces. Additionally, warm/hot water helps to dissolve fats/foods, aiding in cleaning/microbe removal and can also assist in deactivation of pathogens. For more information on hand washing, go to the CDC site on hand washing. If soapy water is not available, use an alcohol-based hand sanitizer that contains at least 60% alcohol. Hand sanitizers don't eliminate all types of germs, and not most viruses Alcohol-based hand sanitizers can reduce the number of germs on hands in some situations. However, sanitizers do not eliminate all types of germs, including viruses. Keep raw meat, fish and poultry away from other food that will not be thoroughly cooked. Use separate cutting boards for raw meat, poultry, and their juices and thoroughly cooked foods. Thoroughly cook raw meat and poultry to safe internal temperatures (160° F for ground meat such as beef and pork and 165° F for all poultry, as measured with a food thermometer) before eating. Don't eat raw ground meat you haven't witnessed being marinated or safer yet, cook all your meat Refrigerate raw meat and poultry within two hours after purchase (one hour if temperatures exceed 90° F). Refrigerate cooked meat and poultry within two hours after cooking. For recipes of kibbeh, see the sites, Raw Kibbe, People who love raw kibbeh | Yelp, and Taza A Lebanese Grill - Woodmere, OH. Another form of eating raw ground beef is "steak tatare." But a warning from the government to anyone is to pleasea cook your meat. Raw meat often contains bacteria that can sicken you with salmonella if the meat isn't cooked at a high enough temperature until the bacteria is destroyed. Some people eating bacteria in raw meat come down with ulcers caused by bacteria in the stomach such as H. pylori. As far as salmonella, it's better not to take the chance eating raw meat that isn't properly marinated to kill bacteria or cooked. Also see the recipe, Pumpkin kibbeh Cambridge, Middlesex County, MA. There are ways to prepare ground beef or lamb that are safer than raw meat.

GearReview.com's Guide to Fly Rods. By Scott Clayton A good balanced fly fishing outfit, one that matches the conditions you intend to use it in, allows you to focus on your primary fly fishing tasks: determining what and how fish are eating, and presenting a suitable imitation. If any piece of your outfit doesn't fit the conditions, it can be a distraction and anything that distracts you will decrease your odds of catching fish. Choosing the right fly rod for the conditions you fish is an important step towards a good balanced fly fishing outfit. The following 6 steps will help you make your decision. 1. Where will you use this rod? When choosing a fly rod, one of the first considerations to make is how and where you are going to use the rod, for example, a rod that works well on small streams is totally inadequate when fly fishing for Steelhead Common fly fishing settings include: Small trout streams Saltwater fly fishing 2. Line weight Once you've determined where you're going to fish, you need to choose the line weight of the rod. Line weight ranges from 0 to 14, where 0 is the lightest and 14 is the heaviest. In general, lighter rods are used with smaller flies and shorter distances, while heavier rods are used with larger flies and longer distances. Choose a line weight that will allow you to present the flies necessary to catch fish. A 5 or 6 weight rod is recommended for those just starting out. The Gear Review staff leans toward the 5 weight. Large and/or weighted flies Next up in the selection process is choosing the length of the rod. Fly rods are manufactured in lengths that range from 5 ˝ to 16 feet. Rods that are 7 to 10 feet are common, while rods outside this range are considered specialty rods. Shorter rods are easier to maneuver in tight quarters. Longer rods give you more distance as well as more line control (line control, often referred to as mending, is the act of manipulating the fly line after the cast has been made). Common length uses: 7 to 9 foot rods are the most common. Small streams with dense vegetation surrounding them are best attacked with a shorter rod. If you are looking for distance, and you have the room to attempt it, look for a longer rod. 9 to 10 foot rods are commonly used while float tubing, the length makes it easier to keep your back cast off the water. Saltwater fly rods are typically in the 9 to 9 ˝ foot range. 8 ˝ to 9 is a good versatile length. The Gear Review staff recommends this length for first time fly Arguably the most personal choice in the selection process is action. Action is basically where the rod flexes (or bends) while casting it. Action is usually described ranging from slow to very-fast. When choosing the action of a rod, your goal is to find a rod that best fits your casting style; simply put, a rod that feels good to cast. This is the most difficult area of rod selection to compare with other people because each person has their own casting style. The Gear Review staff recommends that you test cast any rod before buying it. Loosely defined action ratings: Slow/Soft - flexes in the upper ˝ of the rod. Moderate/Medium - flexes in the upper 2/3 of the rod. Fast - flexes in the upper 1/3 of the rod. Very-Fast - flexes in the upper 1/4 of the rod. 5. Number of sections One more consideration is the number of sections (or pieces) a rod breaks down to. Most rods break down to 2, 3, 4 or 5 sections. The convenience of a 3 or 4 piece rod is tough to beat. Depending on how much traveling you will do, by airplane or backpacking, 4 or even 5 sections should be considered. The Gear Review staff recommends 3 sections as a minimum. Most people, when spending a lot of money on a fly rod, want some assurance (insurance) they'll be able to use that rod without breaking it. To solve this dilemma manufacturers usually have some kind of warranty on their rods. If you really like a rod but the warranty concerns you, the Gear Review staff recommends you call the manufacturer and discuss your concerns. While most fly rod manufacturers state their warranty a little differently, they all seem interested in covering defects or accidental damage. However, intentional damage will probably not be, nor should it Given the number of great fly rod manufacturers in the market today and the number of different models they each produce, choosing the right fly rod for you can be a difficult, nearly overwhelming, task. Once you've decided, how and where you are going to use your new rod, and you've determined what line weight and rod length best matches your intended use, you're ready to cast some rods. Trying a rod before you buy it is the most important step you can take. If you're not sure what action you prefer, be sure to try rods that differ in action. A fly rod that feels good when you cast it and matches the conditions you fish it in is a big step towards a balanced fly fishing outfit.

So what about the $1 trillion platinum coin, which has been posited as a workaround for the federal debt ceiling? -Scott Brown, chief economist, Raymond James A few years ago, amid exceptionally large federal budget deficit and extraordinarily accommodative Fed policy, a number of pundits warned of impending hyperinflation. Instead, inflation has stayed low. That hasn’t stopped the inflation worrywarts. It’s just a matter of time, they say. Inflation “has to show up at some point.” That’s not an argument. There are a number of reasons to expect inflation to stay low. Inflation is a rise in the general level of prices over time. Hyperinflation is very high inflation. There are dozens of examples throughout history (from Angola to Zimbabwe). At its peak in November 2008, inflation in Zimbabwe averaged nearly 100% per day. As with any high inflation, hyperinflation is caused by excessive growth in the money supply (that is money growing much more rapidly than the growth in goods and services). However, it’s not just money growth that matters. The velocity, or “turnover” of money in the economy is also a key factor. More often than not, hyperinflations are associated with governments printing money to fund their deficits. Isn’t that what’s going on in the U.S. now? No. The federal government has been borrowing a lot more in recent years and the Federal Reserve has been buying large amounts of that, but these are separate decisions. The government debt that the Fed buys doesn’t go away. Treasury still has to make good on the debt. However, the Fed typically returns some of the interest it earns to the Treasury each year, $88.9 billion just last week. Many people are upset that the Fed can create money out of thin air. However, the Fed does this all the time in regulating the money supply. The Fed doesn’t actually print money. It simply buys Treasuries and credits the account of the seller, adding to bank reserves, which the banks can then lend out. The banks are the ones effectively “creating” money. Monetary policy works through its influence on loan growth.

Well known and famous in print and on screen as 'Bulls Eye, the dog owned by Bill Sykes in Dickens' 'Oliver Twist' , the Bull Terrier is a distinctive looking dog with what is often described as an 'egg shaped' head. The English Bull Terrier is thought to have been bred from the Bull Dog and other terrier breeds, including the Manchester Terrier. They were originally bred for dog-fighting, more notably bull baiting until 1935 when these blood sports were outlawed, however, illegal matches still continued to take place. By crossing a bulldogs and terriers many of the behavioural and physical traits desired by followers of this 'sport' were gained and as such the English Bull Terrier gained a reputation for being one of the most agile, aggressive and brave dogs to undertake this task, often fighting till the death. This reputation earned the Bull Terrier the somewhat dubious title of the 'canine gladiator' In 1850 a gentleman called James Hincks standardized the breed by selectively breeding this dog with other terrier including White English Terriers. This resulted in an all white Bull Terrier with which many are now familiar. It is not known what other breeds were crossed along the generations giving the defined and distinctive head shape and 1887 the first breed club was formed in the UK with standards defined the year after. In 1917 a dog named 'Lord Gladiator' was the first of this breed recognised as the modern Bull Terrier. Average height to withers: Males and females between 18-22 inches Average weight: Males and females between 22-38kg with males erring on the heavier side. No other dog has the head and eye shape of this breed. Distinctive to the last, the Bull Terrier has an individual shape of head (described as egg shaped) and the eyes are uniquely 'triangle' shaped being small and set deeply into the skull. The nose is well defined and round and the semi erect ears are often carried at a reverse angle to the head. The Bull Terrier has a rounded, well defined and well muscled body with heavy shoulders which are powerfully built. The tail is long and thin and carried horizontally to the body. This breed is noted for being a predominantly white dog, although other colours are permitted. The coat is short and smooth. Despite appearances, the Bull Terrier is a fun and people-loving dog. They are courageous, active, clownish, exuberant and fearless. They enjoy being around people and are generally not recommended for families with children as this exuberance, can be problematic given the nature of their heritage. They are best suited to experienced dog owners, especially those with prior experience of this type of breed. With comprehensive socialisation and training at an early age, they can live with other animals (caution should always be observed as they do retain thier strong terrier hunt-prey drive) but will always have a determined and somewhat stubborn streak. With other dogs, unaltered males may not get along with other male dogs but males and females can live together happily, and two females can also be a good option. This is a breed which is hardy and healthy generally, and will live on average between 9-12 years. As with any other white haired animal, they need to be checked for deafness which is known to occur in around 20% of white coated dogs. This can be difficult to detect in younger dogs and puppies and is worth seeking veterinary advice on. As a short coated dog, they can be prone to skin allergies and can react to flea and tick bites quite violent. It is also worth bearing in mind that in hot and sunny weather they can get easily sunburned and every precaution should be taken to avoid this. They are also known to develop habits quite easily which could be compared to obsessive compulsive disorders such as excessive licking and tail sucking especially in times of stress and separation from their owners. It cannot be reiterated enough that this is a dog which should be owned by people who have prior experience. Regular exercise is a must and the owner needs to be aware of potential agitation around dogs not known to it. Given the nature of their coat and potential allergies, breeders are often advocate of adding oils to their daily meals to help keep it in tip top condition. This is a breed which sheds an average amount, but will still benefit from weekly grooming and attention.

Here is a list of words and sub-words that can be made from the word Tokens. Where a word is a full anagram of Tokens (that is, uses all 6 of the letters in the word) then it will be stated next to the word itself. In addition it will be highlighted in bold. If you wish to compare this list with a printed anagram dictionary, the letters in Tokens in alphabetical order are eknost) - anagram dictionaries usually require you to look-up a word by first placing the letters in alphabetical order:

United Supermarkets Introduces NuVal [VIDEO] “When United Supermarkets became the first supermarket in Texas to roll out the NuVal Nutritional Scoring System, we knew we were onto something good,” said corporate dietitian Tyra M. Carter, Ph.D., R.D., L.D. A recent study from the Harvard School of Public Health confirmed it. Published by the American Journal of Preventive Medicine, the study revealed men and women who consumed a diet with high-scoring foods on the NuVal system lived longer and lowered their risk for chronic diseases, such as cardiovascular disease and diabetes. “Diabetes and cardiovascular disease are two of the leading causes of death in the United States,” said Carter, who provides an in-store video guide of the NuVal system for shoppers. “NuVal is a simple way to comparatively shop the nutritional value of products and be proactive in making healthier choices to prevent health problems later in life. The more high-scoring foods there are in a person’s overall diet, the less chance the person will have of developing those diseases.” Created by an independent panel of nutrition and medical experts from universities and health organizations, NuVal is an easy-to-follow system that scores food and beverages based on nutritional value from 1 to 100; the higher the score, the higher the food’s overall nutrition. Shoppers can find the NuVal scores on shelf price tags in all 51 United Supermarkets, Market Street and Amigos United locations in 30 markets across north and west Texas. There are also bilingual brochures and signage throughout the stores to help shoppers make purchases that are more nutritious. Guests can view the informational video on YouTube to learn more, or schedule an in-store tour with one of United’s registered dietitians.