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+{"content": "Cart 0\n\nGeneral Faqs\n\nOur recommendation for taking pHenomenal.\n\nTo realize the most benefit, we recommend (1) diluting pHenomenal in distilled water and (2) drinking it on an EMPTY stomach. This protocol presents the least possibility of any ‘reaction’ with either the particles in the dilution water or your stomach acid. (See FAQ 4 about stomach acid) The more pure, un-reacted pHenomenal water you can get past the stomach and into the small intestine for absorption into the blood stream, the better!\n\nThat said, you would probably agree then that the ideal time to do pHenomenal would be first thing in the morning before eating or drinking anything else. You can mix up your pHenomenal the night before (stored in a sealed container) and have it ready ‘slam down’ first thing in the morning when you get up! Hydrating your body first thing in the morning is a great way to start your day.\n\nAfter drinking your morning pHenomenal mix, you will want to wait 15-20 minutes before having your coffee and breakfast. Why? Because eating too soon after may prompt a digestive acid reaction. Waiting 15-20 minutes will allow the optimum amount of pHenomenal to pass into the small intestine before waking up your stomach!\n\nDoing your pHenomenal first thing in the morning might not work for everyone. If you have eaten something, it’s best to wait about two hours before doing pHenomenal so that the stomach acids will have subsided in most cases, thus minimizing an acid reaction. Of course, if you have just eaten a 24-ounce Porterhouse Steak with fries and a six-pack, it may take a ‘tad’ longer for the stomach acid to subside!\n\nSome people ask if is okay to take pHenomenal on an empty stomach before bed. This works for some folks. However, if you get a burst of energy, and you may not be able to get to sleep. That’s not so good!\n\n All this said, we are amazed at (and very happy about) the testimonials we get from some of our 10,000 plus customers over the years. Some customers drink pHenomenal anytime of the day and/or on a full stomach! (So much for our recommendations!) They tell us they get the benefits they want and continue to order. We cannot explain these claims. Nevertheless, we like happy customers! Everyone is different. Find what works best for you.\n\nIn summary, we contend people get the most benefit by getting as much pure, phenomenal water into their blood stream as possible. This is our goal for you… and why we make the above recommendations. \n\nWhat is in pHenomenal water and how is it made?\n\nVery simply, I start with pure water- two atoms of Hydrogen combined with one atom of Oxygen. I transform it into a stabilized ‘Hydroxide Ion’ liquid – one atom of Hydrogen and one atom of Oxygen. My unique manufacturing process involves heat, magnetism and mineral buffers. The result is a stable liquid with a pH of about 12.2. We named it ‘pHenomenal water’! Yes, it is quite alkaline, yet not dangerous. If you get the pHenomenal water from the bottle on your skin, it will not hurt you, as would lye or caustic soda.\n\nThe ‘hydroxide ion’ in my pHenomenal water wants to ‘make love’ (or react) with something. First and foremost, our hydroxide ion LOVES to mate with the hydrogen ion in acids. You guessed it then, the result is little water molecules which live happily ever after! I know, I know, that’s a bit corny. Really though, it’s as simple as that… that’s why pHenomenal is so powerful. Without getting into the chemistry and physics of it, pHenomenal FIRST seeks to react with acids in the blood stream. It’s the natural order of things, so to speak. Be advised that pHenomenal’s hydroxide ions CAN react with other particles as well.\n\nFor the record, we put calcium in pHenomenal water. It is inert and we only do it for taste enhancement.\n\nUsed as directed, pHenomenal will get into your blood and ‘prey’ on them nasty acid ions in your blood. This makes the natural pH buffering system in our body work a little easier.\n\nWe hope this helps you better understand the make-up of pHenomenal water and how it works.\n\nWhat are the ingredients in pHenomenal?\n\npHenomenal is a new way of forming water with some calcium added for taste. Also see What is pHenomenal.\n\nCan I monitor my pH results to see if pHenomenal is eliminating my acidity?\n\nYes you can!\n\nTired of pulling your hair out over litmus pH readings? Ever wonder why even when eating nothing but alkaline foods your symptoms do not improve?\n\nAcidity = disease! This remarkable test kit is simple to use. It uses one drop of urine. It tests for Ammonia Nitrogen in your urine which is an indication of acidity toxicity. A color chart helps you convert the color into a number. You want to keep your results 1-5. Anything over 5 and you are overly toxic with acidity which will eventually lead to all kinds of symptoms. You cannot depend upon the Urine pH and Saliva pH to give you accurate indications of the acidity level in your body. Only the Ammonia Nitrogen level can do that. This kit does approximately 50 tests and takes about 30 seconds to perform. When drinking pHenomenal Water, we recommend you test your acidity level at the same time of day and at least weekly.  You cannot depend upon the Urine pH and Saliva pH to give you accurate indications of the acidity level in your body. Only the Ammonia Nitrogen level can do that! Dr. Gary Martin of Longevity-Formulas Inc. in Arizona has developed this awesome pH Test Kit!  It is ACCURATE.\n\nHere is the link to order: Flooding the Body with Alkalinity is Not the Same as Removing the Acidity!\n\nUse the coupon code: ATKGH for your discount!\n\nFinally something that will offer some CONTENTMENT!\n\nHow can I tell if my body is saturated with enough water daily?\n\nGreat Question!  We have on our weight chart proper saturation/water per lb. of a person. Sometimes folks just need MORE water as dehydration can sneak up on us.\n\nThe below link will help give the “best” reading. If ordering use Coupon Code PTSGH for your discount.\n\nWhy do you add calcium to the pHenomenal?\n\nIt is a flavor buffer. Have you ever heard of putting baking soda in your refrigerator to absorb taste? It’s much the same. Calcium absorbs the taste.\n\nIs there a difference between Organic and Inorganic Minerals?\n\nUnderstanding Minerals: Organic vs. Inorganic\n\nThere is much confusion and contention around the issue of organic vs. inorganic minerals and the efficacious application of one over the other. There is a lot of information and there are a lot of opinions circulating as to the best sources of dietary minerals, pitting plant sourced (organic) against rock sourced (inorganic). Since opinions run the gamut, and depending what you read, you will get conflicting information.\n\nYou will read some opinions that emphatically state that not only are rock sourced minerals not usable by the body, but are downright dangerous. Given the discrepancies and the confusion these opinions engender, it is imperative to interject some logic into this debate about what form of mineral is emphatically best for your body.\n\nOf critical importance in this organic versus inorganic debate is to understand what organic means in this context. When addressing organic as a mineral description, it means that the element in question is bonded to a carbon atom, which is another inorganic element. Because all living creatures are carbon based, being bonded to a carbon atom theoretically makes any element more bioavailable and usable by a living organism. Without any research to prove this however, it remains conjecture. Furthermore, if it is a true statement then drinking mineral water in nature would be of no benefit to an animal or human. We know this is not true. In nature, our mineral sources have always been water based (we are 70% water) either from the foods we eat or the water we drink. When minerals come from water, they are inorganic. When one ingests sea salt for the mineral content they are utilizing inorganic forms of the minerals that have been recognized as beneficial to human health.\n\nSome say we can only utilize mineral elements if we get them from food (organic) yet others believe ground up rock (pill/capsule form-inorganic) will supply our mineral needs. Others are proponents of liquid sources in an ionic form such as one would obtain from natural mineral water or sea water or a good ionic supplemental formula. In a perfect world there would be no need for supplementation at all.\n\nToday, due to pollution, you take great risks drinking from a mineral stream and sea water at this point in time is problematic. Additionally, most foods grown today are quite deficient in what science has measured as normal mineral content, primarily due to poor farming practices and inadequate soil replenishment, natural erosion, pesticides and chemical fertilizers that create imbalances. Much of the food consumed today is excessively processed to the point of having little or no mineral nutrient content.\n\n\nFood and water are by far the most logical sources, and yet both delivery systems have become so mineral deficient and/or polluted that they are poor sources for a full compliment of one’s essential daily mineral intake. As a result we have become a minerally deficient society. Results of supplementing with inorganic ionic minerals speak to the effectiveness of inorganic individual ionic elements (not bonded to carbon) and can therefore attest to the fact that the body does not need its minerals bonded to carbon for beneficial absorption and utilization. It is therefore the belief of this author, based upon personal history and the history of the human race (with observation and results), that the body intuitively knows what to do with minerals regardless of the form in which they come, and if it didn’t, we would not be alive.\n\nA very important component to understanding all of this starts with understanding the actual time frame that the body has to process a mineral in order to convert it into an ionic (atomic) size suitable for transport to and functionality within all of the cells of the body. The more tightly bound the mineral element (as in a powder or pill), the more time it takes for the body to atomize the element.\n\nThe digestive system of the body has only one section where larger more tightly bound minerals can be broken down into usable ions, and that is in the stomach. The transit time of food through the stomach is approximately one hour. If the inorganic mineral compound is not ionized during this time, no further beneficial breakdown takes place. Once the mineral leaves the high acid environment of the stomach and proceeds into the small intestines, all further break down ceases. The PH environment of the small intestines is incapable of breaking down minerals. Once they have left the acidic environment of the stomach the remainder of the non-ionized minerals are in effect never available to our cells, and just pass through our GI tract unusable.\n\nThe overlooked concept in this ongoing controversy between organic or inorganic sources of minerals is the feasibility of elemental minerals (rock) in an ionic form performing the same way in the body as a drink from a mineral stream, which is essentially rock minerals broken down to their atomic size by the forces of nature. Water is a very important source for obtaining ionic minerals. A mineral in an ionic form whether it is organic or inorganic alleviates the need for stomach acid to perform the function of ionization.\n\nThe sourcing of minerals from ground up concentrations (rocks) of specific elements, while a popular source for the last 100 years or so, proved to be problematic since each person’s ability to break these relatively large particles into atoms was solely dependent upon the time of exposure to their stomach acids and the amount of stomach acid available, which is sub-optimal in many individuals. So, while the body was able to ionize these rock-based supplements only to a limited degree, most of what was swallowed was never used. Never the less, these minerals were still partially effective in providing some missing dietary levels of necessary nutrient minerals. Many have noticed obvious improvement in their states of dis-ease even without an optimal mineral delivery system.\n\nWhy Use Distilled Water?\n\nOnly oxygen is more essential than water in sustaining the life of all living organisms. Human beings can live for several weeks without food, but only a few days without water. The daily cleansing of wastes from each cell, the flushing of the alimentary canal and the purifying of the blood are all dependent on our water consumption. The quality of our tissues, their performance, and their resistance to disease and injury are linked to the quality and quantity of water we drink.\n\nThe wrong kind of water can pollute, clog up and hinder health and vitality. But what is the right kind of water?\n\nTap water is not a safe option: besides the cocktail of chemicals intentionally added, including toxic chlorine and fluorine, it can contain lead and other heavy metals leached from pipes, along with any number of synthetic poisonous substances that seep into the water supply via industrial and agricultural pollution. Spring or well water is also no guarantee of purity: today the underground rivers (aquifers) are recipients of myriad man-made chemicals absorbed into the earth from farms, lawns, and factory discharges. Filtered water is not a reliable purification method: too many chemicals pass through and residues remain that can be a source of toxicity. And tests that claim quality are no cause for reassurance – too many of the poisons are impossible to detect because detection systems have yet to be developed.\n\nIn today’s increasingly chemicalized world, the purest, safest water is steam distilled – the closest thing to pure H20, which is what nature intended for our bodies. Rainwater is distilled water, created by natural evaporation, condensation, before falling to the earth as precipitation. In pre-industrial times, rainwater sustained populations, but now becomes polluted merely passing through the atmosphere. Fruits and vegetables contain distilled water, but unless organically grown, produce also contains chemical residues from pesticides, herbicides, fertilizers, etc.\n\nSteam distilled water is the best choice because the prolonged boiling process of distillation kills virtually all types of microorganisms, including bacteria, viruses and parasites and is virtually 99 % free of all impurities, including heavy metals and most chemicals. Freshly made, it has a pleasant, pure taste.\n\nThe biggest misconception about distilled water is that, because it contains no minerals, the body will somehow be deprived of vital nutrients. The fallacy is in thinking that we can readily absorb minerals in whatever form they may enter our bodies. As an article in the Natural Food Associates Newsletter explains: “Unfortunately, most people fail to realize that the body can only use ORGANIC minerals effectively…Plants, however, can make use of inorganic minerals, converting them into a form which the body can assimilate. Plants, therefore, are the proper source of minerals.”\n\nTap, spring, filtered and other bottled waters absorb INORGANIC minerals from rocks or soil they have flowed over, plus all the chemical contaminants picked up along the\n\nway, which can cause all kinds of mischief. As the newsletter article notes, inorganic minerals “are not absorbed, but will remain, resulting in arthritis, hardening of the arteries, stones, spurs, etc.” Clearly, food is our best source of mineral nutrition NOT water.\n\nStudies have shown that, because it contains no minerals, distilled water acts as a solvent, picking up inorganic mineral and toxin deposits accumulated in the joints, artery walls, or wherever such deposits occur, and carrying them out. Gall stones and kidney stones get smaller and smaller until they can safely pass through their ducts. Little by little arthritic pains lessens as joints come to be more supple and movable. Arteries gradually become more elastic as blood pressures trend down toward normal. Skin is more hydrated and vibrant. Overall health and vitality improve and the body feels and becomes, in effect, younger!\n\nPerhaps the best example of distilled water’s safety and benefits is Norman W. Walker, D.Sc., inventor of the first hydraulic vegetable juicer and nutritional health expert, who was the earliest and most forceful distilled water advocate. His research confirmed the gentle cleansing action of distilled water in the body, leeching out contaminants and relieving a whole host of ills. Walker lived energetically to the age of 99.o\n\nThe Natural Food Associates Newsletter lists other benefits: “A baby’s rash disappears if distilled water is used in bathing an infant. A spot on a fabric is more easily washed out and will not leave a ring if distilled water is used.”\n\nSo what is the best source of distilled water? Bottled distilled is expensive (not to mention a pain to lug home!) and the quality is not assured because it comes in plastic jugs which can affect purity and taste. A home water distiller is the easiest, most inexpensive way to go. There are many models available, from compact manual countertops to larger automatic units. (Most all have automatic shut-off, so you just turn on and go about your day.) The process is simple: tap water is poured into a stainless steel boiling chamber, heated to evaporation, then cooled, condensed and collected for drinking, while the impurities remain behind in the tank. Anyone who has ever cleaned the boiling chamber of their distiller will be struck by how much gunk came out of the water instead of into their body!\n\n* * * * *\n\nThe reality today is that synthetic toxic chemicals have become a ubiquitous presence in our food, air and water. This is not a reason for paranoia or despair. Trying to achieve absolute purity in an impure world is not possible, nor wise, as it would only add more stress that can be toxic to health. But there are some areas where we can take charge. Our bodies are 70% water, so it’s worthwhile putting the purest water into it – water that will flush out inorganic minerals and pollutants that would otherwise be retained in vital organs and glands. Be on the safe side: whenever possible, drink distilled water.\n\n\n23 Doctors with the courage to tell the truth about Distilled Water\n\n\n\nI’ve put together the specific writings of twenty-four doctors who all support the benefits of Distilled Water. The first few pages of Dr. Hanish’s book (Doctor #24) at the end of this, are really quite stunning. If, after reading this, you think you would like to try distilled water, Cheers…\n\nEverybody needs to switch their drinking water to distilled water.\n\n\n*** DOCTOR #1 ***\n\nHere is what Dr. Allen Banik says…\n\n\n\n- Allen E. Banik, M.D. Author, “The Choice is Clear”\n\n*** DOCTOR #2 ***\n\nHere is what Dr. Paul Bragg says…\n\n\n\nDr. Paul Bragg, N.D. Ph.T., from his book: “The Shocking Truth About Water”\n\n*** DOCTOR #3 ***\n\nHere is what Dr. James Balch says…\n\n\nDietary Wellness; 1993 Dr. James Balch, M.D.\n\n*** DOCTOR #4 ***\n\nHere is what Dr. C.W. DeLacy Evans says…\n\n\n-C.W. DeLacy Evans, M.D., in his book, How To Prolong Life\n\n*** DOCTOR #5 ***\nHere is what Dr. Teofilio de la Torre says…\n\n\n*** DOCTOR #6 ***\nHere is what Dr. Charles McFerrin says…\n\n\n-Dr. Charles McFerrin, writing in the July 1955 issue of Nature’s Path\n\n*** DOCTOR #7 ***\nHere is what Dr. Alexander Graham Bell says…\n\n\n—Dr. Alexander Graham Bell\n\n*** DOCTOR #8 ***\nHere is what Dr. Robert W. Flinchbaught says…\n\n\n-Dr. Robert W. Flinchbaught, from “Pure Water is Life”\n\n*** DOCTOR #9 ***\nHere is what Dr. David C. Kennedy says…\n\n\n-David C. Kennedy, D.D.S.: ‘How To Save Your Teeth: Toxic-Free Preventitive Dentistry’\n\n*** DOCTOR #10 ***\n\n\n-Robert D. Willix, Jr., M.D.:’Maximum Health’\n\n*** DOCTOR #11 ***\nHere is Dr. Handley’s article about distilled water…\n\nThe Importance Of Distilled Water In Aging\n\nby Dr. Chester Handley\n\n\n\n\nIt is also one of the best ways there is for reducing blood pressure. I made up two charts years ago when I was doing my studies on body detoxification with distilled water, from 1865 to 1965. In 1865, diseases that ranked in the high 30′s and low 40′s became the first four killers in 1965…and they were all cardiovascular. I then made another chart from 1865 to 1965 to show the reduction in the use of drinking rainwater. The two charts were virtually biometrically opposite. As people quit drinking rainwater, cardiovascular diseases went up. When the blood vascular system is clean you have less headaches, you have less pain, you have more oxygen and nutrients available for the body and more healing capacity for the body.\n\n\n\n\n\nSimple facts with the courage to tell the truth about Distilled Water\n\n\nWhat is the ORP of pHenomenal?\n\nORP is a clever way of measuring the millivolts in a given liquid. Because of the slight difference of one ORP meter to the next I feel it’s better to answer this questions with a straight millivolt reading a pHenomenal.\n\nDiluted and ready to drink pHenomenal has a millivolt of -330 showing it’s massively positive charge of free electrons to give away. As a comparison, freshly juiced raw California organic spinach has a millivolt reading of -30 or 10X less than mixed pHenomenal.\n\nDr. Gary Martin from Phoenix reported his ORP readings of pHenomenal as…\n\nConcentrate: 12.2 pH / -100 ORP\n\nR/O Water: 5.6 pH / +115 ORP\n\n32 oz Dilution: 10.8 pH / -4 ORP\n\n16 oz Dilution: 11.2 pH / -3.5 ORP\n\nSome people ask if baking soda or alkaline water machines provide the same results as pHenomenal water.\n\nThese methods can raise blood pH! But, consider the following: \n\nThese two methods work by reacting with stomach acid. We label it as Stomach Acid Neutralization methodology or ‘SAN’. This is not all bad as we discuss in FAQ 4. Why? Neutralized stomach acid must be replenished somehow for digestion to be achieved successfully. Simply speaking, our stomachs will ‘draw’ needed acid out of the blood stream, thus raising the blood pH in a positive way. This methodology is definitely a step in the right direction. After all, the goal is to get have our blood pH in the slightly alkaline range. However, we do NOT consider this to be the ultimate methodology!              \n\nBaking soda, a mild alkali, will react with stomach acid, producing water and other by-products. This reaction neutralizes stomach acid, which again, must be replenished somehow. This is just another example of the Stomach Acid Neutralization methodology described above. It too is a step in the right direction. Although it’s not what we designed it to do, pHenomenal water will react with stomach acid as well, using ‘SAN’ methodology. The by-product of pHenomenal reaction with acid is water, NO other by-products! We might add that our testing reveals that that pHenomenal will neutralize five hundred times more stomach acid as will baking soda. Therefore, to match the effectiveness of pHenomenal in this methodology, one will need to utilize a tremendous amount of baking soda compared to pHenomenal. Where’s the savings then? What’s more, baking soda could introduce a lot of sodium by-product into the body. Phenomenal will not introduce sodium. Anyone choosing to ingest baking soda should consult with his or her physician to be sure the residual amount of sodium is not harmful.\n\nAlkaline water machines can certainly be beneficial… if properly used. They also utilize the Stomach Acid Neutralization methodology or ‘SAN’. Again, this is a step in the right direction. However, the water molecules you get from ‘Top of the Line’ Alkaline Water Machines (costing up to $4000) have not been changed to become alkaline. They are simply being ‘rearranged’ as they ‘glob’ onto electron-charged minerals added to the water. Unfortunately, that is not a natural state for minerals to exist. So eventually, the charge wears off the minerals, usually within hours, or at most, a day or two. Then those water molecules will return to their natural state… plain water and minerals. So what does that accomplish? One needs to understand this to realize the benefits.\n\nSome people ask if pHenomenal will help with gout.\n\nWe cannot give advice about medical conditions because we are not licensed to do so. Gout is a painful medical condition that requires a Doctor’s attention. We’re told that only about 1-2 % of the population suffers from it. That’s not a big problem unless of course, you have it!\n\nWith clinical analysis, your Doctor can determine the exact details of your condition. This is important because your condition may not be gout, but something else. In addition, we’re told there are different types of gout that are treated differently. Once the details of your condition are known, your Doctor can suggest a treatment plan for your exact condition. It’s important for you to learn your condition.\n\nWe’re told gout is hereditary. Diet is also a big factor. Certain prescribed medications can bring it on as well. We’re told someone with gout has elevated levels of uric acid in their blood. Uric acid is a by-product of the metabolic breakdown of purine nucleotides. (certain proteins) Uric acid typically dissolves in the blood, passes through the kidneys and is eventually eliminated through urine. Under excretion of uric acid by the kidneys creates the condition called ‘hyperuricimia’. After reaching a certain level, the uric acid can crystallize, attach to and inflame joints, tendons and cartilage. Typically, it occurs in the extremities of the body, such as fingers, feet and toes. It can be debilitating. We’re told the crystallization of uric acid is the underlying cause of painful gout.  Yet, we’re also told it is possible to have high levels of uric acid and never develop gout!\n\nExcessive uric acid in the blood is clearly what can lead to gout. Everyone has SOME uric acid in their blood. We believe pHenomenal water could help a person with excessive levels of uric acid in their blood. Why? Because when pHenomenal water gets into the blood, it goes after blood acids like a ‘heat seeking missile’. It reacts with acid and converts to pure water. For you information, pHenomenal water has been Lab Certified to neutralize Uric & Lactic acid. Kindly check this link: report\n\nSomeone reading this may want to go to FAQ3 on our web site to get more details of how pHenomenal water reacts with the blood acids.\n\nWe encourage anyone with gout to discuss the use of pHenomenal water with their Doctor. You should be sure it is appropriate for use with your specific gout condition and any other medications you might be taking. We are happy to discuss pHenomenal water with your Doctor as well. We frequently do this.\n\nWe have regular pHenomenal water customers with Gout. However, none have offered us any testimonials yet.\n\nDoes pHenomenal water will react with stomach acid?\n\nThe answer is: ABSOLUTELY… if there is acid in the stomach. However, when Phenomenal ‘reacts’ with stomach acid, it simply turns stomach acid into water. That’s not all bad. This ‘reaction’ does NOT impede digestion at all. But, this reaction not the best scenario.\n\nThe digestion process in the human body is quite complex. In a PDF at the end of these FAQs, we attempt to explain the digestion process in great detail. However, in this FAQ, we want to keep things simple and say digestion is accomplished with stomach acid.                       \n\nTo begin with, many people believe their stomach ‘sloshes’ with acid all day long. (Ouch!) People, this is NOT the case. It’s true that our stomachs do remain slightly acidic when empty. However, significant amounts of acid only get generated when foods (or other things that need to be ‘broken down’) enter into the stomach. Consider this. Drinking pure, distilled water, with no minerals or particles, does NOT stimulate stomach acid generation. Miraculously, the stomach knows this. Pure water passes through an empty stomach very quickly (15-20 minutes). It then enters into the small intestine where it is absorbed into the blood stream as needed. However, if the water is NOT pure, your stomach knows that too and generates acid to break down those particles. (Alert… pHenomenal water may also react with particles in water in which it is mixed, which is also NOT ideal)\n\nThat’s why we recommend diluting pHenomenal in pure, distilled water and drinking it on an EMPTY stomach. (See FAQ 1- way to take pHenomenal) This protocol minimizes the possibility of any reaction with either the water particles or your stomach acid. Point: the more pHenomenal water you can get past the stomach and into the small intestine for absorption, the better. THIS IS OUR IDEAL SCENARIO.\n\nAs said, having a ‘pHenomenal reaction’ with stomach acid is not all bad. Why? The stomach must replenish any neutralized acid from a ‘pHenomenal reaction’ from somewhere. Simply speaking, stomachs have a way to draw needed acid out of the blood stream, thus raising the blood pH in a positive way. We label this concept: ‘Stomach Acid Neutralization methodology’ or ‘SAN. Clearly, if the stomach pulls acid out of the blood stream, that’s definitely a step in the right direction. After all, the ultimate goal is to get our blood pH into the slightly alkaline range. Right? Not all bad, but we firmly believe that you will achieve the most benefit by having pHenomenal bypass these stomach level ‘SAN’ reactions and allowing pHenomenal to enter the blood stream at maximum strength. Then pHenomenal water can do the job we designed it to do… to react with ‘nasties’ in the blood stream, NOT stomach acid. \n\nWhy is blood pH important?\n\nFirst, we must inform you that we are not licensed medical professionals qualified to offer such advice. We can only speak in generalities about what we have observed. We cannot offer individualized advice for specific medical conditions. Instead, we only offer general information we have learned from what we are told. If you wish to use any of our information or the reported experience of others for you own health care, you must do so at your own risk or that of your own health care provider. \n\nIt’s our understanding that blood pH is vital to our well-being and needs to slightly alkaline, ranging between 7.35 and 7.45 on a scale of 1-14. Below pH 7.35, it is said to be an ‘acidosis’ blood condition; above pH 7.45 is said to be an ‘alkalosis’ blood condition. Alkalosis is rare but can be life threatening as well. Acidosis is the most common and many believe it’s the main cause of the debilitating diseases we have today.\n\nOur bodies have a miraculous, but complex buffering system that maintains this vital 7.35-7.45 blood pH range. In this range, our immune system is quite capable of keeping us healthy all by itself. But, to stay in this range, the body must remove the acids resulting from metabolism, ect. Our bodies are incredible at this; we sweat out acidity, we breath it out (carbon dioxide) and our liver and kidneys turn it into urine for elimination.\n\nUnfortunately, many of the things we eat and drink tend to challenge the buffering systems and drive our blood pH south. These are Acid driving foods like red meats, processed grains, sugar, alcohol, coffee, some fruit juices, soft drinks and many more. (Right…all the good stuff!) Alkaline driving foods are things like raw green veggies, raw fresh fruit, pure water and many more. (Yuck!) So, if it tastes good, spit it out because it’s probably not good for you!\n\nWe believe that pHenomenal water, taken as directed, can help your body maintain the vital blood pH range.\n\nCan I monitor my blood pH somehow to see if pHenomenal is working?\n\nYes, you can!\n\nSome of our customers monitor their urine and/or saliva pH with pH paper strips. These are readily available online or at your drug store. In our experience, we found paper pH test results to be a nightmare. There are just too many variables affecting pH of urine and saliva pH. Test results were all over the board. We could never figure out why!\n\nThere are published guidelines for pH paper strip test results. We read that if your urinary pH fluctuates between 6.0 to 6.5 in the morning and between 6.5 and 7.0 in the evening, your body is believed to be functioning within a healthy pH range. If your saliva stays between 6.5 and 7.5 all day, we’re told your body is probably functioning within a healthy range. (We neither accept nor dispute these numbers) However, if your readings are NOT in this range, it is a real challenge to explain why. We’re told the best time to test your pH is about one hour before a meal or two hours after a meal. They say to limit your tests to two days a week and then average the readings over a month period.   \n\nWe submit the most accurate way to determine blood pH is through a laboratory serum blood pH test. Measuring blood serum pH is not difficult at all. Yet, we know of NO blood testing labs that will include blood serum pH in their test panels. (If you know of one, please let us know)\n\nIt’s interesting… if you happen to wind up in a hospital emergency ward (ER) for some reason, you may have a Arterial Blood Gas Analysis done which includes blood pH. This test provides the doctors with great ‘intel’ about your condition. Wouldn’t it be nice if we could accurately track our blood pH BEFORE we wind up in the ER?\n\nShould you choose to experiment with the pH papers when using pHenomenal water, that’s great. However, kindly do not contact us about your results because we are neither licensed nor qualified to discuss the results with you. Your results are something you need to discuss with your doctor. \n\nWhat is the weight of your products for traveling?\n\n1 bottle of pHenomenal is 3 pounds, 1 bottle of B-pHree gel is 2 pounds, and 1 bottle of alkaline gel is 1 pound.", "pred_label": "__label__1", "pred_score_pos": 0.5731809735298157}
+{"content": "India Government Essay\n\nCustom Student Mr. Teacher ENG 1001-04 17 August 2016\n\nIndia Government\n\nImperialism began in India in the 1600s with the introduction of the East India Trade Company who placed trading posts at Bombay, Madras, and Calcutta. (British Imperialism in India, 2014). Prior to the arrival of EITC, the Mughal Empire was a larger and more powerful kingdom than any other country in Europe. The center of the Mughal Empire was in poorly populated northern region, the soil and river system in this area was perfect for farming, transporting and communicating. (A Case Study of British Imperialism in India, 2014). For some time, the EITC and Mughal were able to work cohesively together, but by 1707 the Mughal Empire had begun to crumble, and in 1757 Robert Clive, in alliance with the French, led troops to a victory over Indian forces at the Battle of Plassey. This made way for the EITC to become the primary power in India. (British Imperialism in India, 2014).\n\nThe East India Trade Company grew quickly, with little interference from the British government, having its own army called sepoys comprised of both Indian and British soldiers. India was considered the jewel in the crown due in part to the skills of its people and its vast producing land. Cotton cloth and raw silk winding were in high demand for the company to export, as well as sugar, indigo dye and opium. (Marshall, 2014). The EITC used religious force and economic power to take and maintain control of India. Demanding that Indian textile not be in competition with British goods and cash crops for the farmers.\n\nThis in turn forced the indigenous people to experience economical loss and inability to feed themselves. Britain had taken a stand-off approach with Indian religion, but many felt that Indian customs were compromised with the increase in missionaries and racist attitude towards India’s way of life. By 1857, there was ever increasing unhappiness, leading to a mutiny among the Sepoy. The Sepoy army were instructed to use rifle cartridges that were greased with pig or cow fat. Because the ends of the cartridges needed to be bitten off before using, this was offensive to the Sepoy army, whose population was either Hindu or Muslim. Muslim belief is that pigs are unclean and Hindu whose belief is that cows are sacred. (Anderson, 2007). The Sepoy mutiny gave way to a new British government in India called Raj, who ruled Indian until 1947. (British Imperialism in India, 2014).\n\nPart B Violent Revolution: American Revolution\n\nThe American Revolution was brought about by unhappy colonist who were against British taxes and sought independence from British rule. After winning the French and Indian War, King George II began to impose taxes on goods such as sugar and molasses that were brought in to the colonies with the Sugar Act of 1764. The Stamp Act (1765), required an official stamp on most transactions of colonial businesses. The colonist, unhappy with the taxes, and feeling that the British Parliament was corrupt, began to speak out against the taxes, labeling the taxes as illegal because the people of the colonies were not represented in the British Parliament. “No taxation without representation” was the cry of the colonies, to which the Parliament replied with a new tax, the Townshend Act (1777), applied taxes to all imported glass, lead, paint, paper and tea. (American Revolution, 2014).\n\nThe colonist, unhappy with the taxes, began to speak out against the taxes, labeling the taxes as illegal, because the colonies were not represented in the British Parliament. Refusal to pay the Kings taxes lead the colonist to form a club called the Sons of Liberty. Members of the club broke into tax collectors homes, beat them and burned tax bills.\n\nIn 1770, a battle between the colonists and British soldiers took place in Boston, Massachusetts, known as the Boston Massacre, killing 5 colonists and injuring many more. Two British soldiers were found guilty of murder and punished only by having their thumbs burned. (The American Revolution , 2014). On July 4, 1776, the Declaration of Independence, written by Thomas Jefferson was approved, showing England that America would become a free, independent county of British rule. (The American Revolution , 2014).\n\nNon Violent Revolution: Indian Independence Movement\n\nThe cause of The Indian Independence Movement grew out of a nation in search of a way to free itself from British power and control. The goal of The Indian National Congress was to gain and maintain independence from the British forces. The Indian National Congress formed and held its first meeting in 1885, one of those in attendance was Mahatma Gandhi, who would become the leader of the group. At first, the NIC professed loyalty to the British, but with World War 1 breaking out in 1914 and lasting until 1920, the NIC gradually became an opponent the British government. As the tolerance or the British decreased, the Indians strength increased. Indians began to realize that the British were not such a force to be reckoned with. (Indian Independence Movement, 2014).\n\nB1. Strategy\n\nBattles between the colonies and the British were full of conventional warfare and guerrilla warfare. Guerrilla warfare consists of spontaneous, individual acts of sabotage. Francis Marion, the “Swamp Fox” used guerilla warfare against the British, using bands of troops in caring size to prevent the British from gathering supplies, and harassing the small outposts and forts. (Joes, 1996).\n\nThe INC, under the leadership of Gandhi conducted major campaigns to draw attention to Indians human and civil rights. Civil disobedience in the form of a non-violent protests and marches were formed. The Civil Disobedience Campaign of 1919-1922 was a boycott of British cloth, The Salt Satyagraha, a non-violent protest against the tax applied to salt. Gandhi was arrested by the British, who thought it would stop the movement, however it only increased in participants and forced the British government to discuss the possibility of Indian independence. (The Indian Independence Struggle , 2014).\n\nA Case Study of British Imperialism in India. (2014, July 13). Retrieved from Modern World History: American Revolution. (2014, July 16). Retrieved from Anderson, C. (2007). Indian Uprising of 1857-8 : Prisons, Prisoners, and Rebellion. In C. Anderson, Indian Uprising of 1857-8 : Prisons, Prisoners, and Rebellion (p.\n\nFree India Government Essay Sample\n\n\n  • Subject:\n\n  • University/College: University of California\n\n  • Type of paper: Thesis/Dissertation Chapter\n\n  • Date: 17 August 2016\n\n  • Words:\n\n  • Pages:\n\nLet us write you a custom essay sample on India Government\n\nfor only $16.38 $13.9/page\n\nyour testimonials", "pred_label": "__label__1", "pred_score_pos": 0.8562919497489929}
+{"content": "Galya wiki, Galya bio, Galya net worth, Galya nationality, Galya ethnicity Galya age, Galya birthday, Galya height, Galya weight Galya boyfriend, Galya girlfriend, Galya married, Galya husband Galya news\n7 Galya religion, Galya interview, Galya life, Galya website Galya wife, Galya family, Galya education, Galya measurements, Galya email Galya phone, Galya salary, Galya address, Galya history, Galya facts\nGalya is a pornographic actress. [+]", "pred_label": "__label__1", "pred_score_pos": 0.9487435221672058}
+{"content": "\n\nThis task is a form of Typedef with the attributes \"adapter\" and \"adaptto\" set to the values \"org.apache.tools.ant.TaskAdapter\" and \"org.apache.tools.ant.Task\" respectively. Anything said in the manual page of typedef applies to taskdef as well.\n\n\n", "pred_label": "__label__1", "pred_score_pos": 0.899735152721405}
+{"content": "West State Textile League was an Independent League that was based in South Carolina.\n\n1934     Brooks Brothers,  Greenville-Brandon, Greenville Poe, Judson, Pelzer, Piemont, Renfrew Bleachery, Williamston\n\n1935     Greenville-Mills Mill enter the league and Piedmont and Renfreww Bleachery ahs left the elague\n\n1936     Dunean, Greenville-Camperdown, Greenville-Monaghan, Greenville-Union Bleachery, Piedmont.Renfrew Bleachery, Slater and Southern Worsted enter the league and Brandon, Brooks Brothers, Judson, Mills Mill and Williamston has left the league.\n\n1938     Duke Power, Greer, Pelzer, Piedmont\n\n1947     Augusta Road, Conestee, Lebanon, Pelham, Pliney, Reedy River\n\nAd blocker interference detected!\n\n", "pred_label": "__label__1", "pred_score_pos": 0.9732679724693298}
+{"content": "This article or section needs attention\n\nSoutheast Asia was a region on the Asian continent on Earth, generally defined as including the nation-states of Vietnam, Cambodia, Laos, Burma, Thailand, and others. The 1959-1975 conflict known as the Vietnam War was fought across Southeast Asia, beyond Vietnam's political borders.\n\nAd blocker interference detected!\n\n", "pred_label": "__label__1", "pred_score_pos": 0.9933323860168457}
+{"content": "Āvajjana: Directing of the mind towards the object, is the first stage in the process of consciousness see: viññāna-kicca. If an object of the 5 physical senses is observed, it is called 'five-door directing' = pañca dvārāvajjana, in the case of a mental object, an idea or mental state then it is called 'mind-door directing' mano-dvārāvajjana.\n\n\n\nAd blocker interference detected!\n\n", "pred_label": "__label__1", "pred_score_pos": 0.9930436015129089}
+{"content": "Improve Listening Skills by Training Your Brain\n\n\nCommunicating Effectively\n\nCommunication is important: everywhere we go, we need to be able to communicate with people around us. Even the best hearing aids can only enhance your ability to hear; they can never replace or improve listening skills. To truly listen, it is important to block out distracting background noises so we can listen to spoken words in busy environments.\n\nWhen we actively communicate with others, we are training our brains to listen. If we don’t practice active listening, even if it is as a result of a hearing issue or older age, we can lose some of our listening skills. Practicing active listening on a daily basis can actually help to improve hearing and communication over time.\n\nThe Difference Between Hearing and Listening\n\nHearing is the act of recognizing sound. Being startled by a bang or turning your head at an unexpected noise both indicate hearing ability. This is called signal-based processing. Listening, however, requires both knowledge and hearing.\n\nListening is only accomplished through hearing and understanding a message or sound. Recognizing a message in spoken words is listening; hearing problems can affect listening skills, but they are not the same thing.\n\nStrategies for Communication\n\nThe differences between listening and hearing become more evident as we age. Older people may express that they can hear spoken words, but they do not understand what is being said. Listening skills can be improved with information, tools, and training. Training exercises your brain so it can listen and hear at a suitable level. Listening skills can always be improved, whether you use a hearing device or not. To improve learning communication, some strategies are:\n\n  • Telling others around you how to speak more clearly\n  • Understanding realistically what your hearing aid can do\n  • Using other technologies that can help with hearing and sound cancelling\n  • Joining a class or group that can teach you how to listen more effectively\n  • Using subtitles or closed captioning on the TV and with movies\n\nLearn about new technology and therapy that can bolster your listening skills and prevent decline. Hearing aids are certainly a great starting point, and some people need them. Auditory and cognitive training is another important way to engage the brain and improve listening abilities.\n\nIt is important to educate yourself how the brain is related to hearing and listening skills. Listening exercises can help you to practice various communication strategies that help you to train your brain to listen.\n\nTry these 3 listening exercises to train your hearing abilities and listening skills:\n\n  • Watch and record a television show without closed captioning, playing it back with closed caption to evaluate how well you heard and understood everything that was happening.\n  • Read a book while simultaneously listening to the audio-book version\n  • Have a friend read a newspaper aloud, then do it again, reading along with them as they talk\n\nTry each exercise in gradually louder surroundings to build your listening skills.\n\n\nJust having the ability to hear does not automatically grant effective communication or listening skills. Hearing devices can be a great help, but listening skills involve actual hearing as well as the ability to understand. Learn communication strategies and practice hearing exercises that train your brain to promote listening abilities.", "pred_label": "__label__1", "pred_score_pos": 0.9448986053466797}
+{"content": "Facial nerve injuries can be caused by trauma or tumours\n\nReconstructive and plastic surgeon, Dr Frank Graewe explains how facial nerve injuries cause paralysis of the facial muscles which are responsible for facial expression. \n\nIt usually leads to facial asymmetry, severe cosmetic problems as well as functional problems such as dryness of the eyes, drooling, problems with eating, tinnitus (ringing or buzzing in the ears) or other hearing problems, and pain or muscle twitching. In some cases it can spontaneously resolve or can be treated successfully without surgery. However, in most cases symptoms can be improved with surgery.\n\n\nFacial nerve injuries can be caused by trauma or tumours, however in rare cases facial nerve problems are congenital, meaning that patients were born with them. Frequently it can occur at a later age without any known cause, for example Bell’s Palsy.\n\n\nDr Frank Graewe says it is possible to repair a facial nerve injury if the injured nerve ends are intact and can be surgically connected or grafted. “Direct nerve repair usually has to be done within 12 months after the injury before permanent nerve degeneration takes place. Microsurgical techniques are used to do nerve repair or nerve grafting and in some cases a microsurgical tissue transfer can be done. This is when a functional muscle is transplanted to replace muscle function in an area which had facial nerve palsy.” Graewe says an example of when this transfer is done is in cases of Moebius syndrome, a congenital facial nerve atresia, where a free gracilis muscle transfer is done to make it possible for patients to smile. Functional muscle transfer can take place anytime after the injury, because it does not depend on the facial nerve function.\n\n\nThe gracilis muscle, which is taken from the thigh, is the best muscle for the purpose of facial nerve surgery as it is thin and not bulky, has a good motor nerve and blood supply and can be adjusted to the required length. Dr Graewe explains that the patient will not have any functional or cosmetic loss except for a scar on the thigh after the muscle has been removed.\n\n\nThe facial nerve divides into five different branches in the face and the areas involved in surgical repair will depend on where and how it was affected by injury. By transferring a thin muscle with nerves and blood supply and connecting the nerve and blood supply to corresponding nerves and blood vessels in that area, patients can be helped to regain movement and functionality. In most cases this type of surgery is done in the lower face to create a smile.\n\n\nThe success of facial nerve surgery depends on the meticulous surgical technique of the surgeon, including the microsurgery and careful patient selection. Prevention of possible complications is important. There are risks and possible complications that are involved with this procedure which the surgeon will discuss with patients before operating.\n\n\nAlthough there is rarely a complete recovery, most facial nerve repair procedures give patients significant improvement in their appearance and functionality.", "pred_label": "__label__1", "pred_score_pos": 0.6985488533973694}
+{"content": "Geomembrane Pool liners by biggest lining factory in China\n\nRef Price:\nLoading Port:\nPayment Terms:\nMin Order Qty:\n5000 m²\nSupply Capability:\n2000000 m²/month\n\nOKorder Service Pledge\n\nQuality Product\n\nOrder On-line Tracking\n\nTimely Delivery\n\nOKorder Service Pledge\n\nCredit Rating\n\nCredit Services\n\nCredit Purchasing\n\nShare to:\n\nProduct Description:\n\nSpecifications of Geomembrane\n\n 1) Thickness : 0.15mm - 4.0mm.\n\n 2) Width : Within 8 m (1m-8m).\n\n 3) Length : 50m-100m/roll (as request).\n\n 4) Material : HDPE,( LDPE, LLDPE, PVC, EVA ).\n\n 5) Color : Black , white , red , blue , or as required.\n\n 6) Optional surface : Textued(one or two side) or smooth surface.\n\n 7) The biggest geomembrane liner manufacturer/factory in China for many years .\n\n\nGeomembrane specifications  \n\n\n 1) Thickness : 0.15mm - 4.0mm.\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\nHDPE geomenbrane Features  \n\n\n\n\nHDPE Geomembrane Applications  \n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\nHDPE geomembrane technical index  \n\n\n\n\n              Test Value\n\n\n1.0 mm\n\n1.25 mm\n\n1.5 mm\n\n2.0 mm\n\n2.5 mm\n\n\n\nMinimum Density(g/cm³)\n\n\n\n\nTensile Property\n\nStrength at yield,N/mm\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\nStrength at break ,N/mm\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\nElongation at yield,%\n\n\nElongation at break,%\n\n\n\nTear Resistance   N\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\nPuncture Resistance  N\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\nStress Crack Resistance, hrs\n\n\n\nCarbon Black Content, %\n\n\nCarbon Black Dispersion\n\n1  or  2\n\n\nStandard OTI  Min\n\n\nHigh Pressure OTI  Min\n\n\n\nImpact Cold Crack at -70°C \n\n\n\nWater vapor permeability\n\n (gNaN/cm2 .s.Pa)\n\n\n\nDimensional Stability (%) \n\n\n\n\n- Q1: Can you provide a sample for us?   \n\n\n HDPE Geomembrane Price\n\n- Q2: What is your minimum order quantity?\n\n   A:The minimum order quantity is 5000 ,but it is negotiable.\n\n HDPE Geomembrane Price\n\n- Q3:What is your payment terms?\n\n\n HDPE Geomembrane Price\n\n- Q4:What is your delivery time?\n\n   A:Production time usually costs 2-20 days.  \n\nGemembrane Show:\n\n\n\n\n\nSend a message to us:\n\nRemaining: 4000 characters\n\n- Self introduction\n\n- Required specifications\n\n- Inquire about price/MOQ\n\nQ:how does the switching power thick film circuit work?\n1.STR-53041 is a thick film ICs for TV power switching circuit consists of two NPN type transistor and a PNP transistor and a regulator and a number of resistors in five ends .STR-53041 devices .3 termination power input terminal 4 of the common ground terminal, the second end of the feedback terminal, one end of the sampling signal input, the TV using the 5 'end idle. 2.TR1 oscillation transistor is NPN type, it and P B winding and a feedback winding of the transformer T form a feedback oscillator circuit .TR2 are NPN type transistor and the regulator ZD constitute sampling comparison circuit provided by the comparison voltage .TR3 transformer T D windings are PNP transistors constituting the sampling signal current amplifier circuit for driving the oscillating tube, perform pulse width modulation circuit output voltage amplitude stability. 3.STR53041 natural oscillation frequency is lower than the TV line frequency, it is subject to the line frequency flyback transformer FBT came forward driving pulse synchronization work 15.75KH. to eliminate the image appears horizontal frequency interference.\nQ:What need to pay attention to when choosing the imported geomembrane?\nWhat needs to note are uniformity of the thickness, acid and alkali resistance, biodegradability, tensile stress limit and puncture strength.\nQ:How many square meters of geomembrane is checked at a time?\nGeomembrane category HDPE geomembrane, LDPE geomembrane, EVA geomembrane, PVC geomembrane, matte geomembrane and other composite geomembrane products are mainly used in civil engineering dams, reservoirs, highways, railways, construction and industrial pollution waste, waste water seepage-proof treatment, etc., which takes the woven fabric as substrate and is composed by monolayer or multi-layer plastic film of the same kind impermeable material main products: The price of cloth membrane, two cloth membrane kind of geomembrane is generally around 11000-13000yuan/ton geomembrane is calculated by product specification or thickness\nThe difference between tempered glass color film and tempered glass film is that one frame is colored, the other is not. Tempered glass is actually a prestressed glass, to raise the glass strength, usually using chemical or physical methods, to form compressive stress on the glass surface. When glass is under external force, first it will offset surface stress, so tempered glass improve the bearing capacity and enhance the wind load resistance, cold and heat resistance, and impact strength of glass. While tempered glass protective film can protect the screen of mobile phone effectively.\nQ:How to install the electrothermal film non-woven fabrics?\nAfter taking ground insulation measures, then clean the ground so as to keep it smooth and flat. Then lay the aluminum foil reflective film, and then pave the electrothermal film. The electrothermal film should be face up, and a safe distance between films of around 20 cm is recommended to reserve. Then connect wires and electrothermal film should be in parallel with wires. Both ends are insulated. Waterproof cloth should be covered after finishing the installation of electrothermal film.\nQ:what's the standard that geomembrane welding point's breaking strength should reach?\nwelding point strength is executed by GB/T16989 standard, the products standard of composite geo-membrane is GB/T17642-2008 .\nQ:How to choose the stick membrane for decoration?\nFirstly, look at the design and colour. In order to identify whether the household colourful film is good or bad, you should first check whether the color is even, whether there is chromatism and bleeding. Usually a pattern is better when the pattern is more clear. In the next step, you should look at the tenderness, which is mainly for non-woven fabrics and wall coverings, etc. You have to look at both sides. Usually the quality is better if density of the surface wove is higher. Secondly, touch it and feel its toughness. Some people think that household colourful film is better when it is thicker, which is a misunderstanding. The quality is related to the quality of paper, production technique and toughness, and thickness, and not directly related to the thickness. When you identify the wallpaper by hand, you should touch it and feel and toughness, particularly for flocking wallpapers. They are most likely to feel the difference between good and bad. Usually the quality and toughness is better when it is softer. But when domestic and imported products that are made of the same material are compared, the imported ones will be relatively thick and of higher density. Third, smell it. Inferior household colourful film has bad smell. In addition, the real environmentally friendly film has no smell, but if it is made of inferior materials, it will have a pungent smell. You can smell it when coming close to it. Fourly wipe it. Wear-resisting and soiling-resisting should be tested. It is recommended that consumers draw some lines on the paper and the wipe them in the purchase process. Generally high quality colorul decoration film can easily be cleaned even if the surface is bumpy, but if it is of low quality, it is easy to be scraped or not easy to be cleaned.\nQ:What is the classification of film resistance?\n1. The carbon film resistor is made by depositing crystallize carbon on a ceramic rod framework. Carbon film resistors have low cost. Stable performance. Wide resistance range. It has low temperature coefficient and voltage coefficient, is the most widely used resistor at present. 2. The metal film resistors. Coating the alloy material on the surface of the ceramic rods framework by vacuum evaporation . Metal film resistors have higher precision, good stability, and low noise and temperature coefficient than carbon film resistors, thus is widely applied in the instrumentation and communications equipment. 3. Metal oxidation film resistors is made by deposited a metallic oxide layer on the insulating rod. Because it itself is an oxide, it is stable at high temperature and thermal shock resistance with strong load capacity. 4. The synthetic membrane resistor is made by coating the conductive composite suspension liquid on the substrate, therefore, it is also called paint film resistor. Due to its grainy structure of the conductive layer, it produces a lot of noises, and has low precision. It is mainly used in the manufacturing of high pressure resistance and small resistors.\nQ:How is electric heating film electric heating\nIt is not so good, because interface should be made between the membrane, and should be done on site, if workers do not have a high technique, there will be a lot of problems, the most troublesome thing is to open floorborad, and then is heard differences between film and the film, some of the films will be breakdown in a short time. If you beed to choose good films, or simply heating cable. You can choose imported products like the United States Marley, I heard that its factory has done a good job in the interface, so the interface does noy have to be done on site. And they can also be more stable and safe water\nQ:What is made of stretch film?\nComposite stretch film is currently the most widely used and largely consumed, occupying more than 40%of the overall consumption of plastic packaging stretch film. Since polyethylene containing no polar group has high crystallinity and low surface free energy, so surface treatment is required before printing and composite. Low density polyethylene stretch film is translucent, shiny, soft. It has excellent chemical stability, heat sealability, water resistance and moisture resistance, freeze-resistant and it can be boiled. Generally low density polyethylene stretch film is made by blow molding and curtain coating. polyethylene stretch film made by curtain coating is of uniform thickness, but is rarely used because of high prices. Blow-molded polyethylene stretch film is made by PE particles blown from the blow molding machine. It is most widely used for its low cost. Stretched polyester film is using polyethylene terephthalate as raw material, It is colorless, transparent, glossy stretch film, excellent mechanical properties, high stiffness, hardness and toughness, puncture resistance, abrasion resistance, high temperature and low temperature resistance. It has good chemical resistance, oil resistance, air tightness and fragrance holding. it is one of film substrate of the commom composite stretch film that is permeability resistance. But polyester stretch film price is higher, generally having a thickness of 12μm, often used for outer materials of cooking and packaging. it prints well.\n\n1. Manufacturer Overview\n\nYear Established\nAnnual Output Value\nMain Markets\nCompany Certifications\n\n2. Manufacturer Certificates\n\na) Certification Name  \nValidity Period  \n\n3. Manufacturer Capability\n\na)Trade Capacity  \nNearest Port\nExport Percentage\nNo.of Employees in Trade Department\nLanguage Spoken:\nb)Factory Information  \nFactory Size:\nNo. of Production Lines\nContract Manufacturing\nProduct Price Range", "pred_label": "__label__1", "pred_score_pos": 0.6068114638328552}
+{"content": "We don’t yet know who agreed to pay $179.4 million for a Picasso in an auction Monday night — or where the money came from, or what motivated that person or persons to spend more than anyone has before for a single piece of art at auction. But this much we do know: The astronomical rise in prices for the most-sought-after works of art over the last generation is in large part the story of rising global inequality. At its core, this is the simplest of economic math. The supply of Picasso paintings or Giacometti sculptures (one of which sold for $141 million in the same auction this week) is fixed. But the number of people with the will and the resources to buy top-end art is rising, thanks to the distribution of extreme wealth.\n\n\n\nEmployees of Christie's auction house hold up Spanish painter Pablo Picassos Les femmes dAlger (Version O) during a press preview in London on April 10, 2015. Les femmes dAlger (Version O), a vibrant cubist work last auctioned in 1997 when it nearly tripled the expected price, is estimated to fetch about 140 million USD at auction in New York in May, by far the highest price ever for a work of art on the auction block. AFP PHOTO / JUSTIN TALLIS RESTRICTED TO EDITORIAL USE, MANDATORY MENTION OF THE ARTIST UPON PUBLICATION, TO ILLUSTRATE THE EVENT AS SPECIFIED IN THE CAPTION        (Photo credit should read JUSTIN TALLIS/AFP/Getty Images)\n\nAnd the kind of people who can comfortably afford to pay a nine-figure sum for a Picasso, the top 0.001 percent, say, are doing still better than that. You can draw that conclusion by reading the work of the French economists Thomas Piketty and Emmanuel Saez. Or you can form it by looking carefully at the market for the work of a certain Spanish painter. Let’s assume, for a minute, that no one would spend more than 1 percent of his total net worth on a single painting. By that reckoning, the buyer of Picasso’s 1955 “Les Femmes d’Alger (Version O)” would need to have at least $17.9 billion in total wealth. That would imply, based on the Forbes Billionaires list, that there are exactly 50 plausible buyers of the painting worldwide.\n\n\n\n\nThat helps explain why the recent Picasso sale represented a 462 percent gain since its previous auction in 1997, a span in which the Standard & Poor’s 500 index returned 215 percent, including reinvested dividends. (The comparison isn’t entirely apt, in that the painting would have required spending each year on security, storage and insurance, lowering returns. On the other hand, the Picasso looks better on one’s living room wall than a mutual fund prospectus.)\n\nWhat does that mean for the future? There is no free lunch, even for people paying millions of dollars for a painted canvas. Art prices are vulnerable to fashion, of course. Picassos could go out of favor, relatively speaking, in the years ahead, in which case the anonymous buyer this week may not see the same type of exceptional financial return the previous owner enjoyed. There are legal risks. Already, the Chinese government is cracking down on official corruption and particularly on showy displays of wealth, which could crimp Chinese demand for fine art in the years ahead. American and European authorities may wish to put further effort into preventing art transactions from being used to launder money or evade taxes, as the economist Nouriel Roubini has argued is commonplace.\n\nBut any billionaire spending astronomical sums for a painting or sculpture should hope most of all that this basic global inequality trend — of the wealth of the ultrarich growing faster than the world population overall economy — remains intact. Because as long as it does, there will always be another potential buyer out there with the potential to fuel a bidding war like the one that took place this week.", "pred_label": "__label__1", "pred_score_pos": 0.9962961077690125}
+{"content": "Sunday, December 9, 2012\n\nEthics for Atheists, Agnostics, and Other Immoralists (Part II)\n\nLooking back over my previous post, I noticed some shortcomings. The most egregious is the paucity of examples of ethics. I only provided one example, namely morality as commonly conceived. Another example is an ethic based on the integration of emotions, drives, desires, and beliefs. The ideal of such an ethic is to have various emotional and mental entities work together toward a single goal or ideal. New experiences are understood and interpreted according to a schema that seeks balance and harmony. Dissatisfactions and self-critical thoughts are expected to produce reasons for their assertions of poor self-worth.\n\nAn easy criticism of any ethic, including the ethic implied by morality, is that it is egoistic and self-centered. It cab also be said of the ethic of morality is also egoistic and self-centered. In the Christian system of belief one submits to morality in order to avoid eternal damnation. Even in a moral version of the ethic of morality, i.e.  one without explicit punishment for disobedience, egoism and selfishness plays a critical part: one does right in order to avoid the ravages of a guilty conscience. The ethic of morality is a bit of prudence as a means to avoid unpleasant consequences, and not rooted in love, generosity, respect, or any other humane quality. There is no unselfish ethic. Only degrees of subtlety.\n\nAnother easy criticism is the lack of an explanation of how a person could already be following an ethic before choosing or even articulating an (preferred) ethic. Already following an ethic is not in its root an ethic of sacrifice and self-abnegation Already following an ethic means such an ethic is natural and is opposed to renunciation of desire. It also means that such a person is a stranger to himself. I find myself ignorant of who and what I am. Self-knowledge would then appear to be a process. It may be that everyone is this way, but it is not necessary for it to be so for everyone. Perhaps most importantly, all that is necessary for such a one to be restless and dissatisfied with one's status quo.\n\nSaturday, November 24, 2012\n\nEthics for Atheists, Agnostics, and Other Immoralists (Part I)\n\nThese posts are not written to be a source of arguments against belief in God. The non-existence of the deity is presumed. These posts are for anyone who having lost their belief in God asks themselves, “How then am I to live?” Anyone who finds themselves frustrated by the imputation by God-believers that a good and worthwhile life without God is impossible will find comfort here.\n\nMorality uses the language of obedience and command. Moral precepts are to be obeyed. In a moralizing world view the greatest virtue is obedience and the most grievous sin is rebellion. The machinery of morality derives its motivating power from the source of morality. Most commonly this source is God, but Nature and natural law are not unheard of sources of morality. God both rewards and punishes, when the source of morality is Nature or natural law, punishment is meted out as a consequence of one’s disobedience. Except for some rhetorical differences the source of moral law makes little difference. Submission to morality and moral law means submission and obedience to someone or something.\n\nFor those who need a reason to do good so as not to rape, pillage, and plunder, let them have their faith in God or in whatever they believe the wellspring of morality to be. But for those of us who find morality’s rhetoric of submission and obedience distasteful, we may turn to ethics instead.\n\nIf morality is about obedience, that then is ethics about? Ethics is an answer to the question, “How then am I to live?” Carefully considered morality can be considered as an example of an ethic. The supreme value in morality considered as an ethic is obedience. This provides a clue as to what ethics more broadly considered might be.\n\nRationalizations and justifications of morality commonly base themselves on a bargain: if I give up this, then felicitous results are guaranteed. In the mind of Christians the bargain is evasion of eternal torment for giving up certain pleasures and activities. Some Christians will argue that there is no quid pro quo with the Deity, but rather one is granted freedom from the demands of morality -- in Christian terminology :”the Law” -- so as to follow God’s Will with forgiveness guaranteed to earnest efforts to follow God’s Will that fall short because of one’s own shortcomings and flawed desires.\n\nIf the root virtue of morality considered as an ethic is obedience, the question presents itself: what are alternative ethics? Considering morality as an ethic implies that multiple ethics are possible. A most unchristian insight. How might one or more of these alternative ethics be elaborated? A plurality of possible answers to the question: How then am I to live? Or more appropriate to this context, how am I to choose between these possible hypothetical ethics? In considering this question in this context, appeals to obedience are excluded from the outset. Some of these hypothetical ethical possibilities will exclude appeals and justifications for obedience. The value of each of these different possible ethics would appear to be equal. There would seem to be no way to decide between all of these hypothetical ethics by consideration without falling back into an ethic derived from obedience. A standard by which to judge is lacking. This is true if thought and consideration are limited to a comparison of the various possibilities ethics with one another. Considered in themselves, each hypothetical ethic would seem to be equal in value and attractiveness.\n\nIt would seem without recourse to an ethic of obedience the specter of relativism and nihilism stands as a scarecrow barring further consideration of alternatives to any ethic not derived from holding obedience as the highest value.\n\nThe question that ethics would answer is “how then am I to live?” A hint to a possible resolution of this conundrum lies in the question itself. How am I to live? The question expresses a desire. Desires mean one thing if nothing else: that each possible ethic is not the same to me. I have preferences and desires to which each possible ethic is not all the same to me. Obviously enough, considered in this way each possible ethic would only be binding on myself.\n\nThis insight generates more questions than it would seem to answer. This is not an objection, but a hint to consider whether these questions are answerable. More questions are not objections.\n\nHow am I to live? Pursuit of alternatives to an ethic of obedience suggests that I am already pursuing an ethical ideal, albeit unconsciously. It is an alternative to an ethic of obedience to proceed as if one were already pursuing an ethic in seeking an alternative to an ethic of obedience. One of the presumptions of an ethic of obedience is that one’s natural inclinations are to be mistrusted. Obedience presumes that one is obedient to something (an ideal, a person, an imagined deity, etc.) external to oneself which provides direction and a source to one’s ethical efforts.\n\nThe imagery of obedience suggests sacrifice and renunciation of one’s own desires and self-direction. When engaged in an ethic of obedience one renounces the presumption that one knows best for oneself. The source of ethical imperatives is located outside oneself. Transposed into the social realm this means obedience to would-be mouthpieces of morality and God’s Will. An ethic of obedience presupposes that one does not know what is best for oneself. Questioning and curiosity mean error an disobedience and punishment. It is typical for an ethic of obedience that error is a danger to be avoided at all costs. The consequence of an unacknowledged error is catastrophic. Consider the result of even the tiniest unredeemed sin in Christianity: eternal punishment.\n\nOne alternative to an ethic of obedience is to consider ethics as reflection on what one is already doing. One systematizes one’s efforts as to choose more in accordance with one’s existing propensities. Instead of sacrifice and renunciation, enhancement and refinement of one’s efforts with hopefully fewer mistakes and wasted efforts. Why pursue ethics? One is already doing so. One is is curious and wants to better understand oneself.\n\nIt's been a while...\n\nIt's been a while since I last posted anything. It's not like I've forgotten about this blog. I'm still depressed. Most days are tolerable and I don't feel depressed, just not particularly motivated to do anything. Occasionally, though, there are days when I feel depressed and am paralysed with feelings of hopelessness and sadness. Good days are grey, and the rare really good days are off-white.\n\nI've set myself a task: to compose a series of posts devoted to the topic of ethics for atheists. It's not meant to be a definitive solution that will work for everyone. There is no new proposed law for all humankind to be found in these posts. These posts will be best understood by those of us who believed in God once upon a time, but now find themselves adrift and confused in a godless universe. The presentation is a polemic against a prejudice common to followers of Abrahamic religions: it is impossible to live an ethical or a moral life without something to demand obedience.\n\nTuesday, May 1, 2012\n\n\nI have always found the persistent voice of excessive criticism to be one of the most difficult aspects of depression. Just to be clear, this is not a literal voice that I hear, but rather a persistent pressure giving rise to self-critical thoughts. It is a relentless pressure to find fault, not so much in particulars but in my life as a whole. My voice tells me that I am a failure and that it was foolishness to ever think that I might amount to anything. It is these thoughts that give rise to suicidal ideations. I feel small and anxious in opposing this tendency because I can't point to anything in my life that would be evidence for not being a failure. This pressure tempts me to believe that everyone would be better off without me. It was this train of thought that ended in a suicide attempt.\n\nIt is accurate to say that I have hit a low point in my life. The death of my mother coupled with my wife deciding that suddenly she's really been a lesbian almost drove me insane last year. The double abandonment hurt immensely. I had been close to my mother, we spoke by phone almost everyday. Zoya, my wife, gave me only the vaguest of inklings that all was not well in our marriage. My mother's death and Zoya's leaving in the same week was a profound shock. She moved out the day before my birthday, to add insult to injury.\n\nThe illusions in this posting's title? The most painful is the relentless pressure of self-critical thoughts to believe horrible things about myself. Opposing the relentless pressure requires strength of character. I do not have the luxury of a belief in God and Christianity or that there is a higher purpose to my life or that there is a lesson to be learned in all of this. These thoughts are neither \"true\" nor \"false,\" but these thoughts present themselves as true, meaning without an alternative. This makes this pressure oppressive in their relentlessness. The temptation is to believe in truth and that these thoughts and pressure are not representations and reflections of other things going on in my life.\n\nfree hit counter\n\nMonday, April 23, 2012\n\nSomething someone told me once\n\nSome fifteen years ago, when I told a colleague that I was depressed, he explained to me that he was quite sure that my depression was a consequence of my pessimism. If only I would think more cheerful thoughts, I wouldn't be depressed. My colleague's assertion is a common superstition that fails to withstand even modest scrutiny. The motivation and psychological pay-off is suspicious. The belief that our beliefs are causative of other mental states preserves a sense of control. Our mental life ought not appear strange to us. We should not be strangers to ourselves. We ought to be able to maintain a sense of control and safety inside our own skins. I am skeptical of any belief that allows for such unwarranted comfort. My skepticism is not sufficient grounds to consider a belief as unwarranted. It is, however, an expression of mistrust and motivation to think more deeply.\n\nDo our beliefs cause anything? Does a pessimistic outlook cause depression? If only I thought happy thoughts, then would my depression lift? Or are depressive tendencies primary and the pessimistic outlook a consequence of a predisposition? Can this underlying predisposition be changed or at least mitigated? Is what I am calling \"an underlying predisposition\" better called by the old term \"character\"? Are there aspects of personality that are unchanging in spite of the vicissitudes of circumstance? And if there are unchanging elements to a personality, would it be possible to know what they are with any degree of certainty?\n\nBefore I get ahead of myself, what do I mean by character? It might clarify a little to substitute \"limitation\" for character. A person has his/her own typical limitations. These can be repetition of the same types of mistakes. A person can have certain beliefs and value judgements that are difficult, if not impossible, to evaluate objectively and with detachment. A belief that women are (somehow) inherently trustworthy for instance. This line of thought strongly suggests that what is often understood as neurosis (doing the same thing over & over but expecting a different result each time) is in some cases at least a matter of character. For what it's worth, there is nothing in the concept of character that requires it to refer exclusively to uplifting moral qualities. Traditionally, along with good upstanding character there were also low and mean characters.\n\nThe argument against character is that of what I call eternal optimism. There are no limitations to one's personality, only resignation and not trying hard enough. This brings us back to what my colleague told me. Some mental states, if not all mental states, are causative. They make other things happen, even if only other mental states. Certainly it is the case that mental states seem to engender other mental states. For many people the feeling of certainty that comes with the repetition of the Lord's Prayer brings feelings of peace, calmness, and safety, just as the thought of homosexual acts bring feelings of anger, fear, and loathing to some of these same people. It is also seems likely that there is not any mental state that will engender the same mental state(s) in all people. It does seem that particular mental states in similar circumstances will typically in a given person give rise to the same mental states.\n\nIt is tempting here to follow the chain of concepts and reduce mental life to a species of mechanistic determinism. While I can't decisively refute faith in the causal nature of one's thoughts and feelings, I can offer an observation. Thoughts do not come on command. Thoughts and insights come without warning and when they are good and ready. Further we learn from our past, maybe not as efficiently as we would like sometimes. A given thought will often engender the same thought(s), but eventually boredom sets in. Otherwise, a person becomes boring and prone to repetition of the same old tired syllogisms and arguments.\n\nWhere do these reflections leave self-knowledge?\n\nfree hit counter\n\nThursday, April 19, 2012\n\nIt's been over six months...\n\nIt's been over six months since I last updated my blog. I'd like to say that I've been busy, but I haven't been. Having had much experience with depression, I can say that whatever depressed people do, being busy isn't it. Sometimes depression is synonymous with boredom. Unlike boredom, though, depression leaves me with an inability to help myself out of the depression/boredom. I'm bored but not bored enough. The difference between boredom and depression lies with rewards. One of the key symptoms of depression is, after all, a decreased appetite for pleasure. Pleasure of all kinds: cooking, eating, sex, conversation, sunny weather, etc. No reward seems to be worth the effort.\n\nExplaining this to someone who has never been depressed is like explaining colors to a blind person. The experience is simply lacking to those blessed with good mental health. If the example of colors is too hackneyed, consider the difficulty of explaining the taste of a particular food to someone who has never tried it. There is a qualia to depression that cannot be communicated. Depression is not simply feeling really, really bad, although that is in many cases a prominent symptom. Nor is it merely feeling hopeless. Nor is depression any one thing. There are several symptoms that must be present in order for a case of \"the blues\" to merit a diagnosis of depression.\n\nPsychiatrists use a list of symptoms, of which a certain number must be present for length of time. My own bias is to believe that no two instances of depression are ever quite the same. There are always differences in the specific symptoms as well as to their intensity, in addition each case's etiology is unique to thye sufferer.\n\nThat said, it is also true that cases of depression can be classified, categorized, and analyzed for their commonalities and differences. It is a dirty secret to psychiatry that the diagnosis and treatment of depression is an art and not a science. Part of the diagnostic procedure is questioning the patient about the presence, duration, and intensity of symptoms. Consequently, patience, insight and good listening skills are essential to being a good psychiatrist. These are all qualities in which some competency can be acquired, but more than a mere competency requires qualities of character. This means that there are personality types that cannot acquire more than the most basic rudiments of good psychiatry.\n\nFor all that, this doesn't mean that psychiatry is arbitrary in its diagnoses and categories. Psychiatry is properly speaking what psychiatrists do. The categories and criteria for diagnoses are the result of individuals with a certain type of training seeking to make sense of diverse but related phenomena. It is true, though, that a psychiatric diagnosis is because a psychiatrist says it is. The diagnosis, if it is a good diagnosis, will, when explained to other psychiatrists, appear reasonable and justified by the facts of a case. Facts here mean test results, observations, presentation of symptoms, etc.\n\nfree hit counter\n\nSearch This Blog\n\nMap of Visitors\n\nLocations of Site Visitors", "pred_label": "__label__1", "pred_score_pos": 0.5488346815109253}
+{"content": "This article is about the plot device in The Fourth Wall. For other uses of the term, see fourth wall (disambiguation).\n\nThe Fourth Wall Theory is a fictional scientific hypothesis proposed by researchers in an alternate universe in the BZPower comic series The Fourth Wall.\n\nThe theory proposes four barriers (or \"walls\") defining levels of consciousness, taking its name from the last of which.\n\n\n\nWorking from a dualistic presupposition, the Fourth Wall Theory considers consciousness to be a field of indescribable energy inhabiting the same space as the mind on an unknown dimensional plane. Thus, it poses the question not just of what consciousness is, but where.\n\nThe theory states that there are four barriers to consciousness: stimulus-response thought, independent thought, self-awareness, and an incomprehensible fourth barrier. They maintained that humans surpass the first three boundaries only, and that once this fourth barrier of consciousness is broken, fuller access to the time-space dimensional plane opens. Incomprehensible things occur.\n\nPut another way, in the first three levels of conscious, stimuli impose themselves upon mental processes (to varying degrees). After the fourth wall is broken, the mind imposes itself upon nature.\n\n\nThe theory was tested on innocent people by the scientists, being subject to sleep deprivation, hallucinogens, brainwave alteration, and more. These efforts were met with success, frightening the researchers and causing them to abandon the project entirely.\n\nThe primary effect of a \"wallbreak\" (see Etymology below) upon a subject is the ability to traverse the time-space continuum, resulting in teleportation, time travel, interdimensional travel, or any combination thereof. One who does any of these things is described as a \"Traveler.\" A wallbreak may or may not be volunary, and can also be inflicted upon someone by another wallbreaker.\n\nIncreased control over the fourth wall yields other abilities which are virtually limitless, both in nature and volume. The known wallbreak powers are as follows (with Traveler-related abilities included for consistency):\n\n  • Teleportation\n  • Time travel\n  • Interdimensional travel\n  • Telekinesis\n  • Pyrokinesis\n  • Hammerspace\n  • Shapeshifting\n\n\nIntroduced to a number of new concepts, several new terms were created by the scientists to describe the results of their experimentation.\n\n  • The fourth wall is the final boundary to human consciousness. Its role in the mental makeup of an individual is similar to that of the \"fourth wall\" in fiction, allowing the subject to interact with their environment in an entirely different way.\n  • A wallbreak technically refers to any transition from one level of consciousness to another, but is generally used in reference to the fourth wall only.\n  • Travelers are those who have accessed any of the three primary wallbreak powers; that is, teleportation, time travel, or interdimensional travel.\n\nSee also\n\nAd blocker interference detected!\n\n", "pred_label": "__label__1", "pred_score_pos": 0.6966887712478638}
+{"content": "About Coding Autism\n\n\nOliver Thornton\n\nWhen Oliver was two years old, he was diagnosed with Asperger's Syndrome shortly after his older brother was diagnosed with Autism. Throughout Oliver's adolescent years, he struggled with his speech, making friends, and lacked self confidence in his intelligence and ability to succeed. Through the motivational forces of autism influencers such as Temple Grandin, Oliver transformed his mentality of what it truly meant to be a person on the autism spectrum. With this newly adopted mentality, Oliver drove himself to success in his college years at California Lutheran University (CLU), where he obtained his Real Estate Salesperson License, co-founded CLU's professional business fraternity Delta Sigma Pi, and won CLU's 2016 New Venture Competition. Since Oliver's graduation, Oliver has devoted himself to his real estate representation at Compass in Beverly Hills as well as building up Coding Autism.\n\nAusten Weinhart\n\nAusten Weinhart comes from a background of extensive experience in the technology space, performing roles in marketing, quality assurance, and web development. Early on as a student at UC Berkeley, Austen acted as president of the public relations student group, PR @ Cal. After graduating from Berkeley, he worked on both technical and marketing projects for high-profile clients such as Adobe, Microsoft, Google, Facebook, and others. Austen was drawn into Coding Autism both for his passion for autism advocacy and also as someone who is a product of a coding bootcamp education. Austen is eager to create an environment where others can turn their lives around by learning to code, just as he did.", "pred_label": "__label__1", "pred_score_pos": 0.9603578448295593}
+{"content": "These Facts About Sitting Cross Legged Will Leave You Speechless\n\n\nWe might have heard the old people raise concern over sitting cross-legged, especially the females. My mom use to everytime point it to me to sit properly when ever she found me sitting cross-legged. Is there any truth to it?\n\nSitting for a prolonged time is not healthy but let’s look into the matter of sitting cross-legged.\n\nCan It Lead to Disease Conditions?  \n\nAlso, Read 38 signs of body language that can explain everything!!\n\nCross Legged Skeletal Structure\n\nSome people say that sitting cross legged can eventually lead to the varicose vein. But there is no valid proof to this. A varicose vein is caused mostly due to hereditary factors and sometimes with age or due to obesity. There are no studies to support the onset of hypertension due to the cross legged seating position. But there has been speculations that the blood pressure levels can increase in people who are already suffering from hypertension.\n\nPelvic problems can be caused due to sitting cross-legged most of the time. The position in itself is not recommended by doctors as the upper knee is exerting pressure on the lower knee. By crossing your legs, even though one might seem to be comfortable in that stance, the pelvis is twisted to reach out the leg. Automatically, the lower back would also hunch up and even twists the back also slightly. Some may say that alternating the leg on top would cause reduced effect, but there are no reports to back that fact.\n\nWorsen a Knee Problem\n\nAlso Read: Squats for Women: 5 Variations You Should Try\n\nCross Legged Position\nCross Legged Position\n\nKnee health is a crucial factor in helping you walk. This is in turn related to healthy back and hip. Knee pain alleviates with misaligned knee position. This is a known factor, so by crossing your legs, you are actually putting your leg in an abnormal position. Even if it won’t be a causative for knee problems, you can probably worsen an already existent knee pain.\n\nWith several years or taking this sitting position, the strain and effort will deteriorate making you feel comfortable, but the damage will remain. This pertains to not just sitting cross legged but with any twisted seating. It can cause intense damage to Skelton and even Lymphatic system. For people who are able to relate their knee pain to crossing their legs, it is recommended to check into their hips and pelvic issues initially. This is done with physiotherapy treatments and will take some time to cure the root issue.\n\nIt is not wise to be sitting cross-legged for more time can you would take to sip a cup of coffee.\n\nSo, How Should you Be Sitting?\n\nAlso Read 17 Best Poses for Women, Now Look More Gorgeous With These Tricks!\n\nProper Sitting Position\nProper Sitting Position\n\nFor people who have to sit for a prolonged period, the right position is the key to keeping pains at bay. The legs have to straight with flat feet, If you have a height problem, you can use a footstool to lie the foot flat. Most of the people today have a sedentary lifestyle. Sitting for long hours can do immeasurable damage. Its is advised to take a short stroll after every 55 minutes.\n\nWe humans have not been manufactured for the sedentary lifestyle so we have to move to keep our body functioning optimally. Next time, when your body complains of a shoulder or knee pain, recheck on your movements and sitting position.", "pred_label": "__label__1", "pred_score_pos": 0.9685269594192505}
+{"content": "Boss and Employee funny joke\n\nBoss : There r 50 bricks on an airplane. If u drop 1\noutside. Hw many r left?\n\nEmployee : That's easy,49.\nBoss : What r the 3 steps to put an elephant into a\n\nEmployee : Open the fridge. Put the elephant in.\nClose the fridge\n\nBoss : What r the four steps to put a deer into the\n\nEmployee : Open the fridge. Take the elephant out.\nPut the deer in,\nclose the fridge.\n\nBoss : It's lion's birthday, all animals r there except\none, why?\n\nEmployee : Because the deer is in the fridge.\n\nBoss : How does an old woman cross a swamp\nfilled with crocodiles?\n\nEmployee : She jst crosses it bcz d crocodiles r at d\nlion's birthday\n\n\nEmployee : I guess she drowned?\n\nBoss : No! She was hit by the brick fallen from the\nairplane. U may leave now..\n\nMoral: Jitna marzi prepare karlo. Agar boss ne\ntumhari leni hai to leke hi manega !!\n\n\n", "pred_label": "__label__1", "pred_score_pos": 0.9993551969528198}
+{"content": "Leased fee value of an auto dealership and rental rates\n\nCarole Hale\n\nNOTE: The following article is from the collection of articles in our Automobile Dealership Buy/Sell Newsletters. The newsletter deals with the complex area of buying and selling automobile dealerships. Some of the material may not be up to date because of changes in the law from the date shown at the end of the article. This article is not to be taken as legal, accounting, tax, or other advice. You should consult your own professionals for such advice and for any updating of the information provided.\n\nThe appraisal of a property under a “market value” premise assumes a consummation of a sale. Most of the time, the appraisal will be utilized to assist in obtaining financing for the real estate. The purchaser (or lender if the loan goes into default) is primarily interested in what they will receive from the property.\n\nWhen selling a property that is leased under an “arms-length” transaction (no intra-company lease), the interest being sold is considered the “Leased Fee.” The definition of a “Leased Fee” is:\n\n“An ownership interest held by a landlord with the rights of use and occupancy conveyed by lease to others. The rights of the lessor (the leased fee owner) and the leased fee are specified by contract terms contained within the lease.”(The Dictionary of Real Estate Appraisal, Third Edition, published by the Appraisal Institute).\n\nAn older, but more concise, definition would be:\n\n“A LEASED FEE interest is defined as the right to receive periodic rental payments over the term of the lease and the ultimate right of repossession of the premises at the expiration of the lease.”\n\nThe above definitions mean that the owner of the property (landlord) will receive rental payments over the term of the lease (based upon the lease terms) and return of possession of the property at the end of the lease term.\n\nWhen the contract rental rate is the same as the “market” rental rate, then the value of the property (leased fee value) is typically synonymous with “market value.” If the rental rate is “below market” and the remaining term of the lease (including options at the lower rate) is more than a couple years, then the leased fee value is less than the “market value.” Conversely, if the contract rental rate is higher than the “market” rental rate, then the leased fee value of the property is slightly higher than “market value.”\n\nFor example, assume a property is rented for $15,000 per month on a “market” rental basis. Using a typical vacancy rate of 5%, a typical expense ratio of 4%, and a typical overall capitalization rate of 10%, results in a property value of $1,640,000. If the “contract” rent on that same property is $10,000 per month and the remaining lease term is 20 years (including options), then the “leased fee” value of that property drops to approximately $1,190,000, an approximate 27% drop in value. Conversely, if the “contract” rent is $20,000 per month and the remaining lease term is 20 years (including options), then the “leased fee” value of the property increases to approximately $1,965,000, an approximate 20% increase in value. Considering a remaining lease term of 5 years under the above scenarios would indicate “leased fee” values of $1,415,000, or a 13.7% decrease for the “below market” lease and $1,835,000, or an 11.9% increase for the “above market” lease.[More consideration is given to the value of \"below market\" rents as they are considered to be assured.The strength of the tenant has to be taken into consideration in valuing \"above market\" rents.]\n\nAs you can see, the contract rental rate on a property can affect the sale value of that property. Because those rental rates may affect the sale price or financing capability of the property, the property owner needs to remember these factors when negotiating rental rates.\n\nNote: Most auto dealership facilities are owner-occupied or contain intra-company leases. Even though these “intra-company” leases may be written at a market rate, they cannot be utilized by the appraiser in the valuation of the real estate as they could be canceled at any time. Most owner-occupied auto dealerships write leases to themselves for accounting/tax purposes and these leases are not utilized in the valuation.\n\nTypically, rental rates on newer auto dealership facilities are based upon a percentage amount of the current value of the land and cost of improvements with returns at 10% on the land and 12% on the improvements (new). Some developers are utilizing an 11% rate on both the land and improvements as a composite and equal to [(10% + 12%) ÷ 2.] Rental rates are sometimes based upon a slight return above or commensurate return of the mortgage interest rate on the property, usually with a CPI adjustment annually or every 5 years (compounded).[Rental rates on older facilities can be calculated in a similar manner with the discount rate on the improvements adjusted slightly for the age of the improvements (generally not to the extent required for a residual analysis).]The rents are nearly always on a triple net basis with the tenant paying all expenses of operating the property including real estate taxes, insurance and maintenance. Typically, lease terms are for 10 to 20 years (seldom less than 5 years) with annual increases (usually CPI), or increases at least every 3 to 5 years.\n\nThough auto makers generally set guidelines for how much rent a specific dealership can afford to pay (usually on a dollar amount per vehicle), market rental rates areseldombased upon the number of vehicles sold (either on a per-unit or dollar amount basis). The guidelines are more of a statement as to how much a particular dealership can afford to pay (similar to rental or mortgage qualification of a consumer based upon their income-i.e., 4 X, etc.). And, as you know, what the dealership can afford to pay is not necessarily reflective of the rental value of the property as different auto makes and dealership operations generate higher or lower sales volumes. [Note: In a slower market or when working with new market entrants, some auto dealership leases have been structured to include a lower minimum monthly rent (10% to 20% lower than \"market\") versus a percentage or dollar amount per vehicle sold. This lease type offers a lower minimum rental at the beginning of the lease while providing for potentially higher rental rates (above market) in the future when sales for the dealership increase. The dollar amount per vehicle sold (and/or percentage plus a percentage of service charges) would depend upon the sales history of the facility during the previous \"normal\" periods and the current time.]\n\nThe important thing to take into consideration when placing an “arms-length” lease on a property is that the terms of that lease will have a direct bearing on the market value of the property when sold or for financing. Some property owners will negotiate a “less than market rate” lease in order to sell the business only to find out later that the low rental rate has drastically affected the value of their property when they tried to sell it.\n\nThis article was written in 1998.\n\nCarole Hale, MAI, SRA is a real estate appraiser for The Hale Company, a southern California-based appraisal company specializing in automobile dealerships and related businesses. She can be reached at 909-517-1064.", "pred_label": "__label__1", "pred_score_pos": 0.9378564953804016}
+{"content": "Tips And Advice For The Stock Market Beginner\n\nAlmost everyone is aware of somebody who has made a great deal of money through investing, and they often also know of somebody who has lost a great deal of money the same way. The key is to identify wise investments that meet your risk tolerance and capacity. If you do some research and follow the advice you just read, you’re more likely to be a stock market success story.\n\n\nIf you are the owner of any common stocks, exercise your shareholder voting rights. Depending on the rules of each company, you might have the right to vote when directors are elected or major changes are being made. Voting may be done by proxy through the mail or at the shareholders’ annual meeting.\n\nHave cash on hand for emergencies. Keep this money in an interest bearing account, that can be easily accessed. Six months of living expenses is good rule of thumb. With this safety net in place, you can meet mortgage expenses and pay other bills until the matters are improved.\n\n\nRemember that your stocks represent a share of a company instead of a simple title. Carefully evaluate and analyze a business when determining the value of the stocks you have invested in. By delving into the nuts and bolts of a company, you get a closer look at where your money is going.\n\nDon’t go too long without checking up on your portfolio; at a minimum, assess it quarterly. Because there are always fluctuations No BS IM Reviews in the economy, it is important to keep your portfolio current. Some sectors will start to do better than others, and some may become extinct. What time of year it is might determine what you should be investing in. As a result, it is vital that you regularly analyze your portfolio and make changes as needed.\n\nIf you are new to investing, be wary that making big returns overnight is tough. Many times, specific company stocks can take one to three years to show positive movement, and inexperienced investors pull their money out too soon because of fear, ignorance or impatience. Always be patient when investing in stocks.\n\n\n\n\nFind what works well, and stick with it. Perhaps you are searching for businesses that constantly have high profit markets, or maybe your focus is on businesses that have a large amount of cash on hand. You might want to formulate your strategy by starting with the type of stock you’re looking to invest with. Figuring out whether you want to be a long-term investor or a constant trader is a good place to start.\n\nAs you have seen, for every person who succeeds in the stock market, there is someone else who loses their shirt. The nature of the stock market ensures that there are always winners and losers. Although luck is a factor, you can diminish its importance by making smart investing decisions. Apply the tips from this article and you’ll be well on your way to making your investments pay off.", "pred_label": "__label__1", "pred_score_pos": 0.9008031487464905}
+{"content": "The Eurasian Economic Union: Armenia's Accession & Beyond\n\nDear Minister Valovaya,\n\nDear Mr. Aramyan,\n\nYour Excellency Ambassadors,\n\nLadies and Gentlemen\n\n\nI would like to begin by extending our sincere gratitude and appreciation to the European Institute for organizing this timely and important event. I would also like to welcome and thank our esteemed panelists and participants for joining us this morning here in the Cosmos Club.\n\n\nI am honored to be amongst a group of prominent international experts, and distinguished participants at this important conference.\n\n\nThe Eurasian Economic Union is a relatively new phenomenon on the global international stage. It represents a far-reaching agenda to put in place a coherent framework necessary for economic integration and coordinated policy-making among its member states. There are, however, fundamental challenges and opportunities this union has to address both internally and vis-a-vis the global economic and financial governance, especially in light of the current difficulties we see in the Eurasian region.\n\n\n I also believe that the legitimacy of this union rests upon its perceived necessity and objective realities.\n\n\nThis said, I am confident  thatthe international community should make an effort and allow extra time to clearly perceive the driving forces as well as goals and objectives of this Union. In this regard, I am confident that events like this will help to analyze the underpinnings and policy approaches of this Union.\n\n\nLadies and gentlemen,\n\n\nIn my presentation today, I will touch upon the main political and economic factors that led to Armenia’s decision to join the Eurasian Economic Union. That decision has been influenced by two sets of drivers. The first set is purely economic and social in its nature. The second one is more political and security-related.\n\n\nOn the one hand, the 2008 global financial-economic crisis revealed lots of unknown layers and internalfrictions in economic interfaces, interconnections and economic governance systems in the European/Eurasian regions with respective strengths and weaknesses. In Armenia e.g. we realized how important the EU assistance programs were aimed at strengthening the capacity building, institutional reforms and civil society in our country.\n\n\nOn the other hand, we witnessed another form of regional integration and  processesshaping up in the Eurasian economic space partially in response to the financial and economic crisis and partially in response to emerging new global realities. Consequently, the Eurasian Customs Union was founded in our wider region. It also became more apparent that for a small country like Armenia , it was very unlikely to succeed alone as a viable economic actor in newly shaping socio-economic realities. Subsequently, the internal driving forces and benefits of this regionalization attracted Armenia to be a participant of alarger integration process, and a member of a bigger and integrated common market.\n\n\n\nHence, I believe that globalization in our case  started from glocalization or regionalization. The absence of a common border with the members of the Eurasian Customs Union was initially perceived as a major obstacle towards Armenia’s integration in the Eurasian single economic space. That’s the reason why Armenia was not invited to join the Customs Union earlier. The perception  changed during the following years.Another instrumental aspect of that change was the fact that Russia delegated part of its economic authority to the newly formed Eurasian Union  and became accountable to all member countries. Thus, Armenia realized that the deepening of the integration processes in the Customs Union, as well as the strengthening of the supranational institutions would create major obstacles in further developing  bilateral trade relations with the Russian Federation, Armenia’s number one trading partner. \n\n\nIn this regard, I would like to emphasize several other factors in favor of Armenia’s choice to join the Eurasian Economic Union. As far as the level of its development, our economy was similar to the economic model of the Eurasian Customs Union.  The same refers to the specialization areas and level of the division of labor.Besides that, the motivation of people, businesses and institutions are creating the same platform for more effective regional integration. This means that the diagnosis and recommendations for stimulation of economic development are different for developing and developed countries. The processes of an industrial society prevail in low income countries: these countries can be united by a uniform technological platform of economic exchange characterized by the depth of the processing and the production of goods and services. This means that a global regional union operating on a unified technological platform. I believe that in the globalized world, this unity can create significant and material economic value and potential for economic development. \n\n\nArmenia’s membership in the EEU would mean that,   \n\n1.    Our businesses will have unrestricted and unimpeded access to a huge market of consumers. And please note, that our goods and services from the point of their quality and the variety are targeting mainly this market.\n\n2.    This is the only market where Armenian products are indeed widely known and markedly competitive\n\n3.    There will be essential facilitation of the customs registration.\n\n4.   There will be essential improvement of our market conditions and the reversal of technical obstacles.\n\n5.  We will have  wider access to cheap raw materials, including oil, natural gas and raw diamonds.\n\n6.  We will  expand the possibilities to attract investments, taking into account the size of the market and it will be stronger,\n\n7.    The mobile workforce, which is very significant for the Armenian economy ,will gain more opportunity  for easier movement.\n\n\nArmenia’s choice to join the EEU also raised many concerns both from our own population as well as our foreign partners. The main concern was whether Armenia would lose a part of its sovereignty as a consequence of handing some of the economic policy making powers to the supranational institutions of the EEU.  Nevertheless, the existing legal framework of the EEU allows Armenia to be an equal member and our decisions will have their impact on the regulatory field which covers a market of more than 170mln people. As was mentioned by our regional director of the IMF, Armenia’s accession to the EEU will bring a more positive impact to the economy of our country, than a negative.\n\n\nThere is also a political/ security aspect to Armenia`s accession to the EEU. I would like to remind you about the strategic security challenges that Armenia has been facing since its independence. Closed borders with two of its four neighbors, military rhetoric and existential threats coming from Azerbaijan and international sanctions against Iran leave us with very limited choices. I will not go into more details now, but I will just remind you that we have very strong political-military cooperation with the members of the Collective Security Treaty Organization – Russia, Kazakhstan, Belarus, Kyrgyzstan and Tajikistan. President Sargsyan in his speech in PACE in October 2013 noted, and I quote - “There has recently been much talk about the civilizational choice of the member countries of the Eastern Partnership initiative. We have always stated that we don’t believe in this one-dimensional view. Armenia aims to continue its comprehensive, mutually beneficial partnership with the EU aspiring to have the closest possible and widest possible relations with the EU. This policy will not be terminated. Yes, Armenia has a close allied relationship with Russia. But Armenia is not building new relationships at the expense of that relationship with her strategic ally; in the same vein, we will not build relationships with other partners, which might be aimed against our other partners. We will continue to develop in parallel relationships and interests with our key partners.”- end quote.\n\nLet me once again assure you, that Armenia’s decision to participate in the integrational processes of the Eurasian economic space was an informed and concsious decision by our Government. Armenia has been a vocal supporter and carrier of the “both, and” approach towards the integrational processes with the EU and EEU. In the meanwhile the “either, or” formula was not acceptable for us.\n\n\nTo this end, let me once again reiterate, that despite Armenia’s historic decision to join the Eurasian Economic Union, Armenia is willing to explore further opportunities to cooperate with the European Union, to find a new format for closer relations.  We are confident that the ongoing reforms in Armenia related to the fields of civil society, human rights, fundamental freedoms and civil liberties will be very hard to implement without the EU’s technical assistance. We are also confident that in its path of the economic modernization and diversification the EEU will only benefit from its cooperation with the EU.\n\n\nUnfortunately, this idea is not widely acknowledged at the moment, but I am glad that it has many supporters both in the EU and EEU. We should drastically increase the role of the Eurasian Commission in exploring more means for  East-West cooperation, that would truely be beneficial for all parties. Taking into account our vast experience in implementing various EU programs, I am confident that Armenia may become a unique bridge in the process of finding ways for that all-European economic integration.\n\n\nLadies and gentlemen,\n\n\nI look forward to the discussions ahead. I am confident that both conventional and non-conventional economic thinking and broader outlook will emerge today as to how the East and West partnership can be made stronger, more effective and sustained. This venue today provides us with an important opportunity to discuss the challenges and prospects ahead as well as practical steps for our mutual prosperity.\n\n\nThank you.", "pred_label": "__label__1", "pred_score_pos": 0.9085486531257629}
+{"content": "Advertising Console\n\n    Tree house tribe: Building thatched huts on the ground\n\n\n    by WildFilmsIndia\n\n    At a time when man is looking at setting foot on Mars, a tribe is still living in trees. They have lived this way for more than six decades. Around 40 people belonging to an Indian tribe have made trees their home as that is the only safe place for them.\n\n    They skillfully climb trees to reach their wooden homes - often as high as 40-50 feet - where they live in families of up to six members. They have been living this way for the past 65 years.\n\n    Some of the tribals have built thatched huts on the ground close to their tree houses for their women. But it seems to make more sense to continue living on trees as it protects them from marauding elephants. The tree houses double as watch towers for the men to alert the women about the movement of elephants.\n", "pred_label": "__label__1", "pred_score_pos": 0.6428968906402588}
+{"content": "View Our Practice Areas\n\nEmployment Discrimination Law Archives\n\nImportant facts about age discrimination in the workplace\n\nOlder employees may unfortunately discover that age discrimination is still alive and well, even in a tolerant and accepting state like California. There are many federal and state laws preventing employers from discriminating against job applicants and employees because of age, but perhaps the most important one is the Age Discrimination in Employment Act. The purpose of the ADEA is to protect applicants and employees who are 40 years old or older from discrimination.\n\nCommon forms of pregnancy discrimination\n\nAs an expectant mother and an employee in California, you have certain rights and protections, and your employer may not terminate or otherwise discriminate against you because of your condition. Regrettably, pregnancy discrimination in the workplace is a serious problem affecting many women across California and the United States, even though Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 protects you.\n\nWhat is reasonable employee accomodation for disabilities?\n\nBoth federal and California law prohibit discriminating against employees with disabilities. In practice, this means employers may not refuse to hire candidates because of their disability. They may also not treat an employee worse than others due to a disability.\n\nWhat is California law on age discrimination?\n\nThe retirement age has increased over the years. Some work longer to establish the financial stability necessary for the lifestyle they desire once they retire. Others want to continue working for the physical, emotional and intellectual benefits it offers. Regardless of your reason for staying in the workforce longer, age discrimination can make it difficult for you to achieve your goal. It is important that you know what age discrimination is and how to recognize it so you can take action if it happens to you.\n\nThe key phrase in laws banning religious discrimination\n\nThe California Workplace Religious Freedom Act became effective on Jan. 1, 2013. Both state and federal laws that guarantee religious freedom in the workplace are similar in scope. However, the California statute addresses the matter with stronger language. In addition, there is one phrase in both federal and state law that draws different interpretations.\n\nDealing with workplace retaliation\n\nFor many employees thinking about reporting employment discrimination, potential retaliation by an employer is a serious concern. Employees fear that complaining will result in worse treatment and even job loss. However, just as state and federal laws forbid discrimination, they also prohibit employers from retaliating. This may not stop a particular employer from breaking the law, but it does mean you have legal recourse against such conduct.\n\nDo I need to disclose whether I've had cancer?\n\nWhen you apply for jobs in California, you may wonder whether you should disclose a history of cancer. The answer, generally, is no, and if potential employers ask questions such as, \"How much sick leave have you taken in the past five years?\" you are well within your rights not to answer. In fact, such a question is illegal. This holds true no matter the type of job you are applying for, be it marketing specialist, actress, fundraising director or executive assistant.\n\n5 different types of discrimination in the workplace\n\nIt is unlawful for anyone to discriminate against another in the workplace. The Equal Employment Opportunity Commission enforces laws intended to stop discrimination from happening. Unfortunately, many employees don't realize they are being discriminated against or what qualifies as discrimination. Before you can determine if you are a victim of discrimination, you must first understand what qualifies under the term.\n\nWhat is considered a disability under the Americans with Disabilities Act?\n\nLast year, the U.S. celebrated the twenty-fifth anniversary of the landmark Americans with Disabilities Act that was passed under President Bush in the early 1990s. Despite the fact that the law was hailed by many countries for providing some of the most robust protections for people with disabilities at the time, many Americans still do not understand exactly how disability is defined under the law. Ignorance of the ADA creates issues with compliance as well as with the ability of the disabled to understand how to request accommodations and what methods of resolution are open to them in the event of an access conflict.\n\nBack to top", "pred_label": "__label__1", "pred_score_pos": 0.9444766044616699}
+{"content": "The Handy Art History Answer Book (The Handy Answer Book Series)\n\nBy Madelynn Dickerson\n\nThe significant paintings items, most crucial artists, and important creative activities from 35,000 BCE to this day are gathered jointly during this easy-to-read source on artwork background. It leads you on a travel from the fundamentals and beginnings of paintings to some of the instructions that paintings is heading at the present time. You’ll not just find out about work, but in addition some other medium conceivable, together with sculpture, structure, pottery, images, deploy paintings, or even movie and games. The approximately a hundred and fifty colour pictures illustrate inventive ideas and spotlight very important and noteworthy artworks.\n\nLoaded with 800 questions and solutions on paintings ideas, strategies, fabrics, types, shades and types, routine, faculties of ideas, evolution and that means, The convenient artwork historical past solution ebook is an interesting trip worldwide and during the a long time. Why do Egyptian figures have left ft? what's the distinction among weaving and tapestry? What occurred to the Venus de Milo's palms? what's thought of appealing in Islamic paintings? how are you going to realize \"a Michelangelo\"? what's the value of the Aztec eagle-man? How did Cezanne “astonish Paris with apples”? what's the distinction among paintings Nouveau and artwork Deco? Why do Jeff Koons’s balloon animals promote for thousands of dollars?\n\nShow description\n\nQuick preview of The Handy Art History Answer Book (The Handy Answer Book Series) PDF\n\nSimilar Art History books\n\n\nAs riveting as a global warfare II mystery, The Forger's Spell is the real tale of Johannes Vermeer and the small-time Dutch painter who dared to impersonate him centuries later. The con man's mark used to be Hermann Goering, some of the most reviled leaders of Nazi Germany and a enthusiast collector of paintings. It used to be a virtually ideal crime.\n\nThe Bernini Bust\n\nAfter British artwork historian Jonathan Argyll sells a minor masterpiece to an American museum for an exorbitant rate, the museum's proprietor is murdered, a disreputable artwork broker disappears with a Bernini bust, and Argyll discovers his lifestyles is at risk.\n\nRenaissance Art: A Very Short Introduction\n\nArtists like Botticelli, Holbein, Leonardo, Dürer, and Michelangelo and works comparable to the final Supper fresco and the huge marble statue of David, are usual symbols of the Renaissance. yet who have been those artists, why did they produce such memorable pictures, and the way may their unique beholders have seen those gadgets?\n\n\nThe Italian Renaissance used to be a pivotal interval within the historical past of Western tradition in which artists similar to Masaccio, Donatello, Fra Angelico, and Leonardo created many of the world's so much influential and interesting works in quite a few inventive fields. right here, Evelyn Welch offers a clean photo of the Italian Renaissance by means of demanding conventional scholarship and putting emphasis on recreating the event of up to date Italians: the shoppers who commissioned the works, the contributors of the general public who seen them, and the artists who produced them.\n\nExtra resources for The Handy Art History Answer Book (The Handy Answer Book Series)\n\nShow sample text content\n\nThe trendy global in the course of AND AFTER the area WARS, C. 1914–1960 EARLY TWENTIETH-CENTURY AVANT-GARDE what's Orphism? Orphism, often referred to as Orphic Cubism, is a flow that constructed inside Cubism and is characterised through abstractions and rhythmic colour prepared to stress the joyous energy of production and the connection among visible artwork and song. The identify “Orphism” used to be coined through French poet Guillaume Apollinaire (1880–1918) and the identify refers back to the mythological determine, Orpheus, a poet whose appealing lyrics and track may well seduce wild animals. one of many significant artists linked to Orphism was once Robert Delaunay (1885–1941), who undergone a Cubist section and experimented with colour idea and ideas of house, very like his fellow Cubists, Braque and Picasso. Delaunay created colour abstractions similar to Simultaneous Contrasts: sunlight and Moon (1913) that trusted colour interactions to create a feeling of intensity and circulation. Delaunay’s spouse Sonia additionally created Orphic works, together with work, collages, and garments designs. by means of 1914, Apollinaire and Delauney may no lengthy agree at the major tenets of Orphism and the move ended. what's Futurism? Futurism used to be an lively Italian artwork move all started by way of the poet Filippo Tommaso Marinetti (1876–1944) who wrote the 1st Futurist manifesto in Le Figaro, a French newspaper, in 1909. Marinetti sought after Futurism to be a wide-reaching stream that embraced the rate and tool of contemporary industrialism. The target used to be to reject the earlier and to modernize modern culture—violently if worthwhile. Visually, Futurism shouldn't have existed with no Cubism, and lots of Futurist work function fragmented kinds and geometric near-abstraction; notwithstanding, the Futurists attempted to distance themselves from this inheritance. Painters linked to Futurism contain Umberto Boccioni (1882–1916), Gino Severini (1883–1966), and Carlo Carra (18811916). The Futurists created summary pictures of machines and put an emphasis on stream. Giacomo Balla’s Dynamism of a puppy on a Leash (Leash in movement) (1912) depicts a small puppy with blurry legs and a blurry tail made from fast dashed, repeated brushstrokes. Umberto Boccioni integrated sculpture into the Futurist repertoire with works corresponding to precise sorts of Continuity in area (1913). This flowing, summary sculpture was once solid in bronze and creates an interaction among and 3-dimensional house as a powerful determine with outstretched legs (and no palms) strides ahead on a horizontal aircraft. Futurism replaced after international warfare I; Boccioni was once killed after being thrown from his horse in the course of an army workout and the panorama of Europe, either bodily and artistically, used to be now not an identical. what's avant-garde artwork? As with many artwork phrases, the note avant-garde comes from French and approximately interprets to “vanguard. ” Avant-garde paintings is artwork that's at the “front lines,” and the time period can be utilized to explain any cutting edge or new smooth paintings. The experimentations of avant-garde artists, writers, and thinkers frequently reason surprise, or even anger, between critics and normal audiences.\n\nDownload PDF sample\n\nRated 4.45 of 5 – based on 48 votes", "pred_label": "__label__1", "pred_score_pos": 0.6462679505348206}
+{"content": "Person:Gilbert FitzRoy (1)\n\nGilbert FitzRoy\nb.est 1114\nd.aft 1142\nFacts and Events\nName Gilbert FitzRoy\nGender Male\nBirth[2] est 1114\nDeath[1] aft 1142\nReference Number? Q5560905?\n\n    Gilbert, child 21\n\n  2. based on the fact that he is mentioned with half-brothers Renaud and Robert as being young and without their own households - suggesting that they were close in age", "pred_label": "__label__1", "pred_score_pos": 0.9068716764450073}
+{"content": "Udaris is the mundane world from which all mortal beings originally came. Although it is largely governed by the laws of physics, it is also imbued with magic and is linked to the realm of Askamar through Gateways. The only people known to dwell there are humans, who have spread their civilisations across the entire globe.\n\nThe immortal Ankaykari have always been fascinated by Udaris. To them, it is a place of beauty and mystery, bathed in golden sunlight or the silvery glow of the moon. They call it the Shifting World, because of its swiftly changing seasons, the rise and fall of its kingdoms, and the slow but ceaseless re-shaping of its landmasses.Udaris\n\nAnkaykari Territories\n\nFamous Ankaykari Territories\n\n\nDespite their arrogance towards mortal-kind, the Ankaykari take a keen interest in the civilizations, technological advances and cultural achievements of humans. Their Citadels are filled with books and artefacts collected from human cities, and they often welcome human envoys. However, they are disturbed by the brutal violence and anarchy of the human world.\n\nEven as they fight among themselves, the Ankaykari long to bring  order to the lands where humans dwell, and many Esu have established great empires in Udaris.\n\nAn epic fantasy saga", "pred_label": "__label__1", "pred_score_pos": 0.9968776702880859}
+{"content": "Home to our original flagship, New York boasts a stunning portfolio of 36 unique locations. Each club is a reflection of its surroundings, as well as a peaceful sanctuary from the chaos outside. Featuring innovative group fitness classes, luxurious spas and exclusive boutiques, our legendary New York clubs provide members with an inviting and exhilarating fitness experience that’s truly unrivaled.", "pred_label": "__label__1", "pred_score_pos": 0.6548250913619995}
+{"content": "This does feel different than other problems you've had before. We've tried to talk those out, and I've loved talking those out. It's seemed as though if we could just understand more, dive a bit deeper, we could unearth something of truth that would help. Sometimes we find something and we are able to help, even. But in this case, for the last few weeks, I've struggled to talk about your issues with you, and I am not sure why. It just seems like there isn't anything there to uncover, this time, and whether that is my failing, or yours, or this specific problem (not that it's specific) I'm not sure.\n\nThe best way I could phrase it, and I'm not sure if this is even accurate, but it's my impression, is that this problem is deeply internal and the change needs to come from within, a decision of some kind needs to be made, discipline needs to be enacted, something like that. In the past, your problems have felt like there were external solutions or little gimmicks that we could try; this time it does not feel that way. A major change needs to happen and you're the only one who could do it.\n\nThe only external thing I can guess is that you might need to get out of Japan, since things have become so bad for you there, but I'm not sure that would help. ENTP functionality says yes, though, as you can only function happily when you're being stimulated with new ideas and new theories in interesting discussions with other people, and that is not happening in Japan. Perhaps that's why mind-function and friendship are high on your list. You've been floating in space without engines, Captain Kirk, because you're out of fuel and on a planet that has none.", "pred_label": "__label__1", "pred_score_pos": 0.6487166881561279}
+{"content": "Observations on Siting an Accelerator\n\nG. Flanagan\n\nAlna Space Program\n\nJune 14, 2011\n\n\nIn many articles about rail or gun launch devices, there is an assumption that mountains could be used to achieve a convenient launch angle and to get above the majority of the atmosphere. Using Google Earth, I explored some of the possibilities just to get an idea of the challenges. One assumption in this explorations was that the accelerator was 10 km long, giving an acceleration on the order of 500 g’s. Another assumption was to assume a near-equator site. I am assuming that the majority of the payload mass needs to go into a near equatorial orbit.  At whatever latitude chosen, the accelerator needs to be align along a great-circle path.\n\nAn accelerator needs to be perfectly straight, or at least have a very shallow curvature. This presents a problem with siting on a mountain. In order to get a straight line, one must either drill a tunnel through some sections, or build an elevated structure. Both are possible, and the issue become a matter of degree for cost considerations.\n\nOther considerations for siting include: Access to land or air transportation, overflight concerns, and noise. Also, a high mass throughput corresponds to a large power requirement.\n\nIn most studies, it is assumed that the gun will require an exit angle of at least 10° in order for the projectile to pass rapidly through the atmosphere. My trajectory studies have shown that as an alternative one can have a horizontal gun by providing the projectile with aerodynamic lift. The lift can change the trajectory path sufficiently to have the same affect of limiting the time in the atmosphere. This approach greatly opens up the possibilities for siting an accelerator.\n\nMountains near the equator\n\nThe mountains of Ecuador would appear to be good locations for a space gun. There are several peaks above 5000 m that are located very close to the equator.\n\nNevado Cayembe\n\nNevado Cayembe has a 5790 m peak. The red line below shows a possible 10 km path. The red line follows the ground contour, so the problem is to straighten the path. The profile shows that one could have a reasonable straight 5 km path starting from the peak down, but then one would have to start drilling a tunnel to get the remaining 5 km. The terrain appears to be rough and difficult for any major civil engineering project.\n\n\nCarihuairazo, Elevation 5018 m\n\nCarihuairazo was interesting because the approach to the peak did appear to be as irregular. On the downside, the angle of the path is only about 4°. Carihuairazo is a volcanic caldera which may discourage the construction of an expensive civil engineering project.\n\n\nPlateau  sites\n\nIf the system uses projectile lift instead of a fixed gun angle, then there are several possibilities for siting at high altitude. The problem is that the high plateaus near the equator involve flying over land and possibly populated areas.\n\nThere is a high (2500 m) region of Kenya. The image below arbitrarily picks on 10 km path in this region. Zooming in further, the plateau appears to be heavily cultivated.\n\n\n\nIf we look a bit away from the equator, Mexico has some higher regions around 22N latitude. The path below is near Ojuelos de Jali. It was picked to be away from obvious cultivated land and towns.\n\n\nNote that exit is at left side of profile plot.\n\nSimilarly, Peru has large expanses of level terrain at over 4000m. The path shown below is at latitude 14S. This site appears to be rather remote, and would require a lot construction to build the necessary transportation and power infrastructure.\n\n\nEdge of Ocean Site\n\nIf the system can be horizontal, and at sea-level, then the overflight problem can be solved by placing the gun along either level terrain at an eastern coast, or in shallow water. Below is a 50 km path of the coast of French Guiana. Guiana already has a conventional space launch facility (Centre Spatial Guyanais). Supplying the base from the ocean is also appealing. Trajectory studies demonstrate that sea-level, horizontal launch is feasible.\n\n\nDeep Water\n\nQuicklaunch proposes to build a 1.1km long gun that operates in the ocean. By sinking one end of the structure, a favorable angle is achieved.  \n\n\nSpikey Created with Wolfram Mathematica 8.0", "pred_label": "__label__1", "pred_score_pos": 0.8955479264259338}
+{"content": "AZENDI™ ☎ 0208 9125510\n\n\n  • Get into the Festival Mood with Spirited Away\n\n    Spirted Away\n\n    It is that time of year again. People are donning their wellies, packing up their tents and heading to fields across the country in the name of music. Festival season is upon us and, as well as the eclectic mix of music on offer, festivals are also a time for dressing up and accessorising to the max!\n\n    For years people have been spending their summers in fields, dancing without a care in the world and trying to find the most outlandish outfits to wear because, let's face it, how often do you get the opportunity to wear feather headdresses and neon legwarmers?\n\n    The joy of festivals is the escapism that comes with it. The freedom to express the inner you, even just for a few days. Our Spirited Away collection is the perfect way to channel your inner festival goddess. With a mix of pendants, bracelets and earrings in silver, rose vermeil and gold vermeil, Spirited Away is a stunning and delicate collection that embodies the summer time.\n\n    Feathers were traditionally worn by Native Indian Chiefs to highlight their wisdom and closeness to the spiritual world. Chiefs would reward members of their tribe with feathers if they had done well in battle or shown considerable bravery. Therefore, feathers are symbolic of honour, bravery and trust. They make wonderful, treasured gifts for people who deserve a reward or want to highlight their inner spirituality, but most of all they are the perfect summer accessory!\n\n1 Item(s)", "pred_label": "__label__1", "pred_score_pos": 0.5823677182197571}
+{"content": "If you’ve played a lot of Destiny, you know that connectivity issues can be a real bummer. Many of the worst issues are thought to arise from Destiny’s decentralized server arrangement, which leapfrogs partial hosting duties between different players’ consoles. For Destiny 2, Bungie says they’re changing things up.\n\nAs it stands, if one Destiny player has a lousy internet connection, it can cause weird issues for everyone around them. Laggy boss fights are bad, and teleporting “redbar” opponents in PvP are worse. You would think that each player would only be affected by his or her connection quality, but due to the peer-to-peer parts of Destiny’s networking setup, that’s not quite how it works. (Note: I am not a networking expert, so all of this is just my general understanding.) The game moves hosting duties around behind the scenes, so if a player with a bad connection winds up as host, it can screw with everyone’s experience. The flaws in the system aren’t just annoying—they can be actively exploited by players to, say, freeze a boss in a vulnerable state or cheat in the competitive Crucible.\n\n\nHardcore Destiny players have long been of the opinion that Bungie should add dedicated servers for the sequel, which would centralize the game data on Bungie’s own servers and reduce the wider impact of latency issues. At last week’s Destiny 2 event, Bungie said they would not be adding dedicated servers, which disappointed a lot of people.\n\nIn yesterday’s weekly update, however, they elaborated on Destiny 2's server situation with some happier news. Here’s the full update from Destiny 2 engineering lead Matt Segur:\n\nSo why no dedicated servers?\n\nMatt: Every activity in Destiny 2 is hosted by one of our servers. That means you will never again suffer a host migration during your Raid attempt or Trials match. This differs from Destiny 1, where these hosting duties were performed by player consoles and only script and mission logic ran in the data center. To understand the foundation on which we’re building, check out this Destiny 1 presentation from GDC. Using the terms from this talk, in Destiny 2, both the Mission Host and Physics Host will run in our data centers.\n\nWait, so we do have dedicated servers?\n\nMatt: We don’t use that term, because in the gaming community, “dedicated servers” refers to pure client-server networking models. Destiny 2 uses a hybrid of client-server and peer-to-peer technology, just like Destiny 1. The server is authoritative over how the game progresses, and each player is authoritative over their own movement and abilities. This allows us to give players the feeling of immediacy in all their moving and shooting – no matter where they live and no matter whom they choose to play with.\n\nWhy peer-to-peer? Are we trying to save money?\n\nMatt: Nope! We’ve invested heavily in new server infrastructure for Destiny 2, including using cloud servers for gameplay for the first time. We really believe this is the best model for all of Destiny 2's varied cooperative and competitive experiences. Engineering will always involve tradeoffs and cost-benefit analysis, but as a team we’ve got no regrets about the unique technology we’ve built for Destiny 2.\n\nThe GDC talk that Segur links to gets pretty technical in its back half, but this slide from the intro lays out the current Destiny 1 setup pretty clearly:\n\nAs those people play together in the game’s shared open world, the “physics host” will hop from player to player, usually without anyone noticing. According to Segur, Destiny 2 will move all of that up to the worldserver, which will hopefully make things less inconsistent if one of the players has a bad connection.\n\n\n\nWe’ll have to wait to see how this plays out in the actual game, but based on Segur’s description, it really does sound like a significant and specific change to how Destiny shares data between servers and players. It’s also another example of Bungie addressing a problem with a different solution from the one players envisioned. Here’s hoping it’s a change for the better.", "pred_label": "__label__1", "pred_score_pos": 0.521594762802124}
+{"content": "Textiles have always been paramount to Andean culture. The availability of llamas, alpacas, cotton and other natural fibers combined with predominantly cold weather, allowed the development of this art. In fact, Andean fabrics form the longest continuous textile record in world history! Some elaborate fabrics were considered so precious, that they were used to trade goods, and even offered as sacrifices to the sun god Inti! The shigra bag, though modest compared to other Andean textiles, is part of this tradition of creating fiber crafts.\n\nHow are Shigra’s Made?\n\nFirst, the raw material, a resistant natural fiber from the cabuya tree (Agave) is prepared. Then, the mature leaves are sliced into long strands which must be soaked in water for 15 days in order to free the fiber of pulp residue. A this point a sewing needle is used to begin the shigra, starting from an oval shaped base, and moving upwards in a swirling circular form. For those who sew, the technique is very similar to the crochet technique. Although the designs are created at the whim and imagination of each woman, over the years, some motifs have evolved. For example, some favorites are the vibrant zig -zag shapes called “quingo” in quichua, or “chauto chaqui” which resembles llama feet. Originally, the shigra was adorned with human and also some animal forms, but today the women have become more lenient towards abstract design.\n\nBefore, the women dyed the cabuya with natural colors made from achote or other plants. However, these colors would often run, so today the colors are made from aniline in order to avoid this problem.\n\nIn the 1970’s several Ecuadorian and foreign artists began to value the beauty of Ecuadorian arts and crafts. The attractive multihued shigras did not go unnoticed! Several artists began to recognize the potential of this handbag. They used their creativity to explore ideas. New colors, sizes, designs, and materials such as silver, suede, and leather inlays were incorporated. What once was a utilitarian bag for indigenous women only; began to make the Ecuadorian and international fashion scene. Today, quality shigras have leather straps, no running colors, and are lined inside.", "pred_label": "__label__1", "pred_score_pos": 0.7493137121200562}
+{"content": "The best cultural and religious festivals celebrated annually.\n\nTimket (Epiphany)\n\nThe most colorful festival of Ethiopia in an open-air where one can see the jubilations, festivity, dancing and chanting on the air is Timket or Epiphany. The literal meaning of “Timket” is baptism. The festival is celebrated for the remembrance of the day where Jesus was baptized by John the Baptist in river Jordan.\n\nOn this day the ark of covenant will be taken out from the holy of holies to an open-air field but with a very slow and stagnant movement of people who carry the Ark being followed by deacons & priests that wear colorful costumes singing, dancing and chanting around. Then the mass surrounding them voicing up the religious chanting and song. Then the other great mass singing and dancing their own cultural and traditional music.\n\n\nThere is a trend of wearing the best cloth and shoe one has on this day. Also the girls put some decorations to bring out the beauties they have as this is a day to look for the life mate specially in the rural parts of the country and also in some big cities too.\n\nThe ark will rest at the selected field with in a tent and the whole night is dedicated for prayer and sanctification as for the religious clergies and for dating and chasing around girls as for the greater part of the young men.\n\nThe early morning of the next day is an important religious moment where people gather at the hall that is filled with a holy water for a chance of getting sprinkled on. Some even take the mud and put on the part of their body where they feel sick or even take it home to their relatives who are not able to make it to the sprinkling.\n\nThose arks which were moved from the churches of St. Micheal would stay more night in the tent and start heading back with the same festivity, chanting and dancing the following day while others get back to their original churches after an overnight in the late afternoon of the next day.\n\nMost of the local people coming to attend the event would wear cotton made white clothing which is a very traditional way of wearing while attending church services in Ethiopia and a sight f it from distance or above would make one to imagine a white carpet is plastid on earth.\n\nTimket is colorfully celebrated in the touristic & historic sites of Lalibela and Gondar but can be attended in any part of the country including Addis Ababa, where a very big number of people are witnessed attending it. The eve of Timket is heart alluring to be attended at the top of the rock-churches looking down priest and deacons in their colorful costumes doing their rituals while leaving the rock-churches to the field where the ark overnight. It is also wonderful to see it in Gondar at the bathing pool of King Fasilades, where believers jumps in to it with believers of being clean from their sins and wrong doings.\n\nFor the year 2017, it will fall on January 20th.\n\nPut a pin in your calendar to be at the next season of Timket in one of these colorful cities! \n\n\nInterested in celebrating Timket with us ? Please check available tour packages\n\nEthiopian Christmas, Timket Festival and Historic Route Tour (Surface + Flight) - 15 days and 14 nights\n\n\n\n\nWork Time\n\nMon. - Fri. (8:00 am - 5:00pm)\n\nSat . (8:00 am - 12:30 pm)", "pred_label": "__label__1", "pred_score_pos": 0.9450472593307495}
+{"content": "We have Partnered with some of the world’s most influential voices\n\nAlthough not known for certain, but there are differences in the neurotransmitter system between the depressed and non-depressed. There are some parts of the brain that do not work normally when depressed. Depression can occur in families, which means that the tendency of depression can be derived through genetic or hereditary factors. Research shows that women are two times more depressed than men. No one knows for sure, but the hormonal changes that occur in women in many times in life can be a contributing factor. Elderly people have a greater risk of depression. It can be caused by several other factors, such as living alone, lack of social support, and so forth. You’ve felt it all? Then you get depressed. To cure depression, you can not be healed by yourself but you need the help of others and the right which is Ayahuasca.\n\nAyahuasca is a church community that includes people who are committed and serious about their inner workings, one of which is a deep healing and personal transformation. This is not easy, this is not what you think of fun because it is more indicative of yourself that many people would rather not know about your fears, is not it? So many people bury their fears, but with Ayahuasca, you can tell me anything and Ayahuasca will help you to recover from all your fears with the method is simple but powerful way to apply that yoga and meditation, then held the trip to get closer to nature by to appreciate that the purpose of your life is very precious and you still have a beautiful dream.\n\nTreatment techniques and treatment of depression are highly dependent on the type and cause of depression. There are various types of antidepressant drugs whose use prescribed by a doctor, and some treatments that can be done alone. Life changes such as frequent exercise and reduces the consumption of alcoholic beverages can provide benefits for patients with depression. You can also join the group-therapy group to share stories and give each other support. As a result of the most severe depression is a tendency to commit suicide. Try to always share their stories to the people closest to you about the matter at hand. Patients are also strongly advised to see a doctor, especially if the depression has lasted a long time or worse. The earlier treatment for depression, the chances of recovery as a whole can be obtained.", "pred_label": "__label__1", "pred_score_pos": 0.9679445028305054}
+{"content": "Stuart Butler\n\nYour Booking Engine May Be Losing You Millions In Mobile Revenue\n\nLet’s be honest with ourselves: We hit the mobile tipping point back in 2014. And yet, we still see mobile bookings and mobile revenue lagging far behind. Why is that? The conventional wisdom is that mobile is “earlier in the conversion funnel.” It’s where people are getting inspired or simply researching before switching to the\n\nStayNTouch, Fuel & reveal how to win guests at every step of the traveler journey in upcoming Webinar\n\nMYRTLE BEACH, SC—MARCH 14, 2017—StayNTouch, innovators in mobile technology and Property Management Systems, have teamed up with travel industry and direct booking experts Fuel, and hotel advocacy platform pioneers, for a joint webinar—‘The Evolution of Guest Expectations and How Hotels can Exceed the New Demands.’ The event will help hotels exceed their guests’ evolving\n\nNew Study Answers Question: Does Your Hotel Website Really Matter?\n\nAt Fuel, we like data. It makes our lives easier, often teaches us something new, and it helps up in our continued pursuit to improve the effectiveness of our hotel marketing solutions. For that reason, we constantly survey travellers and put out our findings in the form of travel research studies. This time, we didn’t\n\nWhy 2017 Is the Year of the Hotel Guest\n\nEvery year, the gurus in every industry like to summarize their expectations and assumptions for the upcoming 12 months into a catchy headline. For example, for many people, 2016 was a year focused on the “Battle for direct bookings.” This culminated in the big brands spending millions on book-direct campaigns and the OTAs responding by", "pred_label": "__label__1", "pred_score_pos": 0.864224910736084}
+{"content": "User menu\n\nModel Ecosystem pilot project\n\nThe Model Ecosystem pilot project will test the feasibility of phylogenetically and environmentally characterizing every species in a well-defined New Zealand Model Ecosystem using modern sequencing, informatics, niche modelling and field ecology approaches. The project is a collaboration with the Department of Conservation and iwi and aims to build strong collaborative linkages within the Allan Wilson Centre (AWC) and among international colleagues, and provide a long term research programme structure for collaborative, interdisciplinary student projects at the intersection of ecology, evolutionary biology and genomics.\nSuch an integrated and comprehensive approach would form the basis for robustly testing questions concerning ecological and evolutionary processes important for (a) conservation management, (b) an improved understanding of the drivers of community assembly and ecosystem health and therefore (c) an understanding of the impact on ecological communities of perturbations such as human modification and climate change. A phylogenetic characterization of the makeup of an ecosystem substantially reduces the labour-intensive and expert-dependent process of taxonomic identification, and opens up new avenues of enquiry about the structure and assembly of the species communities that make up ecosystems. As well as (i) providing the opportunity to discover unforeseen interactions among species from across the full taxonomic range and (ii) developing predictive models of community structure and dynamics, a comprehensive statistical sample of an entire ecosystem will also feed in to the development of standardized sampling techniques, including environmental sampling, as well as the organization and analysis of integrated data sets including genetic, geographic and environmental data in a comprehensive National database and analysis software system for ecosystem genomics.\n\nTo understand the goals of the pilot project it might help to understand what the full-scale project might look like and read the overview of the scientific hyphotheses and the alignment with DoC strategic goals.", "pred_label": "__label__1", "pred_score_pos": 0.9909392595291138}
+{"content": "Teodora AvramovicHSwebTeodora A. (aka Tia) is a young actor who is currently enrolled at Wollongong High School of Performing Arts (WHSPA), The Actors Assembly Teens, The Drama Studio and EGTC. She has been performing as an actor, dancer and singer since the age of 3.\n\nTia is a citizen of both Canada and Australia having been born in Canada and now living in Australia. She is multi-lingual; her first language was English. However she also speaks Serbian (Croatian) and is currently learning Italian in which she has a basic understanding of.\n\nAs part of The Actors Assembly Teens, Tia has filmed several scenes for film and television. She is always learning about—and enjoying—the business of acting. By developing her personal attributes and qualities, she continues being the best person that she can be, which is mindfulness.\n\nTia has many other skills that would enable her to perform in many scenes that may need these talents such as basketball, kayaking and swimming.\n\nAs a young aspiring actor Tia has appeared in several performances and tested her acting abilities in several types of acting styles. Appearances include:\n\n  1. WHSPA productions put on one main stage feature every year. Tia was chosen for a lead role in 2016’s “The Ash Girl” and is playing Mother.\n  2. WHSPA displays students best chosen class works in which Tia has consistently performed every year showcasing children’s classics such as “Rapunzel”, “Matilda” and others.\n  3. As improvisation is a valuable skill, Tia has appeared now twice in the Junior Theatre Sports competition in Sydney as part of a team. They have come 4th overall in 2014 and 1st overall in 2015.\n  4. Tia tries to participate in as many programs and shows as possible to showcase her progress, involving herself both within curricular and extracurricular activities such as Improvisational Eisteddfods, Year 5 Drama Show (Balgownie Public School) and I98fm singing talent contests.\n  5. Finally Tia ensures she maintains her skills in performing not only in English but in Serbian as well. Vidovdan Akademija (Annual Serbian Orthodox Churches Language Schools Performances) was conducted in Serbian.\n\nTeodora Avramovic Showreel from Teodora Avramovic on Vimeo.", "pred_label": "__label__1", "pred_score_pos": 0.9792012572288513}
+{"content": "Microchipping pets is crucial in natural disaster-prone areas and for owners whose pets spend any amount of time unsupervised out of doors. For all others (all twelve of you left over) it’s merely ‘strongly recommended.’ That was before this week’s tragedy unfolded in the mountains of North Georgia.\n\nStraight from the headlines comes Ella’s story. She’s the black Lab mix who made it down from the Georgia woods to a grocery store after she and her owner, Meredith Emerson, went for a hike last weekend. Meredith never made it back. She was apparently stalked and killed by a sick f--- (sorry, I have no better description for him).\n\nElla had presumably lost her leash and collar in whatever transpired to separate her from her owner (I shudder to think of it). But she was positively identifiable by her microchip number. It was among the first in a long list of clues that would lead police to find Ella’s mom…albeit too late.\n\nThis is the first case I’ve ever heard of where a microchip was instrumental in a human forensics case like this one. And while it may not have made a difference to the outcome of this crime or its investigation, the implications are quite clear:\n\nMicrochips get pets home. They might even help you get home, too.\n\nIt was too late for Meredith. But who knows? Maybe next time, that lightning-strike-twist-of-fate that leads you into dark places might find you relying on your pet’s ID as the only beacon out. It’s worth thinking about.\n\n(Thanks to Tom Dock of VNN for a heads up on this one.)", "pred_label": "__label__1", "pred_score_pos": 0.5864014625549316}
+{"content": "Life in the Interzone in Old Shanghai\n\nby William Gibson\n\n8 June 2017\n\nThe Sing-song Girls of Shanghai and Flowers of Shanghai capture a William S. Borroughs-like Interzone in Old Shanghai.\nMichelle Reis as Emerald in Flowers of Shanghai (1998) \ncover art\n\nThe Sing-song Girls of Shanghai\n\nHan Bang Qing\n\n(Columbia University Press)\nrevised: Nov 2007\n\ncover art\n\nFlowers of Shanghai\n\nDirector: Hou Hsiao Hsien\n\n(Fox Lorber)\n\nA glimpse of something ineffable.\n\nWilliam S. Burroughs’ concept of an Interzone, based on his experiences in the International Zone in Tangiers at mid-century and explored in his 1959 novel Naked Lunch, remains starkly powerful. In a nutshell, as the name suggests, Interzone is a liminal space between other territories. Since Interzone is neither one place nor another, the normal rules of civilization are either suspended or perverted; the value systems that apply to the places on either side of the zone are subverted by the people of the zone to their own needs. Amidst inherent dangers, the Interzone offers forbidden knowledge alongside immoral delights. It’s a shadowy place where flourishing vice nourishes blossoms of dark artistic endeavor, a place where erotic crimes stem from exotic visions and travelers are warned that once they enter they will be forever altered.\n\nInterzones ebb and flow. The International Zone in Tangiers officially began in 1924 and came to a swift end in 1956, but Burroughs’ concept can also be found in unexpected places. While researching the history of late Qing dynasty for my recent translation, with Paul Bruthiaux, of Alfred Raquez’s 1899 travel narrative through China, In the Land of Pagodas, I read many descriptions of the international concessions in Shanghai. While the entire city was renowned for crime and vice, there was a sense that it was a cosmopolitan place and not an Interzone as Burroughs conceived of it. It was not until I found a description of Shanghai from a Chinese perspective that I found that Interzone. It existed in the alleys of the international settlement, in a neighborhood of so-called sing-song houses where high-classed courtesans entertained Chinese men grown wealthy from trading with the foreigners.\n\nThe description was written by a member of this brotherhood and if not for his depiction of the elaborate subaltern culture of the sing-song houses, this brief Interzone may have been utterly forgotten within a few generations. Translated into English as The Sing-song Girls of Shanghai (an older version is more poetic: Biographies of Flowers by the Seashore), Han Bang Qing’s 1892 fictional trace of this brief subculture vividly transports readers into a strange, beautiful, and occasionally cruel world that, like the International Zone in Tangiers, is now no more than a moment in history.\n\nModern Shanghai is a glitzy showcase city where Chinese ingenuity and prosperity are displayed in a mesmerizing skyline that has become iconic. The razzle-dazzle beside the Huangpu River also helps to erase Shanghai’s past. The city came into being because of the opium trade. Specifically, it was the British who, at the conclusion of the First Opium War in 1842, forced the Chinese to sign a treaty opening a handful of port cities to foreigner residences and Shanghai, due largely to superior geography and weather, became the most prosperous of these opium ports. The French followed suit and created a settlement in 1849, the famed French Concession, then in 1863, the Shanghai International Settlement was formed by the merger of the British and American zones.\n\nThe often fractious history of the mercantile relationship between Chinese traders and the foreigners makes for a broad, interesting study. For understanding the Interzone in question, it’s important to know that by the 1880s there arose a class of Chinese who, while not from the traditional elite, had become notably wealthy, and they expected elaborate entertainment to match this affluence. The houses of the sing-song girls fulfilled this expectation.\n\nSing-Song Girls\n\nThe sing-song girls were not prostitutes so much as courtesans. While somewhat similar to Japanese geishas, sing-song girls occupy a unique social space, in that they also fulfilled the role of mistresses.\n\nWhile sexual intimacy could occur between a girl and a client, it could take a long time to establish such a relationship, and often once it was established, it would be monogamous within the sing-song world. So while the man may be married and might sleep with his wife, he would not sleep around with other sing-song girls. He would be expected to pay for the woman’s house, food, and general upkeep, however, she would also be expected to go on “party calls” with other men in which she would keep him company (“escort” in modern parlance), but there was no expectation of sexual favors. If the woman were to break this code of conduct by having an affair with another client, or even just a lover, the man would be within his bounds to feel cheated and respond accordingly by cutting her off. The English word for these women in the translation under review is “maestro”, and that neatly captures the social role they were expected to play.\n\nA large part of the novel is given to describing the entertainment at the parties held in the sing-song houses. Food, both Chinese and Western, would be served and much rice wine would be drunk. A key component was playing games in which the loser would be forced to drink and one of the functions of the sing-song girls was to drink the penalty for their client. The game most often played was shiwu shiwu, or in the novel’s translation, the “finger game”, and I am happy to attest from personal experience that it is still played as a bar game in Singapore where it is called “5-10-15”. Here is Alfred Raquez’s description of it from In the Land of Pagodas\n\nBoth players launch their right hand forward simultaneously while extending the number of fingers of their choice at the same time as they loudly call out a number. The player who called the exact number of fingers extended by both partners is the winner. The loser must empty the glass that stands before him. As a result, the champagne glasses are drained at marvelous speed.\n\nIn addition to the alcohol, much opium is consumed at the sing-song parties and one amazes that any of these prosperous men can wake up in time to make it to their office the next day.\n\nHan Bang Qing also describes in detail the staff of the sing-song houses, from the madams to the men who carried the palanquins. Each person has a very specific role and the relationships between these people, while not the focus of Han’s narrative, make for some of the most interesting points in the novel.\n\nAll of this sounds rather mundane but the novel is written in such a way that the reader often feels a peculiar sense of voyeurism mingled with alienation, as though we were peering into the parties and private lives of these people through a spyglass. The esoteric subject alone would foster this distancing effect, but the novel’s construction also contributes to it.\n\nOriginally published serially in a Shanghai literary magazine founded by the author, the novel was written in Wu dialect, an ancient language that is the foundation for the modern Shanghainese regional language, which, in case you’re keeping count, is one of the 297 languages currently used in the People’s Republic. Wu was the dialect used by the sing-song girls and their clients, but unfortunately for most modern Chinese readers trained in Mandarin the original novel is as unreadable as if it were written in Polish.\n\nThis sad state of affairs was remedied by the highly esteemed author Eileen Chang, who wrote a Mandarin translation in the ‘80s; her novella Lust, Caution was made into a film directed by Ang Lee in 2007. She also started work on an English language version of the novel, but that project was left incomplete at her death (this was not, as some reviewers have misunderstood, a translation from the Mandarin; it was instead a transition directly from the original Wu).\n\nIn 2001, Columbia University Press asked the accomplished translator Eva Hung to take on the task of revising Chang’s manuscript for publication, which after some hesitation she agreed to do. In her afterward, she claims that 60 percent of the final product is her own work. As befits a university press publication, there is substantial critical apparatus, including an introduction, an afterword, a bibliography, and a long essay written by Hung titled “The World of the Shanghai Courtesans”, which is invaluable as a guide to this strange world (it’s better to read it before starting the novel).\n\nNonetheless, there are oddities that further the sense of alienation the book creates.\n\nHan rarely describes the appearance of individuals, which means that their names became the main signifier of each character. There’s a difficulty for the reader to this technique, however. If you have a Chinese friend named Yu Shuang, you probably call her that name and not “Double Jade”, which is the literal translation. Yet the names in this book are translated literally and the names are often incredibly similar so that it becomes difficult to keep track of each one. To wit, there are Pearl Phoenix, Gold Phoenix, and Green Phoenix, as well as Twin Jade, Twin Pearl, and Twin Jewel, plus Water Blossom and River Blossom. The list goes on. With over 140 characters, the effect on the reader of these similar names can become dizzying.\n\nThe parallel naming coupled with Han’s programmatic writing style often makes the book read like a catalog of minute events. Here is a typical passage:\n\nTiger eagerly assisted in the entertainment of Lai. Second Treasure was open and polite in her manners. Unfortunately, Lai had taken a fancy to her and kept staring at her until she felt annoyed. She looked down and played with her handkerchief. He reached out surreptitiously, took hold of a corner of the handkerchief, and snatched it away. The handkerchief was torn, and with it two of Second Treasure’s long fingernails measuring over two inches. Shock, pain, and anger flooded over her; she would have given him a piece of her mind, but for the sake of business, she controlled herself. With her handkerchief in his hand, Lai gloated.\n\nSuch composition does not fit well with the sensibilities of modern creative writing schools which extol a “show don’t tell” approach to fiction that prizes purple passages coupled with descriptions of psychological states and emotive responses (viz, Dave Eggers). Han’s “tell don’t show” approach has its virtues in that the actions of characters reveal their personalities without the author having to create psychological profiles for readers. Han’s approach is closer to stage drama than fiction and owes more to performance than to the printed page. \n\nThere’s also the very sharp sense that, despite being set in the international settlement of Shanghai, this is a Chinese story. Very few foreigners appear and those that do are ciphers on the edges of the narrative. A representative example: “They saw that it was not a fire but a foreign policeman standing bolt upright on the top of the pitched roof of the stored house opposite. He was in a black uniform and had steel sword in his hand that glittered in the electric light.”\n\nBut there are also lines of dialogue that are both intimate and realistic while maintaining a universal component. For example, two characters discuss the dangers of smoking opium for fun: ‘It’s best not to touch it.’ ‘Don’t worry. How can I work if I’m addicted?’ she replied.” There is a sense of immediacy here, like eavesdropping, that is satisfying and resonates with a modern audience.\n\nThis sense of alienation mingled with voyeurism is beautifully captured in a hypnotic version of the story that was brought to the big screen in 1998.\n\nBiographies of Flowers on the Silver Screen\n\nLike most brick-thick novels about 19th century manners and mores, The Sing-Song Girls of Shanghai has the latent potential in its DNA (so to speak) to become a multi-part televised costume drama. These sort of men-in-funny-hats, women-in-flowing-gowns style historical series are churned out in China and Korea at an industrial rate and one would suspect that Han’s novel would have received the same plodding treatment.\n\nFortunately, instead, director Hou Hsiao Hsien took on an adaption project titled Flowers of Shanghai. The result is a vivid interpretation of the source material as well as unique telling of the narrative that throws light on some of the murkier aspects of the text.\n\nFirst, Hou smartly parred back the characters as well as the locations, with fewer than ten characters and a mere four sing-song houses instead of the nearly 20 presented in the novel. This compression, coupled with Hou’s brilliant directing, enhances the story. By utilizing long takes, a neutral camera position and very limited movement, the film perfectly captures a sense of voyeurism, as though the viewer were seated in the room with the characters. Each scene is filmed in one take (or should I say each take is filmed as one scene?), with the opening seven-minute scene rightfully earning kudos from connoisseurs of such stuff.\n\nThroughout the movie, there are no close-ups, no zooms. If the camera moves at all, it’s in a very limited space and never into the action of the scene. Detractors will complain that the result is stagey and dull if not pretentious. But it makes perfect sense in capturing the novel, which manages to be both sprawling and claustrophobic. What matters here are the sing-song girls, their clients, and the rooms in which they interact, eat, drink, gamble, and get high.\n\nThe tightness of the narrative is contrasted by the sumptuous visuals. Every item on screen is visually arresting and as the camera lingers without moving on characters that often remain quite still, there’s plenty of time to take in the detail of the set design and costumes. Authentically, the rooms were designed to become interesting for boozers and opium smokers and the décor can be described as toy-box psychedelic. Except for the walls, which remain as blank as a mid-town art gallery, daedal patterns and colors cover nearly every surface, even the clothing. The women have elaborate hairdos with ornate hair pieces that shimmer like fishing lures above perfectly arranged faces. Even the rough and tumble male characters become shimmering spirits experienced in a reverie. All the explosive computer generated psychedelic scenes of 2016’s Doctor Strange becomes artless pablum beside the intricacy on screen here. Flowers of Shanghai is not so much a far-out trip as a psychedelic implosion. It’s opium, not LSD.\n\nThe restrained, refined acting of the main characters adds depth to the fine cinematography. Tony Leung, familiar as the lead in Wong Kar Wai’s In the Mood for Love (2000) and the villain in 2007’s Lust, Caution (mentioned above), is impeccable. He can do more with an eyebrow lift than most actors can with their entire bodies. In this film, he is given the task of acting a man who is naturally reserved and taciturn, then depicting how these qualities alter under the intoxicated states of rice wine and opium. His work is so realistic it’s hard not to believe that he didn’t get drunk and high on set. When he finally loses his temper, it’s like someone took the lid off a pressure cooker. Then just as quickly that lid is returned and we can feel the emotive energy welling inside him.\n\nMichelle Reis also deserves special mention as an-all-business sing-song girl named Emerald who winds up negotiating the cost of her own freedom. Even though her lover is willing to pay the initial asking price, out of sheer spite to the madam, she connives to reduce the price to the lowest possible amount, even if it means risking her freedom.\n\nThe actors speak their lines in Shanghainese, which is similar to the Wu dialect used for the original novel, although some of them speak in Cantonese as well. While this aspect of the film will be lost on most viewers in the West who rely on the subtitles (like myself), for Chinese viewers who are not familiar with Shanghainese, the use of the dialect accentuates the sense of alienation of the subject matter while maintaining the immediacy of the film experience. Nonetheless, some lines from the novel make it straight into the film, including the dialogue about the addictiveness of opium noted above, which makes a strong thematic connection between the two versions of this narrative.\n\nThe film illuminates the novel in a way that no amount of scholarly accretion would be able to. Whereas the words on the page can sometimes appear as little more than lists of strange names and actions, the film allows us to see how these people could have dressed and moved and touched one another. Put another way, since the novel is old and the world described utterly alien, even in modern Shanghai, our imaginations may fail us when picturing what Han Bang Qing describes. The film version gives us the visual experience that is critically needed to bring the book completely to life.\n\nWork or Leisure?\n\nIt’s ironic that a novel dedicated to describing a world of male leisure requires both scholarly essays and feature length films to fully appreciate. If we have to do homework prior to engaging with a novel, doesn’t the novel itself become homework? There’s a balance required in our hectic lives between what will pass as study and what we will accept as recreation. What will one gain from the all the effort required to read, understand, and imaginatively enter the world captured by Han Bang Qing?\nLike all journeys into an Interzone, merely a glimpse of something ineffable.\n\n\n//Mixed media\n\n'Caltiki': The Creeping Blob!\n\n// Short Ends and Leader\n\n\nREAD the article", "pred_label": "__label__1", "pred_score_pos": 0.532355785369873}
+{"content": "RHoK Australia runs weekend hackathons in summer and winter every year. These happen simultaneously in five different locations across Australia. Over the course of 48 hours, teams assemble around our changemakers to work fast and furious, have fun, and create real social impact. It's an opportunity to work in a collaborative environment to help create innovative technology solutions to social problems. \n\n\n\nAt RHoK Australia we finish what we start. We want to come up with solutions that are actually used by the wider community. So, during the year we run what are known as RHoLLs, where our changemakers get together with our hackers to continue working on individual projects. This is where the real nuts and bolts happen. We pride ourselves on finishing what we start, and this is something that sets us apart from other hackathons.", "pred_label": "__label__1", "pred_score_pos": 0.9991732239723206}
+{"content": "Meryl Streep Net Worth is$45 Million\nVN:F [1.9.22_1171]\ndeserves the money?\nRating: 4.6/5 (137 votes cast)\nVN:F [1.9.22_1171]\nWould you date ?\nRating: 4.1/5 (86 votes cast)\nProfession: Actor, Film actress\n\nDate of Birth: Jun 22, 1949\n\nNicknames: Mary Louise Streep, Streep, Meryl\n\nHeight: 1.68 m\n\nEthnicity: Dutch-American\n\nCountry: United States of America\n\nMeryl Streep is a New Jersey-born actress with an estimated net worth of $45 million dollars. An award-winning performer with numerous credits on stage, on television, and on film, Meryl Streep has been nominated for the Oscar sixteen times and won twice. She has also received seven Golden Globe Awards and two Emmy Awards, among others. She has also been nominated for five Grammy Awards and a Tony Award. She was elected to the American Academy of Arts and Letters in 2010.\nStreep made her professional stage debut in 1971's The Playboy of Seville, before her screen debut in the television movie The Deadliest Season in 1977. In that same year, she made her film debut with Julia. Both critical and commercial success came quickly with roles in The Deer Hunter (1978) and Kramer vs. Kramer (1979), the former giving Streep her first Oscar nomination and the latter her first win. She later won the Academy Award for Best Actress for her performances in Sophie's Choice (1982) and The Iron Lady (2011).\nStreep has received 17 Academy Award nominations, winning three, and 26 Golden Globe nominations, winning eight, more nominations than any other actor in the history of either award. Her work has also earned her two Emmy Awards, two Screen Actors Guild Awards, a Cannes Film Festival award, five New York Film Critics Circle Awards, two BAFTA awards, an Australian Film Institute Award, five Grammy Award nominations, and a Tony Award nomination, amongst others. She was awarded the AFI Life Achievement Award in 2004 and the Kennedy Center Honor in 2009 for her contribution to American culture through performing arts, the youngest actress in each award's history.\nStreep was born Mary Louise Streep in Summit, New Jersey. Her mother, Mary Wolf (n'ee Wilkinson; 1915-2001), was a commercial artist and former art editor, and her father, Harry William Streep, Jr. (1910-2003), was a pharmaceutical executive. She has two brothers, Dana David and Harry William III. Her patrilineal ancestry originates in Loffenau, Germany, from where her second great-grandfather, Gottfried Streeb, emigrated to the United States, and where one of her ancestors served as mayor. Another line of her father's family was from Giswil in the canton of Obwalden, a small town in Switzerland.\n\nMeryl Streep Net Worth, 4.6 out of 5 based on 137 ratings\n\nMeryl Streep Latest News\n\nMeryl Streep’s Best Movie Lines\n\nOver her storied career, Meryl Streep has racked up dozens of film credits going back to the ’70s, scored a record-breaking 20 Oscar nominations (along with three wins), and, of course, delivered golden line after golden line. With the actress turning 68 ...\nPosted: June 22, 2017, 3:09 am\n\nShirtless Pierce Brosnan, 64, looks like the ultimate silver fox as he enjoys relaxed stroll on Hawaiian beach\n\nUniversal Pictures confirmed last month that the sequel will see the return of the film's original cast. The star-studded line-up will include Meryl Streep, Amanda Seyfried, Pierce Brosnan, Colin Firth and Stellan Skarsgard.\nPosted: June 28, 2017, 3:32 am\n\nHappy Birthday, Meryl Streep! Who Will She Play in the Mary Poppins Sequel?\n\nMeryl Streep showed off her serious singing skills in 2014’s Into the Woods, and she’ll be back to sing once more in the upcoming Mary Poppins sequel, Mary Poppins Returns. Streep, who turns 68 on on June 22, will play Topsy, an eccentric cousin of ...\nPosted: June 21, 2017, 1:00 am\n\nReview | ‘Lady Day At Emerson’s Bar & Grill’ at Wyndham’s Theatre, London\n\nDubbing Attitude’s latest Big Gay Following icon Audra McDonald as “the Meryl Streep of musical theatre” wasn’t an exaggeration. The six-time Tony award winner gets so far under the skin of Billie Holiday in Lady Day At Emerson’s Bar & Grill you ...\nPosted: June 28, 2017, 3:06 am\n\nMeryl Streep Deserves Yet Another Award for All Her Eye-Catching Eyewear Through the Years\n\nNo one—except perhaps Donald Trump—would argue that Meryl Streep is lacking in talent and accomplishments. Yet even as the actor with the most Academy Award nominations, Streep has managed to elude one (admittedly sillier if not less important ...\nPosted: June 25, 2017, 2:55 pm\nRelated Topics:\nActors, Actors Income, Actors Net Worth, Celebrities, Celebrities Income, Celebrities Net Worth, How Much Is Mary Louise Streep Income, How Much Is Mary Louise Streep Net Worth, How Much Is Mary Louise Streep Salary, How Much Is Meryl Income, How Much Is Meryl Net Worth, How Much Is Meryl Salary, How Much Is Meryl Streep Income, How Much Is Meryl Streep Net Worth, How Much Is Meryl Streep Salary, How Much Is Richest Actors Income, How Much Is Richest Actors Net Worth, How Much Is Richest Actors Salary, How Much Is Richest Celebrities Income, How Much Is Richest Celebrities Net Worth, How Much Is Richest Celebrities Salary, How Much Is Streep Income, How Much Is Streep Net Worth, How Much Is Streep Salary, How Much Mary Louise Streep Worth, How Much Meryl Streep Worth, How Much Meryl Worth, How Much Richest Actors Worth, How Much Richest Celebrities Worth, How Much Streep Worth, Mary Louise Streep, Mary Louise Streep Age, Mary Louise Streep Background, Mary Louise Streep Bio, Mary Louise Streep Country, Mary Louise Streep Date Of Birth, Mary Louise Streep Ethnicity, Mary Louise Streep Height, Mary Louise Streep History, Mary Louise Streep Home Town, Mary Louise Streep Images, Mary Louise Streep Income, Mary Louise Streep Net Worth, Mary Louise Streep News, Mary Louise Streep Partner, Mary Louise Streep Place Of Birth, Mary Louise Streep Profession, Mary Louise Streep Salary, Mary Louise Streep Story, Mary Louise Streep Talent, Mary Louise Streep Videos, Mary Louise Streep Weight, Meryl, Meryl Age, Meryl Background, Meryl Bio, Meryl Country, Meryl Date Of Birth, Meryl Ethnicity, Meryl Height, Meryl History, Meryl Home Town, Meryl Images, Meryl Income, Meryl Net Worth, Meryl News, Meryl Partner, Meryl Place Of Birth, Meryl Profession, Meryl Salary, Meryl Story, Meryl Streep, Meryl Streep Age, Meryl Streep Awards, Meryl Streep Background, Meryl Streep Bio, Meryl Streep Biography, Meryl Streep Children, Meryl Streep Country, Meryl Streep Date Of Birth, Meryl Streep Daughter, Meryl Streep Daughters, Meryl Streep Ethnicity, Meryl Streep Height, Meryl Streep History, Meryl Streep Home Town, Meryl Streep Hope Springs, Meryl Streep Images, Meryl Streep Imdb, Meryl Streep Income, Meryl Streep Iron Lady, Meryl Streep Money, Meryl Streep Movie List, Meryl Streep Movies, Meryl Streep Net Worth, Meryl Streep News, Meryl Streep Oscar Nominations, Meryl Streep Oscars, Meryl Streep Partner, Meryl Streep Place Of Birth, Meryl Streep Plastic Surgery, Meryl Streep Profession, Meryl Streep Quotes, Meryl Streep Recent Movies, Meryl Streep Salary, Meryl Streep Story, Meryl Streep Talent, Meryl Streep Tommy Lee Jones, Meryl Streep Twitter, Meryl Streep Videos, Meryl Streep Weight, Meryl Talent, Meryl Videos, Meryl Weight, Richest Actors, Richest Actors Age, Richest Actors Background, Richest Actors Bio, Richest Actors Country, Richest Actors Date Of Birth, Richest Actors Ethnicity, Richest Actors Height, Richest Actors History, Richest Actors Home Town, Richest Actors Images, Richest Actors Income, Richest Actors Net Worth, Richest Actors News, Richest Actors Partner, Richest Actors Place Of Birth, Richest Actors Profession, Richest Actors Salary, Richest Actors Story, Richest Actors Talent, Richest Actors Videos, Richest Actors Weight, Richest Celebrities Age, Richest Celebrities Background, Richest Celebrities Bio, Richest Celebrities Country, Richest Celebrities Date Of Birth, Richest Celebrities Ethnicity, Richest Celebrities Height, Richest Celebrities History, Richest Celebrities Home Town, Richest Celebrities Images, Richest Celebrities Income, Richest Celebrities Net Worth, Richest Celebrities News, Richest Celebrities Partner, Richest Celebrities Place Of Birth, Richest Celebrities Profession, Richest Celebrities Salary, Richest Celebrities Story, Richest Celebrities Talent, Richest Celebrities Videos, Richest Celebrities Weight, Streep, Streep Age, Streep Background, Streep Bio, Streep Country, Streep Date Of Birth, Streep Ethnicity, Streep Height, Streep History, Streep Home Town, Streep Images, Streep Income, Streep Net Worth, Streep News, Streep Partner, Streep Place Of Birth, Streep Profession, Streep Salary, Streep Story, Streep Talent, Streep Videos, Streep Weight, Who Is Mary Louise Streep, Who Is Meryl, Who Is Meryl Streep, Who Is Richest Actors, Who Is Richest Celebrities, Who Is Streep,", "pred_label": "__label__1", "pred_score_pos": 0.9913775324821472}
+{"content": "Moonwalk for Windows\n\nMoonwalk™ for Windows automates and intelligently manages the migration of unstructured data from Windows Servers to additional tiers within the storage infrastructure. Windows-captive files can be released for storage on Linux, NFS, CIFS, Object Stores and Cloud Services - without affecting users and applications.\n\nNTFS data can be optimized so that older or less-used files are automatically and transparently migrated to cheaper storage. Moonwalk™ moves the file content and ensures that the original file remains intact, preserving all file attributes and security information.  Empowering Windows System and Storage Administrators to define, allocate and optimize storage using policies reduces the total cost of ownership while ensuring that data remains safe and immediately accessible.", "pred_label": "__label__1", "pred_score_pos": 0.950170636177063}
+{"content": "The Chaos Theory\n\nIn the past week alone, Trump has publicly pitted two military contractors against one another, sowed confusion about the scope of his proposed ban on foreign Muslims and needled China following its seizure of a U.S. underwater drone. But nothing...\n\n\nLife is a series of moments that eventually you have to let go of.", "pred_label": "__label__1", "pred_score_pos": 0.9776671528816223}
+{"content": "Sunday, December 23, 2012\n\nNancy Gonlin, and David Webster\n\nNancy Gonlin, and David Webster uses a technique called obsidian hydration. The technique allowed them to map the spread and growth of settlements in the Copán Valley and estimate their populations. Between 400 and 450 AD, the population was estimated at around six-hundred people. This rose to a peak of twenty-eight thousand between 750 and 800 AD - larger than London or Paris at the time. HP Compaq 408545-741 Battery\n\nPopulation then began steady decline. By 900 AD, the population had fallen to fifteen thousand, and by 1200 AD the population was again less than 1000 in Copán.\n\nSome 88 different theories or variations of theories attempting to explain the Classic Maya Collapse have been identified.[5] HP Compaq 408545-761 Battery\n\n From climate change to deforestation to lack of action by Mayan kings, there is no universally accepted collapse theory, although drought is gaining momentum as the leading explanation.[6]\n\nThe archaeological evidence of the Toltec intrusion into Yucatán in Seibal, Peten suggests to some the theory of foreign invasion. HP Compaq 409357-001 Battery\n\nThe latest hypothesis states that the southern lowlands were invaded by a non-Maya group whose homelands were probably in the gulf coast lowlands. This invasion began in 9th century and set off, within 100 years, a group of events that destroyed the Classic Maya. It is believed that this invasion was somehow influenced by the Toltec people of central Mexico. HP Compaq 409357-002 Battery\n\nHowever, most Mayanists do not believe that foreign invasion was the main cause of the Classic Maya Collapse; they postulate that no military defeat can explain or be the cause of the protracted and complex Classic Collapse process. Teotihuacan influence across the Maya region may have involved some form of military invasion, HP Compaq 412779-001 Battery\n\nhowever it is generally noted that significant Teotihuacan-Maya interactions date from at least the Early Classic period, well before the episodes of Late Classic collapse.[7]\n\nDr Michel Peissel believes that the well documented conquest of Yucatán in the 9th century by the Chichen Itza polity, HP Compaq 415306-001 Battery\n\nled to the rerouting along coastal sea routes of most of the (cacao) trade that used to transit through (and enrich) the major inland cities, which were ruined overnight, as were those of the silk road when Portuguese traders began to transfer silk by ship to Europe from China and Japan. HP Compaq 418867-001 Battery\n\nPeissel's theory, validated by several scholars, explains why the collapse was not general and also why at the time of the collapse of lowland cities other towns flourished - most of them along the new routes opened up by the Chichen Itza maritime traders. To prove the feasibility of this transfer from overland trade routes to the sea, HP Compaq 418871-001 Battery\n\nDr Peissel with three Mexican archeologists and ten companions travelled 650 kilometers in 1988 on a sea-going Maya dugout from Chunyache in Quintana Roo (Mexico) to the upper reaches of the Mojo River in Belize.[8]\n\nArchaeological evidence indicates that Maya building and expansion projects were at their peak from c. HP Compaq 441675-001 Battery\n\n730 to 790 (specifically during the k'atun), with constant enlargement and building and without any machines or beneficial tools to assist them. During this same time period, signs foreshadowing the collapse of Maya civilizations were beginning to appear. The majority of the burden was placed on peasant workers in the cities, like Tikal and Copan, with a seemingly endless construction, making ball courts and other buildings bigger. HP Compaq 443884-001 Battery\n\nOne theory, supported by J. Eric S. Thompson, attributes the collapse of the classic Maya to a hypothesized revolution among these lower Maya social classes. As life became more burdensome, work began to \"undermine the religious development and collective enterprise of ordinary people\", according to this line of thinking. HP Compaq 443885-001 Battery\n\nThe increased burden of work may have caused people to abandon their values and revolt against the elite of society, specifically the priest-rulers, since the Maya were believed to be theocratic and thus ruled by the priests. This might help explain the abrupt collapse of elite functions, as well as unfinished buildings and ceremonial centers. HP Compaq 446398-001 Battery\n\nSince the collapse of various civilizations occurred at various times, it is believed that the revolts of individual groups were a part of a unplanned and impulsive series. In the civilization of Piedras Negras, for example, there seemed to be some sort of violence during this time period that was displayed through various palace buildings being set on fire and a throne being destroyed. HP Compaq 446399-001 Battery\n\nWhile this seems to be a revolt between the peasants and the priests, the model being called the \"priest-peasant\" model, it was later discovered that kings ruled during the Pre Classic and Classic period within the Maya social classes rather than priests.[9]\n\nEven though these theories seemed to be a good explanation of the sudden collapse of the Maya civilizations, it still contains problems. HP Compaq 451085-121 Battery\n\nFirst of all, Thompson's theory does not answer the question of where all the inhabitants went. David Webster believed that the population should have increased, instead of decreasing because of the lack of elite power. Second, it is not understood why the governmental institutions were not remade following the revolts, which actually happened under similar circumstances in places like China. HP Compaq 451085-141 Battery\n\nThird, after a study was done by Elliot Abrams, he came to the conclusion that buildings, specifically in Copan, did not actually need the extensive amount of time and workers to complete the constructions. However, when Thompson had developed this theory, it was during a time period in which the archaeological evidence showed that there were fewer Maya people then as are now HP Compaq 451085-661 Battery\n\nknown.[10] Revolutions, peasant revolts, and social turmoil change things, and often are followed by foreign wars, but they run their course. There are no documented revolutions that caused wholesale abandonment of entire regions.It has been hypothesized that the decline of the Maya is related to the collapse of their intricate trade systems, especially those connected to the central Mexican city of Teotihuacán. HP Compaq 451086-001 Battery\n\nPreceding improved knowledge of the chronology of Mesoamerica, Teotihuacan was believed to have fallen during AD 700–750, forcing the \"restructuring of economic relations throughout highland Mesoamerica and the Gulf Coast\".[11] This remaking of relationships between civilizations would have then given the collapse of the Classic Maya a slightly later date. HP Compaq 451086-121 Battery\n\nHowever, after knowing more about the events and the time periods that they occurred, it is now believed that the strongest Teotihuacan influence was during the 4th and 5th centuries. In addition, the civilization of Teotihuacan started to lose its power, and maybe even abandoned the city, during AD 600–650. HP Compaq 451086-161 Battery\n\nThis differs greatly from the previous belief that Teotihuacano power decreased during AD 700–750.[12] But since the new decline date of AD 600–650 has been accepted, the Maya civilizations are now thought to have lived on, and also prospered “for another century and more”[13] than what was previously believed. Rather than the decline of Teotihuacan directly preceding the collapse of the Maya, their decline is now seen as contributing “to the 6th century ‘hiatus’”. HP Compaq 451086-621 Battery\n\nThe disease theory is also a contender as a factor in the Classic Maya Collapse. Widespread disease could explain some rapid depopulation, both directly through the spread of infection itself and indirectly as an inhibition to recovery over the long run. According to Dunn (1968) and Shimkin (1973), infectious diseases spread by parasites are common in tropical rainforest regions, such as the Maya lowlands. HP Compaq 451086-661 Battery\n\nShimkin specifically suggests that the Maya may have encountered endemic infections related to American trypanosomiasis, Ascaris, and some enteropathogens that cause acute diarrheal illness. Furthermore, some experts believe that, through development of their civilization (that is, development of agriculture and settlements), HP Compaq 451568-001 Battery\n\nthe Maya could have created a \"disturbed environment,\" in which parasitic and pathogen-carrying insects often thrive.[15] Among the pathogens listed above, it is thought that those that cause the acute diarrheal illnesses would have been the most devastating to the Maya population. HP Compaq 456864-001 Battery\n\nThis is because such illness would have struck a victim at an early age, thereby hampering nutritional health and the natural growth and development of a child. This would have made them more susceptible to other diseases later in life. Such ideas as this could explain the role of disease as at least a possible partial reason for the Classic Maya Collapse. HP Compaq 456865-001 Battery\n\nMega-droughts hit the Yucatán Peninsula and Petén Basin areas with particular ferocity, for several reasons:\n\n  1. Thin tropical soils, which decline in fertility and become unworkable when deprived of forest cover;[17]\n\nRegular seasonal drought, drying up M+D surface water;[18] HP Compaq 458640-542 Battery\n\nThe colonial Spanish officials accurately documented cycles of drought, famine, disease, and war, providing a reliable historical record of the basic drought pattern in the Maya region.[19]\n\nClimatic factors were first implicated in the Collapse as early as 1931 by Mayanists Thomas Gann and J.E.S. Thompson.[20] HP Compaq 464119-142 Battery\n\nIn The Great Maya Droughts, Richardson Gill gathers and analyzes an array of climatic, historical, hydrologic, tree ring, volcanic, geologic, lake bed, and archeological research, and demonstrates that a prolonged series of droughts most likely caused the Classic Maya Collapse.[21] The drought theory provides a comprehensive explanation, HP Compaq 464119-143 Battery\n\nbecause non-environmental and cultural factors (excessive warfare, foreign invasion, peasant revolt, less trade, etc.) can all be explained by the effects of prolonged drought on Classic Maya civilization.[22]\n\nClimatic changes are, with increasing frequency, found to be major drivers in the rise and fall of civilizations all over the world.[23] HP Compaq 464119-162 Battery\n\nProfessors Harvey Weiss of Yale University and Raymond S. Bradley of the University of Massachusetts have written: \"Many lines of evidence now point to climate forcing as the primary agent in repeated social collapse.\"[24] In a separate publication, Weiss illustrates an emerging understanding of scientists: HP Compaq 464119-361 Battery\n\n\"Within the past five years new tools and new data for archaeologists, climatologists, and historians have brought us to the edge of a new era in the study of global and hemispheric climate change and its cultural impacts. The climate of the Holocene, previously assumed static, now displays a surprising dynamism, which has affected the agricultural bases of pre-industrial societies. HP Compaq 464119-362 Battery\n\nThe list of Holocene climate alterations and their socio-economic effects has rapidly become too complex for brief summary.\"\n\n The drought theory holds that rapid climate change in the form of severe drought brought about the Classic Maya collapse. According to the particular version put forward by Gill in The Great Maya Droughts, HP Compaq 464119-363 Battery\n\n\"[Studies of] Yucatecan lake sediment cores ... provide unambiguous evidence for a severe 200-year drought from AD 800 to 1000 ... the most severe in the last 7,000 years ... precisely at the time of the Maya Collapse.\"\n\nClimatic modeling, tree ring data, and historical climate data show that cold weather in the Northern Hemisphere is associated with drought in Mesoamerica. HP Compaq 482962-001 Battery\n\nNorthern Europe suffered extremely low temperatures around the same time as the Maya droughts. The same connection between drought in the Maya areas and extreme cold in northern Europe was found again at the beginning of the 20th century. Volcanic activity, within and outside Mesoamerica, is also correlated with colder weather and resulting drought, as the effects of the Tambora volcano eruption in 1815 indicate.[28] HP Compaq 484786-001 Battery\n\nMesoamerican civilization provides a remarkable exception: civilization prospering in the tropical swampland. The Maya are often conceived as having lived in a rainforest, but technically, they lived in a seasonal desert without access to stable sources of drinking water.[29] The exceptional accomplishments of the Maya are all the more remarkable because of their engineered response to the fundamental environmental difficulty of relying upon rainwater rather than permanent sources of water. HP Compaq 484787-001 Battery\n\n “The Maya succeeded in creating a civilization in a seasonal desert by creating a system of water storage and management which was totally dependent on consistent rainfall.”[30] The constant need for water kept the Maya on the edge of survival. “Given this precarious balance of wet and dry conditions, even a slight shift in the distribution of annual precipitation can have serious consequences.”[31] HP Compaq 490306-001 Battery\n\nNo comments:\n\nPost a Comment", "pred_label": "__label__1", "pred_score_pos": 0.7071614861488342}
+{"content": "F&ES 971b\n\nLand Use Clinic\n\nCredits: 3\nSpring 2018: Time and location TBA\n\nThis clinic explores a variety of specific community land use topics of current concern and relevance to the field, to the curriculum, and to society. Potential project topics include renewable energy, natural resources, rural-based land uses, agriculture, and sustainable urban planning. Students work with the instructor to develop papers, research memorandums, presentations, and publications on a selected topic. The instructor or guest speakers lecture on specific topics related to student projects. Additionally, students attend field trips relevant to the curriculum and may participate in project meetings with clients. Students select from a project list or meet with the instructor to design a relevant project.", "pred_label": "__label__1", "pred_score_pos": 0.9881382584571838}
+{"content": "beats by dre cheap\n\ninterstitial Cystitis\n\ninterstitial Cystitis\nIn practical terms, the definition of urinary tract infection (urinary tract infection - UTI) and necessity of treatment Interstitial Cystitis patient depends on various clinical conditions. The goal of treatment is to control symptoms and prevent complications and relapse but also reduce the administration of antibiotics. Urinary tract infections are the most common Interstitial Cystitis infectious diseases with significant financial impact on the economy of the state.\n\nIn the U.S., due to urinary infections Interstitial Cystitis doctor told the 7 million people a year, of which 2 million for cystitis (inflammation of the bladder). Of the total number of prescription of antibiotics in the U.S., 15% were prescribed for urinary tract infections, with the annual cost of about $ 1 billion.\n\nUrinary tract infections are very common and Interstitial Cystitis repeated in large numbers. May be latent (asymptomatic bacteriuria) or appear in symptoms limited to the lower urinary tract (cystitis) or a serious illness with a fever and lumbar pain when it is assumed, but not always proven, inflammation of the kidneys (acute pyelonephritis). Rarely occur Interstitial Cystitis local septic reactions or even fatal, endotoxemia, which is almost always followed by an obstruction or disturbance immunity host (immunosuppression, diabetes).\n\n20/09/2012 16:27", "pred_label": "__label__1", "pred_score_pos": 0.9990008473396301}
+{"content": "Each of us\n\nFiona Dowling (France/Ireland) tells folktales, world tales, love tales, and stories from her own colourful childhood spent between Ireland and France. Her favourite stories are ones that combine mystery, wisdom and humour. She was recently a featured teller at the Mohill Storytelling Festival in Leitrim.\n\nEléonore Nicolas (France) cultivates words with the same attention as a gardener looks after his plot. She delicately picks out details from everyday life and mixes them with her own witty perspective to craft small stories, which delight and inspire her audiences. She spreads her stories like seeds in the hope that they will grow and color people’s life.\n\n Michael Phelan (Ireland) tells stories because he enjoys bringing people on a journey into another reality. Stories for him, are a life-force all on their own and can in ways, we do not know, shape peoples’ destinies. He likes to tell stories with a bit of fun in them, and that have a twist and turn in them that capture and evoke you. Above all he enjoys telling you a story that speaks to you.\n\nSimone Schuemmelfeder is a storyteller, writer and teacher from Germany who aims to bridge the gap between an old tradition and the modern world. In her story sessions she combines traditional German folktales with modern short stories, urban legends, crime mysteries and tales of romance and adventure. Simone is fascinated by the enchantment that stories can bring into everyday life. For her telling stories is deeply connected with the power of imagination and she hopes that the vivid and vibrant images in her stories help her listeners to picture the story in their mind and create their very own story.\n\nNina Tanis (USA) hopes that somewhere between her telling and her audience listening is a space that allows for suspension of time and place. To reach this spot is to reach the truer self. She brings you to this place with tales of man and child, love and luck, behavior and attitude, kingdoms and castles, seeking and finding...or not, so that we may be entertained while contemplating our humanity; reflecting on whom we are, who we may wish to be or hope never to become.\n\nAdam Wilson (Ireland) likes to tell tales where things and people are often not quite what they seem to be. His formal training as a clown has perpetuated his natural skill in eliciting riotous laughter from his audience while telling seemingly very \"ordinary\" tales. A keen ear for the vernacular gives Adam great power as a creator and raconteur of vivid, entertaining dialogue. Let Adam's masterful telling and tongue- in- cheek style weave their magic, bringing you to an unusual country far far away...yet...strangely familiar.\n\nBoaz Zur (Israel,Ireland) tells stories from around the world. He brings the variety of cultures including short stories, folktales, myth, wonder and likes to use spices and to inspire. He tells personal stories and stories that he wrote. He delivers stories in many images so that the listeners listen with all their senses. In some of his performances he incorporates music, movement and drama combined with a musician, where the audience are interactive. He loves the oral tradition and facilitates workshops where people are encouraged to share stories, poems, songs, music and more.", "pred_label": "__label__1", "pred_score_pos": 0.7020519375801086}
+{"content": "Sunday, December 14, 2014\n\nIn the Name of Reading Education\n\nThis is my last post in 2014. I promise I will be better about posting book reviews more regularly in the new year. So for now, here is one last rant to close out 2014. Happy Holidays!\n\nAs I have been writing my new book, which will be out in Spring 2015, I have been wandering the internet for resources and have uncovered an unfortunate trend: teachers still do crap in the name of teaching children to read that life-long readers would never tolerate. I have seen so many \"alternative\" to book reports postings, using digital resources to make kids do the same waste-of-time assignments I tried to rally against when I write my first book on the Reading Workshop in 2001.\n\nWhy does anyone think having children post images on Pinterest from their iPads is any more worthwhile than writing book reports on paper plates? Why waste their time? The next thing you know someone will be suggesting that we use auto-cad architectural programs to build digital dioramas.\nSo what should we ask young readers to do when they have finished reading? The answer is only asking them to do the same things we do ourselves when we finish reading. We share ideas with other readers, make suggestions, read another book, conduct research, go out and play, buy another book like the one we read, we talk, and we write about the books we love on a goodreads website or blogs like this for other readers to read. That's about it for me. I don't make trailers, I don't build collages or write found poetry, and I definitely don't cook food from the book.", "pred_label": "__label__1", "pred_score_pos": 0.8638430833816528}
+{"content": "Saving Art Deco in Toronto\n\nSlightly hidden from view by the construction walls that encircle it, an abandoned warehouse stands at the corner of Bathurst Street and Lakeshore Boulevard West. Known as Loblaw Groceterias, it was built in 1928 to house the consolidated headquarters of the present-day grocer giant. But unlike its predecessors, it appears wholly neglected with many broken[…]\n\nHumber Lakeshore Reaches Development Milestone\n\n    If you have ever stumbled to the west end of the city, you have probably witnessed the serene beauty of Humber College campus. Surrounded by trees and abundant in secret paths and walking trails that lead to the shores of Lake Ontario, the campus grounds provide the perfect small-town-school experience. With majority of[…]", "pred_label": "__label__1", "pred_score_pos": 0.9892364740371704}
+{"content": "Favored Classes: Fighter, Rogue, Cleric, Monk\n\nClass Notes: Olveri Clerics have a ritual restriction on every non-domain spell they cast, and may not channel energy.\n\nSpecial Rules: Olveri receive a -6 penalty to Charisma-related checks when dealing with races once enslaved by the Empire.\n\nOlveri are elves, and use the rules for elves except as noted above. They are slightly shorter and broader than typical elves, and their lifespans, while long, are finite.\n\nTen millennia ago, the Olveri were peaceful, forest-dwelling people surrounded by hostile nations. Rather than allow themselves to be conquered, they used the resources available to them and built great machines of war, wielding mighty magics that allowed them to not only overrun their neighbors, but conquer the entire world for themselves. However, this success came at a serious price: by surrendering to the temptations of power, they cut themselves off from their ancestral gods and the magic of the land. They moved from their forest into mighty cities of marble and brick and lived fat off the slave labor of those they had conquered, and lost access to the raw magical power that had enabled ther success in the first place.\n\nOlveri culture is highly regimented, with ultimate authority residing in the hands of the Empress. Her husband is High Commander and in charge of defending the Empire and its people. Large Olveri cities are typically extremely racially mixed, although only Olveri are considered citizens of the Empire. The high priests and priestesses of the major religions meet in conclave to advise the Empress on spiritual matters.\n\n\nWanderer's Wake VinceKlortho", "pred_label": "__label__1", "pred_score_pos": 0.7514777183532715}
+{"content": "Q: My yard is small and does not have a space for planting blueberry bushes by themselves. Is it OK to group them with azaleas?\n\nA: Yes, azaleas and blueberries may be planted in the same bed. Both plants have similar requirements; a site containing rich textured, slightly acidic, well-drained soil that receives plenty of sun and ample amounts of water to encourage fruiting and flowering.\n\nQ: Our home is new, and our yard is bare. A friend offered to give me several sweet gum trees. She says they are nice trees, but my husband says the trees drop sticky balls and he doesn’t want to always be cleaning up the mess. Do you recommend planting sweet gum trees in a yard?\nA: A young sweet gum tree is beautifully shaped, but as the tree ages, the shape become less uniform, and yes, the sticky balls are a mess. I recommend that you listen to your husband, especially if he is the one caring for the yard.\n\nQ: What is the difference in annuals and perennials? This year, I filled a planting bed with marigolds. The label said they are annuals, which I thought meant they would come back annually. I paid a lot for the plants and sure hope they will come back next year. Will they?\nA: Annuals grow for one year and die. Hardy perennials return year after year. I’m sorry, your marigolds will not return next year.\n\nQ: My mother grew “Hens and Chicks” in a pot on the front porch. I can’t remember what she did with them during the winter. Do they need to be brought inside for the winter, or will they be OK outside?\nA: I grow Sempervivum tectorum (Hens and Chickens) in a container in my front yard. For the past few years, I have left the pot outside all winter, and the plant has survived but has not thrived. Because Hens and Chicks do not tolerate wet soil very well, I suggest that for the winter, the container be situated in a sunny place that provides protection from excessive cold and rainfall.\n\nQ: You seem to recommend pruning crape myrtles every year? I have two large crape myrtles that have never been pruned and they are beautiful.\nA: I’m sorry if I have given the impression that all crape myrtles should be pruned every year. Generally, unless damaged, the majority of older, larger, established, well-shaped crape myrtles require no pruning whatsoever. With younger and smaller crape myrtles, new suckers growing from the tree’s base should be removed for a neat appearance and to prevent additional trunks from forming.\nWhile a young tree is being shaped, any new limbs that rub against or cross over another limb should be removed.\nIn some instances, a gardener plants a crape myrtle in a specific spot where the tree is required to stay small to fit the available space. These are the trees that are pruned yearly to remove the older, taller growth.\nAlso, in the fall, on smaller trees, seed pods may be removed to encourage a final round of flowers. On larger trees, removing all the seed pods becomes impossible.", "pred_label": "__label__1", "pred_score_pos": 0.5930307507514954}
+{"content": "BFF Weekend\n\nEach year I spend a weekend with four of my best friends from high school and each year I almost always do an immediate blog post about the fun we had.\n\nThis year, I found I couldn't blog about it so quickly.\n\nIt seems there aren't easy words to describe what I felt about the power of connection. I have so much love for these women and am so proud of who they are and the way their lives are connected to mine.  In deep and simple ways they create beauty--each with their own 'flavor'--that makes the world a better place to live in.\n\nThese words aren't very articulate about the emotion. But then they don't have to be. The feeling is enough.\n\n© Random Cathy\nMaira Gall", "pred_label": "__label__1", "pred_score_pos": 0.9933993220329285}
+{"content": "Where cravings drives search for recipes and the creation of delicious homemade food\n\n9x13 tray with parchment or buttered\n1) 10 tbsp. (142g) unsalted butter\n1) 16 cups (680g) marshmallows\n1) ½ tsp. kosher salt\n2) 19 cups (476g) rice krispies cereal\n3) 4 cups (170g) miniature marshmallows\n\nIn a stockpot combine (1) and heat over low heat until melted.\n\nIn a large bowl measure rice krispies (2)and make a well.\n\nPour (1) into (2), fold immediately then add (3) and mix.\n\nPour rice krispies into 9x13 tray and press it down. Let it cool and cut into desired size.", "pred_label": "__label__1", "pred_score_pos": 0.9998179078102112}
+{"content": "The song of April 2nd, 2016\n\n\nThis song is Time by Vocal Few. I had never paid attention to it until yesterday and I loved it.\n\nI’ve been a little sensitive and reflexive lately, I’m young and I (hope to) have a long time to live. There are many things I’d like to do and sometimes I feel like there is not enough time.\n\nThen I realize that thinking about time takes a lot of time. So it is better to do instead of thinking about doing it. If I want to be a great writer, then I should write a lot. If I want to travel to Asia, then I should save money for that trip. I have to act looking forward to a specific goal.\n\nAlso, time passes, we grow up, and there are people who will go out of and people who will enter our lives. We should not worry about who could it be or how painful it will be. we should instead enjoy our time with them and be thankful that they are there right now.\n\nLike the song says, “time is not on our side”. Time flows and days pass. We should not serve time by crying because of the passage of time. We should do our best with the little time we have. And maybe then, when we are old, we will look back and say “I didn’t serve time.”\n\nEnjoy this song and live!\n\n– Karl", "pred_label": "__label__1", "pred_score_pos": 0.84760582447052}
+{"content": "WARNING: This product contains a chemical known to the State of California to cause birth defects or other reproductive harm. For food use only. Do not inhale the nitrous oxide found in whipped cream charger refills. It may cause serious and irreversible damage to your health, including death. United Brands is not liable in any way for injuries or deaths caused to anyone, regardless of age, by the misuse of the products found on this website.\n\nKeep in mind that the chargers are under great pressure. Please use in accordance with manufacturer’s instructions. Never pressurize a whipped cream dispenser with more than one charger at a time. Non-aerosol. Recyclable steel. Volume 10 cm3. Contains 8gm Nitrous Oxide (E942) under pressure. Gross cartridge weight - 28g. Variety of colors. Do not pierce. Never dispose of full cartridges. Do not take onboard an aircraft. Keep out of reach of children. Explosion danger - 50C max temperature.\n\nRECYCLING - Non refillable, made of 100% recyclable steel. They are safe to put in with your tin cans etc. for collection. Please do not dispose of unused cartridges!\n\nThis information is provided for educational use only. This information is not to be misunderstood as legal or medical advice\n\nMedical Info Regarding Nitrous Oxide Use\n\nNitrous oxide (N2O) was first used medically in 1844 for a dental tooth extraction. Nitrous oxide is still used today primarily in dentistry as an addition to other local anesthetics. As an anesthetic, nitrous oxide is usually administered to the patient via a gas inhaler which mixes the nitrous oxide with oxygen allowing the dentist to precisely control the flow of gas.\n\nNitrous Oxide, like other drugs, poses the potential for abuse when used as a street drug. Dependence of nitrous oxide is not as severe as that of other drugs, such as opiates and narcotics, however chronic abusers often develop strong emotional dependencies which can be highly destructive to their lives.\n\nAbusive use via inhalation of nitrous oxide can produce a number of harmful side effects. Nitrous oxide is known to suppress the body's ability to absorb vitamin B12. A far more common is injury caused by the release of the super cooled gas from the charger itself. The nitrous oxide found in charger is extremely cold and it is capable of burning the face, nose, lips, tongue, and throat. Death from nitrous oxide use is rare, but is most common when a person attempts to huff the nitrous oxide out of a bag or balloon that has been placed over their head or face, causing them to accidentally asphyxiate.\n\nLegal Information\n\nThe possession of whipped cream chargers, or more specifically, the nitrous oxide found in the chargers, is legal in the United States. However, like all products which can potentially affect food safety, is regulated by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration.\n\nThe possession of \"crackers\" or any other devices which serve the sole purpose of opening a whipped cream charger is outlawed in a number of states, and the sale of such devices is also prohibited. Nearly every state has passed laws making it a crime to inhale or consume nitrous oxide, or possess nitrous oxide with the intent to consume as a street drug. In most states, it is illegal for minors to purchase or possess nitrous oxide. The FDA also regulates the labeling and distribution of nitrous chargers, making it a crime to sell nitrous oxide for the purpose of human consumption as a street drug.\n\n\nBy bidding and paying for this auction you certify that you meet all the legal requirements to purchase compressed gas. Nitrous Oxide charger contents are under pressure. \n\nDo not incinerate full chargers or expose to sun or heat. Do not allow temperature to exceed 50C or 122F. Never dispose of full chargers, always empty before disposing. Keep out of reach of children Our Nitrous Oxide. We apply to the recommended guidelines set forth by the Compressed Gas Association in terms of distributing our product.  It is the responsibility of the buyer to ascertain and obey all applicable Local, State and Federal Laws in. Consult your attorney regarding Local, State and Federal Laws before ordering. Zcoffee is not responsible for any injury/death as an result of product misuse or abuse. When applicable, equipment sold may be subject to Public Law 90-351, Title III 18 U.S.C., Section 2511 or the applicable law in your country. The substance is in compliance with the USPS Pub. 52 guidelines. You must be 18 or over to purchase compressed gas (21 in OHIO).", "pred_label": "__label__1", "pred_score_pos": 0.8803476095199585}
+{"content": "Culture & Heritage\n\nCultural heritage is part of our everyday world. It is a view to our past and a path for our future. Culture brings people together, encourages greater understanding and contributes to the strength of a community. As the Cayman Islands continue to grow and evolve, it becomes increasingly important that we preserve our cultural heritage and maintain our national identity through the sharing of knowledge and the celebration of our unique culture.\n\n\nCulture and Heritage in the Cayman Islands\n\n\nMusic, food, religion and sense of family are fundamental aspects of our heritage that still connect us as a people. Our past is rich with stories about the roles of mothers and fathers, the importance of family and the priority placed on  church. Our forefathers were not blessed with the modern conveniences that we enjoy today but found value in and made the most of the land and sea. Although almost every old time story has a recollection of hardship, there is always a sense of appreciation and happiness.\n\nAs Caymanians share their experiences, family stories, jokes and reminisce on the\npast, they help to perpetuate Caymanian heritage and culture.  In so doing, younger generations of Caymanians and non-Caymanians learn about Caymanian life in the past and develop an appreciation for the many blessings received. It also provides an opportunity to discuss Caymanian art, literature, stories and poetry as well as discover Caymanian music through the years, thus providing an opportunity to promote Caymanian-produced music.\n\nThe Cayman Islands was once described as the ’Islands time forgot’; however time has managed to catch up with us, and now more than ever there is an overwhelming need to reconnect with our past.\n\n\nMusic played an important part in both private and community events, creating a lively and festive atmosphere. Old folks tell stories of ‘kitchen dances’ held at people’s homes, garden parties, boat-launchings, weddings and weekend dances in Town Halls. Some have memories of ‘culture nights’ in George Town where the wider community got together to celebrate diversity through music, poetry and costume.\n\nFolk music was the traditional music of Cayman dating back to the eighteenth and\nnineteenth century. It was and still is played by kitchen bands comprised of a\nfiddle and drum, sometimes a harmonica and guitar, along with items from the\nhome including a spoon and bottle, washboard and grater. The local music scene\nhas since grown tremendously; and we can now hear the influence of other\ncultures with genres such as country, jazz, reggae and even hip hop.\n\n\nFood has always been a means of bringing people together, and the tradition was to spend long hours chatting in the kitchen as a fresh, healthy meal was prepared. The components were never a concern as Caymanians of the past were satisfied with what was on hand. Seafood, such as turtle (our national dish), conch and fresh fish, has always been a favourite, with fruits and ground provisions (yam, cassava, bottlers, breadfruit and pumpkins) being a staple part of every meal.\n\nAmong other culinary delights, Caymanians are known for ‘heavy cake’ (desserts made from ‘bread kind’ which are our starchy vegetables such as cassava and yams), and ‘rundown’ or stew. These favourites are still prepared in many local households and can be enjoyed by all during cultural festivals throughout the year.\n\n\nBack in the day, women looked after the home while men fished and maintained the grounds when they were not earning a living as seafarers. Past generations were less influenced by material possessions. Instead they valued their role within the community and the strength of their family unit.\n\nGood morals and principles were instilled in children at a very early age.  Many of these values have been passed down through storytelling, ensuring that future generations understand and appreciate what our forefathers endured to get us where we are today.", "pred_label": "__label__1", "pred_score_pos": 0.9900134205818176}
+{"content": "Pushups are a great exercise for working your chest, shoulders, arms, and core -- but if you do them wrong, you're going to get hurt. Fortunately, paying attention to a few key points on form -- and listening to your own body, of course -- are all you need to keep yourself safe while doing any type of pushups, from easy knee pushups to one-armed pushups with a weight vest for extra resistance.\n\nBody Position\n\nYour body should always form a straight line from your shoulders to your heels for full pushups, or from your shoulders to your knees if you're doing knee pushups. Maintain that board-like posture throughout the entire pushup, as you lower your chest toward the floor and as you push back up to the starting position.\n\nHand Position\n\nIn most cases your hands will be directly below, and spaced slightly wider than, your shoulders. There are two exceptions to this rule: One is when you do bench pushups, in which case your hands will be elevated on a bench or counter but your shoulders will still come down directly over them as you do the pushups. The second is when you do narrow- or wide-grip pushups, in which you deliberately position your hands closer or farther apart.\n\n\nAlways inhale as you lower your body toward the floor, and exhale as you press back up to the starting position. If you hold your breath or strain and bear down as you press up -- which is known as the Valsalva maneuver -- you can cause a spike in your blood pressure.\n\n\nUnless you're specifically training to build speed or power, there's no reason to do rapid-fire pushups. Instead, aim for a cadence of two to four seconds as you lower yourself toward the floor, then about two seconds as you press back up. These pushups might not look as impressive as the rapid-fire variety, but they're actually more challenging.\n\nTracking Progress\n\nIf you're exercising for general fitness, you should be able to do a minimum of eight repetitions with good form. If you can't maintain good form for at least eight repetitions, you need to do an easier type of pushups -- for example, if you're doing full pushups, drop to your knees and do knee pushups instead, or do pushups with your hands on a bench or other elevated surface. If you can do more than 12 to 15 repetitions with good form, it's time to move up to a more difficult pushup variation.\n\nPhoto Credits\n\n  • Stockbyte/Stockbyte/Getty Images", "pred_label": "__label__1", "pred_score_pos": 0.630191445350647}
+{"content": "eco-cities and mega-regions\n\nNote: It's been a little tough around here, so again my apologies for not giving timely responses to your comments. We were terribly affected by the loss of Jack. Top that off with losing my eldest brother the month before, and Ana X a few months earlier. So it's been quite a year.\n\nI had started several posts -all of them are stuck in some half complete form that I will hopefully get around to posting. (Q: How many half-completed posts are in your \"draft posts\" queue? I've got 38.)\n\nThere were several interesting articles last week that I wanted share and comment on but with the work grind still at maximum, I'll have to stick to short comments.\n\n\nPictured above is Arup's EcoBlock, a carbon-neutral take on China's SuperBlock model of urban development. SuperBlocks are key units in the 400x400 sq.m. development scales used in PROC's urban planning models - usually gated, always hi-rise.\n\"We knew that Chinese gated superblocks comprise the largest part of China’s overall development efforts, which are among the most ambitious construction in the history of the world. The Chinese are building 10 to 15 gated superblocks every day, equal to 10 million to 12 million housing units per year (10 times the US average). \" (Unforbidden Cities)\nSo says Harrison Frakker Jr. (Dean of UC Berkeley's College of Environmental Design). Berkeley CED's Urban Sustainability Initiative worked with Arup (the top engineering firm the world) to develop the alternative model for China's cities. Enter the EcoBlock:\n\nDesigned to be replicable to the masses, a concept that in reality puts minimal pressure on off-site infrastructure and the natural environment...Largely self sufficient in terms of energy and water use, EcoBlocks are carbon-neutral developments. Their layouts encourage walking, cycling and use of public transport.\nAll wastewater is recycled on-site; energy generation is on-site and any energy generated on-site from waste, sun, and wind is used to treat rainwater and gray water and provide residents with high quality potable drinking water. Even food waste and landscaping waste will be converted into energy to power residents' homes.\n\nConstructed wetlands and swales collect and treat water for reuse, serving the dual purpose of enhancing the aesthetic value of each neighborhood and creating green waste that can be transformed into energy within an on-site anaerobic digester. And EcoBlocks are designed to use 40 percent less energy than a standard development of its size.\nAnd the potential impact of the EcoBlock model?\n...if 18,333 600-unit EcoBlocks were built, it would keep 34 landfills, 42 power plants, 54 water treatment plants, and 51 wastewater treatment plants from being built, at a total cost savings of $38,737,185,000 ... (Arup) estimates that the Chinese government alone would save 1.3 percent of its GDP from not having to build additional infrastructure to meet demands for energy, clean water, sanitation and waste disposal - and that's not counting the savings from costs currently associated with treating environmental pollution associated health problems, which currently claims about 10 percent of the country's GDP.\nCould we use a similar model in redeveloping Metro Manila? (To give you an idea of the scale of a 400x400 meter project (16 hectares), here's how it measures against Glorietta:\n\n\nMeanwhile, Richard Florida, proponent of the Creative Class and their role in making cities competitive, published a list of the top 40 mega-regions in the world. (All of them, urban corridors). Florida and his team compiled the top mega-regions (via CEOsforCities):\n\nThey use a new measure they call Light-based Regional Product to rank the world's top 40 mega-regions. They also include rankings by population, patents and frequently-cited scientists.\n\nGreater Tokyo is the world's top mega-region. Boston-Washington and Chicago-Pittsburgh rank second and third.\n\nGreater Toyko has 55.1 million people, LRP of $2.5 trillion, 91,280 patents, 11 highly-cited scientific authors. (All numbers are 2000-2001.)\n\nBoston-Washington has 54.3 million people, LRP of $2.2 trillion, 21307 patents, and 293 authors.\n\nChicago-Pittsburgh has 46 million people, LRP of $1.6 trillion, 17,686 patents and 67 authors.\nRounding out the top 10 are:\n\nSouthern California (LA-San Diego-Tijuana)\nIn an article addressed to Torontonians (via Google's cache), he writes:\n\nAccording to our definition, mega-regions are made up of two or more contiguous cities and their surrounding suburbs, and generate more than $100-billion in annual economic output.\n\n...mega-regions are the real economic engines of the global economy. The 10 largest account for 43 per cent of the planet's economic activity and more than half of its patented innovations and star scientists who generate pioneering breakthroughs, while housing only 6.5 per cent of its population. The top 40 produce 66 per cent of the world's economic activity and more than eight in 10 of its patented innovations and most-cited scientists, while being home to just 18 per cent of the world's population.\n\nAll of this convinces me that place, not statehood, is the central axis of our time and of our global economy.\nRead the pre-publication release of the paper here. (pdf)\n\nIs Metro Manila on the list? Nope. Despite the supersized populations, megacities don't automatically fall into the mega-regions, although Mexico City, the Rio de Janeiro-Sao Paolo corridor, and Delhi-Lahore make it to the list. (So do Singapore and Bangkok.)\n\nHere's their map of the mega-regions in Asia:\n\nWhich then makes me think that key to our competitiveness would be to strengthen Metro Manila's connections (transportation and trade) with Hong Kong-Shenzen, Singapore and Taipei.\n\n\n\nFully Charged Jack from junisimbulan on Vimeo.\n\n\nThe video above was Jack after his last tranfusion in L.A.\n\n\nMy thoughts and prayers go out to his parents and family.\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\nLove always,\nPapa and Mama\n\n\nthe logic of political survival\n\nIf you're looking for a next book to read, pick up Bruce Bueno de Mesquita's (et. al.) \"The Logic of Political Survival\" (MIT Press).\n\n(This might be of particular interest to you, Koikaze)\n\nBueno de Mesquita's thoughts on the \"selectorate\" and the \"winning coalition\" could pretty well explain the Arroyo-Estrada love dance and even explain the conduct of our national politics. (It also echoes MLQ's own thoughts in the early paragraphs of this post) .\n\nBueno de Mesquita and his colleagues apply game theory to political analysis and actually use mathematical models to predict political outcomes.\n\nHis track record has been impressive:\n\n\nThat list is from a great article in GOOD Magazine on Bueno de Mesquita.\n\nYou can also download two podcasts from EconTalk featuring the man and his thoughts:\nMore on Bruce Bueno de Mesquita and his previous work here.\n\nI'm still reading through their work -which is admittedly a very cynical view of politics, but on first blush, the theories do appeal to me as a designer.\n\nImage credit:\nCover art feat. B. Bueno de Mesquita\nby Ethan Hill for GOOD Magazine\n\n\nreprint: on the boundary system\n\n\nThe Boundary System as a city shaper.\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\nSo, a driver will:\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\nImage credit:Manfred's Travel Pictures\n\n\n\nNote: Anyone still here? The operative word, as far as work is concerned, is \"tuliro\" -- and I've been running around like a headless chicken working to close several projects.\n\nI wrote this sitting in a DC airport, waiting for a flight that was delayed for three hours. rather than working on my projects, I squeaked in some-not-so-quality blog time.\n\nI wound up in wifi hell on the shores of Lake Huron in Ontario, so I missed both the news and the blog posts.\n\nI hope you're all ok.\n\nMy thoughts and prayers go out to the victims of the bombing in G2: A good friend of mine was a mere hundred feet away from the explosion. I'm glad he's ok. Another friend is on the front lines for ALI helping the victims and their families. Strength and endurance for her.\n\nFurther on rethinking public transport, here's a quick work-up on why our roads are so congested.\n\nAn average bus, carrying full capacity, can seat about 70 passengers. An average car, about 4. (Five, if you want to squeeze people in.)\n\nLet's do a side by side comparison. Assume the bus is not full to capacity and carries only 60 people. (Of course, rush hour buses in Metro Manila probably carry close to 100). Then, assume 4 passengers per car. What effect does that have on our roads?\n\nHere are the numbers:\n\nYou'll need 15 cars to transport as many people as one bus. You'll need 30 full cars to be on par withtwo buses (120 passengers).\n\nHow much road space do these vehicles take up? The two buses will take up 38 meters (124.6 feet) of road space. Bumper to bumper, the 30 cars will take up 152 meters (498.6 feet). Even if you double up on two lanes, the cars will still stretch to 76 meters -twice the road space of the two buses.\n\nWhat does this mean as far as road capacity? Take two lanes on EDSA's 23 kilometers, fill it up with buses -and you can theoretically move 145,440 people. Fill those same two lanes with cars instead and you will only carry 36,360 people. Barely a fourth of the bus capacity.\n\nYou will need at least 8 lanes of road, with bumper to bumper cars, to even come close to what the buses can carry!\n\nIf two lanes of cars can only carry a fourth of one lane of buses, the cars will have to move at 4 times the speed of the buses to transport as many people. And that's under perfect (read: unreal) conditions -where the cars drive almost bumper to bumper and traffic flows smoothly.\n\nWhich is why the logic of counting the number of vehicles that move on a road (traffic flow), instead of counting the number of people you can transport (people flow) to measure performance only leads to more congestion.\n\nTo increase carrying capacity, you will try to try to speed up traffic. You will be forced to widen the road (and eat up sidewalks) to add more lanes and increase throughput. You will think of building flyovers and underpasses and overhead highways to keep traffic flowing.\n\nThen there's the emissions equation. Eight lanes of EDSA will carry 36,360 cars. Two lanes of EDSA will carry 2,424 buses. Even if you assume that each bus generates 10 times more GHGs than each car, two lanes of buses will still generate 30% less GHGs than 8 lanes of cars. (And it's way easier to equip buses with CNG engines, which can theoretically produce just 7% of the emissions that the 8 lanes of cars will produce.)\n\nThe logic is clear. You want to move people more efficiently? Move more buses.*\n\nYou want to clean up the air and take care of our environment? (Not to mention, contribute to GHG reduction)? Reduce car use, increase bus use.\n\nWhat about bad driving?\n\nThis all looks good on paper, you say. But with the way metro manila's bus drivers drive, we can throw all those efficiency gains out the window.\n\nIf you've kept up with this blog long enough, you'll know that I'm convinced we won't solve bad (PUV) driver behavior with increased traffic enforcement, we have to change the economic model of our public transportation system.\n\np.s. -taking the train to Ottawa later today - will use the time (and the onboard wifi) to answer all the great comments I've been neglecting.\n\n* Don't we have the OBR, you ask. Isn't that a bus priority lane? I though it would be a precursor to a BRT system, but it sadly, the OBR seems to be more about driver discipline rather than transit efficiency. It's a traffic management solution, not a public transportation solution.\n\n(So what if you used FXs instead of cars? You can assume 10 passengers, including the driver, and assume the chassis length. Two lanes of FXs will only carry 60% vs. two lanes of buses. And, of course, you'll still be generating more GHGs with the FXs than the buses.)\n\nQuick Links\n\nNotable posts on the metro", "pred_label": "__label__1", "pred_score_pos": 0.5578405857086182}
+{"content": "e-Duke Books\n\nMoving beyond the black-white binary that has long framed racial discourse in the United States, the contributors to this collection examine how the experiences of Latinos and Asians intersect in the formation of the U.S. nation-state. They analyze the political and social processes that have racialized Latinos and Asians while highlighting the productive ways that these communities challenge and transform the identities imposed on them. Each essay addresses the sociopolitical predicaments of both Latinos and Asians, bringing their experiences to light in relation to one another.\n\nSeveral contributors illuminate ways that Latinos and Asians were historically racialized: by U.S. occupiers of Puerto Rico and the Philippines at the end of the nineteenth century, by public health discourses and practices in early-twentieth-century Los Angeles, by anthropologists collecting physical data—height, weight, head measurements—from Chinese Americans to show how the American environment affected “foreign” body types in the 1930s, and by Los Angeles public officials seeking to explain the alleged criminal propensities of Mexican American youth during the 1940s. Other contributors focus on the coalitions and tensions between Latinos and Asians in the context of the fight to integrate public schools and debates over political redistricting. One addresses masculinity, race, and U.S. imperialism in the literary works of Junot Díaz and Chang-rae Lee. Another looks at the passions, identifications, and charges of betrayal aroused by the sensationalized cases of Elián González, the young Cuban boy rescued off the shore of Florida, and Wen Ho Lee, the Los Alamos physicist accused of spying on the United States. Throughout this volume contributors interrogate many of the assumptions that underlie American and ethnic studies even as they signal the need for a research agenda that expands the purview of both fields.\n\nContributors. Nicholas De Genova, Victor Jew, Andrea Levine, Natalia Molina, Gary Y. Okihiro, Crystal Parikh, Greg Robinson, Toni Robinson, Leland T. Saito\n\nSubject Matters: new book alerts from Duke University Press", "pred_label": "__label__1", "pred_score_pos": 0.8949066400527954}
+{"content": "The success of your participation in this event will be dependent on how well the team performs and how motivated they are.\n\nGood teamwork is essential and will not happen by chance; team building will be necessary. The importance of the support team must also be recognized, they will need to transport you to and from the course, provide you with sustenance together with other supplies and meet any other unexpected needs.\n\nThe following are some suggestions for building an effective team.\n\nSet Clear Goals\n\nThe goal of the team must be established and clear to all members. The goal could be as simple as completing the event, or it could be to do so within a time frame or to raise a set amount for charity.\n\nCommunicate Your Thoughts\n\nGood communication is essential if all team members are to pull together. Discuss and agree on the goals and objectives, together with the methods of achieving them.\n\nAssign Roles and Tasks\n\nDistribute the work amongst the team members so that they all participate and contribute. Determine what tasks need to be completed to achieve your goals. Make sure the person responsible for each task is clearly defined and that they understand what is required.\n\nPractice Your Roles …\n\nto get accustomed to them and iron out any awkwardness. Be flexible and willing to adapt the roles to meet unexpected circumstances.\n\nCelebrate Your Achievements …\n\nwhenever you complete an objective to maintain the motivation of the team. Thank team members when they finish a task.", "pred_label": "__label__1", "pred_score_pos": 0.998992383480072}
+{"content": "Seed7 - The extensible programming language\nSeed7 FAQ Manual Screenshots Examples Libraries Algorithms Download Links\nMahjong Source Code\n previous   up   next \n\nThis is a Mahjong solitaire game.\n\nThe 144 Mahjong tiles are arranged in the turtle formation with their faces upwards. In every turn the player selects two equivalent tiles and removes them. Tiles can be selected when they can be moved left or right without disturbing other tiles. Two tiles are equivalent when their faces have identical pictures or when they are both flower or season tiles. The goal is to remove all tiles. In the upper right corner the number of tiles left and the number of possible moves are displayed. This mahjong program generates only solvable games. Depending on you strategy you still may end in a situation with no possible moves. The following commands are accepted:\n\n  • Help suggests a move. When one tile is already selected, it shows possible moves with matching tiles. When nothing is selected, it shows two tiles of a possible move. Repeated Help commands show all possible moves.\n  • Undo a move. There is no limit how many moves can be undone.\n  • Redo a move which was undone. There is no limit how many moves can be redone.\n  • Demo shows a possible solution.\n  • New generates a new game.\n  • Quit the game.\n\nThe commands are also in the top menu and can be selected with the mouse.\n\nWelcome screen\n\nStart of new game\n\nMiddle of game\n\n previous   up   next", "pred_label": "__label__1", "pred_score_pos": 0.9087775349617004}
+{"content": "Technician, Field\n\nThis job is no longer active. View similar jobs.\n\nPOST DATE 8/19/2016\nEND DATE 10/16/2016\n\nDiversityWorking MO\n\nJob Classification\nFull Time\nCompany Ref #\nJob Type\nAJE Ref #\n\n\n* 2 years experience in Field Operations and maintenance\n* 3+ wireless telecommunications or other related experience\n* Understands basic RF Engineering, Radio Frequency theory, and Electricity and Electronics theory\n* Operational knowledge of IP based interconnect/backhaul circuits\n* Solid understanding of theory and application related to RAN.\n* Self-motivated; exhibits initiative in achieving company goals and objectives\n* Basic leadership skills and ability to prioritize and complete multiple tasks\n* Able to work independently or in a team environment\n* Strong attention to detail\n* Flexibility with ever-changing environments and priorities\n* Solve problems using creativity and innovation\n* Accepts and provides constructive feedback\n* Solid skills in Microsoft office products with advanced skills in Excel specifically.\n* Solid communication skills; verbal, written and presentation.\n* Supports key projects, providing day-to-day updates to Senior Technicians and Manager as directed.\n* Collaborates with team members, actively participating in discussions toward achieving results.\n* Supports team by contributing 100% as an individual, while prioritizing team success.\n* Heavily scrutinizes actions to ensure the customer experience is protected to the greatest extent feasible.\n* Quickly adapts to change, seeking to understand the whole picture to best adapt.\n* Openly share ideas to help gain efficiency, solve problems, or add value to the business.\n* Demonstrates continuous desire to learn and develop personally and professionally.\n* Solid understanding of theory and advanced understanding of application related to transport.EducationMinimum Required\n* Vocational/Technical Training. Two-year vocational degree in a technical discipline or related technical military trainingLicense or CertificationMust have and maintain a clean driving record & license Applicant is to meet the minimum DOT medical standards under 49 CFR Part 391Essential FunctionsTechnical support:\nTakes on smaller projects or portions of key projects / initiatives, providing accurate status and progress updates as requested.Operations:\n- Applicant is to meet the minimum DOT medical standards under 49 CFR Part 391\n- This position requires the incumbent to be able to lift, carry, push or pull objects (weighing no more than 75 pounds.)\n- This position requires bending, turning, twisting of your neck or at the waist.\n- This position requires squatting, crawling, kneeling.\n- This position requires balancing and maintaining equilibrium.\n- This position requires being able to feel, grasp, reach with hands and arms (outwards and/or upwards).\n- Must be able to communicate with others effectively through written communication methods.\n- Position requires regular and consistent attendance.\n- Position requires being able to withstand working in a noisy environment.\n- Position requires the ability to drive cars, trucks, or other equipment.\n- Position may have exposure to extremes in temperature, humidity or wetness.\n- Work day, afternoon and graveyard shifts, weekend shifts, on-call, and Holidays.\n- Climbs stairs or stepladders to reach equipment and cable trays.", "pred_label": "__label__1", "pred_score_pos": 0.992760181427002}
+{"content": "5 Reasons to Support Farmers Markets\n\nOne of the best ways to care for the environment is to connect with ourselves. One of the things every one of us does every day, is eat. When we connect to our food, we connect to nature and in turn, connect with ourselves . Going green means connecting to the food we eat and the water we drink. One of my favourite ways to explore this connection is by going to local farmers markets. \n\n       An artichoke...it smelled like honey\n\n       An artichoke...it smelled like honey\n\n1. Variety \n\nI've never seen the amazing array of produce at grocery stores, that I see at farmers markets. At markets you can experience the diversity of our planet, both cultivated and wild. It's simply amazing what can be discovered, from sea asparagus, elephant-ear mushroom, padron peppers, variety of sprouts, artichokes in full bloom and so much more. It's wild to experience our planet first hand and all that it has to offer. The fruits and vegetables that are available at these markets are the freshest available. \n\n2. Eat Your Seasons\n\nThe food at farmers markets is seasonal. Seasonal produce can grow without humans meddling as much i.e adding pesticides, waxes, chemicals, preservatives and genetic modification. These are toxic to the water and soil as well as our health. Shopping in season also helps you connect with the weather and natural cycles of nature in your region. Building our eating habits around these natural cycles facilitates our body's natural healing processes. \n\n3. Support Independent Growers\n\nWhen you buy directly from farmers they get a better return for their produce and this helps them in todays tough economy. Small farmers have a hard time competing in the food marketplace, with the rise of agribusiness farms which are taking over. Support family farmers so they can continue operating. These are the guys that aren't destroying or ecosystem to make a quick dollar.\n\n4. Protect the Environment\n\nShipping food uses large portions of our natural resources (especially fossil fuels), contributes to pollution and not to mention, creates excess trash due to all the extra packaging. Farmers markets are free of elastics, stickers, plastic wrap and twist ties, or at least you have the option to give them to the farmer directly to be reused. The food at the farmers markets is transported shorter distances and grown using procedures that minimize our negative impact on the Earth. Sustainable agriculture uses less toxic resources compared to conventional agriculture which pollutes our air, water and land.\n\n5. Know Where your Food Comes From\n\nOne of the best ways to connect with your food and where it comes from is your local farmers market. (unless you grow your food yourself)  I've had so many opportunities to meet and talk with different farmers and have even had the opportunity to go to some of their farms. When you know how your food is grown, where it is grown, when it is grown, and why, you can make informed decisions about what you put in your body. This also brings us one step closer to understanding sustainability. Nature is our greatest teacher and healer.", "pred_label": "__label__1", "pred_score_pos": 0.9862027764320374}
+{"content": "Sort By\n\nFerngully 2: The Magical Rescue(1998)\nFemme Fatale(1990)\nFemalien 2(1998)\nFemale Trouble(1974)\nFemale Animal(1970)\nFelix the Cat: The Movie(1991)\nFelidae (1994)\nFrancis the cat has just moved into the neighborhood with his owner, only to be greeted by a series of baffling and gruesome murders. Sifting through the clues left by the murderer, the crazed Claudandus sect, and his own horrific nightmares; Francis must solve the puzzle behind the killer - befo...\nThe FBI is a very elite organization. They're looking for the best people to help the country. Two women have joined FBI training. Each one of them has something the other person lacks. Ellie DeWitt (Rebecca DeMornay) is a former Marine who is physically tough but somewhat lacking in book smarts....\nFeast Of Love(2007)\nQuote O' Matic", "pred_label": "__label__1", "pred_score_pos": 0.8973085284233093}
+{"content": "Looking for answers\nAsk a question\n\nWhat is an Annual summary?\n\nAn Annual summary is a document highlighting any charges, interest or refunds that have been applied to your current account(s) during a 12 month period. You will receive an Annual summary for each current account that you hold with the bank which is produced on the anniversary of the account being opened.\n\nYou can view your Annual summary online:\n\n  2. Select `Statements` from the main menu\n  5. Select the Annual summary and then `View Statement`\n\nPlease note:\n\n  • We cannot change the date that an Annual summary is produced\n  • An Annual summary is not produced for savings accounts", "pred_label": "__label__1", "pred_score_pos": 0.7097885608673096}
+{"content": "Sequences: Two Principles\n\nBy January 24, 2010The Sequence\n\n\n\n2. They must absolutely have a clearly defined tension in order to have shape. By shape I mean that the audience starts to take a vested interest in one or another turn of events in the near future (and therefore is involved, participating) and they have an idea of how things are going – hope versus fear. Once that overall shape is established, the sequence itself can contain all manner of desperate elements as long as this tension is periodically kept alive.", "pred_label": "__label__1", "pred_score_pos": 0.993615448474884}
+{"content": "Αγορά Πολιτών\n\nΤρόπος Συμμετοχής\n\n\nΠολίτες στην Αγορά\n\nΈχουμε 571 επισκέπτες συνδεδεμένους\n\n\nΓερμανία 004917667046073 (SMS)\n\n7/3/2017, 20:00\n\nΈλληνες, στο έλεος...\n\n\nHarvester's log 16/3/17\n\n\n\nLegal Notice 66\n\n\n\n\nLegal Notice 62\n\n\n\nMy story\n\n\n\n\n\n\nΗ Εστία μου\n\n\n\nWhy so untidy?\n\n\n\n\n\n\nΕξόντωση Ελλήνων αντιφρονούντων;\n\n\n\nΖήτημα εμπιστοσύνης\n\n\n\n\n\n\nΑνοικτή Επιστολή πρέσβη ΗΠΑ\n\nΑφορμή, U2RIT vs Ελλάδα;\n\n\nA request to U2RIT\n\nColonial aggression - 2\n\nOpen Letter to UN S.G.\n\nOpen Letter to p.C. & p. O.\n\nΔήλωση πρόθεσης επαναπατρισμού\n\n\nΟ \"εφιάλτης\" της Νυρεμβέργης\n\nΣυλλογή Φωτογραφιών\n\nΑίτημα προστασίας, προς Ιταλία\n\nChroma key, background removal\n\nScience and Ethics\n\nΝα συμβάλει και η U2RIT\n\nΘα ξαναφτιάξουν πολλές φορές Άουσβιτς και Zyclon B\n\n\nSplit-Screen effect\n\nΗ Ζωή είναι Ωραία.\n\nΒόρεια Κορέα\n\nΛευτεριά στους Έλληνες, εξανα- γκαστικά \"Εξαφανισμένους\"\n\n\nΜυστικές δίκες;\n\n\nΠολιτισμό, ή, απληστία;\n\nΑκραία Στυγνότητα\n\nΗ Τέχνη της Επιβίωσης\n\nPolitical Asylum 3\n\nΕπιστροφή στις ρίζες\n\nThe Human Cost of Torture\n\nAn urgent appeal for solidarity\n\nMore obvious than the Sun\n\nWestern \"culture\"\n\nPolitical Asylum\n\nΈννομη Προστασία\n\nΜια μήνυση που εγείρει ερωτηματικά\n\n\n\n\nHonor your father...\n\n\nCreative Greeks\n\nA pair of Dictatorships\n\nThe conversation of death PDF Εκτύπωση E-mail\nΑξιολόγηση Χρήστη: / 0\nΣυνεννόηση για Δράση - Απόψεις\nΣυντάχθηκε απο τον/την Χρήστος Μπούμπουλης (Christos Boumpoulis)   \nΚυριακή, 11 Ιούνιος 2017 04:33\n\n\n\nThe conversation of death\n\n\nWolf Hunting Tactics\n\nWolves are primarily nocturnal animals that avoid the heat of day. They generally commence hunting at dusk.\n\nWolves detect prey by three primary means, sent (most common), tracking, and chance encounters.\n\nAfter prey is detected, wolves may split up to search through brush, travel on ridge tops searching for the prey below, or test herds looking for signs of weakness.\n\nIt has long been recognized that wolves often take advantage of wear members of the herd. In 1804, Captain Clark of the famed Lewis and Clark expedition wrote that prairie wolves followed buffalo and fed \"on those that are killed by accident or those that are too pore or fat to keep up with the ganges.\"\n\nLater researchers reinforced the image of the wolf as a predator of the very young, the very old, the weak, of the diseased. Aldolph Murie, in the Wolves of Mount McKinley,wrote: \"Many bands seem to be chased, given a trial, and if no advantage is gained or weak animals discovered, the wolves travel on to chase other bands until an advantage can be seized.\"\n\nLois Crisler notes in Arctic wild, \"In all our time in the arctic, the only healthy caribou we saw or found killed were fawns with big herds.\" She observed that adult caribou killed had \"hoof disease, or lung tapeworm, or nostril-cloging ... botflies.\" In a 1980 study in northeast Alberta, T. Fuller and L.B. Kieth found that \"wolves killed disproportionately more young, old and probably debilitated moose (Ales alces), as well as more female calves.\"\n\nIn fact, the only animal that habitually preys upon prime mature animals is man.\n\nAlthough it does not prey only on the weak and the ill, the wolf is opportunistic, and it is inevitably the disadvantaged that are the easiest to catch.\n\nThe Selection\n\nWeakened animals may show their condition to predators through body stance, uncoordinated movements, the smell of wounds or infection, or some other tangible signal. The reading and evaluation of these signals comprises what Barry Lopez has poetically termed \"the conversation of death.\"\n\nOnce a weak individual is selected by a pack, wolves will usually travel upwind. By traveling upwind, the sent of any prey will be carried to them. They will follow the air currents directly to the game. Or, they may follow the sent trail left by a game animal's foot tracks and body odors.\n\nThe Chase\n\nJust before the chase wolves prefer to make there final approach downwind so there body sent is not carried to the prey species, alerting it to their presence\n\nPrey that runs is usually chased. Prey that stands its ground may be able to bluff off its pursuers. Moose and Elk often take to deep water or swift rivers and await departure of the pursuing wolves, But more often than not the wolves wait. While the majority of the pack rests, one or two members test the prey for signs of fatigue.\n\nUsually the chases are short, but L. David Mech has stated that \"One wolf I know of chased a deer for 13 miles.\"\n\nDavid Gray described one such encounter in Canada's high Arctic in the musk-oxen of Polar Bear Pass:\"the wolves approached to within a hundred meters of the herd ... one wolf lay down as two others circled the milling herd.\"\n\nContrary to popular belief, most prey chased by wolves actually gets away. In one study, only three percent of the moose that were tested ended up being killed. The percentage of prey that is killed is called the \"predation efficiency,\" and in spite the wolf's prowess as a hunter, the majority of his prey escapes.\n\nThe Attack\n\nWhen the attack comes, the prey is usually seized by either the nose or the rump. Rarely, if ever, does a wolf hamstring a prey animal. This is one of the oldest and most pervasive false beliefs held about wolves. As late as 1980, the Aubon Society Field Guide to North American Mammals stated that the wolf kills \"by slashing tendons in the hind legs.\", this is pure myth. The actual death of the prey is usually caused by massive blood loss, shock, or both. Sometimes with smaller prey a neck bite will snap a backbone.\n\nThe Alpha wolf will eat first, Wolves usually begin to feed on the rump, if it was exposed during the chase, or else on the internal organs. The muscle and flesh is the last portion of the prey that is eaten, in contras with human habits. Having strong jaws allows the wolf to crush bones to get to the soft marrow, it also helps the wolf eat most of its prey leaving very little waste at the killing site.\n\nAnother myth is that packs are required to bring down large prey; several observers have seen single wolves catch and kill elk and moose. The first wolf to return to Sweden after the extermination of its wolf population regularly brought down large moose by itself.\n\nThere is evidence that wolves have some knowledge of proper prey management. L. David Mech found one pack in Minnesota that varied its killing by hunting in a different part of its territory each year, allowing prey numbers elsewhere to recover, aiding the long-term survival of the pack.\n\nWolves hunt out the weak, the sick, the old, and the injured. They help the population of prey animals like the elk, deer, moose, and caribou, by taking away the weak and letting the strong survive. This is important part in the ecological system. By enhancing the strength into the herds. Without animals like the wolf to eliminate the weak, old , sick and injured, the herd of deer would swelter. They would become so numerous that they would starve to death. The wolf helps keep them healthy by insuring the breeding of the strong.\n\n\n\n\nWolf Pack-Documentary\n\n\n\n\nWolf hunting strategy follows simple rules\n\n(PhysOrg.com) -- A new study of wolves (Canis lupus) has found that communication between pack members and a social hierarchy are not essential features of a successful hunt, and all the wolves have to do is follow two simple rules.\n\nThe researchers, led by Cristina Muro of the Assistance Dogs Association AEPA-Euskadi, in Bilbao, Spain and colleagues in Spain and the US, used computational simulations to study the strategies of wolf packs in hunting and capturing prey.\n\nThe results of the study were that two simple rules were sufficient to reproduce the actual wolf-pack behaviour of tracking, pursuing and encircling prey seen in the wild. The rules were, firstly, move towards the prey until at a close but safe distance (the distance depending on factors such as the length of horns), and then secondly, when at the minimum safe distance, to move away from the other wolves which are also in position.\n\nThe only information each of the five wolves in the computer-simulated pack needed was the position of the other wolves in the pack, and it did not necessarily need to communicate with the other members. The computer models also found that no hierarchy was required within the pack for the hunting to be successful.\n\nThe results suggest that theories requiring the wolves to display a strict hierarchy along with superior intelligence and ability to plan the chase may be off the mark, since simply following the two rules resulted in the virtual wolves in the computer simulation behaving remarkably like wild wolf packs. The virtual wolves closed in and encircled the prey in the same way as real wolves, and if the prey tried to escape one wolf would sometimes seem to ambush the prey after it drew back to maintain distance from the other members of the pack, which placed it in the path of the prey animal.\n\nThe results of the study do not prove, however, that wolves are not intelligent and do not show foresight or planning.\n\nResearch at Yellowstone Park reported on last month at Physorg also demonstrated that wolves are risk-averse and keep at a safe distance if they can, leaving other members of the pack to do the dangerous work of getting in closer to prey, which can kick or gore them to death. This research also showed that smaller wolf packs can hunt more effectively than larger packs.\n\nThe results of the two studies raise questions about why wolves tend to live in packs, since the previously held assumptions of a large pack being more effective at hunting, and social behaviour and communication being essential, appear to be wrong.\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\nThe Kamera (The Chamber)\n\nThe laboratory where the Soviet secret police invented exotic poisons used to kill dissidents in hideous and (mostly) untraceable ways.\n\nIt’s no secret that the KGB used assassination, often by poison, to silence political dissidents that spoke out against the Soviet regime (known within the agency as “liquid affairs”). What remains shrouded in secrecy to this day, however, is the mysterious laboratory where the Soviets invented new methods of poisoning enemies of the state without leaving a trace.\n\nThe Soviet Union’s secret poison factory was established in 1921, not long after an attempted assassination of Vladimir Lenin via poison-coated bullets. Originally dubbed the “Special Room,” it was later called Laboratory No. 1, Lab X, and Laboratory No. 12 before becoming known simply as the Kamera or “the Chamber” under Joseph Stalin.\n\nWhen it comes to murdering your enemies for political power, poison has been a popular weapon of choice since ancient times. But the goal of the Chamber was to devise a poison that was tasteless, odorless, and could not be detected in an autopsy, so as to protect the anonymity of the assassin. This led to such innovations as a cyanide that could be deployed as a mist, a poison that made the cause of death appear to be a heart attack, and a gas pistol that could shoot liquid up to 65 feet away. One politician was killed by a poison sprayed onto his reading lamp, which the heat from the bulb caused to disperse through the room with no trace.\n\nAs for the lab itself, very little is known to this day, including the exact location. KGB agents were not allowed to enter the lab or ever told of its whereabouts; only Chamber staff and high-level officials were allowed in. Some disturbing details were revealed in 1954 by a KGB defector, who admitted that poisons were tested on political prisoners and described the lab as being near the secret police headquarters in Lubyanka.\n\nThe Soviet government, for its part, had just the previous year claimed that the lab was abolished. But many believe it may still be functioning in some form today, and the lethal innovations developed there still in use. Though it’s been some 30 years since the fall of the Soviet Union, even within the last decade enemies of the Kremlin have been found dead in mysterious circumstances, including some, apparently, by poison.\n\n\n\n\nThe Judeo-Russian Mafia and the Bloodbath to Come\n\n\nIn the 1970s, more than forty thousand Russian Jews settled in Brighton Beach. It was under the shadow of the elevated subway tracks on Brighton Beach Avenue, bustling with Russian meat markets, vegetable pushcarts, and bakeries, that the Russian gangsters resumed their careers as professional killers, thieves, and scoundrels….  \n\n— Laura Radanko, “The Superpower of Crime.\n\n\n\n\nA political tactic of joining an organization with which you do not agree with the intention of changing it from the inside.\n\nIn his 1959 book Masters of Deceit, FBI Director J. Edgar Hoover described entryist tactics by Soviet agents to infiltrate school boards, trade unions, and major party precinct organizations.\n\n\n\nWhat is the difference, if any, between, the U2RIT (U.K., U.S.A., Russia, Israel, Turkey) and an ordinary wolfpack?\n\nWhich Nations, if such Nations exist, are willing to maintain bilateral relationships with the U2RIT?\n\n\nChristos Boumpoulis\n\n\n\n\nP.S.: For some people, unfortunately, violence, seems like being a pastime; and for the rest, violence, is an element of barbarity for which, it is preferred that, it would remain, exclusively, withing the kingdom of the wild animals.\n\nNote: the photo was found here, https://3c1703fe8d.site.internapcdn.net/newman/csz/news/800/2011/wolves.jpg.", "pred_label": "__label__1", "pred_score_pos": 0.9618874192237854}
+{"content": "Wheaton-warrenville Schools Name Trustee\n\nAugust 12, 1986\n\nThe board of Wheaton-Warrenville Unit District 200 has appointed Marie C. Slater to fill a vacancy on the panel. Slater, 48, who lives on Hevern Road, Wheaton, will replace Sandra Dohrenwend, who is moving from the district. The term expires in the fall of 1987.", "pred_label": "__label__1", "pred_score_pos": 0.7909083366394043}
+{"content": "About Us | Login | Follow CITO Research:\n\nBlink - Managing Vendor Selection in Enterprise IT\n\nBlinking Businessman\n\nMalcolm Gladwell’s Blink: The Power of Thinking Without Thinking is full of examples of how we make decisions—right or wrong—without really knowing what we are doing. “It just feels right,” experts will say. Given the need to justify decisions, and given that specialized skills are not always available, vendor selection almost always becomes an endless exercise in analysis-paralysis, that endless cycle of questioning and rethinking that is just the opposite of a blink.\n\nIn another much older book, Language, Truth, and Logic, British philosopher Alfred Jules Ayer makes a similar point about arguments used to justify ethical and philosophical viewpoints. Ayer points out that people often come up with reasons to justify their positions after they have already made up their minds. In other words, the process of analyzing alternatives, if we are honest, bears more resemblance to creating a rationale for the choice we favor rather than a dispassionate exploration of options.\n\nWhen Problems Arise\n\nLater on, when problems arise that could have been foreseen, emotions run high and finger pointing starts. If the expert made a decision based on “what felt right,” some important implementation constraint may have been overlooked. On the other hand, if a vendor selection was made using a lengthy analysis process to determine what’s right for the organization, it's likely that it took so long that the rationale for the decision was obsolete by the time the decision was made. In both cases, it’s up to the technical executive to decide whether the analysis or the experts’ “blink” was really right.\n\nThe Remedy\n\nTaking a step back in this process to establish more clarity about requirements is not easy to do. We recommend a technique called The Question Game (See Using the Question Game for Business/IT Alignment), but there are many ways to gain a deeper understanding. A book we published called Lost in Translation recommends describing requirements in plain business terms before giving any thought to technology.\n\nIn most cases, however, company executives still make default choices, usually based on industry standards, selecting \"safe vendors\" like Microsoft or IBM or following industry “best practices.” To appear to have more balance, they may try to weigh other choices through a lengthy analysis of other vendors in the space, tweaking their requirements into decision matrices with complex weighting algorithms. Not surprisingly, these matrices usually wind up validating the executive's original default choice.\n\nBolder Decisions\n\nIn many cases, asking a real expert for his or her “blink” can yield a result much faster. But consulting such an expert takes a new breed of IT management who are willing to take additional risk in making bold decisions. After all, the decision may be wrong. Nobody ever got fired for selecting Microsoft, IBM, or the industry best practice solutions. On the other hand, nobody ever really created a large competitive advantage for the business by selecting those solutions. You have to be willing to take some risks if you want to implement a better solution that defies the status quo and creates unique business advantage.\n\nI’m told by people who would know that Jeff Bezos thinks of Amazon as a software company, not a retailer or an e-commerce company.\n\n\n", "pred_label": "__label__1", "pred_score_pos": 0.9863893389701843}
+{"content": "Picture of athlete cycling\n\nOpen Access research with a real impact on health...\n\n\nExplore open research content by Physical Activity for Health...\n\nSphingosine prevents diacylglycerol signaling to mitogen-activated protein kinase in airway smooth muscle\n\nTolan, D and Conway, A M and Pyne, N J and Pyne, S (1997) Sphingosine prevents diacylglycerol signaling to mitogen-activated protein kinase in airway smooth muscle. American Journal of Physiology, 273 (3). C928-936. ISSN 0002-9513\n\n\n\nBecause many agonists utilize diacylglycerol (DAG) to initiate nuclear transcriptional activity via protein kinase C (PKC), we have investigated whether sphingosine might counter DAG. Sphingosine inhibited PKC activity in an isolated airway smooth muscle cell lysate and prevented the activation of mitogen-activated protein kinase (MAPK) by platelet-derived growth factor, bradykinin, and phorbol 12-myristate 13-acetate in intact cells. MAPK activation in response to all the agonists involves PKC. The stimulation of [3H]palmitate-labeled cells with sphingosine, in the presence of butan-1-ol (0.3%, vol/vol), induced an increase in [3H]phosphatidate (PtdOH) but was without effect on [3H]DAG. [3H]PtdOH synthesis was inhibited, whereas [3H]DAG levels were increased in the presence of the DAG kinase inhibitor R-59949, indicating that sphingosine stimulates phospholipase C/DAG kinase. Recycling of DAG from PtdOH was prevented by a sphingosine-dependent inhibition of PtdOH phosphohydrolase-2 activity. In conclusion, the sphingosine-induced conversion of DAG to PtdOH may serve to optimize the effect of sphingosine on MAPK. This may account for the antiproliferative action of sphingosine.", "pred_label": "__label__1", "pred_score_pos": 0.8952884078025818}
+{"content": "Wednesday, June 28, 2017\n\nGuest post by Guus Duindam\n\nGuus Duindam is a J.D./Ph.D. student in philosophy at the University of Michigan. His primary areas of interest are Ethics and Kant. Thanks, Guus, for providing this rigorous treatment of Bhaskar's philosophical argument for critical realism.\n\nBhaskar contra Kant: Why Critical Realism is not Transcendental Realism\n\nLet me start by thanking Dan Little for inviting me to write this guest-post. I’d like to take the opportunity to examine Roy Bhaskar’s arguments for critical realism, in particular those presented in his A Realist Theory of Science (RTS). The aim of that work is remarkable: to establish by transcendental argument the mind-independence and structured nature of the objects of science.\n\nBhaskar’s views are explicitly grounded in Kantian arguments. But the rejection of Kantian transcendental idealism is a central feature of Bhaskar’s critical realism. For Bhaskar, critical realism is also transcendental realism, a position he posits as an alternative to both Kantian and (neo-)Humean philosophy of science.\n\nTranscendental idealism is, at minimum, the idea that the conditions on human cognition – especially space and time, the forms of human intuition – in part determine the objects of knowledge. According to transcendental idealism, we cannot know things as they are ‘in themselves’, but rather only as they appear to beings like us. Kant thus distinguishes between things-in-themselves, the epistemically inaccessible noumena, and phenomena, things as they appear to us given the conditions on human cognition. The former are transcendentally real – unknowable but entirely mind-independent. The latter are empirically real – knowable, but in part dependent on the conditions on cognition. For Kant, science can study only the empirically real: to study the transcendentally real would require that we transcend the conditions on our own cognition – that we erase the distinction between the knower and the object of knowledge – a mystical feat of which we are evidently incapable.\n\nBhaskar makes a different distinction, between the intransitive and the transitive. Intransitive objects do not depend on human activity; they are entirely mind-independent (RTS 21). To say that some object is intransitive is therefore equivalent to saying that it is transcendentally real (this is clear throughout RTS; see also The Possibility of Naturalism 6). Hence, it is Bhaskar’s aim to prove the transcendental reality (intransitivity) of the objects of science and perception. According to Bhaskar, we can know the objects of science as they are in themselves.\n\nBhaskar defends this ambitious thesis by means of transcendental arguments. An argument is transcendental insofar as it shows that some commonly accepted claim x necessarily presupposes a controversial claim y; where y is the conclusion of the argument. Thus, a transcendental argument claims that its conclusion is the only possible way to account for the uncontroversial phenomenon which it takes as its premise. Unlike other arguments for scientific realism, then, Bhaskar’s make a claim to necessity.\n\nBhaskar’s analysis of perception contains the first of his transcendental arguments: call it the argument from perception. It has roughly the following form: multiple agents can, at the same time, perceive the same object in different ways (x). This could be possible only given the mind-independence of the object (y). Therefore, given the occurrence of differential perception, the objects of perception must be transcendentally real.\n\nHere’s Bhaskar himself making the argument:\nIf changing experience of objects is to be possible, objects must have a distinct being in space and time from the experience of which they are the objects. For Kepler to see the rim of the earth drop away, while Tycho Brahe watches the sun rise, we must suppose that there is something they both see. (RTS, 31)\nEarlier, he appears to be making the even stronger claim that perception simpliciter presupposes the intransitivity of the perceived:\nThe intelligibility of sense-perception presupposes the intransitivity of the object perceived. For it is in the independent occurrence or existence of such objects that the meaning of ‘perception’, and the epistemic significance of perception, lies. (Ibid.)\nLet’s take the argument from perception to involve the weaker claim that differential experience by different agents necessarily presupposes the intransitive nature of the object perceived. If the argument fails to ground this claim, we know a fortiori that it fails to ground the stronger conclusion.\n\nIf it is possible for Brahe and Kepler to have different perceptions of the same object, there must be an object which they both see: this much seems clear. But the inference from this to the object’s intransitivity is fallacious, for the presupposition that the objects of sense-perception are empirically real is sufficient to explain differential perception. For the transcendental idealist, there is something which Brahe and Kepler both see: they both see the sun. The sun is empirically real, i.e., it partially depends on the conditions on human cognition. But Brahe and Kepler, being human, share the conditions on cognition and interact with the same mind-independent reality. Thus, there is nothing unintelligible about their different perceptions under the assumption that what they perceive is empirically real (partially mind-dependent). Bhaskar supposes that we must assume it is also transcendentally real (i.e., that Brahe and Kepler see the sun ‘as it is in-itself’) but does nothing to establish this. The argument from perception does not show that the objects of knowledge must be intransitive given the occurrence of (differential) perception. It fails as a transcendental argument for critical realism.\n\nBhaskar’s second argument is much more central to the critical realist endeavor, and it is presented in his analysis of experimental activity. Call it the argument from experimentation. For Bhaskar, “two essential functions” are involved in an experiment:\nFirst, [the experimental scientist] must trigger the mechanism under study to ensure that it is active; and secondly he must prevent any interference with the operation of the mechanism. […] Both involve changing or being prepared to change the ‘course of nature’, i.e. the sequence of events that would otherwise have occurred. […] Only if the mechanism is active and the system in which it operates is closed can scientists in general record a unique relationship between the antecedent and consequent of a lawlike statement. (RTS, 53)\nBhaskar notes that the experimenter who sets up a causally closed system thereby becomes causally responsible for a constant conjunction of events, but not for the underlying causal mechanism. Contra Humean accounts of law, Bhaskar’s account of experimentation entails an ontological distinction between constant conjunctions and causal mechanisms.\n\nFor Bhaskar, the intelligibility of such experimental activity can be used to transcendentally establish the intransitivity of the objects of science. “As a piece of philosophy,” he claims, “we can say (given that science occurs) that some real things and generative mechanisms must exist (and act),” where by ‘real’ Bhaskar means ‘intransitive’ (RTS 52). In “Transcendental Realisms in the Philosophy of Science: On Bhaskar and Cartwright,” Stephen Clarke provides the following helpful gloss on the argument:\nPremise 1: Scientific explanatory practice (in particular the practice of exporting explanations from laboratory circumstances to general circumstances) is experienced by us as intelligible. \nPremise 2: Scientific explanatory practice could not be experienced by us as intelligible unless causal powers exist and those causal powers are governed by universal laws of nature.\nConclusion: causal powers exist and are governed by universal laws of nature. (Clarke 302)\nClarke calls this an “attack on idealism” (303) but Bhaskar explicitly frames it as an attack on transcendental idealism (RTS 27). Clarke’s gloss is telling, for it is indeed unclear how the argument could work as an attack on the latter view.\n\nBhaskar argues that we must suppose the world to be intransitively ordered if scientific explanatory practice is to be intelligible. But, he claims, “transcendental idealism maintains that this order is actually imposed by men in their cognitive activity” (RTS 27). And if order were imposed in cognitive activity, all experience would be ordered, eliminating the need for explanatory export from the closed causal systems of experimentation to the open causal systems of uncontrolled experience (RTS 27, Clarke 303).\n\nThis argument is invalid. It does not follow from the premise that all experience is ordered that there is no need for explanatory export from closed to open causal systems. To the contrary: the very occurrence of such export presupposes that experience is ordered. After all, the aim of experimentation is to discover causal mechanisms and universal laws of nature. But to suppose that the causal mechanism discovered in a replicable scientific experiment generalizes to open causal systems is to suppose that the same laws operate in open causal systems, even if other mechanisms sometimes obscure them. And to presuppose that there are such things as knowable universal laws of nature – operative in closed and open causal systems alike – just is to presuppose that all experience is ordered. The ordered nature of experience is, therefore, a necessary presupposition for experimentation.\n\nNow there are at least two ways in which experience could be thus ordered: because order is imposed on it in cognitive activity, or because the order is intransitive. Bhaskar supposes the former would render experimentation superfluous. This is a flummoxing claim to make. Surely Bhaskar does not mean to accuse the transcendental idealist of the view that the projection of order onto the world is somehow a conscious activity – that we already know every scientific truth. That would render experimentation superfluous, but I don’t think it is a view anybody defends. Science is as much a process of gradual discovery for the Kantian as it is for everyone else.\n\nMaybe confusion arises from the fact that for Kantians genuinely universal scientific laws must be synthetic a-priori. Perhaps Bhaskar supposes that, because positing a universal law involves making a claim to synthetic a-priori knowledge, we should be able to derive the laws of nature by a-priori deduction, rendering experimentation superfluous. But this would be a misunderstanding of transcendental idealism. Suppose that because my perceptions of sparks and wood are frequently followed by perceptions of conflagration, I come to associate sparks and wood with fire. I can ask whether this association is subjective or objective. To claim that it is objective is, for the Kantian, to apply one of the Categories. For instance, one way of taking my association of sparks and dry wood with fire to be objective is to make a claim like “sparks and wood cause fire,” applying the Category of causation. This claim is a-priori insofar as it involves the application of an a-priori (pure) concept, a-posteriori insofar as it is about the objects of experience.\n\nTranscendental idealism entails we are entitled to make causal claims, but it does not entail the empirical truth of our claims. Experimentation with sparks and wood may lead me to modify my claim. For instance, I may discover that sparks and wet wood do not jointly give rise to fire, and adjust my claim to “sparks and dry wood cause fire.” Further experimentation may lead to further refinements. I could not have deduced any of these conclusions about sparks and wood a-priori. The thesis that scientific claims have an a-priori component does not render experimentation either superfluous or unintelligible.\n\nAs it turns out, Bhaskar supposes that, for the Kantian, causal mechanisms are mere “figment[s] of the imagination” (RTS 45). If true, this would provide an independent argument against the intelligibility of experimentation on a transcendentally idealist account. But, as should by now be clear, this is an incorrect characterization of transcendental idealism. It is only for skeptics and solipsistic idealists that causal mechanisms are figments of the imagination. Kantians and transcendental realists agree causal mechanisms exist: they disagree only about whether they are transcendentally or empirically real.\n\nBhaskar’s transcendental arguments for critical realism fail, and the Kantian view to which Bhaskar opposes his own is frequently misinterpreted. Most problematically, the meaning of the Kantian distinction between the transcendentally and empirically real is ignored, and the latter category is treated as if it contained only figments of our imagination. Bhaskar maintains that epistemic access to the transcendentally real is a necessary condition for science and perception. But, as we have seen, it is merely epistemic access to the empirically real that is necessary. Bhaskar does not prove that we have knowledge of things as they are in-themselves. Critical realism is not transcendental realism.\n\nTuesday, June 27, 2017\n\nSociology of life expectations\n\nEach individual has a distinctive personality and orienting set of values. It is intriguing to wonder how these features take shape in the individual's development through the experiences of childhood, adolescence, and early adulthood. But we can also ask whether there are patterns of mentality and orienting values across many or most individuals in a cohort. Are there commonalities in the definition of a good life across a cohort? Is there such a thing as the millennial generation or the sixties generation, in possession of distinctive and broadly shared sets of values, frameworks, and dispositions?\n\nThese are questions that sociologists have attempted to probe using a range of tools of inquiry. It is possible to use survey methodology to observe shifts in attitudes over time, thereby pinpointing some important cohort differences. But qualitative tools seem the most appropriate for this question, and in fact sociologists have conducted extensive interviews with a selected group of individuals from the indicated group, and have used qualitative methods to analyze and understand the results.\n\nA very interesting example of this kind of research is Jennifer Silva's Coming Up Short: Working-Class Adulthood in an Age of Uncertainty. Silva is interested in studying the other half of the millennial generation -- the unemployed and underemployed young people, mostly working class, whom the past fifteen years have treated harshly. What she finds in this segment of the cohort born in the late 1970s and early 1980s is an insecure and precarious set of life circumstances, and new modes of transition to adulthood that don't look very much like the standard progress of family formation, career progress, and rising affluence that was perhaps characteristic of this same social segment in the 1950s.\n\nHere is how Silva frames the problem she wants to better understand:\nWhat, then, does it mean to “grow up” today? Even just a few decades ago, the transition to adulthood would not have been experienced as a time of confusion, anxiety, or uncertainty. In 1960, the vast majority of women married before they turned twenty-one and had their first child before twenty-three. By thirty, most men and women had moved out of their parents’ homes, completed school, gotten married, and begun having children. Completing these steps was understood as normal and natural, the only path to a complete and respectable adult life: indeed, half of American women at this time believed that people who did not get married were “selfish and peculiar,” and a full 85 percent agreed that women and men should get married and have children (Furstenberg et al. 2004). (6)\nSilva is interested in exploring in detail the making of \"working class life adulthood\" in the early twenty-first century. And her findings are somewhat bleak:\nExperiences of powerlessness, confusion, and betrayal within the labor market, institutions such as education and the government, and the family teach young working-class men and women that they are completely alone, responsible for their own fates and dependent on outside help only at their peril. They are learning the hard way that being an adult means trusting no one but yourself. (9)\nAt its core, this emerging working-class adult self is characterized by low expectations of work, wariness toward romantic commitment, widespread distrust of social institutions, profound isolation from others, and an overriding focus on their emotions and psychic health. Rather than turn to politics to address the obstacles standing in the way of a secure adult life, the majority of the men and women I interviewed crafted deeply personal coming of age stories, grounding their adult identities in recovering from their painful pasts—whether addictions, childhood abuse, family trauma, or abandonment—and forging an emancipated, transformed, and adult self. (10)\nKey to Silva's interpretation is the importance and coherence of the meanings that young people create for themselves -- the narratives through which they make sense of the unfolding of their lives and where they are going. She locates the context and origins of these self-stories in the structural circumstances of the American economy of the 1990s; but her real interest is in finding the recurring themes in the stories and descriptions these young people tell about themselves and their lives.\n\nFor Silva, the bleakness of this generation of young working class adults has structural causes: economic stagnation, dissolution of safety nets, loss of decent industrial-sector jobs and the rise of insecure service-sector jobs, and neoliberalism as a guiding social philosophy that systematically turns its back on under-class young people. It is sobering that her research is based on interviews carried out in a few cities in the United States, but the findings seem valid for many countries in western Europe as well (Britain, Germany, France). And this in turn may have relevance for the rise of populism in many countries as well.\n\nWhat is most worrisome about Silva's account is the very limited opportunities for social progress that it implies. As progressives we would like to imagine our democracy has the potential of evolving towards greater social dignity and opportunity for all segments of society. But what Silva describes is unpromising for this hopeful scenario. The avenues of higher education, skills-intensive work, and better life circumstances seem unlikely as a progressive end of this story. And the Sprawl of the grim anti-utopian novels of William Gibson (Neuromancer, Count Zero) seem to fit the world Silva describes better than the usual American optimism about the inevitability of progress. Significantly, the young people whom Silva interviews have very little interest in engagement in politics and supporting candidates who are committed to real change; they do not really believe in the possibility of change.\n\nIt is worth noticing the parallel in findings and methodology between Silva's work on young working class men and women and Al Young's studies of inner city black men (The Minds of Marginalized Black Men: Making Sense of Mobility, Opportunity, and Future Life Chances). Both fall within the scope of cultural sociology. Both proceed on the basis of extensive interviews with 50-100 subjects, both make use of valuable tools of qualitative analysis to make sense of the interviews, and both arrive at important new understandings of the mentalities of these groups of young Americans.\n\n(Here is a prior post on cultural sociology and its efforts to \"get inside the frame\" (link); and here is a post on \"disaffected youth\" that touches on some of these themes in a different way; link.)\n\nThursday, June 22, 2017\n\nExplanation and critical realism\n\nTo explain something is to provide a true account of the causes and circumstances that brought it about. There is of course more to say on the subject, but this is the essential part of the story. And this normative account of explanation should work as well for investigations created within the framework of critical realism as any other scientific framework.\n\nMoreover, CR is well equipped with intellectual resources to produce explanations of social outcomes based on this understanding. In particular, CR emphasizes the reality of causal mechanisms in the social world. To explain a social outcome, then -- perhaps the rise of Trumpism -- we are instructed to identify the causal mechanisms and conditions that were in play such that a novice from reality television would gain the support of millions of voters and win the presidency. So far, so good.\n\nBut a good explanation of an outcome is not just a story about mechanisms that might have produced the outcome; instead, we need a true story: these mechanisms existed and occurred, they brought about the outcome, and the outcome would not have occurred in the absence of this combination of mechanisms. Therefore we need to have empirical methods to allow us to evaluate the truth of these hypotheses.\n\nThere is also the important and interesting point that Bhaskar makes to the effect that the social world involves open causal configurations, not closed causal configurations. This appears to me to be an important insight into the social world; but it makes the problem of validating causal explanations even more challenging.\n\nThis brings us to a point of contact with the theme of much current work in critical realism: a firm opposition to positivism and an allegiance to post-positivism. Because a central thrust of positivism was the demand for substantive empirical confirmation or verification of substantive claims; and that is precisely where we have arrived in this rapid analysis of explanation as well. In fact, it is quite obvious that CR theories and explanations require empirical validation no less than positivistic theories. We cannot dispense with empirical validation and continue to believe we are involved in science.\n\nPut the point another way: there is no possible avenue of validation of substantive explanatory hypotheses that proceeds through purely intuitive or theoretical avenues. At some point a good explanation requires empirical assessment.\n\nFor example, it is appealing in the case of Trumpism to attribute Trump's rise to the latent xenophobia of the disaffected lower working class. But is this true? And if true, is it critical as a causal factor in his rise? How would we confirm or disconfirm this hypothetical mechanism? Once again, this brings us into proximity to a few core commitments of empiricism and positivism -- confirmation theory and falsifiability. And yet, a rational adherence to the importance of empirical validation takes us in this direction ineluctably.\n\nIt is worth pointing out that the social and historical sciences have indeed developed empirical methods that are both rigorous and distinctive to the domain of the social: process tracing, single-case and small-N studies, comparative analysis, paired comparisons, and the like. So the demand for empirical methods does not imply standard (and simplistic) models of confirmation like the H-D model. What it does imply is that it is imperative to use careful reasoning, detailed observation, and discovery of obscure historical facts to validate one's hypotheses and claims.\n\nBhaskar addresses these issues in his appendix on the philosophy of science in RTS. He clearly presupposes two things: that rigorous evidence must be used in assessment of explanatory hypotheses in social science; and flat-footed positivism fails in providing an appropriate account of what that empirical reasoning ought to look like. And, as indicated above, the open character of social causation presents the greatest barrier to the positivist approach. Positivism assets that the task of confirmation and refutation concerns only the empirical correspondence between hypothesis and observation.\n\nElsewhere I have argued for the piecemeal validation of social theories and hypotheses (link). This is possible because we are not forced to adopt the assumption of holism that generally guides philosophy in the consideration of physical theory. Instead, hypotheses about mechanisms and processes can be evaluated and confirmed through numerous independent lines of investigation. Duhem may have been right about physics, but he is not right about our knowledge of the social world.\n\nSunday, June 18, 2017\n\nCacophony of the social\n\nTake a typical day in a major city -- a busy street with a subway stop, a park, a coffee bar, and a large consumer financial office. There are several thousand people in view, mostly in ones and twos. Some people are rushing to an appointment with a doctor, a job interview, a drug dealer in the park. A group of young men and women are beginning to chant in a demonstration in the park against a particularly egregious announcement of government policy on contraception.\n\nThere is a blooming, buzzing confusion to the scene. And yet there are overlapping forms of order -- pedestrians crossing streets at the crosswalks, surges of suits and ties at certain times of day, snatch and grab artists looking for an unguarded cell phone. The brokers in the financial office are more coordinated in their actions, tasked to generate sales with customers who walk in for service. The demonstrators have assembled from many parts of the city, arriving by subway in the previous hour. Their presence is, of course, coordinated; they were alerted to the demo by a group text from the activist organization they belong to. \n\nWhat are the opportunities for social science investigation here? What possibilities exist for explanation of some of the phenomena on display?\n\nFor one thing there is an interesting opportunity for ethnographic study presented here. A micro-sociologist or urban anthropologist may find it very interesting to look closely to see what details of dress and behavior are on display. This is the kind of work that sociologists inspired by Erving Goffman have pursued.\n\nAnother interesting possibility is to see what coordinated patterns of behavior can be observed. Do people establish eye contact as they pass? Are the suits more visibly comfortable with other suits than with the street people and panhandlers with whom they cross paths? Is there a subtle racial etiquette at work among these urban strangers?\n\nThese considerations fall at the \"micro\" end of the spectrum. But it is clear enough that the snapshots we gain from a few hours on the street also illustrate a number of background features of social structure. There is differentiation among actors in these scenes that reflects various kinds of social inequalities. There are visible inequalities of income and quality of life that can be observed. These inequalities in turn can be associated with current activities -- where the various actors work, how much education they have, what schools they attended, their overall state of health. There are spatial indicators of interest as well -- what kinds of neighborhoods, in what parts of the city, did these various actors wake up in this morning?\n\nAnd for all of these structural differentiators we can ask the question, what were the social mechanisms and processes that performed the sorting of new-borns into affluent/poor, healthy/sick, well educated/poorly educated, and so forth? In other words, how did social structure impose a stamp on this heterogeneous group of people through their own distinctive histories?\n\nWe can also ask a series of questions about social networks and social data about these actors. How large are their personal social networks? What are the characteristics of other individuals within various individual networks? How deep do we need to go before we begin to find overlap across the networks of individuals on the street? This is where big data comes in; Amazon, credit agencies, and Verizon know vastly more about these individuals, their habits, and their networks than a social science researcher is likely to discover through a few hundred interviews. \n\nI'd like to think this disorderly ensemble of purposive but uncoordinated action by several thousand people is highly representative of the realities of the social world. And this picture in turn gives support to the ontology of heterogeneity and contingency that is a core theme here. \n\nWednesday, June 14, 2017\n\nOrganizational learning\n\n\nI've posed the question of organizational learning several times in recent months: are there forces that push organizations towards changes leading to improvements in performance over time? Is there a process of organizational evolution in the social world? So where do we stand on this question?\n\nThere are only two general theories that would lead us to conclude affirmatively. One is a selection theory. According to this approach, organizations undergo random changes over time, and the environment of action favors those organizations whose changes are functional with respect to performance. The selection theory itself has two variants, depending on how we think about the unit of selection. It might be hypothesized that the firm itself is the unit of selection, so firms survive or fail based on their own fitness. Over time the average level of performance rises through the extinction of low-performance organizations. Or it might be maintained that the unit is at a lower level -- the individual alternative arrangements for performing various kinds of work, which are evaluated and selected on the basis of some metric of performance. On this approach, individual innovations are the object of selection. \n\nThe other large mechanism of organizational learning is quasi-intentional. We postulate that intelligent actors control various aspects of the functioning of an organization; these actors have a set of interests that drive their behavior; and actors fine-tune the arrangements of the organization so as to serve their interests. This is a process I describe as quasi-intentional to convey that the organization itself has no intentionality, but its behavior and arrangements are under the control of a loosely connected set of actors who are individually intentional and purposive. \n\nIn a highly idealized representation of organizations at work, these quasi-intentional processes may indeed push the organization towards higher functioning. Governance processes -- boards of directors, executives -- have a degree of influence over the activities of other actors within and adjacent to the organization, and they are able to push some subordinate behavior in the direction of higher performance and innovation if they have an interest in doing so. And sometimes these governance actors do in fact have an interest in higher performance -- more revenue, less environmental harm, greater safety, gender and racial equity. Under these circumstances it is reasonable to expect that arrangements will be modified to improve performance, and the organization will \"evolve\".\n\nHowever, two forms of counter-intentionality arise. The interests of the governing actors are not perfectly aligned with increasing performance. Substantial opportunities for conflict of interest exist at every level, including the executive level (e.g. Enron). So the actions of executives are not always in concert with the goal of improving performance. Second, other actors within the organization are often beyond control of executive actors and are motivated by interests that are quite separate from the goal of increasing performance. Their actions may often lead to status quo performance or even degradation of performance. \n\nSo the question of whether a given organization will change in the direction of higher performance is highly sensitive to (i) the alignment of mission interest and personal interest for executive actors, (ii) the scope of control executive actors are able to exercise over subordinates, and (iii) the strength and pervasiveness of personal interests among subordinates within the organization and the capacity these subordinates have to select and maintain arrangements that favor their interests.\n\nThis represents a highly contingent and unpredictable situation for the question of organizational learning. We might regard the question as an ongoing struggle between local private interest and the embodiment of mission-defined interest. And there is no reason at all to believe that this struggle is biased in the direction of enhancement of performance. Some organizations will progress, others will be static, and yet others will decline over time. There is no process of evolution, guided or invisible, that leads inexorably towards improvement of arrangements and performance.\n\nSo we might formulate this conclusion in a fairly stark way. If organizations improve in capacity and performance over time in a changing environment, this is entirely the result of intelligent actors undertaking to implement innovations that will lead to these outcomes, at a variety of levels of action within the organization. There is no hidden process that can be expected to generate an evolutionary tendency towards higher organizational performance. \n\n(The images above are of NASA headquarters and Enron headquarters -- two organizations whose histories reflect the kinds of dysfunctions mentioned here.)\n\nThursday, June 1, 2017\n\nSocial change and leadership\n\nHistorians pay a lot of attention to important periods of social change -- the emergence of new political movements, the development of a great city, the end of Jim Crow segregation. There is an inclination to give a lot of weight to the importance of leaders, visionaries, and change-makers in driving these processes to successful outcomes. And, indeed, history correctly records the impact of charismatic and visionary leaders. But consider the larger question: are large social changes amenable to design by a small number of actors?\n\nMy inclination is to think that the capacity of calculated design for large, complex social changes is very much more limited than we often imagine. Instead, change more often emerges from the independent strategies and actions of numerous actors, only loosely coordinated with others, and proceeding from their own interests and framing assumptions. The large outcome -- the emergence of Chicago as the major metropolis of the Midwest, the forging of the EU and the monetary union, the coalescence of nationalist movements in France and Germany -- are the resultant of multiple actors and causes. Big outcomes are contingent outcomes of multiple streams of action, mobilization, business decisions, political parties, etc.\n\nThere are exceptions, of course. Italy's political history would have been radically different without Mussolini, and the American Civil War would probably have had a different course if Douglas had won the 1860 presidential election. \n\nBut these are exceptions, I believe. More common is the history of Chicago, the surge of right-wing nationalism, or the collapse of the USSR. These are all multi-causal and multi-actor outcomes, and there is no single, unified process of development. And there is no author, no architect, of the outcome. \n\nSo what does this imply about individual leaders and organizations who want to change the social and political environment facing them? Are their aspirations for creating change simply illusions? I don't think so. To deny that single visionaries cannot write the future does not imply they cannot nudge it in a desirable direction. And these effects can indeed alter the future, sometimes in the desired direction. An anti-racist politician can influence voters and institutions in ways that inflect the arc of his or her society in a less racist way. This doesn't permanently solve the problem, but it helps. And with good fortune, other actors will have made similar efforts, and gradually the situation of racism changes. \n\nThis framework for thinking about large social change raises large questions about how we should think about improving the world around us. It seems to imply the importance of local and decentralized social change. We should perhaps adjust our aspirations for social progress around the idea of slow, incremental change through many actors, organizations, and coalitions. As Marx once wrote, \"men make their own history, but not in circumstances of their own choosing.\" And we can add a qualification Marx would not have appreciated: change makers are best advised to construct their plans around long, slow, and incremental change instead of blueprints for unified, utopian change. \n\nFriday, May 26, 2017\n\nProliferation of hate and intolerance\n\nPaul Brass provides a wealth of ethnographic and historical evidence on the causes of Hindu-Muslim violence in India in The Production of Hindu-Muslim Violence in Contemporary India. His analysis here centers on the city of Aligarh in Uttar Pradesh, and he believes that his findings have broad relevance in many parts of India. His key conclusion is worth quoting:\nIt is a principal argument of this book that the whole political order in post-Independence north India and many, if not most of its leading as well as local actors -- more markedly so since the death of Nehru -- have become implicated in the persistence of Hindu-Muslim riots. These riots have had concrete benefits for particular political organizations as well as larger political uses. Hindu-Muslim opposition, tensions, and violence have provided the principal justification and the primary source of strength for the political existence of some local political organizations in many cities and towns in north India linked to a family of militant Hindu nationalist organizations whose core is an organization founded in 1925, known as the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS). Included in this family, generally called the Sangh Parivar, are an array of organizations devoted to different tasks: mass mobilization, political organization, recruitment of students, women, and workers, and paramilitary training. The leading political organization in this family, originally called the Jan Sangh, is now the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP), currently (2001) the predominant party in India's governing coalition. All the organizations in the RSS family of militant Hindu organizations adhere to a broader ideology of Hindutva, of Hindu nationalism that theoretically exists independently of Hindu-Muslim antagonisms, but in practice has thrived only when that opposition is explicitly or implicitly present. (6-7)\nBrass provides extensive evidence, that is, for the idea that a key cause and stimulant to ethnic and religious conflict derives from the political entrepreneurs and organizations who have a political interest in furthering conflict among groups.\n\nLet's think about the mechanics of the spread of attitudes of intolerance, distrust, and hate throughout a population. What kinds of factors and interactions lead individuals to increase the intensity of their negative beliefs and attitudes towards other groups? What drives the spread of hate and intolerance through a population? (Donatella della Porta, Manuela Caiani and Claudius Wagemann's Mobilizing on the Extreme Right: Germany, Italy, and the United States is a valuable recent effort at formulating a political sociology of right-wing extremism in Italy, Germany, and the United States. Here is an earlier post that also considers this topic; link.)\n\nHere are several mechanisms that recur in many instances of extremist mobilization.\n\nExposure to inciting media. Since the Rwandan genocide the role of radio, television, and now the internet has been recognized in the proliferation and intensification of hate. The use of fake news, incendiary language, and unfounded conspiracy theories seems to have accelerated the formation of constituencies for the beliefs and attitudes of hate. Breitbart News is a powerful example of a media channel specifically organized around conveying suspicion, mistrust, disrespect, and alienation among groups. (\"Propaganda and conflict: Evidence from the Rwandan genocide\" is a finegrained study of Rwandan villages that attempts to estimate the impact of a radio station on violent participation by villagers; link.)\n\nIncidents. People who have studied the occurrence of ethnic violence in India have emphasized the role played by various incidents, real or fictitious, that have elevated emotions and antagonisms in one community or another. An assault or a rape, a house or shop being burned, even an auto accident can lead to a cascade of heightened emotions and blame within a community, communicated by news media and word of mouth. These sorts of incidents play an important role in many of the conflicts Brass describes.\n\nOrganizations and leaders. Organizations like white supremacist clubs and their leaders make deliberate attempts to persuade outsiders to join their beliefs. Leaders make concerted and intelligent attempts to craft messages that will appeal to potential followers, deliberately cultivating the themes of hate and racism that they advocate. Young people are recruited at the street level into groups and clubs that convey hateful symbols and rhetoric. Political entrepreneurs take advantage of the persuasive power of mobilization efforts based on divisiveness and intolerance. In Brass's account of Hindu-Muslim conflict, that role is played by RSS, BJP, and many local organizations motivated by this ideology.\n\nMusic, comics, and video games. Anti-hate organizations like the Southern Poverty Law Center have documented the role played by racist and anti-Semitic or anti-Muslim themes in popular music and other forms of entertainment (link). These creations help to create a sense of shared identity among members as they enjoy the music or immerse themselves in the comics and games. Blee and Creasap emphasize the importance of the use of popular culture forms in mobilization strategies of the extreme right in \"Conservative and right-wing movements\"; link.\n\nThe presence of a small number of \"hot connectors\". It appears to be the case that attitudes of intolerance are infectious to some degree. So the presence of a few outspoken bigots in a small community may spread their attitudes to others, and the density of local social networks appears to be an important factor in the spread of hateful attitudes. The broader the social network of these individuals, the more potent the infective effects of their behavior are likely to be. (Here is a recent post on social-network effects on mobilization; link.)\n\nThere is a substantial degree of orchestration in most of these mechanisms -- deliberate efforts by organizations and political entrepreneurs to incite and channel the emotions of fear, hostility, and hate among their followers and potential followers. Strategies of recruitment for extremist and hate-based parties deliberately cultivate the mindset of hate among young people and disaffected older people (link). And the motivations seem to be a mix of ideological commitment to a worldview of hate and more prosaic self-interest -- power, income, resources, publicity, and influence. \n\nBut the hard questions remaining are these: how does intolerance become mainstream? Is this a \"tipping point\" phenomenon? And what mechanisms and forces exist to act as counter-pressures against these mechanisms, and promulgate attitudes of mutual respect and tolerance as affirmative social values?\n\n*          *          *\n\nHere is a nice graphic from Arcand and Chakraborty, \"What Explains Ethnic Violence? Evidence from Hindu-Muslim Riots in India\"; link. Gujarat, Maharashtra, and Uttar Pradesh show the largest concentration of riots over the period 1960-1995. There appears to be no correlation by time in the occurrence of riots in the three states.\n\nAnd here is a 1996 report on the incidence of religious violence in India by Human Rights Watch; link\n\nWednesday, May 24, 2017\n\nDemocracy and the politics of intolerance\n\nA democracy allows government to reflect the will of the people. Or does it? Here I would like to understand a bit better the dynamics through which radical right populism has come to have influence, even dominance, in a number of western democracies -- even when the percentage of citizens with radical right populist attitudes generally falls below the range of 35% of the electorate.\n\nThere are well known bugs in the ways that real democracies work, leading to discrepancies between policy outcomes and public preferences. In the United States, for example, we find:\n  • Gerrymandered Congressional districts that favor Republican incumbents\n  • Over-representation of rural voters in the composition of the Senate (Utah has as many senators as California)\n  • Organized efforts to suppress voting by poor and minority voters\n  • The vast influence of corporate and private money in shaping elections and public attitudes\n  • An electoral-college system that easily permits the candidate winning fewer votes to nonetheless win the Presidency\nSo it is evident that the system of electoral democracy institutionalized in the United States is far from a neutral, formal system conveying citizen preferences onto outcomes in a fair and equal way. The rules as well as the choices are objects of contention.\n\nBut to understand the ascendancy of the far right in US politics we need to go beyond these defects. We need to understand the processes through which citizens acquire their political attitudes -- thereby explaining their likelihood of mobilization for one party or candidate or another. And we need to understand the mechanisms through which elected representatives are pushed to the extreme positions that are favored by only a minority of their own supporters.\n\nFirst, what are the mechanisms that lead to the formation of political attitudes and beliefs in individual citizens? That is, of course, a huge question. People have religious values, civic values, family values, personal aspirations, bits of historical knowledge, and so on, all of which come into play in a wide range of settings through personal development. And all of these value tags may serve as a basis for mobilization by candidates and parties. That is the rationale for \"dog-whistle\" politics -- to craft messages that resonate with small groups of voters without being noticed by larger groups with different values. So let's narrow it a bit: what mechanisms exist through which activist organizations and leaders can promote specific hateful beliefs and attitudes within a population with a range of existing attitudes, beliefs, and values? In particular, how can radical-right populist organizations and parties increase the appeal of their programs of intolerance to voters who are not otherwise pre-disposed to the extremes of populism?\n\nHere the potency of appeals to division, intolerance, and hate is of particular relevance. Populism has almost always depended on a simplistic division between \"us\" and \"them\". The rhetoric and themes of nationalism and racism represent powerful tools in the arsenal of populist mobilization, preying upon suspicion, resentment, and mistrust of \"others\" in order to gain adherents to a party that promises to take advantages away from those others. The right-wing media play an enormous role in promulgating these messages of division and intolerance in many countries. The conspiracy theories and false narratives conveyed by right-wing media and commentators are powerfully persuasive in setting the terms of political consciousness for millions of people. Fox News set the agenda for a large piece of the American electorate. And the experience of having been left out of a fair share of economic advantages leaves some segments of the population particularly vulnerable to these kinds of appeals. Finally, the under-currents of racism and prejudice are of continuing importance in the political and social identities of many citizens -- again leaving them vulnerable to appeals that cater to these prejudices. This is how Breitbart News works. (An earlier post treated this factor; link.)\n\nLet's next consider the institutional mechanisms through which activist advocacy can be turned into disproportionate effects in legislation. Suppose Representative Smith has been elected on the Republican ticket in a close contest over his Democrat opponent with 51% of the vote. And suppose his constituency includes 15% extreme right voters, 20% moderate right voters, and 16% conservative-leaning independents. Why does Smith go on to support the agenda of the far right, who are after all only less than a third of his own supporters in his district? This results from a mechanism that political scientists seem to understand; it involves the dynamics of the primary system. The extreme right is highly activated, while the center is significantly less so. A candidate who moves to the center is in danger of losing his seat in the next primary to a far-right candidate who can depend upon the support of his or her activist base to defeat Smith. So the 15% of extreme-right voters determine the behavior of the representative. (McAdam and Kloos consider these dynamics in Deeply Divided: Racial Politics and Social Movements in Postwar America; link.)\n\nGerrymandering plays an important role in these dynamics as well. Smith doesn't have to moderate his policy choices out of concern that he will lose the general election to a more moderate Democrat, because the Republican legislature in his state has ensured that this is a safe seat for the candidate chosen by the party.\n\nSo here we are -- in a nation governed by an extreme-right party in control of both House and Senate, with a President espousing xenophobic and anti-immigrant intentions and a budget that severely cuts back on the social safety net, and dozens of state governments dominated by the same forces. And yet the President is profoundly unpopular, confidence in Congress is at an abysmal low point, and the majority of Americans favor a more progressive set of policies on women's health, health policy, immigration, and international security than the governing party is proposing. How did democratic processes bring us to this paradoxical point?\n\nIn 1991 political scientist Sam Popkin published a short book called The Reasoning Voter: Communication and Persuasion in Presidential Campaigns. The title captures Popkin's central hypothesis: that voters make choices on the basis of rational assessment of available evidence. What he adds to this old theory of democratic behavior is the proviso that often the principle of reasoning in question is what he calls \"low-information rationality\". Unlike traditional rational-choice theories of political behavior, Popkin proposes to make use of empirical results from cognitive psychology -- insights into how real people make practical decisions of importance. It is striking how much the environment of political behavior has changed since Popkin's reflections in the 1980s and 1990s. \"Most Americans watch some network television news and scan newspapers several times every week\" (25). In a 2015 New Yorker piece on the populism of Donald Trump Evan Osnos quotes Popkin again -- but this time in a way that emphasizes emotions rather than evidence-based rationality (link). The passage is worth quoting:\n“The more complicated the problem, the simpler the demands become,” Samuel Popkin, a political scientist at the University of California in San Diego, told me. “When people get frustrated and irritated, they want to cut the Gordian knot.” \nTrump has succeeded in unleashing an old gene in American politics—the crude tribalism that Richard Hofstadter named “the paranoid style”—and, over the summer, it replicated like a runaway mutation. Whenever Americans have confronted the reshuffling of status and influence—the Great Migration, the end of Jim Crow, the end of a white majority—we succumb to the anti-democratic politics of absolutism, of a “conflict between absolute good and absolute evil,” in which, Hofstadter wrote, “the quality needed is not a willingness to compromise but the will to fight things out to a finish. Nothing but complete victory will do.” Trump was born to the part. “I’ll do nearly anything within legal bounds to win,” he wrote, in “The Art of the Deal.” “Sometimes, part of making a deal is denigrating your competition.” Trump, who long ago mastered the behavioral nudges that could herd the public into his casinos and onto his golf courses, looked so playful when he gave out Lindsey Graham’s cell-phone number that it was easy to miss just how malicious a gesture it truly was. It expressed the knowledge that, with a single utterance, he could subject an enemy to that most savage weapon of all: us. (link)\nThe gist is pretty clear: populism is not primarily about rational consideration of costs and benefits, but rather the political emotions of mistrust, intolerance, and fear.\n\nSaturday, May 20, 2017\n\nIs there a new capitalism?\n\nAn earlier post considered Dave Elder-Vass’s very interesting treatment of the contemporary digital economy. In Profit and Gift in the Digital Economy Elder-Vass argues that the vast economic significance of companies like Google, FaceBook, and Amazon in today's economy is difficult to assimilate within the conceptual framework of Marx’s foundational ideas about capitalism, constructed as they were around manufacturing, labor, and ownership of capital, and that we need some new conceptual tools in order to make sense of the economic system we now confront. (Elder-Vass responded to my earlier post here.)\n\nA new book by Nick Srnicek looks at this problem from a different point of view. In Platform Capitalism Srnicek proposes to understand the realities of our current “digital economy” according to traditional ideas about capitalism and profit. Here is a preliminary statement of his approach:\nThe simple wager of the book is that we can learn a lot about major tech companies by taking them to be economic actors within a capitalist mode of production. This means abstracting from them as cultural actors defined by the values of the Californian ideology, or as political actors seeking to wield power. By contrast, these actors are compelled to seek out profits in order to fend off competition. This places strict limits on what constitutes possible and predictable expectations of what is likely to occur. Most notably, capitalism demands that firms constantly seek out new avenues for profit, new markets, new commodities, and new means of exploitation. For some, this focus on capital rather than labour may suggest a vulgar econo-mism; but, in a world where the labour movement has been significantly weakened, giving capital a priority of agency seems only to reflect reality. (Kindle Locations 156-162)\nIn other words, there is not a major break from General Motors, with its assembly lines, corporate management, and vehicles, to IBM, with its products, software, and innovations, to Google, with its purely abstract and information-intensive products. All are similar in their basic corporate navigation systems: make decisions today that will support or increase profits tomorrow. In fact, each of these companies falls within the orbit of the new digital economy, according to Srnicek:\nAs a preliminary definition, we can say that the digital economy refers to those businesses that increasingly rely upon information technology, data, and the internet for their business models. This is an area that cuts across traditional sectors – including manufacturing, services, transportation, mining, and telecommunications – and is in fact becoming essential to much of the economy today. (Kindle Locations 175-177).\nWhat has changed, according to the economic history constructed by Srnicek, is that the creation and control of data has suddenly become a vast and dynamic source of potential profit, and capitalist firms have adapted quickly to capture these profits.\n\nThe restructuring associated with the rise of information-intensive economic activity has greatly changed the nature of work:\nSimultaneously, the generalised deindustrialisation of the high-income economies means that the product of work becomes immaterial: cultural content, knowledge, affects, and services. This includes media content like YouTube and blogs, as well as broader contributions in the form of creating websites, participating in online forums, and producing software. (Kindle Locations 556-559)\nBut equally it takes the form of specialized data-intensive work within traditional companies: design experts, marketing analysis of “big data” on consumer trends, the use of large simulations to guide business decision-making, the use of automatically generated data from vehicles to guide future engineering changes.\n\nIn order to capture the profit opportunities associated with the availability of big data, something else was needed: an organizational basis for aggregating and monetizing the data that exist around us. This is the innovation that comes in for Srnicek's greatest focus of attention: the platform.\nThis chapter argues that the new business model that eventually emerged is a powerful new type of firm: the platform. Often arising out of internal needs to handle data, platforms became an efficient way to monopolise, extract, analyse, and use the increasingly large amounts of data that were being recorded. Now this model has come to expand across the economy, as numerous companies incorporate platforms: powerful technology companies (Google, Facebook, and Amazon), dynamic start-ups (Uber, Airbnb), industrial leaders (GE, Siemens), and agricultural powerhouses (John Deere, Monsanto), to name just a few. (Kindle Locations 602-607).\nWhat are platforms? At the most general level, platforms are digital infrastructures that enable two or more groups to interact. They therefore position themselves as intermediaries that bring together different users: customers, advertisers, service providers, producers, suppliers, and even physical objects. More often than not, these platforms also come with a series of tools that enable their users to build their own products, services, and marketplaces. Microsoft’s Windows operating system enables software developers to create applications for it and sell them to consumers; Apple’s App Store and its associated ecosystem (XCode and the iOS SDK) enable developers to build and sell new apps to users; Google’s search engine provides a platform for advertisers and content providers to target people searching for information; and Uber’s taxi app enables drivers and passengers to exchange rides for cash. (Kindle Locations 607-616)\nSrnicek distinguishes five large types of digital data platforms that have been built out as business models: advertising, cloud, industrial, product, and \"lean\" platforms (the latter exemplified by Uber).\n\nSrnicek believes that firms organized around digital platforms are subject to several important dynamics and tendencies: \"expansion of extraction, positioning as a gatekeeper, convergence of markets, and enclosure of ecosystems\" (kl 1298). These tendencies are created by the imperative by the platform-based firm to generate profits. Profits depend upon monetizing data; and data has little value in small volume. So the most fundamental imperative is -- mass collection of data from individual consumers.\nIf data collection is a key task of platforms, analysis is the necessary correlate. The proliferation of data-generating devices creates a vast new repository of data, which requires increasingly large and sophisticated storage and analysis tools, further driving the centralisation of these platforms. (kl 1337-1339)\nSo privacy threats emerging from the new digital economy are not a bug; they are an inherent feature of design.\n\nThis appears to lead us to Srnicek's most basic conclusion: the new digital economy is just like the old industrial economy in one important respect. Firms are wholly focused on generating profits, and they design intelligent strategies to permit themselves to appropriate ever-larger profits from the raw materials they process. In the case of the digital economy the raw material is data, and the profits come from centralizing and monopolizing access to data, and deploying data to generate profits for other firms (who in turn pay for access to the data). And revenues and profits have no correspondence to the size of the firm's workforce:\nTech companies are notoriously small. Google has around 60,000 direct employees, Facebook has 12,000, while WhatsApp had 55 employees when it was sold to Facebook for $ 19 billion and Instagram had 13 when it was purchased for $ 1 billion. By comparison, in 1962 the most significant companies employed far larger numbers of workers: AT& T had 564,000 employees, Exxon had 150,000 workers, and GM had 605,000 employees. Thus, when we discuss the digital economy, we should bear in mind that it is something broader than just the tech sector defined according to standard classifications. (Kindle Locations 169-174)\nMarx's theory of capitalism fundamentally originates in a theory of conflict of interest and a theory of exploitation. In Capital that conflict exists between capitalists and workers, and consumers are essentially ignored (except when Marx sometimes refers to the deleterious effects of competition on public health; link). But in Srnicek's reading of the contemporary digital economy (and Elder-Vass's as well) the focus shifts away from labor and towards the consumer. The primary conflict in the digital economy is between the platform firm that seeks to acquire our data and the consumers who want the digital services but who are poorly aware of the cost to their privacy. And here it is more difficult to make an argument about exploitation. Are consumers being exploited in this exchange? Or are they getting fair value through extensive and valuable digital services, for the surrender of their privacy in the form of data collection of clicks, purchases, travel, phone usage, and the countless other ways in which individual data winds up in the aggregation engines?\n\nIn an unexpected way, this analysis leads us back to a question that seems to belong in the nineteenth century: what after all is the source of value and wealth? And who has a valid claim on a share? What principles of justice should govern the distribution of the wealth of society? The labor theory of value had an answer to the question, but it is an answer that didn't have a lot of validity in 1850 and has none today. But in that case we need to address the question again. The soaring inequalities of income and wealth that capitalism has produced since 1980 suggest that our economy has lost its control mechanisms for equity; and perhaps this has something to do with the fact that a great deal of the money being generated in capitalism today comes from control of data rather than the adding of value to products through labor. Oddly enough, perhaps Marx's other big idea is relevant here: social ownership of the means of production. If there were a substantial slice of public-sector ownership of big data firms, including financial institutions, the resulting flow of income and wealth might be expected to begin to correct the hyper-inequalities our economy is currently generating.\n\nFriday, May 12, 2017\n\nBrian Epstein's radical metaphysics\n\nHere is one key example Epstein provides to give intuitive grasp of the anti-reductionist metaphysics he has in mind -- the relationship between \"the Supreme Court\" and the nine individuals who make it up.\n\nThe second view is more of a social-constructivist orientation towards individuals: individuals are constituted by their representations of themselves and others; the individual-level is inherently semiotic and relational. Epstein associates this view with Searle (50 ff.); but it seems to characterize a range of other theorists, from Geertz to Goffman and Garfinkel. Epstein refers to this approach as the \"Standard Model\" of social ontology. Fundamental to the Standard View is the idea of institutional facts -- the rules of a game, the boundaries of a village, the persistence of a paper currency. Institutional facts are held in place by the attitudes and performances of the individuals who inhabit them; but they are not reducible to an ensemble of individual-level psychological facts. And the constructionist part of the approach is the idea that actors jointly constitute various social realities -- a demonstration against the government, a celebration, or a game of bridge. And Epstein believes that supervenience fails in the constructivist ontology of the Standard View (57).\n\nBoth views are anti-dualistic (no inherent social \"stuff\"); but on Epstein's approach they are ultimately incompatible with each other.\n\nBut here is the critical point: Epstein doesn't believe that either of these views is adequate as a basis for social metaphysics. We need a new beginning in the metaphysics of the social world. Where to start this radical work? Epstein offers several new concepts to help reshape our metaphysical language about social facts -- what he refers to as \"grounding\" and \"anchoring\" of social facts. \"Grounding\" facts for a social fact M are lower-level facts that help to constitute the truth of M. \"Bob and Jane ran down Howe Street\" partially grounds the fact \"the mob ran down Howe Street\" (M). The fact about Bob and Jane is one of the features of the world that contributes to the truth and meaning of M. \"Full grounding\" is a specification of all the facts needed in order to account for M. \"Anchoring\" facts are facts that characterize the constructivist aspect of the social world -- conformance to meanings, rules, or institutional structures. An anchoring fact is one that sets the \"frame\" for a social fact. (An earlier post offered reflections on anchor individualism; link.)\n\nEpstein suggests that \"grounding\" corresponds to classic ontological individualism, while \"anchoring\" corresponds to the Standard View (the constructivist view).\nWhat I will call \"anchor individualism\" is a claim about how frame principles can be anchored. Ontological individualism, in contrast, is best understood as a claim about how social facts can be grounded. (100)\nAnd he believes that a more adequate social ontology is one that incorporates both grounding and anchoring relations. \"Anchoring and grounding fit together into a single model of social ontology\" (82).\n\n\nSo Epstein has done what he set out to do: he has taken the metaphysics of the social world as seriously as contemporary metaphysicians do on other important topics, and he has teased out a large body of difficult questions about constitution, causation, formation, grounding, and anchoring. This is a valuable and innovative contribution to the philosophy of social science.\n\nBut does this exercise add significantly to our ability to conduct social science research and theory? Do James Coleman, Sam Popkin, Jim Scott, George Steinmetz, or Chuck Tilly need to fundamentally rethink their approach to the social problems they attempted to understand in their work? Do the metaphysics of \"frame\", \"ground\", and \"anchor\" make for better social research?\n\n\nIn order to do good social research we do of course need to have a background ontology. But after working through The Ant Trap several times, I'm still not persuaded that we need to move beyond a fairly commonsensical set of ideas about the social world:\n  • individuals have mental representations of the world they inhabit\n  • individuals form meaningful relationships with other individuals\n  • institutions and norms are embodied in the thoughts, actions, artifacts, and traces of individuals (grounded and anchored, in Epstein's terms)\nThese are the assumptions that I have in mind when I refer to \"actor-centered sociology\" (link). This is not a sophisticated philosophical theory of social metaphysics; but it is fully adequate to grounding a realist and empirically informed effort to understand the social world around us. And nothing in The Ant Trap leads me to believe that there are fundamental conceptual impossibilities embedded in these simple, mundane individualistic ideas about the social world.\n\nAnd this leads me to one other conclusion: Epstein argues the social sciences need to think fundamentally differently. But actually, I think he has shown at best that philosophers can usefully think differently -- but in ways that may in the end not have a lot of impact on the way that inventive social theorists need to conceive of their work.\n\n\nTuesday, May 9, 2017\n\n\nThere is a seductive appeal to the idea of a \"generative social science\". Joshua Epstein is one of the main proponents of the idea, most especially in his book, Generative Social Science: Studies in Agent-Based Computational Modeling. The central tool of generative social science is the construction of an agent-based model (link). The ABM is said to demonstrate the way in which an observable social outcome of pattern is generated by the properties and activities of the component parts that make it up -- the actors. The appeal comes from the notion that it is possible to show how complicated or complex outcomes are generated by the properties of the components that make them up. Fix the properties of the components, and you can derive the properties of the composites. Here is Epstein's capsule summary of the approach:\nThe agent-based computational model -- or artificial society -- is a new scientific instrument. It can powerfully advance a distinctive approach to social science, one for which the term \"generative\" seems appropriate. I will discuss this term more fully below, but in a strong form, the central idea is this: To the generativist, explaining the emergence of macroscopic societal regularities, such as norms or price equilibria, requires that one answer the following question: \nThe Generativist's Question \nThe agent-based computational model is well-suited to the study of this question, since the following features are characteristic: [heterogeneity, autonomy, explicit space, local interactions, bounded rationality] (5-6)\nAnd a few pages later:\nAgent-based models provide computational demonstrations that a given microspecification is in fact sufficient to generate a macrostructure of interest. . . . To the generativist -- concerned with formation dynamics -- it does not suffice to establish that, if deposited in some macroconfiguration, the system will stay there. Rather, the generativist wants an account of the configuration's attainment by a decentralized system of heterogeneous autonomous agents. Thus, the motto of generative social science, if you will, is: If you didn't grow it, you didn't explain its emergence. (8)\nHere is how Epstein describes the logic of one of the most extensive examples of generative social science, the attempt to understand the disappearance of Anasazi population in the American Southwest nearly 800 years ago.\nThe logic of the exercise has been, first, to digitize the true history -- we can now watch it unfold on a digitized map of Longhouse Valley. This data set (what really happened) is the target -- the explanandum. The aim is to develop, in collaboration with anthropologists, microspecifications -- ethnographically plausible rules of agent behavior -- that will generate the true history. The computational challenge, in other words, is to place artificial Anasazi where the true ones were in 80-0 AD and see if -- under the postulated rules -- the simulated evolution matches the true one. Is the microspecification empirically adequate, to use van Fraassen's phrase? (13)\nHere is a short video summarizing the ABM developed under these assumptions:\n\nThe artificial Anasazi experiment is an interesting one, and one to which the constraints of an agent-based model are particularly well suited. The model follows residence location decision-making based on ground-map environmental information.\n\nBut this does not imply that the generativist interpretation is equally applicable as a general approach to explaining important social phenomena.\n\nNote first how restrictive the assumption is of \"decentralized local interactions\" as a foundation to the model. A large proportion of social activity is neither decentralized nor purely local: the search for muons in an accelerator lab, the advance of an armored division into contested territory, the audit of a large corporation, preparations for a strike by the UAW, the coordination of voices in a large choir, and so on, indefinitely. In all these examples and many more, a crucial part of the collective behavior of the actors is the coordination that occurs through some centralized process -- a command structure, a division of labor, a supervisory system. And by its design, ABMs appear to be incapable of representing these kinds of non-local coordination.\n\nSecond, all these simulation models proceed from highly stylized and abstract modeling assumptions. And the outcomes they describe capture at best some suggestive patterns that might be said to be partially descriptive of the outcomes we are interested in. Abstraction is inevitable in any scientific work, of course; but once recognizing that fact, we must abandon the idea that the model demonstrates the \"generation\" of the empirical phenomenon. Neither premises nor conclusions are fully descriptive of concrete reality; both are approximations and abstractions. And it would be fundamentally implausible to maintain that the modeling assumptions capture all the factors that are causally relevant to the situation. Instead, they represent a particular stylized hypothesis about a few of the causes of the situation in question.  Further, we have good reason to believe that introducing more details at the ground level will sometimes lead to significant alteration of the system-level properties that are generated.\n\nSo the idea that an agent-based model of civil unrest could demonstrate that (or how) civil unrest is generated by the states of discontent and fear experienced by various actors is fundamentally ill-conceived. If the unrest is generated by anything, it is generated by the full set of causal and dynamic properties of the set of actors -- not the abstract stylized list of properties. And other posts have made the point that civil unrest or rebellion is rarely purely local in its origin; rather, there are important coordinating non-local structures (organizations) that influence mobilization and spread of rebellious collective action. Further, the fact that the ABM \"generates\" some macro characteristics that may seem empirically similar to the observed phenomenon is suggestive, but far from a demonstration that the model characteristics suffice to determine some aspect of the macro phenomenon. Finally, the assumption of decentralized and local decision-making is unfounded for civil unrest, given the important role that collective actors and organizations play in the success or failure of social mobilizations around grievances (link).\n\nThe point here is not that the generativist approach is invalid as a way of exploring one particular set of social dynamics (the logic of decentralized local decision-makers with assigned behavioral rules). On the contrary, this approach does indeed provide valuable insights into some social processes. The error is one of over-generalization -- imagining that this approach will suffice to serve as a basis for analysis of all social phenomena. In a way the critique here is exactly parallel to that which I posed to analytical sociology in an earlier post. In both cases the problem is one of asserting priority for one specific approach to social explanation over a number of other equally important but non-equivalent approaches.\n\nPatrick Grim et al provide an interesting approach to the epistemics of models and simulations in \"How simulations fail\" (link). Grim and his colleagues emphasize the heuristic and exploratory role that simulations generally play in probing the dynamics of various kinds of social phenomena.\n\nFriday, May 5, 2017\n\nSnippets from the Roman world\n\nimage: Arch of Septimius Severus, Forum (203 CE)\n\n\nBeard affirms the continuing importance of Roman history in these terms:\n\n\n", "pred_label": "__label__1", "pred_score_pos": 0.8089749217033386}
+{"content": "Skip to Main Content\n\nNicholas Stewart\n\nMajor: Computer Science\n“Using Structural Parameters in Transcription Factor Binding Site Prediction”\n\nNikko Stewart\n\nThis project addresses the problem of identifying transcription factor binding sites using physical parameters, as opposed to current methods that only use nucleotide sequences to predict possible binding sites. Proteins called “transcription factors” bind to sites on the DNA strand and control whether the transcription of genes will be promoted or inhibited. Identifying the sites where they bind gives researchers a clearer picture of how genes are being regulated. Typically, prediction is done by analyzing DNA sequences, using a sequence-based model of transcription factor binding. Research has shown that some transcription factors will bind to specific sites at one genomic location, but not to another location with the same nucleotide sequence. This shows that some transcription factors are dependent (for binding) on the structure of the DNA molecule and not just nucleotide sequence. The goal of this project is to calculate structural parameters from a nucleotide sequence, and then use those parameters to enhance the prediction of binding sites. This project builds on previous research by creating portable libraries for the inference of structural parameters that can be deployed inside of existing prediction programs. Currently, these curvature profiles are being used as features that are fed to Machine Learning algorithms for binding site prediction. These algorithms “learn” from existing data, and use that knowledge to predict future classification. Specifically, an Artificial Neural Network, the Random Forest algorithm, and genetic algorithms are being used for prediction.\n\nWhat research experiences have you had?\nSince fall 2013, I’ve been doing a research internship in the Erill Lab of the Biology department. My research has been in the field of Bioinformatics, which uses Computer Science techniques to solve problems in the field of Biology.\n\nHow did you find the research opportunity?\nI found the lab website while searching for information on a Biology minor. I emailed Dr. Erill about a research internship, and we set up a meeting that week.\n\nWho did you work with on this project?\nTechnically I only worked with Dr. Erill on this project, but I received a lot of assistance from other students in the lab.\n\nWas this your first independent research project?\nNo, I completed an independent research project in Linear Algebra in 2012. My research was on lossy video compression. However, that project was contained to a single semester, while my current research has lasted several. This has also been much more difficult due to my limited knowledge of Biology.\n\nDo you get course credit for this work? Paid? How much time do you put into it?\nI was not directly paid for it, but I got a Undergraduate Research Assistantship Stipend, which gave me $750/semester. I put in around 10-15 hours every week, depending on my momentum. I put in twenty hours in the week leading up to URCAD, and that was the most I’ve ever done.\n\nWhat academic background did you have before you started?\nI was beginning my junior year when I started my research. Most of my classes had been in the Math and Computer Science departments, but I had also taken several Biology classes.\n\nHow did you learn what you needed to know to be successful in this lab?\nI learned through trial and error. Time management and individual commitment are probably the two traits most important to success. Balancing schoolwork and research was difficult at first, but I’ve drastically improved my time management skills.\n\nWhat was the hardest part about your research?\nThe hardest part was dealing failure so often in short amounts of time. Sometimes things don’t work out even though you’ve done everything “right.” This research experience has been a good lesson in staying motivated through setbacks.\n\nWhat was the most unexpected thing?\nThe most unexpected thing was how easy it was to get involved. Other than that, I was surprised by how rewarding my research has been. It’s also surprising how difficult it can be to describe my research. I get so focused on small details that I forget the larger question and spend fifteen minutes trying to explain it.\n\nHow does this research experience relate to your work in other classes?\nLast semester I took BIOL313 (Bioinformatics) and found that I had learned a lot of the material during my research. This semester I was able to integrate my CMSC478 (Intro to Machine Learning) project into my research.\n\nGetting involved in research is easier than it seems. My biggest fear was that I was unqualified and would make a lot of mistakes. That hasn’t happened, and it’s actually been very rewarding. Getting up to speed can be difficult, but people are willing to help.\n\nWhat are your career goals?\nI would like to do something that involves Artificial Intelligence and/or music. There are a lot of services that analyze listening habits to suggest new music, I think that would be fun to work on. I’m also considering whether or not to pursue a master’s degree in Computer Science. Whatever I do, I’d like it to help people outside of Computer Science.\n\nWhat are you doing next for research?\nI’m beginning to use Machine Learning techniques to analyze the data I collected. Hopefully I’ll find some patterns that identify sites as bound or unbound.\n\n( Back )", "pred_label": "__label__1", "pred_score_pos": 0.6041661500930786}
+{"content": "by Jim Kerr\n\nThe snow is melting quickly, but not quickly enough for drivers on my block. Deep snow, rain and running water have combined to make streets almost impassable. Even some 4×4 trucks are getting stuck if they drive off the beaten path. One wheel drops into a hole and the other wheels spin on the ice. The engine’s torque is being put to the ground, but unfortunately, it is all going to the spinning wheels.\n\nTorque, the twisting force that moves our vehicles, is divided between a vehicle’s drive wheels, depending on the vehicle. When an engine puts out torque to a two-wheel-drive vehicle, it’s divided, with half going out to each drive wheel. Four-wheel-drive models typically have the torque split evenly in the transfer case and then again at each drive axle, so each tire receives one-quarter of the total engine torque. All-wheel-drive and some 4×4 vehicles use transfer cases that can provide an uneven torque split; more on that later.\n\nBasically, vehicle drive axles and transfer cases can be separated into two groups: “open” axles that allow one wheel to turn faster than the other, and “limited slip” or “locker” axles that are designed to limit or control speed differences between the wheels on one axle. For vehicles with “open” differentials (drive axles), equal traction at each tire will allow the vehicle to accelerate quickly. However, there is seldom equal traction for each drive wheel. The wheel with the most traction slows down and the torque is transferred to the other wheel, which spins on any loose surface. If the road surface is very slippery, such as the ice on our street, one wheel spins easily and no torque is delivered to the wheel with traction – in other words, you are stuck. The same problem can occur in loose sand or mud.\n\nTo get the vehicle moving again, you need to either provide traction for the spinning wheel, or slow that wheel so torque will be transferred to the other side. An old trick used by experienced drivers is to apply the brakes slightly when one wheel is spinning. This slows the spinning wheel so the other wheel can drive. On rear wheel drive vehicles, use the parking brake, instead of the regular brake. Do not apply the brakes too hard or the vehicle will simply stop. Care must be taken not to overheat the brakes, so use this technique only for a few seconds at a time. Traction control systems use the same concept as applying the brakes, except the system can apply the brake only on the spinning wheel, so the other driving wheel gets all the torque.\n\nFour-wheel-drive vehicles can also get stuck easily. If one front wheel and one rear wheel are on slippery surfaces, no torque is delivered to the other two wheels. The vehicle doesn’t move. Limited slip or locking axles will help keep that vehicle moving. When one wheel starts to spin, the limited slip axle will slow that wheel and the torque transfers to the other wheel. It works just like traction control does, but this time it is all done mechanically.\n\nUnlike traction control, limited slip and locking axles don’t help if both wheels on one axle are on slippery surfaces and both wheels spin. It is up to the driver to limit the torque and wheel spin with the gas pedal. Traction control limits the torque electronically and automatically, so if you drive in conditions where wheel spin would help keep the vehicle moving, it’s better to switch the traction control off.\n\nLimited slip and locking axles are not usually used on front-drive axles. With both front tires turning the same speed, it becomes very difficult to steer the vehicle around corners. Some vehicles, such as the Mercedes-Benz G500, have driver-controlled locking front and rear axles for ultimate traction. Torsen-design differentials are sometimes used in high-performance front-wheel-drive axles, because this design allows the wheels to turn at different speeds for easy steering but works like a limited slip axle as soon as a wheel starts to spin.\n\nFinally, many all-wheel-drive vehicles use a transfer case design containing a planetary gear set to split the torque between the front and rear axles. The design allows uneven torque splits such 60/40 or 70/30. By using various gear ratios, the desired torque split is achieved. Today, many of these systems also use computer-controlled clutches in the transfer case to hold part of the planetary gear set and vary the torque split automatically. Combined with limited slip axles and good tires, you have the best traction. That’s what I will need for the next week or two!\n\nConnect with", "pred_label": "__label__1", "pred_score_pos": 0.8537875413894653}
+{"content": "Binary Options Boundary\n\nThe Boundary option is rarely used by most traders. The main reasons being that it is not offered by most binary options brokers. The trader can either choose In or Out of bounds. Payouts are also not very high compared to other options.\n\nWhat does Boundary mean?\n\nThe Boundary option is a preset range provided by the broker, allowing the trader to predict if price will stay in or out of that range.\n\nBoundary Binary Options\n\nBest times to use this option?\n\nThis works good in both volatile and slow moving markets. Boundary options are good to use before big news events.", "pred_label": "__label__1", "pred_score_pos": 0.9841596484184265}
+{"content": "Departures available in 2017:\n\n\nStarting price at $2998 taxes included:\n\nSeptember: 05 - 12 & 19\n\n\nSummer departures (with a supplement):\n\nAugust: 08 & 29 \n\n\n\n\n10 days / 8 nights\n\n\nDay 1: Canada - Zagreb (Croatia)\n\nInternational flight with Lufthansa (or similar).\n\n\nDay 2: Zagreb\n\nArrival and transfer to you hotel in Zagreb. Afternoon at leisure. Dinner and overnight in Zagreb.\n\n\nDay 3: Zagreb - Plitvice\n\nAfter breakfast, morning city tour of Zagreb, Croatia’s northwestern capital, distinguished by its 18th and 19th century Austro-Hungarian architecture. Visits include the fortified Upper Town, the city’s historical center, St. Mark’s Church with its multicolored roof, the Cathedral, the Croatian National Theatre and the University. Afternoon departure for Plitvice. Dinner and overnight in Plitvice.\n\n\nDay 4: Plitvice\n\nBreakfast.  Start your visit of the world famous Plitvice Lakes National Park, part of the UNESCO’s List of World Natural Heritage sites. Sixteen lakes, each at a different level, are joined in a series of cascading waterfalls. Surrounded by dense wood, Plitvice Lakes are a natural phenomenon of a rare and unique beauty. Dinner at local restaurant. Overnight in Plitvice.\n\n\nDay 5: Plitvice - Dubrovnik\n\nAfter breakfast, departure towards Dubrovnik with a short stop in the village of Trilj. Dinner and overnight in Dubrovnik.\n\n\nDay 6: Dubrovnik\n\nBreakfast. Day at leisure to discover the beautiful city of Dubrovnik, known for its distinctive Old Town, encircled with massive stone walls completed in the 16th century. Its well-preserved buildings range from the baroque St. Blaise Church to the Renaissance Sponza Palace and Gothic Rector’s Palace, now a history museum. Dinner and overnight in Dubrovnik.\n\n\nDay 7: Dubrovnik - Split\n\nAfter breakfast, morning sightseeing tour of Dubrovnik, part of the UNESCO’s List of World Cultural Heritage. You will visit the Franciscan monastery with Europe’s third oldest pharmacy, the Rector’s Palace and the Cathedral. Afternoon departure to Split, driving along the beautiful Adriatic Coast and the Neretva River Delta. Dinner and overnight in Split.\n\n\nDay 8: Split - Trogir - Zadar\n\nAfter breakfast, start your morning sightseeing tour of Split, known for its beaches and the fortress like complex, the Diocletian's Palace that was erected by the Roman emperor in the 4th century. Once home to thousands, its sprawling remains include more than 200 buildings. You will visit the Diocletian’s Palace with the Peristyle, the Jupiter’s Temple and the Cathedral. Afternoon departure to Trogir, a picturesque mediaeval town where you will visit the Cathedral of St-Lawrence. Continuation to Zadar, dinner and overnight.\n\n\nDay 9: Zadar - Zagreb\n\nBreakfast. Morning sightseeing tour of Zadar, known for its Roman and Venetian ruins in the peninsular Old Town. There are several Venetian gates in the city walls. Visits include the Roman Forum and St. Donatus Church, a magnificent monument of Romanesque architecture. Afternoon departure to Zagreb, capital of Croatia. Dinner and overnight in Zagreb.\n\n\nDay 10: Zagreb - Canada\n\nAfter breakfast, transfer to Zagreb airport to catch you flight back home.\n\n\n-End of services-\n\n\n\nPackage Includes: \n\n-Round-trip international flights Canada / Zagreb with Lufthansa (or similar). \n\n-Round-trip transfers between Airport / Hotel in zagreb.\n\n-2 nights in Zagreb at the Panoramal 4* hotel (or similar) in a standard room.\n\n-2 night in Plitvice at the Degenija 4* hotel (or similar) in a standard room.\n\n-2 nights in Dubrovnik at the Ivka 3* hotel (or similar) in a standard room.\n\n\n-1 night in Zadar at the Pinija 4* hotel (or similar) in a standard room.\n\n-2 meals per day (except the day of arrival).\n\n-Transportation by deluxe motor coach.\n\n-English speaking tour guide.\n\n-All the taxes, fees and OPC.\n\nPackage does not include: \n\n-Travel insurance.  \n\n-Personal expenses and optional activities.\n\n-Beverages, snack, lunches, dinners unless otherwise mentioned. \n\n\n\n\n*Please note*  \n\n\n Single occupancy: additional fees of $490 taxes included.\n\n\n\nNew Agency\n\nThank you, we will contact you shortly\n\nRepresentative Name", "pred_label": "__label__1", "pred_score_pos": 0.5429587364196777}
+{"content": "Learn More\nThis article penetrates the relationship between social behavior and rationality. A critical analysis is made of efforts to classify some behaviors as altruistic, as they simultaneously meet criteria of rationality by not truly being self-destructive. Newcomb's paradox is one attempt to create a hybrid behavior that is both irrational and still meets some(More)\nThe article argues for the use of a narrow stakeholder definition. It also adds one group – managers – that generally is not considered as being a stakeholder group. Here it is suggested that control of this stake-holder group holding the executive power should be a central topic for stakeholder theory. The article supports the common idea that the business(More)\nThe starting point of this article is the result of one ultimatum game experiment-one of many showing a huge deviation from the predictions of micro theory. However, further analysis gives an explanation of subject behavior that deserves to be seen as rational, if assumptions, such as a total secrecy resulting in no effects on reputation, are questioned.(More)\nIf the prescriptive \"ought\" is separated from the factual \"is,\" an intellectual analysis of the real world is by definition without normative value. The naturalistic fallacy thesis -- maintaining that normative and descriptive spheres must remain separated -- is often presented in a weak sense that seems reasonable. However, only in a strong sense -- by(More)\n  • 1", "pred_label": "__label__1", "pred_score_pos": 0.924967885017395}
+{"content": "Learn More\nThe purpose of this study was to evaluate the effects on physical performance of three levels of energy intake during a 5-day period of prolonged physical exercise and relative sleep deprivation. A group of 27 male soldiers were randomly assigned to three groups receiving either 1800 kcal.24 h-1 (7560 kJ, LC), 3200 kcal.24 h-1 (13440 kJ, MC) or 4200 kcal.24(More)\nTo study the impact of exercise or fasting and of subsequent glucose supplementation on glucose metabolism in rats, a spectrophotometric method was used to determine peripheral blood glucose; a technique associating (1)H-NMR spectroscopy and cortical microdialysis was also used to observe intra- plus extracellular and extracellular brain glucose variations,(More)\nThe development of fatty acid metabolism was studied in isolated hepatocytes from newborn rats. Ketone-body production from oleate is increased 6-fold between 0 and 16 h after birth. This increase is related to an enhanced beta-oxidation rather than to a channeling of acetyl-CoA from the tricarboxylic acid cycle to ketone-body synthesis. The increase in(More)\nThis experiment compares the cardio- and cerebrovascular effects of modafinil and amphetamine administered to rats. Injections of 300 mg/kg and 600 mg/kg modafinil i.p. had no major effect. In contrast, injection of D-amphetamine sulfate (5 mg/kg i.v.) induced a long-lasting rise in heart rate and in mean arterial blood pressure (MABP). Amphetamine(More)\nThe effects of modafinil, a vigilance-enhancing drug, on brain metabolism were investigated directly in situ by the 2D COSY 1H-NMR spectroscopy in anesthetized rats. Modafinil (600 mg/kg, i.p.) induced significant increases in both aspartate (72% +/- 15%) and glutamate-glutamine pool (28% +/- 8%) simultaneously with increases in inositol (51% +/- 19%) and(More)\nThe purpose of this study was to compare the metabolic and endocrine responses, and the amounts of exogenous carbohydrate oxidized, during prolonged moderate cycle ergometer exercise (120 min, 60% VO2max), preceded by ingestion of 13C enriched glucose (G), fructose (F), or pure corn starch (S) (1,592 kJ ingested with 400 ml of water, 60 min before the(More)\nBACKGROUND The objective of this study was to analyze the sensory and cognitive functions associated with activated brain regions characterizing mental strategy relative to degree of expertise in aviation-related tasks. METHODS We used echo-planar functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) technique to examine brain activity in expert pilots (n = 6)(More)\nNine healthy subjects were studied to determine their performance and the metabolic and hormonal responses to prolonged exercise after ingestion of a carbohydrate or a lipid diet. Subjects exercised on a bicycle ergometer (60% VO2max) until exhaustion four times at weekly intervals. The exercise test was performed 1 h after ingestion of three different(More)\nThe aim of this work was to study the neurochemical effects in the brain of GABA-transaminase inhibition by systemic administration of gabaculine (100 mg/kg, i.a.) in the rat. In order to investigate neurotransmitter and related amino-acid compartmentation and metabolism, we have developed an original tool: the coupling, in vivo, on the same animal, of 2D(More)\nThe glucose disappearance rate measured after IV glucose injection (1g/kg body wt) remained unchanged between 12 and 21 day of gestation in the rat. In contrast, insulin secretion in response to IV glucose was markedly increased on day 19 and 21 of pregnancy, suggesting resistance to endogenous insulin. Glucose kinetics (glucose production, utilization and(More)", "pred_label": "__label__1", "pred_score_pos": 0.9990570545196533}
+{"content": "How to Practice Singing: The Top 10 Ways\n\nPosted on 10th December 2015 in Warming up\n\nHow Singing Practice Works\n\npractice singing\n\nThe old expression practice makes perfect certainly applies when it comes to singing.\n\nDeveloping good singing techniques during your practice sessions will enable you to carry such develop skills into your performance.\n\nLearning to sing takes considerable time, effort, and especially dedication. Devoting such time to expanding your singing abilities is a necessary requirement.\n\nNot only repeating your chosen singing materials, but also rehearsing things like breathing exercises, mouth shapes, and various scales will help you perfect and hone in your singing voice.\n\nAs you develop these critical skills, they will play a major role in the foundation of great tone, pitch, clarity, and projection.\n\nMake sure to set goals from the very start of your practice times. Commit to learning and doing what is necessary to nurture a great singing voice.\n\n The Top 10 Ways To Practice Singing\n\n\n\nIf you are looking to get the most out of your practice sessions when singing, please consider some of the following suggestions below:\n\n 1. Your Location is Key. Before you begin any kind of singing practice session, you will want to locate an area of the house where you can have privacy and will not bother others.\n\nMake sure you give yourself some space to move around and that’s open enough to carry the sound throughout the room. No dead space if you can help it.\n\n 2. Warm-up first. Always take the time to warm up your vocal apparatus. This includes stretching your body to relieve any tension, and of course warming up the vocal cords by including hunting exercises and practicing scales.\n\nYou should spend at least 10 to 15 minutes warming up prior to each singing practice session in order to prepare the body and vocal cords for their workout.\n\n 3. Use a mirror. Find a mirror in your bedroom, bathroom or closet and stare into it. Notice your posture, your breathing, and the position of your head.\n\n It is important to pay close attention to the mechanics of your body when singing. Using a mirror can be a great way to monitor such things as your posture and the positioning of your mouth, making adjustments accordingly.\n\n 4. Connect your emotions. During practice, take the time to think about the premise of the song your singing. What is the feeling that is being created? Now ask yourself how you would express those feelings, and put them into your song while singing. Close your eyes and as you sing feel the words and the sounds, allowing yourself to connect to them.\n\n 5. Lie down while singing. Locate an empty space on the floor. Gently lie down on your back, arms to their sides, with your back flat on the floor. Keep your body parts aligned. Begin singing randomly, noticing the movements of your breath and diaphragm.\n\nAfter giving you this a few minutes practice, try standing up now, close your eyes and imagine that you are in the same position you were while lying on the floor. This is the kind of posture we are looking for what we are singing. Your body will be perfectly straight allowing airflow without any restriction.\n\n 6. Break your songs down. When tackling a song, rather than rehearsing the entire song from start to finish. Why not break the song into parts, thus focusing on trouble areas first. As you work through each problem area, you can gently blend all the pieces together in harmony.\n\n 7. Learn the messa divoce technique. In Italian this means the placing of your voice. It’s basically a simple technique in which you take a single pitch all the way up to a crescendo. Then down into a diminuendo. You begin singing quiet and then work up to louder volume, and then quiet again all the time using the same pitch.\n\n 8. Get your timing right. Get yourself a metronome. Better yet, there are many apps you can choose from that are free.\n\nEven if your pitch and tone are perfect, when your timing is out is very noticeable. Timing is a very important aspect of your singing practice sessions.\n\nEspecially when articulating and pronouncing words according to the tempo of the song similar to how it was written. You must stay in time.\n\n 9. Record your sessions. There are some fantastic personal recording studio mics on the market. But if you’re on a free budget, we recommend just using the microphone on your smartphone.\n\nThe idea is to enable you to review your practice sessions. Taking note of such things as your pitch, your tempo, your tone, and other areas you wish to improve on.\n\nIf you want to take it a step further, you can even video record yourself with a camcorder or your cell phone. This way you can even get a look at your posture and see if you can make adjustments in that area as well.\n\n 10. Hit more notes per breath. Being able to sustain notes for longer periods of time are the very foundations of the great singing voice. With that being said try the following exercise.\n\nTake the deepest breath you can comfortably take and hold. Slowly control your exhalation using your diaphragm and muscles.\n\nMove up and down a scale in order to incorporate supporting muscles while moving through the various registers.\n\nFocus on the proper resistance of airflow while maintaining good pitch and a strong volume. Time yourself is necessary and continue to challenge yourself.\n\nIf you haven’t sure to sign up to our free Newsletter series packed full of valuable singing tips and receive Our Ultimate Guide To A Better Voice In 90 Days free!", "pred_label": "__label__1", "pred_score_pos": 0.7899150252342224}
+{"content": "Τρίτη, 29 Ιανουαρίου 2013\n\nTake Action Now\n\n''To kill or not to kill? That is the question''\n\nin·de·ci·sion (nd-szhn)   n.\n\nReluctance or an inability to make up one's mind; irresolution.\n\nTo change my life or not?\n\nTo close down my business or not?\n\nTo get a divorce or not?\n\nTo follow my bliss or follow my security?\n\nTo put a price tag on my dreams or not?\n\nTo fuck him or say 'fuck it'?\n\n The next thing you know is that you get bogged down with indecision. Indecision can easily lead to procrastination, and next thing you know you’re stuck not going anywhere.\n\n\n\nTake Action to Fight Indecision!\n\nHere is how:\n\nWipe the slate clean – If you have too many projects on the go, clear them all and start from scratch. When you have wiped the slate clean, concentrate on thing at a time until it’s finished and then move onto the next. If you can’t clear everything, just drop them temporarily, concentrate on one thing until it’s finished and then move on. You will find you move a lot quicker through everything you need to get done.\n\nClear the clutter – Clearing the clutter, whether it be from your desk, your house, or your wardrobe. When there is clutter in your life there is clutter in your mind, clearing the clutters clears your mind.\n\nAnalysis paralysis – This is the term given to people who are analysing things too much and it keeps them from moving on. Stop analysing and just do it. There comes a time when you have to stop evaluating something and just bite the bullet and do it, if it doesn’t work out do something else and start again.\n\nList everything – Make a list of everything you would like to do, whether it be cleaning the house to taking the dog a walk. Write it down.\n\nTake Action Now!\n\n If we wait for the anxiety and conflict to subside first, we will never do anything.  \n\nThinking about jumping is necessary and helpful. But at some point, you have to just do it.\n\nJust do it!\n\n\nΔεν υπάρχουν σχόλια:\n\nΔημοσίευση σχολίου", "pred_label": "__label__1", "pred_score_pos": 0.5368995070457458}
+{"content": "More efficient engines usually operate at higher temperatures, and this can require better oils. Modern oils have been developed to run not only at higher temperatures, but also to reduce maintenance costs.\n\nFor example, Rolls-Royce is a key industry player within the Society of Automotive Engineers for the evaluation, approval and management of change for gas turbine lubricants. “We work closely with turbine-engine oil manufacturers to develop the next-generation polyol ester lubricants for current and future gas turbine engines,” a Rolls fuel expert explains.\n\nCurrently, Rolls has evaluated and approved AS5780 HPC-grade—for high-performance capability—turbine lubricants for use in certain turbine engine applications. HPC lubricants have been approved for a number of Rolls engines. Specific brands have been approved for applications in  helicopter engines and small, medium and large fixed-wing turbine powerplants. Operators must consult manuals to determine which brands of HPC oils have been approved for their engines.\n\nThe Rolls expert says HPC lubricants improve the performance of modern engines, which run at hotter temperatures than their predecessors and are operated over longer intervals between maintenance checks. HPC-grade turbine oils were developed by the oil-products industry specifically to improve engine performance and lengthen engine life. They increase thermal stability, or the resistance of molecules to decomposition at high temperatures, and are more compatible with elastomers or rubber. HPC oils also resist oxidation better and thus decrease carbon deposits within the engine. This reduction in carbon deposits leads to longer engine time on wing and reduces maintenance cost, so life-cycle costs are decreased.\n\nThe Rolls expert says the current generation of turbine lubricants, including HPC oils, typically do not reduce the weight of lubricants. But in the future, lubricating systems themselves might be redesigned to be more compact, thus operating with smaller volumes of oil while still meeting engine requirements. This would reduce lubricant weight and total engine weight.", "pred_label": "__label__1", "pred_score_pos": 0.8897547125816345}
+{"content": "Click to visit the previous dinosaur bio\n\n| submit to reddit | Delicious\nScientific Classification\nKingdom: Animalia\nPhylum: Chordata\nSuperOrder: Dinosauria\nOrder: Theropoda\nFamily: Dromaeosauridae\nGenus: Utahraptor\n| | |\n\nAt 19.5 feet, Utahraptor is the largest & earliest known member of Deinonychosauria, similar in more ways than any other Dromaeosaurid to early Troodontids. The only proper specimen consists of claws from the feet & hands, leg bones, a partial skull & a few tailbones, but we can assume it was a formidable predator; differing from the established Deinonychus in size & little else. It was a fast animal compared to its cousins. The leg bones are twice as thick as the larger Allosaurus, which can range from 25 to 39 feet. This suggests the legs were built for strength more than speed, which means Utahraptor probably stalked its prey. It also weighed 1,500 pounds or nearly 700 kg, helping it to bring down far larger prey than itself.\n\nDuring the filming of Jurassic Park, Steven Spielberg wanted to change the script the make his raptors 10 feet tall, but paleontological advisors told no such animals existed & so he stuck with Michael Crichton's smaller man-sized velociraptors. Soon after the film was released, Utahraptor was discovered which would have fitted Spielberg's giant raptor part well.", "pred_label": "__label__1", "pred_score_pos": 0.9675676226615906}
+{"content": "This Project is a recently new sanitation program that's dedicated to ensure that Planet earth is safe from any harm and threat.\n\nwe utilize agents and even hire experts and specialists to capture acquire the ancient object that's been stolen and able to achieving world peace on Planet Earth.\n\nAd blocker interference detected!\n\n", "pred_label": "__label__1", "pred_score_pos": 0.9184136390686035}
+{"content": "For Patricia O'Riley (2003), \"making meaning does not mean more knowledge or information or discovering the deep structures. It has to do with listening, leaving space, being attentive, receptive. \"Perhaps,\" O'Riley suggests, \"methodology can offer a way to open ourselves to the else/where and other/wise of the world…\" (p. 51). This elsewhere and otherwise can enable \"ethical imagining\" (Fawcett, 2000, p. 134) which includes voices of non-human Others (see Bringhurst, 2002; Russell, 2005).\n\nThis is a 'readerly text' (see Barthes, 1986) which invites, and often, through its design, requires the reader to pause.\nTrusting that \ncontentemergesoutofstructureoutofcontentoutofstructureout of....", "pred_label": "__label__1", "pred_score_pos": 0.9650357961654663}
+{"content": "Village Smurphony\nSmurf Parade\n\nComics IconCartoon Icon\n\nThe Village Smurphony Orchestra is the unofficial name given to the orchestra formed by the Smurfs in the cartoon episode \"Smurphony In 'C'\". The orchestra is usually conducted by Papa Smurf, though Brainy at times will take the conductor's stand. During the episode in question, Harmony tried to join in with the other Smurfs playing in the orchestra, but was ejected from it when he played all the instruments off-key. Eventually, after Harmony saved them from Gargamel when he accidentally used the shazalla-kazoo on them, the other Smurfs allowed him to finally join the orchestra, as long as its other members wore earplugs to keep them from hearing Harmony's horn-playing.\n\nIn another episode, \"Harmony Steals The Show\", Papa Smurf brings the orchestra with him to contest Ghostwriter's claim of writing an original symphony for Harmony, playing out the entire symphony before the judge and revealing it to be an infringement of other people's works.\n\nAlso, the orchestra often appears in the intro sequences of the cartoon.\n\nSee Village Smurphony Orchestra/Gallery for various images of the orchestra.\n\nAd blocker interference detected!\n\n", "pred_label": "__label__1", "pred_score_pos": 0.623413622379303}
+{"content": "World War I\n\nWorld War I (1914-1918) drawn in more countries and caused larger devastation than any other war excluding World War II (1939-1945). An assassin's ammunition in Austria-Hungary ignited the war, and an organization of military alliances plunged the major European powers into the clash. Each side expected immediate triumph. But the war lasted four years and took the lives of 10 millions soldiers.\n\nWorld War I Causes\n\nWorld War I is actually much more complex than an easy list of grounds. While there was a sequence of proceedings that directly led to the fighting, the actual root causes are much deeper and part of continued debate and discussion. World War I has the most popular reasons to occur that are overviewed at the bottom.\n\n1. System of Military Alliances\n\nOver time, nations all through Europe made joint defence unions that would drag them into clash. Thus, if one country was attacked, associated countries were bound to protect it. Austria-Hungary affirmed war on Serbia, Russia got drawn in to defend Serbia. Germany seeing Russia mobilizing, declared war on Russia. France was then drawn in against Germany and Austria-Hungary. Germany assaulted France through Belgium pulling Britain into war. Then Japan entered the war. Later, Italy and the United States would enter on the side of the allies.\n\n2. Imperialism or Fight for Colonies\n\nImperialism is when a country amplifies their supremacy and wealth by bringing additional province under their control. Before World War I, Africa and parts of Asia were points of disagreement amongst the European countries. This was particularly proper because of the raw materials these regions could supply. The increasing rivalry and craving for greater empires led to an increase in conflict that helped push the world into World War I.\n\n3. Militarism\n\nAs the world entered the 20th century, an arms contest had begun. By 1914, Germany had the maximum boost in military build up. Great Britain and Germany both greatly increased their armada during this time phase. Further, in Germany and Russia particularly, the military establishment began to have a greater influence on public policy. This increase in militarism assisted in pushing the countries involved to war.\n\n4. Nationalism\n\nThe real incident that led directly to World War I was originated from certain Slavic peoples in Bosnia and Herzegovina who wanted to gain no longer is a part of Austria- Hungary but instead be part of Serbia. Thus patriotism led openly to the War. But in a more broad way, the nationalism of the various countries throughout Europe contributed not only to the beginning but the addition of the war in Europe. Each country tried to prove their domination and power.\n\n5. Immediate Cause: Assassination of Archduke Franz Ferdinand\n\nThe instant cause of World War I that made all the aforesaid stuff come into play was the murder of Archduke Franz Ferdinand of Austria-Hungary. In June 1914, a Serbian nationalist assassinated him and his wife while they were in Sarajevo, Bosnia which was part of Austria-Hungary. This was in remonstration to Austria-Hungary having control of this province. Serbia wanted to take over Bosnia and Herzegovina. This assassination guided Austria-Hungary declaring war on Serbia. When Russia began to mobilize due to its alliance with Serbia, Germany affirmed war on Russia.\n\nThe World War I in Brief\n\nGermany won early victories in World War I on the main European battlefronts. On the Western Front, France and the UK halted the German move on in September 1914. The conflicting armies then fought from ditches that stretched across Belgium and north-eastern France. The Western Front barely moved for 3.5 years in spite of brutal combat. On the Eastern Front, Russia battled with Germany and Austria-Hungary. The fighting oscillated back and forth until 1917, when a revolution broke out in Russia. Russia soon asked for a treaty.\nThe United States remained unbiased initially. But many Americans turned against the Central Powers after German submarines began sinking defenceless ships. In 1917, the United States joined the Allies. U.S troops gave the Allies the manpower they needed to win the war. In the autumn of 1918, the Central Powers surrendered.\n\nConsequences of World War I\n\nWorld War I caused vast demolition. Nearly 10 million soldiers died as a result of the war and about 21 million men were injured. The extremely high fatalities resulted partly from the destructive powers of new weapons, especially the tanks and the machine gun.\n\nWorld War I cost the fighting nations a total of about 337 billion U.S. dollars. By 1918, the war was costing about 10 million an hour. Nations raised part of the money to pay for the war through taxes. But most of the money came from borrowing, which created massive debts.", "pred_label": "__label__1", "pred_score_pos": 0.642052173614502}
+{"content": "Published date: November 2013\n\n\n(Click any topic to read the related section)\n\n1.1      Executive Summary\n\nFinancial services (FS) throughout South-East Asia remain extensively regulated, some of which are restrictive to regionalisation.  To address that, a key component of the ASEAN Economic Community (AEC) 2015 vision is the liberalisation of financial services. Different parties bring different views on the pace and benefits of financial integration. Industry and trade organisations, for example, believe financial integration can accelerate economic gains, lower regionalisation costs, and help small and midsize enterprises (SMEs) become more competitive. Regulators and local governments worry, however, that integration may expose the region to unwanted volatility and that the economic benefits may not materialise as swiftly as promised.\n\nAmong the key questions for stakeholders are:\n\n\nIn weighing those questions, several factors come into play. Banks, governments, and regulators will need to have an open discussion on a number of important challenges. Chief among them are:\n\n  1. Heterogeneity of regulatory frameworks and restrictive market access within ASEAN;\n  2. Constraints on talent mobility;\n  3. Regulatory limitations on cross border data flow and off-shoring;\n  4. Impediments to Pan Asia trade flow and focus on China and India;\n  5. Lack of standard infrastructure to facilitate cross border credit;\n  6. Lack of standardisation across region with respect to operational process and common infrastructure\n\nThe regional growth in ASEAN trade coupled with Asian growth and concentration of trade corridors and global uncertainties have made banks to be competitive. Indeed, many strong banks will choose to remain and grow domestically as fits their strategy, however for banks with regional aspiration it is important to grow and expand regionally by being scalable and big. Such growth and expansion requires a common yardstick and basis that will drive the growth, expansion and liberalisation of the sector. Hence the key question is identifying the common yardstick to discuss the right set of liberalisation measures.\n\nIt emerges from several discussions with industry leaders that customer value is the yardstick by which regulatory and other liberalisation changes must be measured. As banks and regulators gauge their course, the driver must be the extent to which cross-border access and regulatory integration will benefit customers in the region.\n\nStandard Chartered bank provides one example of a customer-led approach. Their growth strategy segmented geographies into (i.) core markets (Hong Kong, Singapore, Korea, UAE, etc.); (ii.) city-focused markets (including China, India, Thailand, etc.); and (iii.) niche markets (smaller countries ranging from Bahrain to Brunei). That segmentation allowed them to tailor services and products to specific market needs, such as introducing “15-minute loan approvals” in Hong Kong, innovations that allowed them to compete successfully in a number of different areas across the region.\n\nA similar, customer-centric rubric is needed to advance liberalisation within financial services.\n\n\nEnd-customer benefit and performance measures\nIntegration will deliver three primary customer benefits, each of which can be measured.\n\n  • Better Service: providing greater choice to the customer, by expanding access to a wider array of products and services, and cross-leveraging other offerings, such as wealth management services\n  • Better access to credit: providing corporates and SMEs with greater access to credit for domestic expansion and cross-border trade\n  • Cheaper banking services: channelling cost and operational efficiencies into improved service and value for customers\n\n\nIdeas to break the barriers.\nRecent interactions with senior banking executives in the region generated these seven ideas.\n\n  1. Pan-ASEAN Banking Pass\n  2. Free Talent Mobility\n  3. ASEAN Alliance\n  4. ASEAN Credit Bureau\n  5. ASEAN Rating Agency\n  6. Free Data flow/Off-shoring\n  7. Standardisation of documents/ Documentation requirements\n\nAddressing these ideas should confer real benefits to the end customer and economic benefits to the region at large. They provide a basis for regulators and banks to discuss how best to bring about the changes needed.\n\n1.2        Key challenges for ASEAN FS integration\n\nIdeas to break the barriers\nThe current regulatory environment means new entrants face steep, sometimes prohibitive investment requirements, forcing some to invest at an extremely high level and others to make sub-scale investments, neither of which is profitable for the bank, good for customer or sufficient to spur economic growth.\n\nTo be cost and market competitive, banks must be able to leverage their infrastructure and talent base. Regulatory restrictions around talent mobility, the free flow of information, and offshore activities hinder the type of scale efficiencies and process standardisation that can improve cost and risk performance and customer service. In addition, banks must have the ability to extend credit to facilitate the expansion of the real economy. But, the lack of “comparable” credit and rating bureaus across ASEAN curbs lending.\n\nAs trade corridors widen between China, India and ASEAN, banks forced to operate at sub-scale handicap ASEAN companies that rely on strong and scalable banking services to expand into adjacent markets.\n\nA breakdown of the key challenges follows.\n\n  1. Heterogeneity of regulatory framework and restrictive market access\n\nInconsistent regulatory regulations have hindered the expansion of banks within ASEAN. For instance, Bank Mandiri’s potential entry and expansion into Malaysia, was stalled by the amount of paid-up capital required (US$96M, -10X Indonesian standards), a figure deemed too high by Mandiri. DBS abandoned its planned acquisition of Danamon given the conditions for reciprocity and newly-imposed limits to foreign ownership (maximum of 40 percent) imposed by Indonesia. Maybank, another regionally active player, also had challenges with its acquisition in Indonesia, due to regulatory changes on free-float requirements (minimum of 20 percent), post deal completion.\n\n\nThe Indonesian central bank issued regulations that require banks to open one branch in a tier 5-6 location for every three branches they open in a tier 1 city, notwithstanding the strict capital requirements that make adding more branches potentially uneconomical. The central bank also intends to require foreign banks to be locally incorporated and may impose restrictions that limit direct foreign investment in domestic banks to a maximum 40 percent. Such changes will likely reduce foreign bank interest in Indonesia.\n\nRules in the Philippines cap the number of foreign banks permitted at any one time to 14. Thailand used to ask foreign banks to hold at least 10 billion Thai baht as Tier 1 Capital, compared to five billion THB for local banks in addition to restrictions on the number of branches a bank could opened annually.\n\nIn most cases, national regulatory frameworks limit ASEAN financial institutions — as well as foreign financial institutions — from expanding quickly.\n\n2.    Constraints on talent mobility\nThe flow of talent is critical for regional economic development. Within Asia for example, Singapore has leveraged talent mobility to its advantage. It is a relatively easy place to relocate to. Residency rules are becoming more lenient. In some cases, it can take as little as one day to get a working visa, depending upon the assignee’s nationality, salary level, and qualifications. Those developments have allowed Singapore to attract and retain highly qualified talent. But, Singapore remains a fairly isolated example.\n\nAcross most of ASEAN, talent mobility remains a key concern. Region-wide barriers, such as the lack of a common framework for skill recognition, differences in the quality of educational institutions, visa restrictions to protect domestic employment, and licensing (e.g. national professional-association licenses) are among the major impediments.\n\n3.    Cross border data flow and off shoring regulatory constraints\nHarmonising the regulation of cross border data flows, technology operating models, off-shoring and data centre sharing, is key to process integration and regionalisation. Currently, regulatory differences concerning customer data make it hard for banks to share basic information. For example, Bank Indonesia is pushing banks to locate core banking systems in-country. But, many foreign banks will find limited cost efficiency in this model. There is an inherent difference in the way local and non local banks process, handle and distribute personal data and a one-size-fits-all approach that prohibits global systems, restricts data sharing outside jurisdictions for all scenarios and prevents banks from accessing important new technologies will disadvantage customers and slow growth.\n\n4.    Pan Asia trade flow and focus on China and India\nTrade corridors are changing, with China, Singapore and India emerging as hubs. The subscale operations in the region coupled with strong domestic players in the major markets will make it difficult for ASEAN banks to grow as Pan Asian banks. Organic growth is a bigger challenge since these markets are highly competitive with numerous players e.g. the largest ASEAN bank is smaller than the 50th Chinese bank in terms of asset size.\n\n\n5.    Lack of standard infrastructure to facilitate cross border credit\nASEAN’ s heterogeneous liquidity needs make it vital to have a strong credit information and ratings system, one that standardises key processes and practices to improve quality, accuracy and decision-making on the credit side.\n\nCurrently there is no standard infrastructure or standards for common process such as Know Your Customer (KYC) infrastructure  which increases bank operational costs and limits the ability of banks to transfer the benefits of integration over to the end customer.\n\n1.3  Lifting the Barriers: Exploring Solutions to the Actual and Perceived Hurdles\n\nWe explored seven key ideas in conjunction with key banks in the industry to overcome these issues and drive greater customer returns.\n\n\n\n1.3.1    The PAN ASEAN Banking Pass   Overview\nA Pan-ASEAN banking pass would give customers the benefit of best practices across markets and better pricing and rates from a combination of scale efficiencies, better collaboration and information sharing, and greater operating breadth to help ASEAN companies expand into India and China.\n\nHowever, regulators need assurance that free access into their markets would not jeopardise the growth of domestic players, or destabilise economic growth. They worry, for instance, that foreign banks could potentially skim the cream and leave local banks with riskier and more structurally unprofitable business without the ability to cross-subsidise. They’re concerned also that too much foreign influence might make it harder to steer the banking sector in the event of a crisis.\n\nThese are complex issues and no one answer will suit all markets. That said, there are enough regulatory measures already on the books to mitigate some of these concerns without restricting market access, such as directed lending towards specific sectors for all banks, full subsidiarisation, and trapped liquidity pools.\n\nIt’s important also not to underestimate the strengths of the local banks in withstanding increased competition. For one thing, domestic banks have outperformed their peers with regional aspirations. For another, the barriers of entry are already sizeable in terms of installed infrastructure and available risk capital even without any additional regulatory constraints. For aspirants, achieving regional scale will require they make additional investments before they can reap the benefits. In light of these challenges, leading local players express very limited concern about the prospect of regional competition.\n\nAs a result, regulators may find it more valuable to focus on creating a common pan-ASEAN framework under which “qualified” banks can freely operate across ASEAN, then leave it to the customer and market competition to determine how banks will use that freedom. It can be expected that the business case justification will mean only a handful of banks will apply for an ASEAN license to expand. Once there, competitive pressures will force all players to innovate and provide better value to customers, which is the ultimate regulatory objective.\n\nBy way of example, the Eurozone began regionalisation with many strong domestic banks. Over time, strong regional banks emerged to join that field.\n\n\nBanks such as BNPP, Unicredit, and Santander went across borders to tap the trade corridors. They expanded branches and subsidiary networks regionally. Some of these banks are now growing globally, using their experience and capabilities to scale up.\n\nWithin ASEAN, several banking and FS institutions with strong domestic focus have posted strong financial performance (return on equity – ROE) and shown potential for continued growth. They could be in a strong position to follow the example of their European peers.\n\n\n\nAdditionally, the top banks in each of the original five ASEAN members command a dominant share of the market, and are better capitalised than Basel III norms mandate.  As one can see, to match the network of the incumbents in these markets where branches are still important to building a sustainable franchise a newcomer will have to make substantial investments to pose any significant threat.\n\n\n\nSingapore’s aviation sector offers a good example of the effect that a liberalised financial sector can have. Singapore is one of the few countries in the world that have instituted an “Open Skies” policy. This means that any airline from any country in the world has the right to fly in and out of Singapore. This has led to the emergence of Singapore as a global hub of international passenger traffic. Those free-entry policies had a positive impact not only on the domestic market, but on domestic players as well. The national carrier, Singapore Airlines, has performed well in comparison to regional competitors in terms of net profits.\n\nThis example demonstrates that openness with the right policy can help banks with strong domestic footholds compete effectively with new entrants and potentially become regional players.\n\nRegional players can emerge by scaling up through freer access\nBanks with regional aspirations can achieve better CI and higher ROE by being allowed to scale up and expand quickly. Some banks that have already embarked on regionalisation have built the right capabilities, fostered innovation, and enjoyed strong domestic presence.\n\nAs a region, ASEAN banks have achieved strong performance. ASEAN’s Return on Assets (ROA) is an impressive 1.5 percent, higher than the world and EU averages of 0.9 percent and 0.1 percent respectively. Gross non-performing loans make up 2.11 percent of ASEAN bank balance sheets, beating the world and EU figures. Furthermore, Capital Adequacy Ratios in ASEAN, at 20 percent, are on average 5 percent higher than in the world and EU.\n\n\nASEAN banks have well-financed balance sheets with more-than-adequate capitalisation and reserves. Such financial health puts players in a strong position both to compete across ASEAN and withstand the entry of additional competitors within their domestic markets.\n\nSome players, such as DBS, OCBC, CIMB, MayBank, Bangkok Bank, and Standard Chartered are already trying to build a business model for regional economic integration by pushing their presence in every market in ASEAN.\n\nThe potential of banks to grow regionally and the need to go regional in light of changing trade corridors are critical factors in encouraging banks to scale up. Regulators should create a common pan-ASEAN framework under which “qualified” banks can freely operate.   Benefits of ASEAN Pass\nThe key customer benefits from an ASEAN bank pass include:\n\nA wider product range: Banks with strong domestic businesses, such as those in Malaysia and Singapore, can introduce their sophisticated high-end products into other ASEAN markets.\n\nMore choices per product: Regional banks can provide more trade, cash-management, financing products, and payment products (e.g. ASEAN wide procurement cards). They are also better placed to manage supply-chain and liquidity requirements.\n\nBetter access to credit internationally: Established customers can gain easier access to cross-border credit. In returns, central banks could mandate that all banks dedicate certain portions of their loan books to politically sensitive sectors.\n\nLower fees: Free access to other regional markets allows banks to achieve regional economies of scale (operational cost). The channel experience can be optimised. Hence, “R&D” costs for innovative models across several markets will help lower costs for end customers. The way forward\n\nThe idea of an ASEAN passport is not new. In fact it forms part of the ASEAN banking integration framework. However, progress in making the Pass program a reality so far has been limited and may not be sufficiently comprehensive.\n\nThe ASEAN Banking Integration Framework was intended to address such issues. Authorities from the 10 ASEAN central banks agreed upon four preconditions to ensure that a framework was successfully implemented. One of these preconditions was establishing set criteria under which ASEAN qualified banks could operate in any ASEAN country with a single “passport.” Under the ASEAN Banking Integration Framework, each ASEAN member country will be able to designate one or more local banks as a Qualified ASEAN Bank (QAB) that is able to expand and operate within the region. The number of banks so designated will depend upon the agreement between ASEAN countries.\n\nWhile these moves are a step in the right direction, they do not go far enough. For instance, the QAB framework does not address the standing of multinational banks that have been in the region longer than many domestics and have played a critical role in enhancing the financial system in core ASEAN markets. Moreover it requires alignment and consensus across all markets and it will be difficult to achieve consensus among members and comprehensive criteria may be difficult to achieve in one go.\n\nMore thinking is needed to drive better alignment and consensus across all markets. Given the complexity, a phased approach can be adopted whereby banks are evaluated through a comprehensive set of criteria to gauge a bank’s overall strength and readiness. Such criteria could include:\n\n  • Financial performance: Key financial ratios on capital, profitability (cost-to- income), liquidity, and shareholder value\n  • Customer centricity: Satisfaction, complaint management, and security\n  • Operational strength: Ability to scale up and increase connectivity\n  • Innovation: Platform, products, improving financial inclusion etc.\n  • Regulatory and compliance track record: Non-submission, non-compliance to local regulation, lapse in AML, and local compliance systems etc.\n  • History: Length of stay in a country and commitment to economic contribution\n  • Ownership structure: Shareholding pattern\n  • Onshore talent\n\nThis model should be utilised to promote a fast-track process for banks to obtain an ASEAN pass without subjecting qualified banks to stringent regulatory restrictions.\n\nThe final criteria should allow at least one bank from each ASEAN country to qualify for an ASEAN pass, rather than adopting a “wait until a comprehensive ASEAN pass emerges” approach. That’s because building banks that have regional stature and integrating financial infrastructure will precede regulatory harmony.\n\nAlternatively, one form of phasing could allow some core countries, such as Singapore, Malaysia, Thailand, Indonesia and the Philippines, to grant a limited number of qualified banks with complete access to certain markets with no discrimination between local and foreign banks. That would mitigate “overpowering” the local banking system because it would force entrants to innovate to compete for customers and allow strong domestic banks to expand into other markets. Over time, as banks and financial systems strengthen, other banks and countries could join this framework.\n\n\n1.3.2   Free Talent Mobility Overview\n\nTalent mobility is an important element of financial services liberalisation. Several key banks in the ASEAN region have faced significant difficulty in hiring non-citizens for key positions within their firms. Regulatory restrictions on talent mobility may at times hamper the realisation of the AEC vision, because it restricts banks from accessing the best human capital that is available in the region.\n\nIn a heterogeneous labour market, there are bound to be skills gaps. It is essential to make use of the superior skills that are available in the region in order to build capacity and expand. There will be a tremendous need to train local talent and build the required competencies. Efforts should therefore be made to allow mobility and to promote knowledge transfer. The free movement of talent can bring the following benefits: Benefits of Talent Mobility\nBy accessing a regional/global talent pool (either by hiring and/or transfer of people with respective expertise) a bank can:\n\n  • Introduce a broader and deeper product set faster and more effectively. Customers gain better service, faster access, and well-developed products only when banks are able to scale up, improve their technology and innovation, and offer a variety of popular/tailored global products in the local market. To execute this, banks need to hire local, regional, and global talent and/or transfer talent with the required capabilities into new markets to help build up those businesses. When it comes to more-sophisticated models and products, talent is usually the limiting factor.\n  • Foster Innovation. Recent banking innovations have been coming from emerging-market countries. Transfer of business model innovations can help them reap economies of scale on investments made in intellectual property, systems, and capabilities.\n  • Result in Economic growth. Talent will be deployed where it can create most economic value. For example, there are several markets in the Euro region with high unemployment (e.g. Spain), while the demand for talent in others (e.g. Germany) is high. Talent mobility helps bridge the gap between the supply (Spain) and demand (Germany) to a point where growth is lifted. The way forward\n\nThe ASEAN region must develop a self-sustaining ecosystem that puts plans and programs in place to address skills gaps before they become critical. Given the complexity of regional language needs, differences in standards of education, and the long timeframes over which interventions occur, getting the right degree of coordination and long-term investment is crucial.\n\nOvercoming these barriers and increasing mobility requires a number of initiatives among organisations and policy makers. Here’s how these changes could be phased in over time.\n\n  1.  Short-to-medium term\n    Fill the skills gap by forging a simple regional visa policy\n\nTo meet the current talent crunch in ASEAN FS, a special quota that is pre-approved for banks, and based on key criteria (such as minimum years of presence in a country) would be a useful stop-gap and should be accompanied with a fast-track process for key FS roles.\n\nStreamlining and simplifying processes to secure work permits, removing national visa barriers, and even developing one regional work permit could help bridge skills gaps and grow competencies on a local level. The European Union, for instance, established a Blue Card scheme to attract highly-skilled migrants from outside the region. The Blue Card provides a two-year single work and residency permit across member states. Supporting actions include a streamlined and centralised visa application process and a travel permit to member countries for the holder and his or her family.\n\nIn addition, a pan-ASEAN travel card similar to the APEC Bus Travel Card should be open to all nationalities, especially senior executives of ASEAN companies.\n\n\n2. Medium-to-long term\n\nEncourage companies to promote mobility within their own organisations/subsidiaries. Allowing regional and multinational banks to hire local talent, offering on-the-job training, and placing people back in their home markets in ASEAN can help leverage their learning, improve competency, and build skills.\n\nMoreover, allowing regional banks’ headquarter people to be placed in local markets, and creating a link with HQ for closer understanding of that market, can result in strong leadership. It can also enable top foreign talent to train senior management. Korean companies such as Hyundai, Samsung have followed these principles and been successful.\n\nIn addition to enabling better mobility, ASEAN countries should set up high-quality training institutes using senior bankers as instructors, define certification mechanism, and create guidelines to recognise qualification across border.  These will create early involvement in the talent pipeline around specific skills (e.g. risk, finance, and payments).\n\nRegulators should give banks incentives (e.g. tax breaks or grants) if they can show that they develop local talent for critical positions.\n\n\n1.3.3   ASEAN Alliance model   Overview\n\nRegional strategies often focus on integrated regional banks. However, alliance models are also beneficial. In fact, the traditional network of correspondent banks has been a proven concept for cross-border banking for several years. More recently, we have seen established networks, such as KBank’s partnership with local banks in ASEAN under the Asian Alliance model. These alliances are simple and focused mainly on trade financing and simple referrals. Other industries have pursued more complex alliance models. The “Star Alliance” in the airlines industry, for example, is more far reaching, encompassing everything from using joint infrastructure and joint purchasing to joint IT platforms and development.\n\nBanking could take a similar approach. While banks have adopted different alliance structures, grouped around product, geography, and sales, they could go farther, employing risk diversification by joint underwriting of large loans using cross-country club-deals, syndication, deploying excess liquidity and leveraging joint infrastructure such as processing centers or training centers for senior executives, creating joint capability hubs for areas like asset management or wealth, among other initiatives.\n\nFor such a model to work, however, regulations will need to flex accordingly ensuring steady cross-border lending flow and liquidity across the region.\n\nchart-10 Benefits of Alliance models\nValue creation in the alliance model can come from many sources:\n\nBetter access to credit domestically.Many of the largest clients (mostly conglomerates) are hitting single-customer limits. It would be easier for a group of ASEAN banks to finance these large exposures through club deals. That would create better risk diversification while still reducing costs for customers (compared to the traditional cross-country syndicated loans arranged by multinational banks).\n\nBetter access to credit internationally. It is much easier to facilitate cross-border access to credit for established customers without resorting to regional and MNC banks only.\n\nLower cost to customers. Alliances can facilitate lower costs for operations since the need for fixed investment in subsidiary branches is negated. Shared technology platforms and investments can decrease the cost of sales and increase cross-selling percentage. The way forward\n\nFor alliances to succeed, banks need to carefully evaluate whether their business models are suitable to capitalise on the growth of intra-regional trade and willingness to commit to the alliance. This is because existing initiatives demonstrate the benefits of potential alliances to banks and regulators; that it benefits customers by engaging in cross-border business. For new alliances on liquidity, joint underwriting of large loans formalising these syndicate arrangements, allowing direct foreign currency loans can constitute the initial steps toward a more comprehensive alliance model. For most regional level alliances there will be sharing of resources, infrastructure and systems. To make this happen, regulators should allow building of such common IT platforms, regional infrastructure for processing training, facilitating cross border customer information sharing especially involving common data infrastructure (data centres, core systems). A liberal regulation on resource-sharing, setting up business-matching services, allowing talent mobility and customer referral can support the alliances and make them successful, allowing banks to focus on creating value to the customer.\n\n1.3.4 Building Common Credit Bureau Infrastructure Overview\n\nAccess to credit across the SME, corporate and consumer segments is a growing need. This is especially true for SMEs, which represent the largest non-agricultural business block. While the credit needs of large corporations tend to be well served by major domestic and global banks, the majority of SMEs in developing nations rely on informal financing, such as family, community and private financiers. Those informal channels are insufficient to support cross-border, intra-ASEAN trade growth. To expand credit access across all segments, a common credit bureau infrastructure must be built.\n\nThat infrastructure must reflect the needs of both credit applicants and lenders. On the demand side, for instance, SMEs and others require a more systematic disclosure of financial and performance information, governance and business planning, and promoter’s credibility. On the supply side, banks and regulators must rely more on credit information systems and find common ground on credit bureau governance, make SME risk scoring more pragmatic, and engage in benchmarking of similar SMEs sub segments.\n\nHowever empirical evidence suggests that a strong credit bureau system can remove these obstacles. For example, A World Bank policy survey of 5,000 SME firms in 51 countries (Love & Mylenko, 2003) found that:\n\n  • SME reporting constraints were 22 percent lower in countries with credit bureaus, than those without\n  • SMEs were 12 percent more likely to receive loan approval in cases where there was credit bureau input\n\nBringing credit processes and standards to a common, high standard across the region is an important pre-condition for a strong credit bureau infrastructure. World Bank data shows that the depth of credit-related information currently varies widely. This exhibit suggests that Malaysia’s credit depth, which is the best in the region, could serve as a useful starting point to conform best practice standards.\n\n\nSeveral private credit bureaus also operate in ASEAN in places like Malaysia, Philippines, Singapore, and Thailand, although relatively few offer public credit registers, Indonesia, Malaysia and Vietnam being among the exceptions. Such heterogeneity limits the quality and availability of information-sharing, particularly with respect to SME lending.\n\nchart-12   Benefits of having a common credit bureau infrastructure\n\nHaving a common or centrally-governed credit bureau system with access to similar information in all markets has several benefits:\n\nBetter access to credit domestically and internationally. Creating a common credit infrastructure would ease the lending process, allow banks to reduce operating costs, and reduce average lending rates. A universally understood framework for risk assessment would also allow more banks to provide credit to companies internationally. Such benefits have already been demonstrated in Eastern Europe, for example, where leverage ratios are 4.2 percent higher in countries where credit information sharing is more prevalent.\n\nLower risk cost. Better transparency would improve risk management practices, reduce NPLs/credit losses, and lower rates to customers. A centralised credit bureau would also act as an enforcing mechanism, pushing clients to pay or be listed as a bad risk. For example, in Shanghai, NPL ratios were reduced from 6.67 percent to 4.52 percent in the year after a local centralised credit bureau was launched.\n\nGreater product penetration. Apart from reducing defaults, centralised credit bureaus can identify SMEs and other clients with good credit records. Banks can target these higher value companies with greater product choice and a wider array of credit offers.\n\nCommon credit bureaus bring other benefits as well, such as common standards in due diligence, the establishment of risk benchmarks (which are unavailable at the moment, especially for SMEs), and the prevention of fraud/money laundering through widespread and cross-border information sharing. The way forward\nThe following steps can help ASEAN establish a common credit bureau infrastructure that over time can function as the repository of all relevant credit information for corporates, individuals, SMEs, and microfinance borrowers.\n\ni. Leverage best practices across markets to create a national infrastructure based upon uniform standards. Gaining insight into those best practices will involve collaboration within ASEAN nations.\n\nii. Harmonise credit bureau infrastructure and information across the ASEAN markets to facilitate cross-border activities. That type of body could be jointly run by regulators and banks and set up either as a separate entity or as part of an existing agency. In Europe, for instance, the ECB governs several credit institutions, but does not have a central credit bureau.\n\n\n1.3.5 Common Credit Rating Agency Overview\nRatings are key to opening up capital market intermediated funding for several reasons. One, there is growing need for capital markets intermediated funds. Two, the capital and bond markets are highly fragmented currently. And three, commercial banks are likely to continue to play a dominant role in financial intermediation. All that makes the need for credit rating capabilities in all ASEAN countries that much more important.\n\nTo date, global rating agencies have filled some of this void. But, the global financial crisis exposed some of their limitations, especially on structured products, factors that have helped make the case for a new, regionally-focused rating agency.\n\nSetting up a regional rating agency will be very difficult. For one thing, a strong regional rating agency depends on a strong network of local or domestic credit agencies and ASEAN countries are at varying levels of development in this area. There are also larger, structural issues that need to be resolved. They include differences in domestic bond markets, accounting and disclosure standards, legal and regulatory frameworks, and sovereign risk. Such differences mean that in some cases establishing common benchmarks may not be feasible.\n\nThe idea of a regional rating agency structure, however, does have precedent. Europe proposed an initiative to establish a European Rating Agency a few years ago. The goal was to build a regional entity that would compete with US-based equivalents such as Standard & Poor’s, Moody’s and Fitch, be financially independent (unlike their U.S. peers), and feature more players and market competition. To promote transparency and independence, the proposed model would be led by a consortium of investors that included stock exchanges and credit institutions as well as private, non-profit foundations with a strong academic council. As an additional check, the model also called for a special oversight agency to ensure public monitoring. Although the idea failed to get off the ground due to questions over the right financing model and governance, it serves as an interesting framework for ASEAN to consider. In a survey conducted by the Asian Development Bank for Development of Regional Standards for Asian Credit Rating Agencies, (See Figure below), 80 percent of domestic credit rating agencies agreed that harmonisation would enhance their credibility and help improve rating quality.\n\n\nThe report also points out that:\n\n  • A region-wide ASEAN Bond Market would fuel demand for regional ratings and the need for cross-border comparability of domestic ratings\n  • Domestic Credit Rating Agencies (CRAs) could capitalise on these opportunities using their in-depth knowledge and familiarity with the local environment\n  • Domestic CRAs could better serve SMEs and smaller issuers with relatively lower rating fees\n\nA common regional credit rating agency would facilitate the development of capital markets, provide banks with a view on the strengths of SME customers, and help channel regional savings to regional investment. The Association of Credit Rating Agencies in Asia (ACRAA) is one such initiative in which 25 CRAs from 14 countries/economies are members. They aim to develop and maintain cooperative efforts among credit rating agencies in Asia and could be instrumental in creating common standards. Benefits of having a common credit rating agency\nThere are several benefits to having a common credit rating agency:\n\nBetter access to credit domestically. A regional agency essentially converges different rating-agency practices into a standard one. By leveraging the experiences of markets such as Thailand, Malaysia and Singapore in other ASEAN countries —allowing operators in these markets to set up in other ASEAN markets — lenders would gain greater transparency around borrowers’ creditworthiness. Banks could expand their loan books and more institutional credit information on SMEs would be made available. The regional connection would make it easier for aspiring SMEs to tap capital markets and gain access to loans since that agency would be more conversant with local market dynamics.\n\nLower risk cost and concessions in funding. Greater efficiency and common standards will lead to improved decision-making, reduced risk, and lower operating costs. Better and more reliable credit information can allow banks to offer preferential interest rates based to high scoring customers.\n\nThe absence of a credible regional credit rating agency may inhibit the growth of SMEs because their creditworthiness cannot be easily assessed. High performing SMEs aspiring to regional/global expansion may need to demonstrate creditworthiness in global deals/tenders. A good credit rating from a reliable regional body can help build SME reputations and help them win business, facilitating their expansion. The way forward\n\n  1. For a successful regional integration to happen, there is a need for harmonising credit information across all markets in ASEAN The agency should be known for (i) independence (ii) transparency (iii) accurate ratings and high quality analysis (taking into account local market needs/sub segments/benchmarks and (iv) charge a nominal fee to encourage use.Before building a regional level agency it is important to adopt a pragmatic step by step approach to accomplish the end goal\n    Setting up and developing local credit rating agencies in each country where there are currently no agencies or adequate coverage such as Myanmar, Laos, Cambodia and Brunei.\n  2. Assist existing credit rating agencies to specialise in respective country’s key segments and markets and improve quality e.g. developing deep Micro segment, SME database by leveraging best practice within and outside the region.\n  3. Harmonise credit rating information across the region by setting up a common, preferably independent rating agency created through cooperation between ASEAN countries. The institution can help shape up a common standard of comparison across borders in terms of rating methodology, rating criteria, definitions, benchmarks and the overall rating process. As harmonisation is a complex process it has to be done in phases as illustrated below.\n\n\n  • Establish standards and framework.  A central program office should be established to facilitate the initiative and provide governing guidelines. It is important to align differences in various rating-agency methods, tools, and practices towards creating common standards, while also allowing for local variations. Accounting disclosure standards, legal and regulatory elements, and base benchmarks should also be harmonised. Common standards, information architecture, and nomenclature should be established.\n  • Foster data exchange among local CRAs. Establish practices, processes, controls and channels of information sharing among different local CRAs in the region.\n  • Set up a common infrastructure. A formal regional-information location and common database need to be set up. Top regional banks and institutions with strong regional/global aspirations can collaborate to fund and establish a network. This network should leverage information from the credit rating agencies. The alliance can eventually be expanded with minimal government support on financing needs.\n  • Establish an appropriate governance organisation. There are many types of structures for a governance body. This can range from a new agency that will manage the common regional information, or a board comprised of representatives of local players.\n\n1.3.6   Free Data Flow/Off-shoring Overview\n\nBanks rely on the free flow of data, standardised processes and modern technologies to ensure efficiency, scalability and quality of service. Regulators in the past have been reluctant to allow off-shoring and more importantly the cross-border transmission of client-sensitive data for reasons of security and privacy. While these concerns are valid there are equally valid reasons why allowing banks to structure their data and processing infrastructure on a regional level versus a multi-local set is important to support the eventual goal of a Financial Services regionalisation and liberalisation with in ASEAN. The key benefits being:\n\n  • Economies of scale (infrastructure, process efficiency and labour cost arbitrage)\n  • Risk management (e.g. understanding the bank’s exposure holistically at any point in time but also be able to make decisions quickly and quote best possible prices\n  • Compliance and control (e.g. ability to easily and in real time monitor and control key compliance processes e.g. KYC, AML etc.)\n\nSome of the benefits around risk and compliance stated above are exactly in line with what the regulators have been struggling with, interms of being able to speed up and allow for regionalisation of banks. Such customer information sharing facilitates risk management in that banks can increasingly analyse customer and third party payment patterns cross border, facilitating anti-money laundering and anti-terrorist financing measures internally. This avoids unhelpful situations where suspicious transaction reports are filed in one jurisdiction or accounts closed, while these are continued in another jurisdiction without knowledge of the account activity in the first jurisdiction.\n\nSo this particular topic on allowing for a centralised and regionalised operating model has systemic benefits.There are multiple examples of processes that can be offshored to create cost efficiencies. These include call centers, back office centers, and IT infrastructure centers.   The key benefits of off-shoring and free data flow   \n\n  • Off-shoring non-critical processes promote economies of scales and competency building, benefits that translate into lower cost of service and improved quality. It can also help foster the development of local modules that meet specific market needs.\n  • Centralised processes and strong off-shore capabilities can promote product innovation and allow banks to forge alliances to leverage existing infrastructure and build products using such strong infrastructure (e.g. Trade platform).   The way forward\n\nThere are pragmatic measures that can greatly help reduce the real and perceived risks and aid the banks to pursue an effective regionalisation strategy, which will not only benefit the bank and customers but also aid the regulator in managing risks more effectively.\n\n  • Alignment or ratification of data protection laws within ASEAN: This can either be done at a regional level or a bi-lateral level or one could even look at examples of other developed economies. UK’s FSA for example in its outsourcing regulation had provided for off shoring to a destination where the data protection laws exist and are comparable. It also requests for framework where it can be assured that reasonable access and audit of the off shored infrastructure can be conducted by FSA principle. Such regulation has been behind the success of offshoring and centralisation of infrastructure of many banks in emerging economies such as India.As a next step consumer protection can also be explored contextually with transparency and consumer choice as a key principle. For example, exploring alternative ways of obtaining, respecting and enforcing for the collection, processing and use of personal data (appropriately worded consent clauses in standard on-boarding terms) and informing the customer on who has their data, why and how it will be used can enable customer to exercise an informed choice and such transparency is over and above just consent.\n  • Alignment and/or standardisation of prudential operational guidelines on information systems and operations: This can be achieved through professional certification on global standards on security such as ISO 27001/27002 for the offshore facilities. This will enforce adherence to minimum set of criteria for having their regional technology and processing infrastructure certified for a pan ASEAN presence. This might even have second order benefits where “Pan-ASEAN” banks might seek to locate some of their IT infrastructure to a lower cost location within the ASEAN as well.\n  • Enabling accessibility: This is crucial element to enable any kind of cross border operation. Reasonable, timely and un-fettered access to regulators for inspection and audit. This can be implemented via special onetime visas (where this is not already possible) that are available for regulatory authorities to be able to visit and inspect premises that are based in other geographies. This is also important to apply to bank employees should they need to access these infrastructures to remedy critical issues.These practical measures can address some of the concerns regulators have around having data and processing outside their jurisdictional boundaries and in the process reaping benefits on risk and compliance over and above significant customer benefits. A healthy dialogue on the types of data, disclosure norms, and compliance among banks and regulators is required.\n\n1.3.7   Standardisation of Nomenclature, Documentation, and Common Infrastructure   \n\nOne of the key success elements of any banking architecture or framework is the standardisation of nomenclature. Since having varied definitions of terms can create widespread misunderstandings, products, contract terms, banking terminologies, all must be well defined to ensure everyone is “speaking the same language.” In Europe ECB defines a reporting structure for products and defines classifications and publishes glossary of all terminology periodically.\n\nLikewise, it is important to standardise documentation, forms, and information requirements for basic products. Regulators must also encourage banks to standardise processes that are routine in nature such as KYC, account opening, account closing, and scan factory as well as common platforms, such as payments. This can be a pan-ASEAN initiative based on alliances and cooperation among banks.\n\nEurope’s Single Euro Payments Area (SEPA) offers a good example. It provides common standards, faster settlement, and simplified processing. Consumers can rely on a single set of euro payment instruments that together cover 33 countries with one bank account, one bank card, one SEPA Credit Transfer (SCT), and one SEPA Direct Debit (SDD). Successful implementation will require alliances to build infrastructure, access to a common talent pool, and support from every country. Benefits of standardisation\n\nLower fees/cost to customer. Standardisation is one of the main drivers of economies of scale. It also lowers operational risk. In addition, a common infrastructure can help pool investments which lower costs while also facilitating multi-stakeholder integration such as B2G, B2B, G2C, and B2C effectively.\n\nQuicker and Efficient processes.\nConsistent, clear documentation and nomenclature makes it easier for customers to complete forms and for banks to improve response times and accuracy. The way forward\n\n  • Agree which banking terminology to standardise, define a nomenclature and build common regional information architecture for continuous improvement.\n  • Simplify forms and define common types of documentation requirements for customers.\n  • Identify key processes across banks and set up a shared services alliance among banks to scale operations.\n  • Create a plan for region-wide payment infrastructure to facilitate more seamless cross- border payment.\n    Standardise disclosure standards\n\n1.4 Conclusion\n\nIt is always difficult to determine the degree of openness of an economy or integration of a region. It is even harder to align different stakeholders on the “right” amount of openness and integration. Especially in recent years – during the financial crisis – many regional efforts across the globe have stumbled when economic growth has been challenged and hence their rationale has been questioned. However, when it comes to Europe some might argue that regional growth has stumbled because of too much integration whereas others argue that it has happened because of not enough integration.\n\nIn any case, ASEAN has chosen a unique approach to regional collaboration and integration. The ASEAN Economic Community (AEC 2015) vision actually differs in quite some ways from the EU-style integration. More so, it has an opportunity to develop and refine it further in a way that will suit the region’s requirements, learning from experiences made elsewhere as well as its own experiences in the past during the Asian Financial Crisis.\n\nPolicymakers will need to evaluate a variety of factors, foremost of which should be the type of structure that will best benefit the customer. In making those decisions, they will need to weigh complex issues stemming from the region’s economic diversity, such as volatility in capital flows and differential economic growth rates, when determining the pace and extent of the desired integration. Finding the right balance will depend on the size of the ASEAN countries, the needs of the local market, the efficiency of their underlying infrastructure and access to financial services, and the strength and maturity of the legal and regulatory environment.\n\nCreating a stable financial system immune against systemic risks or contagion effects is of tremendous value to the society at large. However, too stringent regulation also comes at a price – providing better access to better financial services at lower cost is important to reap the full benefits of ASEAN 2015, spur economic growth and increase the wealth of nations. From our discussions with some of the leading banks in the region we believe that in some markets domestic banks feel rightfully strong enough to weather more intense competition and customers would benefit from this competition. The emergence of regional ASEAN banks and pan-ASEAN alliances, being able to capture the value from operating on a regional platform, would create the right conduits to facilitate cross-border economic activity. And reducing information asymmetry on the lending side should help to increase the overall lending capacity in the market, especially as some economies like Indonesia are hitting system wide Loan-to-Deposit ratios of 100%.\n\nThe stark economic and political differences between the 10 ASEAN members are a recognised fact. For some of the more advanced markets the question is if the additional customer value gained by more market liberalisation and reciprocal market access for qualified institutions would not outweigh the currently perceived benefits of a more restrictive regulatory stance. Having such a debate at a regional level, including all stakeholders and with a broadly defined “customer value” as the guiding metric could be an important step forward.\n\n\n\n\nBack to top", "pred_label": "__label__1", "pred_score_pos": 0.5538666248321533}
+{"content": "Employment Rights and Responsibilities\n\nMaking sure that you know what you are entitled to\n\nERR ensures that apprentices understand both their own and their employer’s rights and responsibilities under Employment Law and other legislation.\n\nThere are different ways that this needs to be evidenced to enable achievement of the Apprenticeship, some frameworks will specify how this must be done, others will allow you a choice. The options are clearly set out in the ERR section of the Apprenticeship detail pages of the website and Apprenticeships Catalogue.\n\nEmbedded ERR\n\nIn some cases ERR can be covered within the knowledge or competence qualifications. This may be through specific mandatory or optional units, or it may be embedded across the qualification.\n\nStandalone ERR Qualification\n\nIn other cases ERR can be evidenced through the achievement of a separate qualification.\n\nIn the Logistics and Health and Adult Social Care sectors there are  requirements for the following specific ERR qualifications:\n\nIn other sectors the following more general ERR qualification can be used:\n\nWhere achievement of the ERR qualification is mandatory, the cost of this is included in the Apprenticeship package price. If achievement of the qualification is optional, the qualification can be added at a cost of £16 per learner.\n\nEvidenced through a Workbook\n\nLearners can also complete ERR evidence via workbooks from the relevant Sector Skills Council or Standard Setting Body. Where this is an option we have provided links to the relevant websites where the workbooks can be downloaded or ordered.", "pred_label": "__label__1", "pred_score_pos": 0.9221933484077454}
+{"content": "A logo of Takata Corp is seen with its display at a showroom for vehicles in Tokyo, Japan, May 8, 2015. Japan's Takata Corp said on Friday it expects to post a return to profit this fiscal year, emerging from a massive global recall crisis surrounding its exploding air bags.REUTERS/Yuya Shino\n\nJapanese airbag manufacturer Takata declared airbags in about 33.8mn US vehicles defective, US Transportation Secretary Anthony Foxx announced on 19 May. Ten automakers have already recalled nearly 17m vehicles, CBS News reported.\n\nThe company's airbags have been found to contain a propellant that explodes violent when activated, potentially causing grave injuries to drivers and their passengers. Foxx said the airbags have caused at least five deaths in the US and more than 100 injuries.\n\nTakata has refused to acknowledge the defects in the air bags until now, Foxx told reporters during a press conference. According to the New York Times, the company at one point said the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration could not force it to declare a recall.\n\n\"That changes today. Today I announce that Takata has agreed to declare that the airbags deflators are defective,\" Foxx said.\n\nMark R Rosekind, the administrator of the safety agency, said: \"From the very beginning, our goal has been simple: a safe airbag in every vehicle. The steps we're taking today represent significant progress toward that goal.\"\n\n\"This is a monumental effort, there is no doubt about it,\" Foxx said. \"It's fair to say this is probably the most complex consumer safety recall in U.S. History. So we have a lot of work to do.\" He added, \"Lives are at stake. It's our job to protect them.\"\n\nAdditional testing needed to determine final recall number\n\nWhile a final count of all the makes and models included in the recall has not been reached, Rosalind told the Times that the number of defective vehicles could go down as additional tests are made. According to the Times, vehicle repairs could take years to complete.\n\nThe 10 car makers that have already begun to recall vehicles are: BMW, Fiat, Chrysler, Ford, General Motors, Honda, Mazda, Mitsubishi, Nissan, Subaru and Toyota. According to CBS News, the expanded recall would basically double the number of vehicles and add on another car maker, Daimler Trucks.\n\nAccording to the Times, former Takata engineers told the newspaper that they had raised concerns about the explosive material used in the airbags over a decade ago. However, those concerns were ignored. The company's patents also reveal how its engineers struggled to stablise the explosive material, ammonium nitrate, in the airbag propellant.\n\nTakata also acknowledged the airbag inflaters had leaking problems, the Times reported.\n\nThe company had been fined $14,000 (£9,000) a day by US federal safety regulators for not cooperating with the investigation. However, the agency later suspended the fine, which had surpassed $1m, with the recall expansion.", "pred_label": "__label__1", "pred_score_pos": 0.9803276062011719}
+{"content": "Laser Mole Removal\n\nLaser treatment of moles and lumps on the face or body\n\nThe treatment of moles and lumps on the face or body varies depending on whether they are suspicious or not. Benign, fleshy growths on the face or body are much more common than skin cancers. They have many different names, such as epithelial naevi, sehorrhoeic keratosis, hamartoma, fibro-epithelial polyp, etc. Essentially, as long as the history and examination is not suspicious, they are treated the same way. The use of flash scanned Carbon Dioxide laser technology allows a stitchless and scarless removal of moles – very important on the face.\n\nIn treating moles, Mr. Mike Dilkes provides the most current, optimal testing and treatments for mole removal, based on medical research and consultations with leading experts in the USA and Germany.\n\n\nTreatment of small benign facial growths\n\nThe treatment of small benign facial growths is very straight-forward using laser techniques. The principle relies not on the removal of the growth but on rendering it flat and level with the normal skin, so that it is essentially cosmetically neutral – invisible. What tends to make a mole noticeable is its height or prominence off the skin, due to shadowing, etc. The flattening effect is achieved using a scanning carbon dioxide laser, which has an ablative, but delicate, tissue removal effect (e.g. Silktouch flash scanning). Removal occurs in a flat plane, therefore making no holes in the skin or mole, leaving an even, contoured effect, the end result being that the mole is flat and flush with the skin. Pigmented (brown) moles tend to have all their colour removed by this technique, and raised fleshy moles, once made flat, are no longer visible, since they are essentially the same colour as skin.\n\nTreatment of suspicious skin lesions\n\nSuspicious (i.e., possibly cancerous) skin lesions need to be treated much more aggressively than benign lumps/moles. The history of the skin growth usually gives away the underlying cause – if it has recently started to grow or change colour, or bleeds easily or is painful, etc., then this is suspicious. We also examine moles carefully, often using a microscope, to see if there is any ulceration or cause for concern. Skin cancers generally look very different from benign moles which have usually been there for years.\n\nWe treat some forms of skin cancer by laser removal, i.e., using the laser as a scalpel, with stitches needed and there is a scar. Some forms of skin cancer can be treated with photodynamic therapy, which avoids a scar.\n\nTreatment:  Preoperative photographs may be taken for archive only (see later). Each mole will have a small amount of local anaesthetic injected into the skin below it. This will sting slightly for a few seconds. Once the area is numb, lasering occurs using scanned laser technology to flatten the mole. Depending upon the size of the growth, the procedure takes between one and five minutes per area treated. We have had no significant cases of bleeding or postoperative pain in over 500 cases treated.\n\nPost operative care\n\nAfter treatment, a small amount of Vaseline is applied on each area. This needs to be washed off at four hourly intervals. After washing the area needs to be dabbed dry with a clean towel and further Vaseline applied. This is in order to prevent a scab forming which would take several days to drop off and heal. Once the Vaseline has been repeatedly applied for a period of between two and five days, the area underneath will be dry and no further Vaseline application is needed. The treated area will be reddened and then pink for between two and four weeks post-surgery, this can be easily covered up using standard make-up, etc. The further away from the face, the longer the redness will persist, so a mole on the foot would take a long while to heal. Often in slow healing areas, a small patch of pale scar tissue is left where the mole was; generally this is far better cosmetically than a large and raised mole.\n\nThis treatment does not permanently remove the growth as stated, it simply treats it without the need for a scar or stitches. We feel that it offers significant advantages particularly on the front of the face where any scar, etc. is more noticeable. The growth may come back over the years in which case it can be safely retreated.\n\nExamples: We don’t publish or show pictures of our patients who have had mole treatment. This is often a private and sensitive issue, patients may have had their moles for many years and have wanted rid of them for a long time. We feel therefore that to ask to publish photographs is not in the spirit of the treatment. You’ll have to trust us!\n\nContact Us about Laser Mole Removal\n\nPhone 0207 806 4034\n\nBook Online", "pred_label": "__label__1", "pred_score_pos": 0.957961916923523}
+{"content": "Evolution of The Atmosphere\n\n\nThe atmosphere is made up of about:\n\n  • 78% nitrogen\n  • 21% oxygen\n  • Small amounts of other gasses like carbon dioxide, water vapour and noble gasses\n\nIt’s been this way for about 200 million years….but some have a theory that this is what happened before:\n\n First Billion Years Of The Earth – Lots Of Bloody Volcanoes\n\nDuring the first billion years of the Earth’s existence there was intense volcanic activity. This activity released the gases that formed the early atmosphere and water vapour that condensed to form the oceans.\n\nOne theory suggests that during this period the Earth’s atmosphere was mainly carbon dioxide and there would have been little or no oxygen gas (like the atmospheres of Mars and Venus today). There may also have been water vapour and small proportions of methane and ammonia.\n\nThe Next Phase – Plants To The Rescue\n\nPlants and algae started to evolve and eventually covered most of the earth.\n\nLots of the carbon dioxide in the air was dissolved into the oceans, but also the plants and algae absorbed some of it and produced oxygen (through photosynthesis).\n\nThe plants and algae gradually died and were buried under layers of sediment with marine organisms that had started to evolve. The carbon and hydrocarbons they contained for locked up in sedimentary rocks as insoluble carbonates (like limestone) and fossil fuels.\n\nIf today we burn these fossil fuels we release this locked carbon and the amount of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere starts to rise again.\n\nThe Latest Phase – Things Get Nice\n\nNot all the organisms around in the phase above liked the oxygen that was increasing in the atmosphere and died off – but more complex organisms like us were able to evolve based on breathing oxygen.\n\nAn ozone layer was also created blocking lots of harmful rays from the sun and allowing even more complex organisms to evolve.\n\nThere is now not much carbon dioxide left.", "pred_label": "__label__1", "pred_score_pos": 0.9858542680740356}
+{"content": "Login| Sign Up| Help| Contact|\n\nPatent Searching and Data\n\nDocument Type and Number:\nWIPO Patent Application WO/2017/001726\nKind Code:\nMethod for shaping a film/sheet (1), particularly for making three- dimensional shapes (2) in it, in which case the outlines (3) of the shape to be formed are warmed/heated and the film/sheet is stretched along the heated outline, in order to cause the part of the film/sheet inside it to deviate from the plane of the surface. The heated outlines are created by, for example, directing a moving beam (4) of thermal radiation onto it. A countersurface (9) is provided to limit the stretching and ensure that rupture does not occur. By repeating the procedure sequentially, a great variety of shapes may be created.\n\nVALKAS, Timo (Kuuselantie 5 B, Karkkila, 03600, FI)\nSEPÄNMAA, Arto (Huuhanahontie 25, Huuhanaho, 51740, FI)\nPARTANEN, Jouni (Aarnivalkeantie 10 A, Espoo, 02100, FI)\nApplication Number:\nPublication Date:\nJanuary 05, 2017\nFiling Date:\nJune 28, 2016\nExport Citation:\nClick for automatic bibliography generation   Help\nAALTO UNIVERSITY FOUNDATION (P.O. Box, 00076 Aalto, 00076, FI)\nInternational Classes:\nB29C51/10; B29C51/42\nDomestic Patent References:\nForeign References:\nAttorney, Agent or Firm:\nSEPPO LAINE OY (Itämerenkatu 3 A, Helsinki, 00180, FI)\nDownload PDF:\n\n1. A method for shaping a material film or sheet for making three-dimensional shapes, in which method the film or sheet is heated and a pressure difference is applied by means of a pressure medium to one side of the film or sheet; the heating being performed along an outline of the three-dimensional shape to be formed to a temperature which will permit a change in the shape of the film or sheet in the area of the heated outline and will create stretching along the heated outline in order to cause the unheated part of the film or sheet inside the outline to deviate from its initial plane, the targeted three-dimensional structure being divided into two-dimensional slices, the outlines of which in the film or sheet are sequentially heated and subjected to a pressure difference to generate the desired structure, characterized in comprising the following steps: providing a countersurface to limit the stretching of the heated material during a stretching stage\n\nallowing the material to cool and harden\n\nmoving the countersurface to a new position\n\n- heating a next outline\n\napplying a pressure difference to stretch the material along said next heated outline until the material again meets the countersurface\n\nrepeating the process until the desired shape is obtained. 2. A method according to claim 1, characterized in that the heated outlines are formed in the film or sheet by directing a moving beam of thermal radiation to it.\n\n3. A method according to any of the above claims, characterized in that the film or sheet consists of an organic polymer, particularly of a thermoplastic material.\n\n4. A method according to any of the above claims, characterized in that the film or sheet has a composite structure.\n\n5. A method according to any of the above claims, characterized in that the film or sheet is of metal or a metal alloy.\n\n6. A method according to claim 1, characterized in that pulses of pressurized medium are used to shape the film or sheet in different directions in different stages.\n\n7. A method according to claim 1, characterized in that the heating is performed by using a source of collimated or focused infrared or laser light.\n\n8. A method according to any of the above claims, characterized in that in the shaping, a computer-based system is used, into which the three-dimensional model to be formed is loaded.\n\nMethod for shaping a film-like/sheet-like material\n\nThe present invention relates to a method for shaping a film-like/sheet-like material. In particular, it relates to a method for changing the shape of a film or sheet, especially to create various three-dimensional shapes in a film or sheet.\n\nMany different methods are used to shape plastic sheets. One example is the creation of Braille printing intended for the blind to read. Because plastic is a very common material in many applications, various articles made with the aid of heating and then shaping are made for very many different purposes.\n\nIn order to shape plastic, for example, into the shape of a cup, a mould can be used, into which plastic material, softened with the aid of heat, is pulled with the aid of a vacuum. A typical example of this kind of procedure is disclosed in the German application publica- tion 10349156. As a source of heat, a laser source, for example, can be used, by means of which specific areas of a generally flat sheet-like material are heated, after which shaping takes place by suction against a mould. A similar method is disclosed in German application publication 10106183, in which specific areas are heated and subsequently formed using a mould.\n\nA method is known from US patent application 2002/0062161, in which a wall deformation is created in a piece with a closed volume, or in a sheet, by heating the wall with a laser light and causing a pressure difference in the wall/film, which causes the wall to bulge outwards, in such a way that the most heated parts bulge more than the less heated parts. Thus, the shape is created by the differential stretching of parts heated to different degrees. Additionally, publications EP 0703019 Al and JP 2002 154161 A disclose methods in which a sheet is posed on top of a chamber, parts of the sheet are heated and then deformed by pressurizing the chamber. Publication WO 2005/007386 A2 discloses a method for shaping a plate-like object by locally heating at least a portion of it while exerting differential pressure on the opposite sides. This method is directed towards achieving local smoothly shaped deformations. Moreover, different shapes are achieved by modifying the laser beam using optical elements. Publication US patent publication 5,359,872, in turn, discloses a method for sheet metal processing in which the area to be deformed is heated by a laser beam prior to the deformation. According to the method, shapes extending from the sheet can be formed by first heating an area corresponding to the shape and subsequently drawing the area using a drawing jig also corresponding to the shape. Furthermore, more complex three- dimensional shapes are formed using a set of several drawing jigs specific for the shape in question. In European patent 2 247 430, a method is disclosed for shaping a material film or sheet for producing three-dimensional structures. The outlines of a free-form image to be formed on a film/sheet are heated to a required temperature by rapidly moving, selectively directed thermal radiation. Pressure is applied to one side of the film. The pressure stretches the film at the heated outlines of the image, so that the image is transferred from the surface of the film to a raised position. This procedure is repeated moving the heated outline sequentially, resulting in a three-dimensioned shape. By this method, general three-dimensional forming of almost arbitrary surfaces defined by the shape of the set of contour curves is possible. In German laid-open publication No. 10 2006 006 662 is disclosed a process in which a plastic body is selectively coated with a heat-reflective film. The surface is heated using radiators whereby the uncoated areas soften and can be drawn with vacuum against a forming tool, forming a raised pattern corresponding to the heated and unheated areas of the plastic body. A single step is described, and it remains unclear how the body is supported to prevent the unheated areas to be drawn as well.\n\nAccording to the present invention, an improved method utilizing the principle of European patent 2 247 430 is provided. As pressure is applied to a material in which a contour curve has been heated, there is a risk that the material ruptures along the heated curve if the material is stretched beyond its capacity. This risk can be reduced or eliminated by means of the present invention. Summary of the invention\n\nAccording to the present invention, a film or sheet is formed into a three-dimensional shape using local heating and a pressure differential across the film or sheet material. A source of heat is used to heat and soften the material in the shape of a contour, and a pressure differential is used to push the softened material towards the lower pressure. Preferably, the heating is provided by focused or collimated thermal radiation; preferably, a laser beam is used.\n\nA countersurface is provided to limit the stretching of the heated material. After the material has cooled and hardened again, a next heated and softened contour curve is formed in the sheet material. The countersurface is moved to a new position before, after or during the forming of the next heated contour curve or outline. A pressure difference is again ap- plied, stretching the material along the heated outline until it again meets the countersurface . The process is repeated as required until the desired shape is obtained.\n\nOne embodiment of the invention is described with reference to the accompanying patent drawings.\n\n\nFigure 1 shows the initial situation, the first outline being applied on an essentially flat sheet of material,\n\nFigure 2 shows the step of applying a pressure difference,\n\nFigure 3 shows how the stretching is limited, and Figure 4 shows the final product.\n\nThus, Figure 1 shows an essentially sheet- like initial product 1, on which a shape to be made is indicated by dotted lines 2. Following the edge line of the shape 2, it is bordered by a line marked by broken lines 3, along which the area is heated to a temperature that permits a pressure-pulse stage, which takes place next. The source of the heating radiation 4 is marked with the reference number 5. The source can be, for example, a laser light source. No more detailed reference is made here to laser technology, which is one possible heat source, because this area of technology will be conventional technology to one skilled in the art.\n\nThe intention is to heat the outlines of the image in the material to such a temperature that in the following stage, the outlines will be sufficiently elastic for a pressure difference to cause stretching in the material, so that the heated parts of the material sheet or film heated along the desired outlines will stretch and the unheated area remaining inside the heated lines will rise from the level of the material, in the direction of the lower pressure. Figure 2 shows the vacuum and/or excess pressure treatment described above. In this case, a lower pressure prevails above the sheet 1 than below it, so that a portion of the sheet heated along its outlines rises upwards from the level of the rest of the sheet/film.\n\nFigure 3 shows how a beam from a laser 6 is directed to a galvanometric scanning mirror device 7, corresponding to the generally depicted radiation source 5 of Fig. 1. A computer or a special purpose microprocessor (not shown) controls the scanning mirrors 7 so that the laser heating pattern draws a contour onto the sheet material 1 that is attached to a chamber 8, in which the pressure has been reduced relative to the outside of the chamber. Inside the chamber 8, there is a flat horizontal platform 9 that is attached to a vertically movable translation mechanism 10. This platform acts as a countersurface limiting the movement of the sheet portion that shifts due to the pressure difference between the upper and lower surface of the sheet.\n\nInitially, the platform 9 is located at a height below the top surface of the chamber 8 corresponding to the desired and allowable stretching of the heated contour area. After the laser beam softens the first contour, the pressure differential above the sheet material 1 pushes the material within the contour area to abut the platform 9. When the laser is turned off, the material cools and hardens maintaining the step shape. The platform can now be moved down by another desired increment. The system is now ready for the laser to soften the next contour and the pressure above pushes the interior of the contour again to abut the platform 9. The process continues until the defined shape has been formed through consecutive heating and stretching steps.\n\nIn the above figures, the stepped shape is shown roughly for reasons of clarity. In practice, the final shape may be achieved by slicing the final 3D shape into very thin 2D slices, from which the shaping of one slice at a time in the desired direction is performed as consecutive operations. Even a relatively simple final shape may involve a significant number of stages. Negative shapes can also be made according to the invention. This refers to the fact that the desired shape is created with the aid of heating and excess or vacuum pressurization, which excess or vacuum pressurization is performed in the opposite direction to the general direction of the overall shape. In this case, it is also possible, if necessary, to exploit the memory property of the material, when re -heating of the outlines will return it to its former shape.\n\nIt is obvious that according to the invention, very many different types of material can be used. The most obvious material is an organic polymer. However, other materials that become plastic at a certain temperature are also suitable for use according to the invention. For example, nearly all metals soften to become malleable at a certain, specific temperature. One interesting area is also composite-structure films/sheets. Thus, whether the use of a specific material will succeed or not depends only on variables such as the dimensioning of the heating power source, the duration of its operation, and similar. It is also obvious that reference to a sheet or film includes a large variation in material thicknesses.\n\nThe temperature is controlled in some suitable manner. The skilled person is aware of a large range of alternatives for this purpose in different fields of technology. However, it can be mentioned that temperature can be measured and its control performed, for example, with the aid of a heat camera based on infrared technology monitoring the laser beam. Temperature monitoring may be used in the general control of the process. In this context, it should be noted that according to the aforementioned procedures, the heating can take place in such a way that a continuously heating radiation beam is moved along the outlines of the image to be formed, when the material will heat at the outlines. Another way is one, in which the thermal radiation moves along a specific, usually backwards and forwards path, and heating occurs locally only at points located on the outlines of the image being formed. The movement of the thermal radiation can be achieved by moving a component creating thermal radiation, but more probably it will take place in such a way that the control of the thermal radiation takes place with the aid of mirrors, lenses, or corresponding optical elements, as exemplified above.\n\nA third alternative is an embodiment where the heated area is created in such a way that a pattern shaped to correspond to the area to be heated by a thermal radiation beam is created in the heating head which is aimed at the material to be heated, and a heated area corre- sponding to the outlines of the shape, arises in a single operation. There are several ways of forming a thermal radiation beam of a desired shape, whereby optical methods are the most likely.\n\nA procedure of this kind can be envisaged as very advantageous when a relatively simple product is being made in a large series.\n\nA common feature in all of described embodiments is that the heating is performed only along the outline of the area to be raised from the initial plane. According to the method according to the invention, the heating/pressurization cycles can be repeated for a desired number of new coordinates, which means that three-dimensional surfaces can be formed from a film/sheet in the same manner as in vacuum moulding, but in the present method the geometry of the piece is created directly by numerical control, without moulds.\n\nIt should also be noted, that shapes can also be formed, for example in such a way that, as already stated, shapes that are 'negative' with respect to the previous stage are made onto three dimensional shapes created by one way or another in a stage. This refers, for example, to a situation, in which the product is shaped originally, by means of vacuum forming, for example, with the aid of a mould. For vacuum forming to be possible, the product must not have protrusions extending in opposite directions, as such a shape would prevent it from being detached from the mould. By means of the method according to the invention, the shaping of a vacuum-moulded body can be carried out in a continuous operation, generating protrusions in any direction during the process. As such, the method is suitable for very many different purposes.\n\nIf desired, temperature and/or distance measurement can be used as variables controlling algorithms exclusively or in combination. Return and reshaping according to the prior art can also be used in this method.\n\nExperiments have shown that liquid, as well as pressurized air or gas can be used for shaping, in which case the control of the shape becomes a mathematically calculable change in volume of each free-form change in shape.\n\nIn practice, an application can be based on a computer-based system, in which the desired three-dimensional model is loaded into the system, which slices the model into parts and which controls the heating and operating unit according to the model produced, the unit performing the shaping in stages of the film or sheet by heating specific outlines, performing the stretching of the material at the outlines with the aid of pressure, simultaneously controlling the movement of the countersurface limiting the stretching, and thus manufacturing the final product. Any known system with the aid of which a targeted heating effect can be created can be used for heating. Such systems are particularly based on the use of laser or infrared-range light and on possible optical concentration, collimation or reflection of the light.\n\nBecause the return/returning of the film is not necessary in all cases, this extends the range of materials available for use.\n\nThe invention can be varied in many ways without nevertheless deviating from the scope of protection of the basic idea of the invention as defined in the accompanying claims.", "pred_label": "__label__1", "pred_score_pos": 0.6423181295394897}
+{"content": "Enter your text below to find synonyms and click here\n\nWhat is another word for community?\n\n493 synonyms found\n\n\n[kəmjˈuːnɪtˌɪ], [kəmjˈuːnɪtˌɪ], [k_ə_m_j_ˈuː_n_ɪ_t_ˌɪ]\n\nSynonyms for Community:\n\nmankind (noun) Other synonyms and related words:\n\nRhymes for Community:\n\n  1. unity;\n  2. impunity, immunity, disunity;\n  3. opportunity;\n\nQuotes for Community:\n\n  2. You can keep it to yourself, but you could also call a support team like the team at MS LifeLines. They are there to support the MS community and give good advice. Teri Garr.\n  3. Feeling a part of that community is my greatest reward. Paul Parker.", "pred_label": "__label__1", "pred_score_pos": 0.9999765753746033}
+{"content": "\n\nEquitable Growth round-up\n\nMany Americans think of college as a great beacon of upward mobility in the United States. Kavya Vaghul takes a look at research that gives policymakers conflicting evidence of whether this is actually the case. Vaghul also notes that scholars have failed to look at an equally important dimension of this question: race and ethnicity.\n\nElisabeth Jacobs writes about new research suggesting that universal pre-K programs, rather than targeted programs, do a better job at serving low-income students.\n\nWhat does the craft beer craze have to do with inequality? New research by Equitable Growth grantee Xavier Jaravel, a post-doctoral fellow in economics at Stanford University, finds that firms focused their innovation on products that cater to high-income households, such as the explosion in different kinds of craft beer.  Lower-income products, however, face less competitive pressures and have therefore experienced a higher rate of inflation. There’s other research highlighting the potential of rising inflation inequality in the United States.\n\nSpeaking of inflation, Nick Bunker looks at how common-sense views of inflation and its determinants affected the Fed’s decision to raise interest rates, and why that view may not make sense.\n\nTrump’s economic doctrine may not work when it comes to the actual policy specifics, but Heather Boushey writes in The Atlantic about the psychological and emotional appeal of such a doctrine in that “it answers the core question that millions have about economic policy […]: What about me?”\n\nThe montly data release from the Job Openings and Labor Turnover Survey was Thursday. Check out some key graphs from the new data.\n\nAnd because it’s St. Patrick’s Day, a look back at a piece written last year by Matt Markezich on what Ireland’s spectacular economic growth reveals about corporate tax avoidance.\n\nLinks from around the web\n\nTanvi Misra looks at a new interactive created by Texas Christian University’s Kyle Walker that shows the distribution of the U.S. population by educational attainment. The maps show the extent to which, in urban areas, the achievement gap is associated with racial and economic segregation.  [citylab]\n\nIf the proposed U.S. border tax adjustment blueprint reduces U.S. imports and promotes U.S. exports in a way that violates international trade rules, it could put pressure on U.S. trading partners to retaliate. Chad P. Brown argues that any overhaul of the tax system, therefore, should take a closer look at the international affects of the policy. [piie]\n\nNeel Kashkari, President of the Minneapolis Fed, was alone in voting to keep interest rates steady at the Federal Open Market Committee’s meeting earlier this week. He provides an explanation. [medium]\n\nIn his address to Congress, President Trump cited a report released by the National Academy of Sciences to claim that immigration harms the U.S. economy. Cornell University’s Francine Blau, an editor of the report, and University of California-Berkeley’s Gretchen Donehower, who served as a consultant, say that the report actually finds that the economic and fiscal consequences of immigration are generally positive. [vox]\n\nSome of the best academic ideas are secluded from the public domain in journals read largely by other academics. Savo Heleta looks at why academics are not doing more to share their ideas with the broader public. [the conversation]\n\nFriday Figure\n\nFrom “Product innovations and inflation in the U.S. retail sector have magnified inequality” by Xavier Jaravel", "pred_label": "__label__1", "pred_score_pos": 0.9414001107215881}
+{"content": "June 28, 2017, 09:08:58 PM\n\nRegistration Agreement\n\n\nFurthermore, you also agree, through your use of this forum, that any content (such as characters, nations, stories, etc.) you create and submit for the purpose of contributing to the site (developing the universe, worldbuilding, etc.) or participating in the events herein (roleplaying) will remain yours in general ownership, but that this website shall become part-owner and be free to continue to use, alter or remove this content, within the scope of this website and nowhere else, as is seen fit by the moderators. A consequence of this is that you also agree that any work or the exclusive rights to work you have submitted to this website will not at a later time be sold or given away. As a member, you will generally be free to remove any content you posted, but items that have been adopted into the life of the website are not yours to delete.\n\nThis website is non-profit and any commercialization of content found or created on this website is strictly forbidden unless explicit permission has been given by the website owner.\n\n\n\n\n\n", "pred_label": "__label__1", "pred_score_pos": 0.9979152679443359}
+{"content": "The dachshund is of German origin and literally means “badger dog” The breed was developed to use scent to trail and hunt animals,and may have descended from scent hounds such as bloodhounds, pointers, basset hounds.It can also be argued that they could have developed from the terrier, or “earth dog”, group.due to its persistent personality and love for digging. One dachshund was known to have dug a 10 meter hole to catch its unsuspecting prey.\n\n1.3”H x 1.37”W. Weight: 25g. 18K Gold Plate on Bronze\n\nPrice: $495.00 Quantity:", "pred_label": "__label__1", "pred_score_pos": 0.998653769493103}
+{"content": "Goodstein-Nuns, Rebuked by Rome, Plan Roadtrip to Spotlight Social Issues\n\nIn June 2012, after a rebuke from the Vatican, a group of nuns decided to roadtrip across the United States to promote religious liberty. The tour is being used to highlight issues related to social justice and religious equality as a response to what the nuns believed to be a misguided critique from the Vatican. During their bus trip, Goodstein notes that the nuns will be stopping at Congressional offices as well as various churches in an effort to spread their message. This article highlights a particular passionate action to promote equality and religious liberty rather than focus on the critiques against one group.", "pred_label": "__label__1", "pred_score_pos": 0.8211023211479187}
+{"content": "rightfulrula was born in London. rightfulrula is currently based in the UK. rightfulrula  believes age and experience are relative. rightfulrula has engaged in the system. rightfulrula  chooses to leave the system that restricts. rightfulrula  takes the past with the present and mixes it into the future. rightfulrula  expresses himself through the medium of art. glam rock to punk, reggae to hip-hop, rightfulrula  absorbs it all through his work. protest to persecution, sexuality and sin these are the areas rightfulrula  inhabits in his quest for a voice. rightfulrula  is a social commentator and a thought instigator. rightfulrula  uses words and images to provoke debate and split opinion. rightfulrula  likes to recycle and repurpose, exploringdifferent texture and crossing boundaries . rightfulrula  sees beauty in the decay and majesty in the graffiti scrawled walls of the urban landscape. rightfulrula  fears not but fear itself and understands that the only restriction is himself. rightfulrula  follows a path towards free expression and creativity. a path well traveled by influential figures that help shape him. from Dali to Newton , Basquiat to Haring , Lydon to Lee amongst others. rightfulrula  wants to ask questions through his work and hopefully along the way will open eyes and agitate. Educate not segregate .\n\n\nWEB: rightfulrula.com\nEMAIL: rightfulrula@gmail.com", "pred_label": "__label__1", "pred_score_pos": 0.9969919323921204}
+{"content": "Our People\n\n\n\nLeadership is often a misunderstood or misused term. At RemoteResources, our leadership includes:\n\n\n1. Establishing a clear vision;\n\n\n2. Sharing this vision with others so they will follow enthusiastically;\n\n\n3. Providing the necessary resources, knowledge, information and methodology to realise the vision;\n\n\n4. Coordinate and carefully balance  the interests and any possible conflicts for all concerned.\n\n\n\nOur exceptional performance is inspired by our leadership. Or put another way, inspired leadership creates extraordinary success.", "pred_label": "__label__1", "pred_score_pos": 0.8971173763275146}
+{"content": "STO-2 Mission Overview and Hang Test August 2015\n\nI am a graduate student at ASU working on the Stratospheric Terahertz Observatory reflight mission, STO-2. STO-2 is a telescope that hangs underneath a very large helium balloon. The balloon inflates to ~100 meters across and is full of helium gas. The balloon reaches a height of approximately 36 kilometers, which is within the Earth’s stratosphere. The telescope that sits underneath is 0.8 meters in diameter. The STO-2 science objectives are to look at Cold Dark Clouds in the interstellar medium of the Milky Way galaxy. These clouds are thought to further condense into Giant Molecular Clouds, where star formation takes place. Giant Molecular Cloud studies have been ongoing for several decades, but this mission will be one of very few to directly observe the Cold Dark Clouds, and will help us understand how Giant Molecular Clouds form. We will also study how interstellar clouds get disrupted by nearby high mass stars as they give off intense solar wind, and later from supernovas as they die.\n\nISM carbon lifecycle\n\nA diagram showing the lifecycle of gas and dust in the Milky Way. The diagram shows which dominate species of observable chemical transitions are used to study each phase. The STO-2 mission observes CII and NII and OII emission.\n\nThe STO-2 telescope looks at these cloud regions and uses three separate terahertz detectors to record data from these clouds. Each detector is specifically designed to look at photons emitted by different chemical transitions within the Cold Dark Clouds. Together, these three emission profiles help determine important properties of these galactic clouds, including: distinguishing which cloud type we are observing, what the temperature of the cloud is, where the cloud is located within the galaxy (3 dimensionally), how thick the cloud is, how the cloud is moving internally (rotating, expanding, etc), and the what the radiation environment surrounding the cloud is like. This information will lead us to understanding the higher level questions of: what is the complete lifecycle of interstellar gas, study the creation and disruption of star-forming galactic clouds, determine the parameters that effect star formation rate in the galaxy, and provide templates for star formation and stellar/interstellar feedback in external galaxies.\n\nSTO galactic survey region\n\nThe survey region of the STO-2 payload. We will look at a significant fraction of the galaxy which includes looking through the spiral arm and inter-arm regions.\n\nThe STO-2 mission is scheduled for launch from McMurdo Station in Antarctica in December of 2015. Recently, I traveled to Palestine, TX to help with the integration and testing of the STO-2 payload. This test is critical to to ensure that the instrument is balanced and all of the equipment fits into its specified location, make sure that the data collected by the instrument is properly stored by the onboard computers and relayed by satellite to mission control, and to test that that the telescope is properly aligned and can receive satellite pointing commands.\n\nThere are two major ‘teams’ working on the full STO-2 payload. The first is the instrument team, who are in charge of making sure all the receivers are working properly. The receivers we use are Hot Electron Bolometers (HEBs) for our CII and NII emission. These detectors need a lot of support electronics to make them work properly, and so the instrument team is in charge of focusing the light from the secondary mirror onto the detectors, through a series of lenses, mirrors, and windows. We also shine a second, high powered light source created by us onto the HEB detectors, which acts as a light ‘pump’ for our detectors. We call the light pump a Local Oscillator (LO). The HEBs convert the photons from the LOs and the gas clouds into lower frequency electrical signals. The electrical signals get amplified and converted into digital signals, which are read by our spectrometers. A lot of the electrical equipment, especially the HEBs, need to be supercooled to function properly. The camera sits inside a big dewar, which holds liquid helium at 4 degrees above absolute zero. The instrument team is not only responsible for making sure the electronics are properly aligned, they also need to make sure each piece of equipment is kept at its desired temperature.\n\n\nMembers of the instrument team working on the electronics outside of the dewar during the Hang Test. The dewar is the white tank in the middle-left of the image with a lot of electronics boxes attached to it. We paint everything flight-worthy white to reflect as much sunlight as possible which helps keep it cool.  \n\nThe other team for the STO-2 mission is the telescope team. While the instrument team sets up the receiver system, the telescope team sets up the majority of the structure of the payload as well as a lot of support systems. The telescope team handles the telescope itself, which is the primary and secondary mirrors, sitting along the long gold baffle. They also set up the guidance system, which uses visible light cameras to triangulate which direction the telescope is pointing, and uses gyroscopes and reaction wheels to keep the telescope steady and slew it back and forth to take an image of the cloud regions we study. The telescope gondola has two sets of solar panels to provide power to the telescope subsystems, and we have batteries on-board to store the extra energy. The telescope team is in charge of thermal control for all the equipment that isn’t cooled by the helium tank in the dewar. Finally, the telescope team provides contact to and from the telescope, which allows us to communicate via satellite with the telescope while in flight to check on its stats, upload pointing commands, and collecting the data through mission control.\n\n\nThe telescope with the dewar attached but before the solar panels are installed. The guidance system has also not been installed underneath the telescope. The gondola pictured here is just shy of 20 ft. tall.\n\nThe hang test is the first time that the instrument and telescope come together and all the electronics are hooked up to each other. The hang test takes place at the Columbia Science Balloon Facility in Palestine, TX. It is a small NASA center where they used to launch balloon missions, but cannot do so any longer now that Palestine is a booming metropolis (heh). You can still go out and see the gigantic launch pad, which is a 1000 ft diameter concrete circle, surrounded by an even wider open space now used for growing hay.\n\n\nThe CSBF launch pad during the day (lower) and at night (upper). I wanted to include the sunset picture because it was very pretty. It was not as hot in Texas in August as in Phoenix, but it was about 3 times as humid. You can’t see the launch pad as well from these angles, but it is very large and quite pleasant to take a stroll around.\n\n\nDuring the hang test, the entire gondola payload is actually hung from a crane! The test not only tests the hardware system but also the software system, which is very complex, elegant, and designed by the STO-2 team specifically for this mission. The dewar and the telescope are integrated inside a large hanger. On the day of the test, a crane in the hangar lifts the payload to the door, where it is transferred to a separate crane and taken outside. The hanging payload is free to point and rotate, and it can communicate via satellite. Mission control (Houston) send pointing commands to the gondola, and the team can determine if the telescope is pointing correctly. We also take some ‘fake’ data and make sure it is stored and processed correctly. Since things went well, the hang test only took ~ 3 hours. However, there were two straight weeks of 10-16 hour days necessary to get us to that point (and one 22 hour day!). The success of the hang test shows that the mission is prepared to be sent down to Antarctica for launch. The entire system has to be taken apart to be shipped, so all that hard work gets immediately torn apart.\n\n\nThe STO-2 instrument and telescope teams in front of the complete instrument gondola. Hang test success!\n\n\nThe gondola only needs to hang by a few feet to be able to swing properly. You can see the back sides of the solar panels in this view, as well as the instrument support package underneath the dewar. The communication antennas are sticking out on the boom at the very top of the payload.\n\nDavis Groppi STO2 hanging\n\nMe and my adviser Chris Groppi with the payload. You can see the extent of the instrument better in this view.", "pred_label": "__label__1", "pred_score_pos": 0.9945623874664307}
+{"content": "What is cystinosis?\n\nCystinosis is a rare, genetic disease, which is mostly diagnosed early in childhood, usually before the age of two. It is autosomal recessive, which means that it is inherited when a child receives two copies of an abnormal gene, one copy from each parent. Because the parents each have only one abnormal gene, they are not affected.\n\nIt is estimated that cystinosis occurs in somewhere between 1 in 100,000 to 1 in 200,000 live births. There are 10 to 15 new cases of cystinosis diagnosed each year in Europe.\n\nThe problem in cystinosis is an increase in many parts of the body an amino acid called cystine. This build up causes cystine crystals to form in many organs of the body. These crystals form firstly in the kidneys and the eyes, late complications can occur in muscles, pancreas, thyroid gland and in other parts of the body.\n\nThere is a specific treatment for Cystinosis, but there is no cure. Children with cystinosis are experiencing much better outcomes and many young adults are living happy and active lives. But we still have a long way to go.\n\nIn The Netherlands we have a patient support group. It is called Dutch Cystinosis Group (Cystinose Groep Nederland). The website you now visit is our website. If you need our information translated into English, please contact us by the use of the contact button.\n\nSource: Cystinosis Network Europe", "pred_label": "__label__1", "pred_score_pos": 0.9928024411201477}
+{"content": "Single-Page App Architecture talk\nCSS Ruby\nSwitch branches/tags\nNothing to show\nFetching latest commit…\nCannot retrieve the latest commit at this time.\nFailed to load latest commit information.\n\nSingle-Page App Architecture\n\nIn this talk, we will survey the landscape of techniques for building single-page web applications, for fun, profit, and most importantly, perceived performance. Compared to a traditional site with page refreshes for navigation and actions, single-page apps introduce complexity around state management, client-server synchronization and memory usage, and often increase initial page load time. Learn how to minimize the spinner and make your site feel responsive and continuous.\n\nInstead of focusing on a particular server or client-side framework, we will lay out pros and cons of strategies for serving assets, passing data, shared templating and code, caching and managing dependencies, referencing tools that can help along the way. You will leave this session knowing how to evaluate the different approaches and decide what is right for your project.\n\n\nbundle install\nbundle exec showoff serve\nopen http://localhost:9090", "pred_label": "__label__1", "pred_score_pos": 0.6852411031723022}
+{"content": "The ones that get away\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\nDue to the juxtaposition of my previous post with the tagline of my blog, it has come to my attention that I did not include libraries in my diet in the event that I become a godzilla-monster.  This oversight is a terrible disservice to a noble institution.  On my own behalf, I must offer heartfelt apologies to libraries everywhere.  Unfortunately, I will not be able to change the tagline, because “If I were a godzilla-monster, I would only eat bookstores and libraries” just doesn’t sound as good.  It is possible that a compromise, such as alternating between “bookstores” and “libraries” in the tagline, might to some degree ameliorate the consequences of the lapse, and I would be open to such a compromise.  Regardless, I deeply regret the error and will strive to avoid replicating it in the future.\n\nA love note\n\nIt should come as no surprise to anyone that I’m a big fan of public libraries.  I must have started going (or more accurately, my mother must have started taking me) fairly early in my life.  I don’t even remember the first time I went to one.  I do, however, remember my first “home” library.  It was a large, white (ish) building probably built sometime in the 80s based on the architecture.  The few windows were heavily tinted, so it was always dim inside, and it smelled fusty.  I remember the children’s room being brighter, though whether it was better lit or simply more brightly decorated I couldn’t tell you now.  I went every week when I was young.  I remember exiting from semi-gloom into brilliant afternoon sunshine, delighted with a fresh haul and eager to dive into it.  We would go with sturdy canvas bags to carry the books, and mine was always absolutely crammed.  I could fit perhaps six to ten books in one bag, depending on whether they were paperbacks or hardcovers.\n\nChoosing the books was the hard part, however.  This was a relatively large public library – larger than most individual branches I’ve encountered since, anyway.  It had a correspondingly large selection.  I remember, once, sitting down in one of the back aisles of the children’s section in front of a whole series of books about different animals.  There must have been at least a couple dozen of them.  And there were so many I wanted to read!  My mother typically let me browse as I wished while she did the same, only coming to look for me if I hadn’t shown up at the circulation desk to check out in the usual amount of time.  So by the time she found me, I had pulled what seems like twenty of them in memory but might have been half that off the shelves.  Dismayed, she had to explain to me that I could not check all of those out, and I would have to put most of them back.  This was an exacting and laborious task for a seven-year-old, but my mother stood by patiently while I did it.\n\nSome years later, a new branch of the county library opened up not five minutes from our home. ��The building was brand-new, bright, airy, spacious, and clearly intended for growth, since half the shelves were still empty.  It was beautiful, but I never quite grew attached to it in the same way I did the old, dark, musty library I grew up with.  It wasn’t my library.  Still, I went there occasionally in my late teens, mostly during summer breaks when I was bored or stressed and didn’t know what to do with myself.  The librarians were always pleased to see me.  I gathered that most of their other teen volunteers were as much hindrance as help, and I was a shelving wonder – despite sometimes getting distracted by interesting-looking books.  I even managed to help patrons find books on occasion, like the man looking for a nonfiction children’s book about space.  I had just shelved a book there, so I was able to find the general section for him quickly, and felt quite pleased with myself.\n\nNow, I’m fortunate to live in a large city with an extensive public library system.  New York actually has three: one for Queens, one for Brooklyn, and one that covers the Bronx, Manhattan, and Staten Island.  At this point, I’ve visited more branches than I can readily count.  The most memorable, unsurprisingly, is the iconic central branch of the New York Public Library, on 42nd Street.  It’s huge and beautiful, so old and so well-traveled (well-loved) that many of the steps have been worn hollow with the passage of feet.  Most of the public parts of it feel like that – vast, lovely, venerable.  I went to the enormous reading room, filled out a slip to request a book decades old, and watched it whisked away by pneumatic tube.  When my book arrived, I sat down at a table in a hard wooden chair and read it cover to cover in one sitting, since the collection there can’t be checked out.\n\nI’ve even seen parts of it most don’t get to, thanks to a friend who worked there a few years ago.  At a donor event to which employees could bring a guest, I had the opportunity for a short behind-the-scenes tour that included the stacks.  Unsurprisingly, the less-public parts are more workaday – less nice, even, than the stacks at other libraries, since the public isn’t admitted to them.  More surprisingly, they were incredibly hot, even in December.  I suppose such a large, old building has heating and cooling challenges, but it did make me worry for the books, especially because the collection there is generally older and rarer.  Still, I’m glad I had the opportunity to see the stacks.  Now, I donate regularly to the New York Public Library myself – not a large amount, but every little bit counts, as they say.\n\nI still check out plenty of books, though not quite so many as in my childhood, and libraries are still my preferred place to kill time if I need to.  I was about to say that I appreciate them more now, but I think it would be more accurate to say that I appreciate them differently now.  As a child I loved libraries for the treasure trove of delights they offered me; as a teen I loved them for the refuge they offered me.  As an adult, I’m more aware of what they offer others.  Obviously, they still offer everything they did me: a tremendous variety of enjoyable media to consume, a safe and pleasant place to spend time for people of all ages.  But they also offer a great many other services that rarely if ever impinged on my awareness when I was young: classes and assistance on every topic from computers to job hunting to language learning to knitting; art, history, and culture exhibits; events with public figures, thinkers, and artists of various kinds; and probably far more that I still don’t know about.\n\nAll of which is to say that I am really, truly, deeply grateful for the existence of public libraries, and I hope they thrive far into the future.", "pred_label": "__label__1", "pred_score_pos": 0.978821873664856}
+{"content": "Oliver Phillips\n\nMy long-term research goal is to understand the dynamics of carbon and biodiversity across the world’s tropical forests, how these change with our changing climate, and how they may feedback on the whole planet.\n\nThe scale of the endeavour is large, requiring global team-work and a multidisciplinary approach. I lead RAINFOR, a team of more than 100 researchers in Leeds, Oxford, across South America, and elsewhere, to understand the behaviour of Amazonian and other tropical forests in the changing earth system, working closely with GEM colleagues.", "pred_label": "__label__1", "pred_score_pos": 1.0000088214874268}
+{"content": "Configure Redundancy Zones for Members\n\nGroup members into redundancy zones so GemFire will separate redundant data copies into different zones.\n\nUnderstand how to set a member's settings. See and (GemFire Properties).\nGroup your partition region hosts into redundancy zones with the setting redundancy-zone.\nFor example, if you had redundancy set to 1, so you have one primary and one secondary copy of each data entry, you could split primary and secondary data copies between two machine racks by defining one redundancy zone for each rack. To do this, you set this zone in the for all members that run on one rack:\nYou would set this zone for all members on the other rack:\n\nEach secondary copy would be hosted on the rack opposite the rack where its primary copy is hosted.", "pred_label": "__label__1", "pred_score_pos": 0.9180770516395569}
+{"content": "Get access\n\nAre Bald-Faced Lies Deceptive after All?\n\n\n\nAccording to the traditional philosophical definition, you lie if and only if you say something that you believe to be false and you intend to deceive someone into believing what you say. However, philosophers have recently noted the existence of bald-faced lies, lies which are not intended to deceive anyone into believing what is said. As a result, many philosophers have removed deception from their definitions of lying. According to Jennifer Lackey, this is ‘an unhappy divorce’ because it precludes an obvious explanation of the prima facie wrongness of lying. Moreover, Lackey claims that there is a sense of deception in which all lies are deceptive. In this paper, I argue that bald-faced lies are not deceptive on any plausible notion of deception. In addition, I argue that divorcing deception from lying may not be as unhappy a result as Lackey suggests.", "pred_label": "__label__1", "pred_score_pos": 0.9988676309585571}
+{"content": "Carrion Crown\n\nCarrion Crown – The Haunting of Harrowstone\nSession 6\n\nThe heroes leave Vesorianna to search for Warden Hawkran’s symbol of office, to find the five arch-criminal ghosts, and to defeat them. The heroes go upstairs. Three stirges attack them. The Ulan cousins easily defeat two of the stirges by themselves. The entire rest of the company desperately struggle against the third stirge. By working together, the other four heroes manage to take down the last single stirge.\n\nThe heroes continue to explore the upper floor and find the cell block. Each cell has the skeletal remains of a prisoner that died in the jail.\n\nSuddenly the heroes are surrounded by the sound of a mournful dirge. The music forces the heroes to resist its magic or become staggered. The music also causes every skeleton to animate and rise to attack the heroes. And finally, it attracts three stirges into the area.\n\nBattle begins. Initially most of the heroes focus on fighting the stirges. Yosief calls upon the power of Iomedae to drive back several of the skeletons. The stirges are quickly killed. Several skeletons are able to exit their cells, and they advance towards the heroes. The heroes start to destroy the skeletons while Yosief continues to force the monsters to flee. Yosief takes several hits from the skeletons, and one delivers a devastating blow, taking Yosief down. Jonas casts his Heavenly Fire power to heal Yosief. As the battle continues, Yosief is badly wounded again, and again Jonas heals Yosief, this time with a wand. Although the magic closes Yosief’s wounds, scars remain.\n\nThe heroes destroy all the skeletons that were able to exit their cells. They continue to explore while the sound of the mournful music continues. Daratrine goes up a ladder to the tower and finds a giant stirge. Eventually the music causes Jonas to fall into a trance. Yosief succumbs to the trance shortly thereafter. They have a vision of the Piper of Ill Marsh approaching them. Harten pulls out the Piper’s flute and he begins to play it. The flute causes Harten to bleed from his fingers and eyes. The music of the Piper decreases in volume, and Jonas and Yosief are able to see that the Piper in their vision begins to take damage from the music that Harten is playing.\n\nYosief manages to break free of the trance and informs the heroes to keep playing the flute to defeat the Piper. Daratrine battles against the giant stirge up in the tower. Clutch takes a defensive position to protect the party in case something comes at them. Jonas breaks free of the trance, and then he and Yosief take damage from a flock of phantom stirges.\n\nMurdoc takes the flute away from Harten and plays the flute himself. He is also able to harm the piper with the flute’s music. But he suffers the same ill effects as Harten did, and also falls under the power of the flute, becoming entranced with the music he is playing. Harten takes the flute back and finished the song while Murdoc recovers. The final chords of the song that Harten plays destroy the Piper of Ill Marsh.\n\nOnly four ghosts are left.\n\nCarrion Crown – The Haunting of Harrowstone\nSession 5\n\nThe heroes continue to explore the prison. They return back to the fungus room. The haunt returns and slams the door shut. The heroes go through the podium room. Daratrine opens the locked door and enters the next room. It is filled with antiques that are labeled. They find a set of masterwork thief tools, a medallion from the Shining Crusade, a painting, hair clips, a masterwork punch dagger, shurikens, a war razor and a wand of lesser restoration. Daratrine finds a secret room. Inside are the personal effects of the five arch-criminals. They are:\n\nA bloodstained hand axe\nA set of twelve holy symbols, all from a different deity\nA leather-bound book\nA smith’s hammer\nA silver pipe\n\nThe heroes continue to explore and they find the guard’s offices. The offices still have paperwork inside of them. The heroes study the papers and discover that Father Charlatan was not a murderer. He was a con-artist that swindled money from people in exchange for fake miracles.\n\nThe heroes continue exploring and find the Warden’s office. Daratrine is able to open the safe. Inside is:\n\n4 potions of cure moderate wounds\n3 scrolls of lesser restoration\n2 potions of remove disease\n\nThe heroes continue exploring and go past the washroom and come to the Chapel. It is filled with spider webs. Three giant spiders come out and attack the heroes. The heroes defeat them and investigate the Chapel.\n\nAfterwards, they explore the Induction Chamber. Harten hears sobbing and experiences a feeling of hopelessness when he walks into the chamber. A set of manacles rises up and attacks Harten. Harten destroys them.\n\nThe heroes continue on and explore the Branding Room. Three branding irons rise up and attack Harten, Clutch and Daratrine. The irons are unable to hit the heroes, and they knock the irons away.\n\nThe heroes continue on to the workshop. Inside, they see lots of linen and a skeletal corpse lying on the floor. Daratrine and Jonas see a brick in the wall that looks odd. They go to investigate it. Yosief goes to investigate the corpse.\n\nAs he approaches it, the ghost of Vesorianna Hawkran rises and speaks to the party. She was the wife of Warden Hawkran. She answers questions that the heroes ask her. She explains that the Whispering Way cultists have cast a spell that removed her husband’s spirit from the prison. She is trying to keep the five arch-criminals from escaping, but she is weakening and eventually will not be able to contain them. She asks the heroes to destroy the spirits of the arch-criminals before they escape. Time is limited because somehow the Splatterman is spelling out Vsorianna’s name. Once her name is completely spelled out, she will be destroyed.\n\nCarrion Crown – The Haunting of Harrowstone\nSession 4\n\nThe heroes return to Kendra’s house and go to bed. They wake up and leave town two hours before sunrise. They arrive at Harrowstone and wait for sunrise. The heroes enter the prison.\n\nThe first room they enter has fungus covering the walls. They continue through and enter the Auditorium. A ghost appears and slams the door behind them. The door is then held closed with magic. Everyone feels a wave of cold in the auditorium.\n\nThe heroes continue to the next room which is the Training Room. Three flaming skulls rise up out of a pit in the floor and attack. The heroes defeat them and continue on to the next room. It is the Furnace Room. There is a sign that says “Embermaw”. The furnace shoots a jet of flame at Clutch. Harten looks in the furnace and sees bones inside. Harten takes the bones and throws them into the water nearby. Daratrine recognizes this as a haunt. Throwing the bones into the water defeats the haunt. Yosief heals Clutch.\n\nThe heroes continue to the next room. It is the Infirmary. They meet a ghost nurse that they call Nurse Joy. Yosief and Jonas are overcome by fear and run away. Clutch, Harten, Murdoc and Daratrine fight the ghost. Daratrine is able to kill it with one shot from a ghost touched arrow. Inside the infirmary they find :\n\n2 healers kits\n3 vials of anti-toxin\n2 vials of anti-plague\n3 doses of blood block\n3 doses of smelling salts\n2 vials of soothe syrup\n4 potions of cure light wounds.\n\nCarrion Crown – The Haunting of Harrowstone\nSession 3\n\nThe heroes investigate the area around Harrowstone. Clutch, Murdoc and Yosief find old tracks. Jonas realizes that they were humanoids wearing shoes.\n\nThe heroes push the front gates open. Clutch and Harten experience a feeling of claustrophobia and of being on fire. But they push on despite their fear and pain.\n\nThe heroes investigate the manor house. Harten sees that the house is unstable, but the heroes decide to investigate anyway. Inside, they find a sign that identifies the house as Warden Hawkran’s house. During the investigation, a portion of the ceiling falls on Jonas, wounding him. Yosief casts healing magic on him.\n\nThe heroes exit the house and follow the track to the prison. Along the foundation, the heroes find runes written along the foundation wall. The runes are etched into the stone and are covered in blood. Lyvar Hawkran’s name is repeated over and over in the script. The script is a magic incantation. The runes are written all along the entire building, and the heroes are able to tell that they have been recently inscribed. The incantation magic involves abjuration and necromancy.\n\nThe heroes decide to return to Kendra’s house. When they get there, they realize that Vladimir is not there. Yosief, Clutch and Murdoc want to go look for him. After a long search, they find him sleeping in the Pharasmian church. Yosief leaves a note instructing him to come back to the house when he wakes up. The heroes return to Kendra’s house and get some sleep.\n\nIn the morning, the heroes eat breakfast, and Vladimir returns. The heroes research the incantation. They are able to determine that the inscription is the beginning of something bigger which somehow involves the deceased warden. The warden was the focus of the inscribed magic. Yosief investigates and notices that Mrs. Hawkran’s name in not inscribed on the memorial statue.\n\nThe heroes go visit Father Grimburrow. After he listens to everything they have to say, he suggests that they go visit the Unfurling Scroll a school and magic item shop. The shop is owned by Alendru Ghoroven and he has a library there that may help with the investigation.\n\nThe heroes leave, and go visit Sheriff Caeller. They report everything that they learned. The sheriff tells them to continue their investigation, but not to let townsfolk find out about it.\n\nThe heroes go visit Alendru Ghoroven and he lets the heroes use his library to assist in the investigation.\n\nYosief decides to study the Whispering Way. He learns that they are an organization of necromancers who have been active for thousands of years. They often ally themselves with undead to further their goals. Tar-Baphon the Whispering Tyrant was the most active and infamous member of the organization. The Way is a series of philosophies that are only whispered from one member to another. They are never written down. Agents of the Way seek ways to make liches and to release Tar-Baphon from his prison. If an outsider learns too much about the Way, they are killed and the victim’s mouth is mutilated so that nobody can cast Speak with Dead on the corpse. This is what happened to Professor Lorrimor.\n\nMurdoc decides to study the five infamous prisoners of Harrowstone. He learns about Professor Hean Feramin. He was a scholar in Anthroponomastics (the study of personal names and their origins). He was from Caliphis. Feramin was obsessed with names and what happens to people’s names when they died. He became known as the Splatterman because he was a serial killer. He would choose a victim, and he would spell out their name in blood or in body parts, one letter at a time over the course of several days. When the name was completely spelled out, he would murder his victim.\n\nJonas decides to study the magical incantation. He learns that the spell captures and imprisons the ghost of Warden Hawkran.\n\nHarten, Clutch and Daratrine go to Sheriff Caeller to see if he has anything that he needs them to do. He has nothing specific, so they walk around town looking for ways to help out in town.\n\nDaratrine sees two farmers arguing, and she helps them resolve their disagreement.\n\nClutch sees a group of men working on a broken wagon. He sets up a rig to lift the wagon.\n\nHarten sees two girls playing by the town’s well. They get into an argument, and one girl accidently pushes her friend into the well, where she will surely die if nobody helps her. Harten decides to go into the well, and he is able to climb back out with her, saving her life.\n\nAnd the townspeople begin to warm up the heroes.\n\nCarrion Crown – The Haunting of Harrowstone\nSession 2\n\nThe heroes investigate the statue. The letter “V” has been painted on the statue base. The crowd blames the heroes. Daratrine finds a dead rat. It is apparent that the letter was painted on the statue with the rat’s blood.\n\nSheriff Caeller arrives. He is shocked. One of the names on the base has the last name of Caeller. Sheriff Caeller places his hand on that name and murmurs, “I am sorry.” He asks who found the mark on the statue. One of the townsfolk steps forward and claims to have found it. The sheriff takes the man to the jail for further questioning.\n\nThe heroes go visit Father Grimburrow. They tell him about the treasure that was in the false crypt. The heroes ask if they can use those items to investigate The Whispering Way and Professor Lorrimor’s death. He agrees to let the heroes keep the items.\n\nThe heroes tell Father Grimburrow about the vandalism at the statue. There is discussion about the statue. It commemorates the guards at Harrowstone Prison who died during the fire that destroyed it. Between Father Grimburrow, Yosief and Murdock, the following information is revealed.\n\nThe prison burned 50 years ago and its ruins have been empty ever since. The locals think it is haunted and don’t talk about it. The prison was built 117 years ago. Ravengro was founded at the same time for the guards and their families to live at. Fire destroyed the underground east wing. The stone above ground remains. The warden and his wife died there. It is unclear why the warden’s wife was at the prison. The statue in Ravengro was erected shortly after the fire. Criminals that were sent to Harrowstone only spent a few months there before they were executed. Fifty years ago, there was a prison riot, and a fire broke out. When the fire broke out, Warden Hawkran and 23 guards prevented the prisoners from escaping.\n\nJonas and Harken return to Kendra’s house to research Harrowstone. They send Vladimir Bloodtusk out to join Yosief, Clutch and Murdock. Their research finds out that originally Harrowstone was only for locals. Eventually, other towns sent their most dangerous prisoners there. At the time of the fire, the number of prisoners was at the highest level ever. The five most notorious prisoners were: Father Charlatan, The Lopper, The Mosswater Marauder, The Piper of Ill Marsh and The Splatter Man.\n\nThe true name of the Piper of Ill Marsh is unknown. It is known that he would torment victims with a terrible dirge. Then he would poison them with lich dust. Then he would set a swarm of stirges upon them.\n\nMeanwhile, Yosief, Murdock and Clutch see young girls singing a creepy song as they jump rope. With Yosief’s help. Murdock is able to convince them to teach him their song. After learning the song, the three go visit Sheriff Caeller. They ask for permission to clean the statue. The sheriff gives permission, but asks that great care is taken with the statue. The three stop by Kendra’s house to get cleaning supplies, and Murdock is singing the girls’ song in Kendra’s house. Kendra seems to think it is odd that an adult man would walk around singing a young girl’s play song. The heroes go out and clean the statue.\n\nAfter the statue is cleaned, the heroes return to Kendra’s house. They use the spirit board and ask “Did the Whispering Way kill Professor Lorrimor?” The answer is “Maybe.”\n\nThe heroes head out that night to the ruins of Harrowstone. As they approach the ruined wall, they try to decide the best way to begin their investigations.\n\nCarrion Crown – The Haunting of Harrowstone\nSession 1\n\nThe story opens with the characters traveling to Ravengro to attend Professor Lorrimor’s funeral. Clutch is traveling north, and on the road he meets Murdock, the Bard. Yosief, Jonas and Vladimir Bloodtusk are traveling together. Daratrine is traveling by herself. Harten is traveling by himself by carriage. Outside of Ravengro, the carriage is forced to stop for a minor repair. While it is stopped, all of the heroes meet each other.\n\nThey enter Ravengro together and arrive right as the funeral procession is about to take Professor Lorrimor’s casket to the graveyard. Everyone is greeted by Kendra Lorrimor, the professor’s daughter. Yosief, Harten, Murdock and Clutch volunteer to be pallbearers. Several mourners are present to pay their respects.\n\nAs the procession approaches the graveyard, they are blocked by a crowd that does not want the professor’s body buried there. They didn’t like the professor or something. Harten speaks to them and convinces them to stand aside and allow the funeral to proceed. Father Vauran Grimburrow conducts the ceremony and then asks people to come forward and speak about Professor Lorrimor. Kendra steps forward and speaks about her father. Yosief steps forward to speak, but after a few words, he is overcome with emotion and Jonas has to come forward and finish for him. Harten speaks next about how the professor helped the noble folk. Clutch speaks next, and he is followed by Murdock. Murdock plays the professor’s favorite song. The performance is wonderful and the crowd is deeply moved. After the song, Daratrine steps forward and speaks about the professor’s work. Vladimir Bloodtusk is the last to speak. His speech is short but powerful. “The professor hated ghouls. I hate ghouls. When I kill a ghoul, I will remember the professor.”\n\nAfter the funeral, Kendra invites the heroes to her house. They all join her there, and they wait for Councilman Vashian Hearthmount to arrive and read the professor’s will. When the councilman arrives, it seems that he does not approve of the heroes. It is presumed that it is because they are outsiders. He states that the will cannot be read until all the heroes and Kendra are present. The heroes are surprised that their presence is required.\n\nWhen Councilman Hearthmount is ready to start, he breaks the seal on the will, and a key falls out. The councilman reads the will. All of his property is left to Kendra. He asks the heroes to perform two services for him. First, he asks that the heroes deliver a chest of books to Lepidstadt University. Second, he asks the heroes to stay with Kendra for a month to keep her safe while she decides what to do with her estate. If the heroes do both of these things, each will receive 100 platinum pieces. Councilman Vashian then leaves. Kendra asks the stay at her house. The heroes agree. Then Kendra then brings out a locked chest. The key from the will opens it, and inside are several books. They are:\nA purple book with a lock.\nA book titled “On Verified Madness” – a treatise on aberrations.\nA book titled “Serving Your Hunger” – a book sacred to Urgathoa.\nA book titled “Unbral Leaves” – a book about the teachings of Zon Kuthon.\nProfessor Lorrimor’s personal journal.\n\nJonas reads the journal, and discovers clues about the professor’s death. The book also describes a secret cache of magic items hidden in a false crypt in the graveyard.\n\nThe heroes make plans to visit the crypt. They leave Vladimir at the house to protect Kendra. The heroes go to Father Grimburrow’s house, but he is not there. They continue on to the temple, and find him there. He speaks with the heroes. Harten reads the journal to him, and after a lot of persuasion, he gives the heroes permission to investigate the false crypt.\n\nThe heroes proceed on to the graveyard and find the crypt. The lock has been cut using acid. The heroes go inside and find it has no corpses. In the far back room, the party is attacked by two giant centipedes. After the centipedes are killed the party opens a large stone sarcophagus. Inside they find:\n12 Silver Arrows\n4 Sunrods\n6 flasks of Holy Water\n10 magical +1 Arrows\n4 Haunt Siphons\n5 magical +1 Ghost Touched Arrows\n2 magical +1 Undead Bane Arrows\n5 potions of Cure Light Wounds\n2 potions of Lesser Restoration\n1 scroll of Detect Undead\n2 scrolls of Hide from Undead\n1 scroll of Protection from Evil\nA thin darkwood case with the symbol of the Palatine Eye. Inside the case is a spirit board.\nThe heroes can see that six Haunt Siphons have been removed.\n\nThe heroes take all of the items and return to Kendra’s house to rest for the evening.\n\nThe next morning, there is a large commotion down by the river. The heroes go out to investigate. There is a large crowd beside the large statue that is a memorial to the soldiers at Harrowstone Prison who gave their lives to prevent a prison escape several years ago when there was a fire in the prison. During the night, somebody has painted a large letter “V” in blood on the statue.\n\nThe heroes contemplate how to calm the unruly crowd.\n\n", "pred_label": "__label__1", "pred_score_pos": 0.5416436791419983}
+{"content": "Navigation – Plan du site\n\nUnderstanding How Headings Influence Text Processing\n\nJulie Lemarié, Robert F. Lorch Jr. et Marie-Paule Péry-Woodley\n\n\nLes titres et intertitres sont des dispositifs de signalisation fréquemment utilisés dans les textes expositifs. De nombreuses recherches réalisées en psychologie cognitive et psychologie des apprentissages ont mis en évidence leurs effets sur le traitement du texte par le lecteur : les intertitres améliorent la représentation mnésique de l’organisation du texte et influencent la compréhension du texte par un mécanisme d’activation des connaissances antérieures du lecteur. Les titres généraux, lorsqu’ils mettent en avant un des thèmes du texte, biaisent la compréhension du texte. Cependant, l’absence d’analyse linguistique approfondie des titres et intertitres a limité la portée de ces travaux et a mené à des conclusions méritant d’être affinées. Nous présentons une théorie générale de la signalisation des textes qui propose un cadre d’analyse détaillé de la variabilité des titres et intertitres et génère des prédictions quant à leurs effets. Nous discutons les implications de ce cadre pour la recherche sur les titres et intertitres. Nous résumons des résultats récents qui illustrent la validité d’une composante centrale de nos analyses. Enfin, nous proposons des perspectives de recherche intégrant des résultats de travaux en linguistique pour l’étude des effets des titres et intertitres sur le traitement cognitif du texte.\n\nHaut de page\n\nTexte intégral\n\n1Headings are ubiquitous in expository texts and for good reason. An expository text of any length typically has a complex structure that poses substantial challenges to readers. In France, for instance, it has been observed by La Haye et al. (2009) that 10% of young adults do not have the strategic skills to effectively process complex documents (i.e. documents with signaled text, pictures, graphs, tables). Recognizing the demands of complex exposition, authors will often use a variety of writing devices to signal text organization and important content. The inclusion of headings, for instance, can support readers by identifying major topics and ideas, by emphasizing the structure of the text, and by serving as labels that can support access to sections within the text (Waller, 1987). In fact, there is a relatively extensive empirical literature in psychology that generally supports the hypothesis that signals may help processing of expository text (Lorch, 1989). In this paper, we briefly review the relevant findings, then we provide a critique of the research literature, arguing that our understanding of how headings influence text processing would benefit from a linguistically-based analysis of headings. We briefly present a general theory of signaling devices that provides such an analysis and we summarize some recent cognitive research demonstrating the validity and utility of the analysis. Finally, we address the question of what future research directions are suggested by our framework.\n\n1. A brief review of the cognitive literature on headings\n\n2There is a long history of research in psychology addressing the question of how headings influence various aspects of text processing (Bransford & Johnson, 1972; Schallert, 1976). Two lines of research on the topic can be identified. Within educational psychology, researchers have been primarily interested in the possibility that well-constructed headings might facilitate learning from text (Brooks et al., 1983; Hartley & Trueman, 1983; Holley et al., 1981; Krug et al., 1989). If principles of heading construction and placement can be identified that consistently improve learning from textbooks then authors can write more effectively to the benefit of student learning. Within cognitive psychology, headings have been used as a means to manipulate context in order to investigate effects of global context on comprehension and memory processes. In contrast to educational psychology’s emphasis on identifying the learning benefits associated with the use of headings, cognitive psychologists have focused on the processes by which headings influence text processing.\n\n3Much research has investigated how the presence of headings in a text influences subsequent memory for the text. In a prototypical experiment, participants read a text with headings or the same text without headings then receive a test of their memory for content. When memory is tested by assessing readers’ abilities to recognize specific content from a text, headings are typically not found to influence performance (Spyridakis, 1989; Spyridakis & Standal, 1986 and 1987). However, this null result is not surprising because headings conventionally communicate information about text organization and recognition memory tests are often insensitive to organizational factors. The picture is different when memory is assessed by simply asking readers to recall all that they can remember from the text. Although headings do not always lead to improved free recall (Lorch & Lorch, 1996b), several studies have found that recall of text is better if the text contains headings than if the text does not contain headings (Holley et al., 1981; Krug et al., 1989; Lorch & Lorch, 1996a; Sanchez, Lorch & Lorch, 2001). The presence of headings also aids summarization (Brooks et al., 1983; Holley et al., 1981; Hyönä & Lorch, 2004; Krug et al., 1989; Lorch & Lorch, 1996a; Lorch et al., 2001; Sanchez, Lorch & Lorch, 2001) and outlining from memory (Brooks et al., 1983). When the research on headings is combined with similar research on the effects of other structure-emphasizing signaling devices (e.g. advance outlines), a relatively consistent picture emerges. First, headings attract the attention of readers as they read, causing them to alter their processing strategies so as to focus more on the text’s topics (Cauchard et al., 2010a, 2010b; Hyönä & Lorch, 2004). The additional processing of the headings results in a more systematic and complete representation of the topic structure of the text than would occur for the same text without headings (Lorch & Lorch, 1996b). At recall, the topic structure representation is available to guide the retrieval of topics and their associated content, resulting in more complete recall of the text content (Lorch & Lorch, 1985; Lorch & Lorch, 1996b; Lorch, Lorch & Inman, 1993; Mayer, Dyck & Cook, 1984; Meyer et al., 1998; Sanchez, Lorch & Lorch, 2001).\n\n4The research summarized in the preceding paragraph sought to determine whether and how headings aid memory for text. A second set of investigations used free recall to understand how headings might influence readers’ understanding of text (Bock, 1980; Kozminsky, 1977; Schallert, 1976; Schwarz & Flammer, 1981). The general strategy followed in this research was to construct texts with competing themes and manipulate the title of the text to emphasize one of the two themes, then observe the effects on free recall. The finding from this research is that readers build a representation of the text that is organized around the biasing title (Bock, 1980; Kozminsky, 1977; Schwarz & Flammer, 1981) with the consequence that memory is better for content that is more closely associated with the theme emphasized by the biasing title than for content associated with the alternative theme. Similarly, Eyrolle, Virbel and Lemarié (2008) showed that users confronted with work documents containing titles that only partially reflect the text content fail to identify topics that are not represented in the title. In sum, these results are consistent with those reviewed above in demonstrating an effect of titles on readers’ representations of text structure. In addition, they demonstrate that titles can alter readers’ understanding of the content by emphasizing some content over other content.\n\n5Finally, several researchers have asked how titles and headings might influence the interpretation of text content. The general strategy in this research has been to construct texts containing vague referents then manipulate the title to alter the context for interpreting the referents. In one series of experiments, Dooling and his colleagues (Dooling & Lachman, 1971; Dooling & Mullet, 1973; Sulin & Dooling, 1974) demonstrated that readers could be induced to “remember” content that was not actually presented when the title indicated that the text was about a topic for which the readers had relevant background knowledge. Related to Dooling’s work is the finding that if readers are provided with a disambiguating title for a text containing ambiguous referents, they are better able to recall text content and they report better comprehension of the texts (Bransford & Johnson, 1972). Subsequent researchers examined the influence of such disambiguating titles on the online processing of the texts (Smith & Swinney, 1992; Wiley & Rayner, 2000). This research shows that a title influences attention to ambiguous words that are specifically related to the title. In sum, titles have been shown to influence the interpretation of specific text content by activating readers’ prior knowledge about the topic of the text.\n\n6To summarize our review, psychological research on headings has established that headings influence memory and comprehension of text. Their influence is achieved via at least three mechanisms. First, when headings are used to highlight the organization of topics in a well-structured text, they lead to better memory for that organization; in turn, better memory for text organization leads to better overall recall. Second, titles emphasize specific topics or themes, which biases readers’ understanding of the text in the direction of the emphasized topics and themes. Finally, by establishing a context, headings can influence the interpretation of text content by causing readers to use relevant background knowledge to guide comprehension. Thus, the psychological literature presents an informative, coherent body of results on the effects of titles and headings.\n\n2. Shortcomings of previous research\n\n7Despite the useful findings of prior psychological research, there are several shortcomings of the research literature that originate in an inadequate analysis of headings as an object of study. These shortcomings limit the theoretical and practical impact of the research. The most basic limitation is the lack of any attempt to provide a formal and precise definition of titles/headings. In fact, it is common for investigators not to provide a description of how they constructed the titles/headings for their research. There are even examples of studies that do not provide examples of the headings they actually used (e.g. Brooks et al., 1983; Mayer, 1978). Perhaps the closest approximation to a definition of headings in the literature is the statement that “titles and headings label the dominant topic or theme of the subsequent text” (Lorch, 1989: 210). This statement is a rough definition of headings that corresponds well to the implicit definition that most researchers appear to use, but it is demonstrably inadequate as a general definition of titles and headings. For example, it is common to encounter headings such as “Introduction” or “Conclusion”. These examples do not state the topic or theme of a section of text; rather, they provide information about the function of a section of text.\n\n8As could be expected given Lorch’s (1989) overly-restrictive definition, the scope of research on headings has been limited. Most researchers have studied titles/headings that communicate information about the text topic. For instance, titles like “Hydrochloric Acid instead of Grape Juice! A Gruesome Accident in Munich” (Bock, 1980) or “Christopher Columbus Discovering America” and headings like “Random Cell Damage as a Cause of Ageing” (Surber & Schroeder, 2007) all provide information about the topic. Yet, research in linguistics using a corpus-based approach has shown that authors use a great variety of headings that may be analyzed along several dimensions (Ho-Dac, Jacques & Rebeyrolle, 2004; Jacques, 2005; Jacques & Rebeyrolle, 2006; Rebeyrolle, Jacques & Péry-Woodley, 2009). Ho-Dac, Jacques and Rebeyrolle (2004) approach this plurality of functional dimensions in texts by referring to the three metafunctions which, in systemic functional linguistics, organize language resources (Halliday, 1985): (1) the interpersonal metafunction is concerned with the way language encodes interaction; (2) the ideational metafunction refers to language resources used to represent experience; and (3) the textual metafunction refers to language resources concerned with the construction of text. As applied to titles and headings, (1) the interpersonal metafunction is particularly apparent in titles and headings which are formulated to capture the reader’s interest, for example when titles are puns; (2) the ideational metafunction is obvious in titles containing expressions referring to world objects; and (3) the textual metafunction, which is concerned not with outside referents or participants but with the creation of text as text, is present in all titles and headings since they visibly segment and organize text. Many titles and headings seem to work mostly within this third component: for example “Chapter 1”, “Introduction”, or even “Literature Review” in a genre where such a section is totally expected. From this perspective, psychological researchers appear to have taken a simplistic view of titles and headings, ignoring their capacity to fulfil and possibly combine several functions. The empirical literature should therefore be critically revisited, as it may overgeneralize findings which apply only to certain types of headings. In section 5, we suggest some directions for future research on the functional diversity of titles/headings, their relation to the text they head, and their interrelations.\n\n9Related to the lack of definition of headings, previous investigators have failed to show an appreciation of the systematic ways in which headings can vary. Even within the category of topic-identifying headings, it is possible to identify several dimensions of variation in headings. One potentially important dimension concerns the visual properties of headings; headings vary in their typographical and spatial properties. Many studies fail to provide information about the visual properties of their stimuli. This is unfortunate because it is likely that the titles and headings used in different experiments vary on this dimension in ways that might influence processing. Visual contrast provided by typographical variation and spacing manipulations have been demonstrated to influence online processing of text (Lorch, Lorch & Klusewitz, 1995) and memory for the signaled content (Fowler & Barker, 1974; Lorch, Lorch & Klusewitz, 1995). Therefore, variation in the visual properties of titles and headings may be associated with variation in their effects on text processing.\n\n10A second dimension of variation might be termed the informativeness of the heading, or its degree of elaboration. Some headings provide only the major referent for a section of text. For example, the single word heading “Pandas” implies that the subsequent text section will provide information about panda bears, but does not imply anything more specific. The heading provides a context for integrating subsequent information, but leaves it to the reader to identify or construct the main points of the section. In contrast, a heading like “Air Flow: Air Moves Faster across Top of Wing” (Mautone & Mayer, 2001) is much more specific in its implications, communicating what is presumably the major conclusion of the subsequent text section. Assuming that the heading is, in fact, an accurate statement of the main point of the section, the reader is relieved of the ambiguity and work of identifying or constructing this conclusion.\n\n11A third dimension of variation in headings concerns the relationship between a heading and the content of the section that it heads. Again, previous investigations generally fail to provide information about this potentially important source of variation in their text construction. Let us contrast two situations. In one (e.g. Lorch & Lorch, 1995; Sanchez, Lorch & Lorch, 2001), the information contained in a heading may be literally repeated in the topic-introducing sentence that begins the text section. For example, the heading “Alternative Energy Sources” immediately precedes a section that begins with the sentence “Several alternative energy sources are available”. The control version of the text omits the headings but retains the topic sentences and therefore retains the same information content as the experimental version of the text. The function of the headings is to foreground specific content that is also available in the text. Under these conditions, headings result in less attention to the topic sentences of the text but memory for text content is facilitated by the presence of headings (Hyönä & Lorch, 2004; Lorch, Lorch & Inman, 1993).\n\n12In the contrasting situation, it is common for authors not to repeat the content of a heading in the content of the section that it heads. It is likely that text processing is different under these circumstances than under conditions where headings are redundant with specific text content. A comparison of a text with vs. without headings under these conditions means that the two texts being compared differ to some extent in the information they communicate. The nature and extent of the effect on processing of manipulating headings in this way almost surely depends on exactly what information is lost when the headings are omitted. In fact, the existing literature has investigated some extreme examples where the ability to resolve referents in a text is heavily dependent on presentation of a context-establishing heading and the effects on memory for text content are striking (Bransford & Johnson, 1972; Dooling & Lachman, 1971).\n\n13As we begin to realize that there are important dimensions of variation in headings that have not been taken into account in prior investigations, we also realize that the conclusions from previous research are coarse-grained. Not only is it the case that conclusions are restricted to topic-identifying headings, but there has also not been any careful examination of how their visual realization, informativeness, and relationship to text content may influence text processing. To take one simple example, consider an experiment in which memory for a text is compared for a version of the text that contains topic-identifying headings and a control version of the text that omits the headings and the white space inserted to set off the headings from the body of the text. Are differences in performance on the two text versions attributable to the fact that the control text omitted topic-identifying headings? Or are performance differences due to the loss of segmentation cues provided (in part) by the white space? Or both?\n\n14Beyond the theoretical limitations, the failure to adequately analyze the range and variation in headings limits the potential applications of research findings. For example, an educator interested in text design might want to make recommendations about how to construct headings to facilitate learning from text. Some relevant questions are: What types of information should be included in the headings (e.g. topic-identifying, organization-identifying, function-identifying)? How should the headings relate to the content they signal? What should the visual properties of the headings be? In short, the types of variation we have noted are very relevant to text design, but we have not yet designed research to answer these questions. To pursue such questions, we require a broader conception of headings and a systematic analysis of variation in headings. In the next section, we summarize a general theory of text signals that addresses these goals.\n\n3. SARA: a theory of text signals\n\n15SARA is an acronym for the conditions under which signals are hypothesized to affect text processing (Lemarié et al., 2008). It stands for “Signaling Available, Relevant, Accessible” information. SARA is a theory intended both as an analysis of signaling devices and as a framework for understanding how signaling devices influence text processing. As one important type of signaling device, headings are addressed within the SARA framework. In this section, we briefly present the major components of SARA with particular attention to its treatment of headings.\n\n16SARA has two main components: a text-based and a reader-based analysis of signaling devices. The text-based analysis of signals defines signaling and provides a structured approach to characterizing a signaling device along several dimensions. The reader-based component relates the text-based dimensions to reader variables to predict signaling effects on text processing\n\n3.1. The text-based component of SARA\n\n17This component of the theory is adapted from the logico-linguistic Textual Architecture Model [TAM] (Pascual, 1991; Virbel, 1985 and 1989). The goal of TAM is to supply a semantic analysis and a logical model of text formatting properties. It approaches this task by building on the notion of metalanguage (Harris, 1968 and 1991) and key concepts taken from Speech Act Theory (Austin, 1972; Grice, 1957; Searle, 1969 and 1979). One central claim in TAM is that text formatting properties are meaningful because they are reduced forms of metasentences. In contrast to text sentences that refer to the world, metasentences refer to the text itself. As an example, the sentence “I divide this article into four parts” is a metasentence because it conveys information about the text rather than about objects or events in the world. A second critical claim in TAM is that metasentences express an author’s intention to perform a textual act whose illocutionary force is directed toward the text itself. A textual act refers to actions concerning the text and its organization. “To entitle”, “to divide into chapters”, “to insist” all express textual acts. An important implication of these claims is that for any signaling device, one may re-construct its underlying metasentence and extract useful information from it. Thus, TAM provides a foundation for both a definition of signals and an analysis of their key properties.\n\n18Based on TAM’s analyses, SARA defines a signal as “the realization in a printed text of a metasentence, or set of metasentences” (Lemarié et al., 2008: 31). Within this framework, headings and titles may be defined as text objects that are typographically and spatially distinguished from the rest of the text and whose minimal function is to label another text object. The metasentence corresponding to a heading like “Oil Spills” would have the form “I title/label this text unit ‘Oil Spills’”. In the case of titles, the labeled text object is an entire text; in the case of headings, the labeled text object is a text part (e.g. a chapter, a section, etc.). This definition is consistent with those of Virbel (2005) and Genette (1987). According to Genette (1987), titles may have four different functions: (1) to identify or label a book; (2) to provide information about the text topic; (3) to indicate the nature of the book; and (4) to attract the interest of readers. However, as in our definition, the only mandatory function that a title must fulfil is the labeling function. Other researchers (Eyrolle, Virbel & Lemarié, 2008; Virbel, 2002) make additional distinctions between thematic, functional, relational, framing and performative titles.\n\n19Both Genette (1987) and Virbel (2008) further suggest that the analysis of the metasentence that can be created to express the relation between a title/heading and the labeled text unit provides information about the heading’s function. For instance, a heading like “Rare Metals” may be expressed with the discursive counterpart “This text unit is about rare metals”. In contrast, a heading like “Section 1” does not have as its discursive counterpart “This text unit is about section 1” but rather “This text unit is the first section of the text”. As another example, a more complex title like “An Essay on the Principle of Population” is a hybrid of the two types of examples above; it may be reformulated as a more complex metasentence that states its function and what it is about: “This text unit is an essay about the principle of population”. Adopting the principle that a heading may be reformulated as a metasentence (because a heading is a realization of a metasentence) provides SARA with a means to describe titles and headings and, more generally, any signaling device. Based on this approach to understanding the purposes of signaling devices, SARA proposes that signals may be analyzed along four dimensions:\n\n  • a signal communicates one or more of seven specific types of information, which we refer to as the “information functions” of signals;\n  • a signal refers to a specific text object, thus it has a “scope”;\n  • a signal is a particular combination of visual and/or discursive cues that we refer to as its “realization” in a text;\n  • a signal has a location with respect to the text object with which it is associated.\n\n20These dimensions of signals are useful both for analyzing existing signaling devices and for designing materials for empirical purposes. Moreover, as they have likely implications for text processing, they are used in the reader-based component in order to generate predictions concerning their potential effects on text processing.\n\n3.2. The reader-based component of SARA\n\n21SARA proposes that a signal will influence text processing if the information that the signal makes available is both relevant to the reader’s goals and easily accessible to cognitive processes. SARA’s analysis of the information functions of signals addresses the question of what information is made available by a particular signaling device. The question of task relevance is an entirely reader-based consideration: If the information provided by a signal is relevant to the readers’ goals then they will attend to the signals; otherwise, the signals will be ignored (Golding & Fowler, 1992). Finally, when a signal makes available information that is relevant to the reader, the nature and extent of the signaling device’s influence on processing will depend upon the accessibility to cognitive processing of the signaled information. Accessibility refers to the ease with which readers can use the information. It should depend upon the other three dimensions of signals: their realization properties, their scope, and their location with respect to the signaled text object. As an example, information about the organization of topics in a text is more accessible if it is communicated by an advance outline than if it is communicated by a system of headings interspersed in a text because the outline relieves the reader of gathering all the information together.\n\n22The initial consideration for understanding the effects of a signaling device on text processing is: what information does the signaling device make available? That is, what are the information functions of signals? SARA hypothesizes that any signaling device serves one or more of seven distinguishable information functions:\n\n  • signals may demarcate underlying structural boundaries in a text;\n  • signals may label a part of a text;\n  • signals may identify the topic of a part of a text;\n  • signals may identify the function of a part of a text;\n  • signals may communicate the linear organization of sections of a text;\n  • signals may communicate the hierarchical organization of text sections;\n  • signals may emphasize a part of a text.\n\n23In fact, headings typically communicate several types of information. Given our definition of headings, all headings demarcate text sections and provide a unique label for each section. In addition, all conventional uses of headings appear to involve emphasis of the heading (e.g. with unique typography and/or spatial separation from the body of the text). However, headings vary with respect to the other four information functions, as illustrated in Table 1. Many headings are used to identify the topics of the sections they head. As we have already noted, however, not all headings are topic-identifying. Rather, headings are sometimes used to identify only the function of a section (e.g. to “introduce” or to “summarize”). It is possible to combine the two functions, too. Headings may explicitly communicate the sequential organization of the sections of a text; in fact, headings sometimes consist solely of numbers at the start of each new text section (e.g. chapters in a novel). Headings often use typographical and spatial contrast to communicate the hierarchical organization of text sections, or they may communicate such information more explicitly with lettering and/or numbering of text sections. These variations in headings lend themselves to different cognitive functions and can therefore be expected to influence text processing, as we will see in the next section of the text.\n\nTable 1. An analysis of the information function of diverse headings\n\nExamples of headings Topic Function Content Hierarchical\n1 Oil Spills\nAir Pollution\nAcid Rain\n2 Introduction\n3 A.  Introduction\nB.  Discussion\nC.  Conclusion\n4 Section 1\n    Section 1.1\n    Section 1.2\n        Section 1.2.1\n        Section 1.2.2\nSection 2\n5 Chapter 1: Oil Spills\nChapter 2: Air Pollution\nChapter 3: Acid Rain\nOil Spills\nAir Pollution\nAcid Rain\n     Chapter 1: Oil Spills\n     Chapter 2: Air Pollution\n     Chapter 3: Acid Rain\n\n24Assuming that the information communicated by a signaling device is relevant to a reader’s goals, the dimensions of realization, scope and location can all be expected to influence text processing. It is possible to construct signaling devices that communicate the same information (i.e. serve the same information functions) but differ with respect to either how they are realized in a text, or their scope, or their location. For example, parallel versions of headings and preview sentences may be constructed. The preview sentence at the start of a new text section might be: “In this section, we will discuss the information functions of signaling devices” or the same information might be communicated by the heading “Information Functions of Signaling Devices”. According to SARA, both the preview sentence and heading explicitly demarcate the structure boundary, provide a label for the section, and identify the topic of the section, and —in this example— both receive emphasis. However, the two signals are realized differently; whereas the preview sentence is completely explicit in its communication that a new section is beginning, the heading communicates this information implicitly by being set off spatially from the preceding and following sections. This visual communication of demarcation by the heading is a more visually salient cue that might result in more attention on the part of the reader. In other words, the difference in visual salience may make the information about the structural boundary more accessible to cognitive processing (Lorch, Chen & Lemarié, in press).\n\n25Consider another example comparing a set of headings to an advance outline that consists of the same labels as the headings. Both the advance outline and the headings provide the same topic-identifying labels for the text sections, but the headings provide the relevant label immediately preceding the relevant section whereas the advance outline provides the label generally far in advance of the relevant sections. This difference in the location of the labels with respect to their associated sections has implications for whether the relevant background knowledge will be accessed at the time a new section is encountered; the knowledge is likely to be activated by the headings at the appropriate time (Wiley & Rayner, 2000) but may not be activated at the appropriate time by an advance outline. Conversely, as already mentioned, an advance outline makes information about the sequential and hierarchical organization of the text more accessible compared to a system of headings.\n\n26Finally, it is easy to imagine that a brief or a longer section of a text might be written, both with the same heading. The variation in the length of the text section corresponds to a difference in the scope of the heading. One implication of changing the scope of a signaling device is that its influence might be generally be decreased as the scope increases because its relation to any specific content is likely to become less direct and/or more ambiguous.\n\n27To summarize, SARA provides a formal definition of signals, in general, and headings, in particular, that serves to clearly define the domain. Further, SARA offers a systematic analysis of the dimensions on which signals, including headings, vary and it offers hypotheses about how such variation may influence cognitive processing. We hope that the theoretical framework makes it clear that it is important for researchers to characterize their manipulations of titles and headings with respect to all of these dimensions identified by SARA in order that the conclusions from future research may be theoretically more precise and more useful in applications.\n\n4. Implications of SARA’s analysis of information functions for research on headings\n\n28From a cognitive perspective, the most important implication of SARA’s analysis of the information functions of headings is that different information functions are likely to have different effects on text processing. For example, a heading that identifies the topic of a text section provides the reader with potentially important contextual information for understanding the content of the subsection (Bransford & Johnson, 1972; Ritchey, Schuster & Allen, 2008; Surber & Schroeder, 2007), whereas a heading that identifies the function of a text section may guide reading processes by activating knowledge about conventional categories of text content. Similarly, a heading that communicates organizational information may trigger processing of relations between two subsections that otherwise will not occur (Hyönä & Lorch, 2004).\n\n29Until now, researchers generally have not distinguished different types of headings (Brooks et al., 1983; Hyönä & Lorch, 2004; Krug et al., 1989; Lorch & Lorch, 1996a; Lorch et al., 2001; Sanchez, Lorch & Lorch, 2001). This means that researchers’ interpretations of the effects of headings are often more specific than their manipulations support. For example, researchers have often attributed effects of headings to their influence on the processing of text organization. However, previous studies have typically compared a headings condition to a no headings control condition. Thus, when headings are shown to produce better recall, it is not possible to determine whether the benefits of headings are due to their communication of organizational information or to some other information function of the heading (e.g. demarcation, topic identification, labeling, or some combination of multiple types of information).\n\n30We recently reported a series of experiments designed to test the validity of SARA’s analysis of signaling devices as communicating seven distinguishable types of information (Lorch, Lemarié & Grant, 2011a and b). Prior evidence adequately demonstrates the validity of the information function of “emphasis” (Cashen & Leicht, 1970; Crouse & Idstein, 1972; Fowler & Barker, 1974; Golding & Fowler, 1992; Lorch, Lorch & Klusewitz, 1995). The experiments to be summarized here tested the remaining six information functions. For each experiment, the logic was the same. Namely, each experiment set up a comparison designed to isolate a single information function under conditions where the hypothetical information was both highly relevant to task performance and easily accessible to the reader. For example, readers in one experiment were required to answer questions that targeted specific sentences within a text. They were timed to locate the specific sentences in texts that had topic-identifying headings or texts that had headings that did not identify topics. The two types of headings served the functions of demarcating and labeling text sections and providing information about the linear structure of the text; they differed only with respect to whether they identified topics. Because the questions were easy to relate to the topics of the text sections, the topic identifying information was highly relevant to the task. Not surprisingly, readers did use this information as demonstrated by the finding that search times were much faster in the topic-identifying condition than in the control condition (Lorch, Lemarié & Grant, 2011b). Thus, the validity of the information of topic identification is supported by this result.\n\n31The remaining five information functions also found support in our experiments. In another search experiment, readers located targeted sentences more rapidly if the questions they were answering provided the label for the relevant text section than if the questions did not provide the labels (Lorch, Lemarié & Grant, 2011b). This outcome supports distinguishing the information function of labeling from other functions.\n\n32Search performance was also faster when the questions specified sections that were numbered sequentially than the questions specified sections that were numbered with a hierarchical scheme. However, performance in an outlining task was better if a text used a hierarchical numbering scheme than if the text used a sequential numbering scheme (Lorch, Lemarié & Grant, 2011a). The findings support the distinction between sequential and hierarchical information functions of headings.\n\n33Providing very simple demarcating information (i.e. a row of asterisks) before a section of text has a clear influence on readers’ identifications of important text content in a summarization task. Readers are much more likely to designate as important statements from paragraphs immediately following the demarcating information than to designate statements from other paragraphs. Further, this is the case even when the demarcating information is placed before paragraphs that are subordinate in the text structure (Lorch, Lemarié & Grant, 2011b). This result supports the information function of demarcation as distinguishable from other information functions of headings.\n\n34Finally, the information function of function identification receives support from two separate studies. First, Lorch and Lorch (1986) found that readers process a sentence more slowly if its function is explicitly labeled than if the function is not labeled. In addition, they remember the signaled content better. Second, a recent experiment in our lab (Chen & Lorch, in preparation) required participants to read a long text in preparation to recall its main points. Participants were under time pressure to complete their reading so they needed to develop an efficient reading strategy. Both versions of the text had function identifying headings that sequentially numbered every section, but two of the headings were replaced by the functional heading “summary” in the experimental condition. Participants receiving this text recalled more content from the summary sections than participants receiving the control version of the text, demonstrating that participants in the experimental condition developed a reading strategy that utilized the relevant function-identifying heading, “summary”.\n\n35To summarize, our research validates SARA’s analysis of headings (and other signaling devices) as communicating several distinguishable types of information about text structure and content that have distinct implications for text processing.\n\n5. Other research implications of SARA: future directions\n\n36The immediate implication of our research findings is that it is not meaningful to ask the question “how do headings influence text processing?”. Rather, an understanding of the effects of headings (and other signaling devices) on text processing must be based on an analysis of the information functions served by the headings. Headings that demarcate and label text sections simply by numbering them can be expected to have very different effects on text processing than headings that demarcate, label and identify the topics of text sections. Thus, SARA changes the level of analysis from the heading to their information functions.\n\n37We have demonstrated that the information that a signal makes available is the starting point for understanding how signals like headings influence text processing. But SARA emphasizes that it is by no means the sole consideration in understanding signaling effects. Rather, SARA hypothesizes that the effects of a signaling device will be moderated both by the relevance of the signaled information to the reader and by the accessibility of the signaled information to cognitive processing. Thus, important questions for future research are to more thoroughly develop the constructs of relevance and accessibility and examine their influence on signaling effects.\n\n38Although SARA provides a foundation for a better understanding of how headings influence text processing, the theory does not provide a complete analysis of headings. More research is needed to interface the model with ongoing linguistic studies of the different realizations and functions of headings. SARA can indeed be seen as providing a framework for such an interface, situating headings in the broader perspective of a theory of text signals. The different information functions of headings according to SARA are congruent with the analysis based on Halliday’s metafunctions (section 2), insofar as both hypotheses take into account three different processes taking place concurrently —text construction, reference, interaction—, along with the idea that headings are generally concerned with several of these processes. Other discourse models or empirical studies may provide inspiration for further research. We sketch below two possible lines of enquiry.\n\n39The first one is concerned with the elusive notion of topic, a particularly difficult construct in discourse linguistics. What does it mean to say that a title or heading serves to identify the topic of a text or text segment? Two approaches may be distinguished in the literature: in the first one, discourse topic is envisaged in terms of “major participants” (Givón, 1983), identifiable thanks to referential expressions (cf. “topical chains”: Cornish, 1998) which recur from utterance to utterance, thus creating referential continuity and topical unity. In opposition to this participant-oriented view, Van Dijk (1981) insists on the theoretical difference between sentence (or utterance) topic and discourse topic, and suggests that the latter should be viewed not as a referent but as a (macro-) proposition summarizing the text’s macro-structure. Rebeyrolle, Jacques and Péry-Woodley (2009) build on these two conceptions of discourse topic to interpret a distinction, initially based on empirical observation, between two types within what SARA calls topic-identifying headings. The first type, “referential headings”, is characterized by the fact that the referent mentioned in the heading is immediately picked up in subsequent text, either via repetition of the initial referential expression or via an anaphoric expression. In this case the heading identifies the topic as major participant. In the second type, “topical headings”, the heading presents a topic more akin to Van Dijk’s discourse topic. This propositional topic can take the form of a verbal noun, nominalization, infinitive clause or even a clause with a finite verb, and there is no direct repetition in the text, but rather topical development making use of different —though thematically related— expressions. As the authors point out, these initial insights need to be investigated further, and may provide an interesting testing ground for associating psychological experiments and corpus study. From a cognitive perspective, this dimension is relevant to an analysis of the processing requirements of a text (Eyrolle, Virbel & Lemarié, 2008). For example, if a heading provides a generalization that serves to integrate ideas in the following text, then the presence of the heading may greatly facilitate text processing. In the absence of such a heading, the reader must produce the generalization or comprehension will suffer. On the other hand, if the reader is successful in producing the appropriate generalization, the result might actually be better comprehension than if a heading relieved the reader of the necessity of making the generalization (McNamara et al., 1996). The investigation of the topic identification function associated to titles and headings could be supported by a technique such as Latent Semantic Analysis (e.g. Landauer, Foltz & Laham, 1998) which provides indicators of semantic similarity between pieces of information.\n\n40A second potentially fruitful line of enquiry is suggested by the examples in Table 1. In all cases, several headings are provided in order to situate in context the specific heading being analyzed, although at this stage the relations between headings are not analyzed. Looking more closely, it is clear that in each example the headings work together as a set, and that different kinds of relations apply between the members of the sets. As “Air Pollution” comes after “Oil Spills” in the first example, a list effect is created, which is then reinforced by the third heading, and induces the creation of a superordinate topic, expressed by “Energy Problems” in the last two examples. This list effect may be made more or less explicit in the wording of the heading: it is partly lost in the version with numbered chapters (example 5), whereas it is greatly reinforced when the superordinate topic is expressed in a title (example 6) or higher level heading (example 7). These list-like sets of headings work in a way which is clearly different from the purely sequential functional set in the fourth example (“Section 1” etc.). These different relations between headings within a set are likely to have an impact on the ways in which individual headings affect cognitive processes, and are therefore worth studying.\n\n41In conclusion, an important challenge for SARA will be to further develop its analysis of the ways in which titles and headings relate to specific content within the text that they signal. One important idea developed in this article is that better descriptions of headings (and other signaling devices) will enrich educational and cognitive research and lead to a better understanding of how headings influence text processing. To reach this goal, we urge more collaboration between linguists, psycholinguists and cognitive psychologists. Such collaboration will have several benefits for research on text signaling. One benefit for psychologists is that linguistic analyses of text will lead to more precise characterizations of text and manipulations of text characteristics (e.g. signaling devices). Second, linguistic corpus studies aiming at identifying the variability of text signaling devices may help psychologists to select comparisons that nicely reflect how writers effectively use text signaling. In turn, the comparison between the results obtained by psychology research on the signaling effects and the findings from corpus studies may lead to writing recommendations that are more compatible with the actual use of signaling devices.\n\nHaut de page\n\n\nAustin, J.L. 1962. How to Do Things with Words: The William James Lectures Delivered at Harvard University in 1955. Oxford: Clarendon Press.\n\nBock, M. 1980. Some Effects of Titles on Building and Recalling Text Structures. Discourse Processes 3 (4): 301-311.\n\nBransford, J.D. & Johnson, M.K. 1972. Contextual Prerequisites for Understanding: Some Investigations of Comprehension and Recall. Journal of Verbal Learning and Verbal Behavior 11 (6): 717-726.\n\nBrooks, L.W. et al. 1983. Effects of Headings on Text Processing. Journal of Educational Psychology 75 (2): 292-302.\n\nCashen, V.M. & Leicht, K.L. 1970. Role of the Isolation Effect in a Formal Educational Setting. 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University of Reading, Department of Typography and Graphic Communication.\n\nWiley, J. & Rayner, K. 2000. Effects of Titles on the Processing of Text and Lexically Ambiguous Words: Evidence from Eye Movements. Memory and Cognition 28 (6): 1011-1021.\n\nHaut de page\n\nPour citer cet article\n\nRéférence électronique\n\nJulie Lemarié, Robert F. Lorch Jr. et Marie-Paule Péry-Woodley, « Understanding How Headings Influence Text Processing », Discours [En ligne], 10 | 2012, mis en ligne le 16 juillet 2012, consulté le 28 juin 2017. URL : ; DOI : 10.4000/discours.8600\n\nHaut de page\n\n\nJulie Lemarié\n\nCNRS & Université de Toulouse (UTM)\n\nArticles du même auteur\n\nRobert F. Lorch Jr.\n\nCNRS & Université de Toulouse (UTM)\nDepartment of Psychology\nUniversity of Kentucky\n\nMarie-Paule Péry-Woodley\n\nCNRS & Université de Toulouse (UTM)\n\nArticles du même auteur\n\nHaut de page", "pred_label": "__label__1", "pred_score_pos": 0.7857300043106079}
+{"content": "Below are answers to some of the most frequently asked questions The Chamber receives. If you have a question that is not addressed below please contact us.\n\n\nThe Chamber of Commerce is for retail businesses, isn't it?\nHow big does a business have to be to join The Chamber?\nWill The Chamber of Commerce endorce my business?\nHow can my employees participate in the Chamber?\nHow much is membership in The Ellwood City Area Chamber of Commerce?\nWhat are the Ellwood City Borough phone numbers?\nWhat is the Ellwood City utilities after-hours emergency number?\nI need help from a social services organization. How do I find the services I need?\n\nInvesting in the Revitalization of the Ellwood City Area\n\nThese are the growing number of businesses and organizations that are leading the revitalization and creating a prosperous community. We are extremely grateful for their support and we encourage you to get to know them.", "pred_label": "__label__1", "pred_score_pos": 0.9706118106842041}
+{"content": "Best cream for eczema in ears - polysporin eczema essentials body wash\n\nbest cream for eczema in ears\n\neczema cramping during early pregnancy best cream for eczema in ears\n\nLice cannot jump or fly.Every country in the world has head lice and keeping hair tied up is a this article start. Everyone laughed but our clothes are clean and DS doesn't have any allergies any more. As my skin improves, though, I can lower the temperature of the bath water without reducing my success. The University of Maryland Medical Center suggests eating more fresh vegetables, whole grains and essential fatty acids found in cold-water fish and oily nuts. 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Also which cream are you using as a say eczema cant be cured but kept in control or at teenage it might go is your daughter doing now.\n\neczema steroid cream strengths\n\nFor example, this study found that the water-holding capacity of the upper layer of the skin in patients with eczema was more sensitive to free residual chlorine than patients without eczema. I also used the rinse which helped some with hair condition I increased the frequency of deep conditioning. I've also stopped the solid food so shes just EBF as I'm scared about any more reactions but I'm worried that we really need to continue with the solids seeming as she's 6 months. I was diagnosed woth ear eczema when I was in my teens till about 21 and it was awful. We use a cream called ecz easy that's made at Roskillys in Cornwall and she has oat baths followed by moisturising in pure raw coconut oil. If your skin becomes dry, you may not be rinsing your skin thoroughly, you might be using too much bleach, or you may be taking bleach baths too often. Like asthma, eczema can become life-threatening if infection occurs. One issue is obviously that bub can easily get it off and has a lovely time making a mess, the bigger issue I've had in the past though is that my son has at time had varicose eczema guidelines for perinatal care severe eczema. Here's 2 more cases studies showing that removing dairy and gluten can help childhood asthma.\n\nare potatoes good for eczema\n\nCan be used over a Skin Juice skin drink, serum or moisturiser, or in place of a face cream. On this page I want to introduce you to what is regarded as the best natural shampoo for eczema; ZenMed DermCare. eczema baby on pictures eyelids using washing powder/liquid, choose your powder/liquid carefully and rinse clothes well. As a large part of the tendency towards eczema is genetic, there is unlikely to be a cure anytime in the foreseeable future. However, embarking on a dairy free diet requires, above all, medical advice and guidance, together with a huge amount of patience and discipline.\n\neczema worse in morning\n\nFirst, mix the vinegar with the baking soda, and then add this combination to the cup of water. Some people do grow out of it but sadly that is not the fate for all of us. I highly recommend you check out all of the resources I used to help me through my eczema and TSW journey. They are not effective for treating eczema in older populations, but some research points to some strains of beneficial microorganisms having the ability to prevent the triad of allergies, eczema and asthma, although in rare cases they have a very small risk of infection mupirocin cream for eczema those with poor immune system response. And always have hade great results and incredibly soft hair after blow drying and straightening.\n\nwhat armpits under causes eczema\n\nHis research for the article suggested that there was some evidence, if slightly tenuous, that there could be a problem with the MMR vaccine. Take one and a half spoon of turmeric into an appropriate amount of milk to have a paste. If you can, choose vinyl flooring rather than carpet as it tends to hoard less dust. The eczema may not have completely cleared with a potent topical steroid after three to four weeks. Psoriasis of the hands and feet tends to be persistent and, in some, quite resistant to treatment. Ointments should not be used on weeping eczema, a cream or lotion can be used instead. And we start bed time around 7pm and he is normally asleep by 7:30-8pm and normally wakes up 1-2 times in the night, I rock him and he goes right back dry eczema on face children sleep and is normally up by 6:30-7am. Finding a way to minimize the itch is important to anyone with eczema as is breaking the cycle of itch/scratch/itch. Something that worked beautifully for me - neem oil/coconut oil moisturising that I was prescribed - exacerbated DS's eczema. These ingredients are also used to alter the thickness of liquid products and to increase foaming capacity or to stabilize foams. Recent studies by major universities have shown Silver Shield with Aqua Sol Technology to be effective against a wide array of body invaders. When Josh's skin was at his worst as a small infant I resorted to buying new organic vests and sleepsuits which at first I hand washed in Dr Bonners soap. If you stopped swimming lessons completely, how did you teach your child to swim as salt water pools are few and far between. As I have explained in -diets-claim-heal-eczema-work-whats-best/ , any man-made dietary sets of rules may even be able to eliminate eczema given they fulfill the conditions required to not disturb the body of natural immune rebuilding from unhealthy trigger foods. Others only need to use the steroids to help them get over a flare from time to time, but only for days rather than weeks or months.\n\npsoriasis eczema other types of dermatitis\n\nHer ordeal made her decide to seek other forms of therapy, as conventional eczema treatment using steroids and antibiotics did not improve her condition. Li prescribing herbals and naturopathic medicines that heal me of eczema. At HKL, there is an Eczema Kidz Club that offers support for families coping with eczema. So I applied wheat allergy causes eczema rule to my dd.\n\neczema and glycerin soap\n\nis dermol 500 good for eczema\n\nI have also noticed it happens when I cry, like watching a sad movie....very itchy red,and scaly eyes instantly. Likewise what reduces the severity of the eczema will differ from person to person. Hyaluronic acids and Matrixly, an anti-aging ingredient, work to hydrate the skin and smooth fine lines in this even finish foundation. Headache - Apply emu oil not only to the direct area of pain but also to the muscles of the neck and shoulders. signs symptoms of eczema in kids it works: Cold packs are a great remedy for itch, as cold reduces inflammation and numbs the nerves on the skin's surface to prevent that itchy feeling. The water temperature should be moderately warm, not hot, and bathing or showering should not occur more often than once a day. Upon the second day of eating after the 10-day fast, I had a fast and smooth movement. Any of the eczematous eruptions can evolve into lichen simplex chronicus if rubbed long enough. During the summer period, heat and sweat can make your skin itchy and irritated. At first it was all over my head, arms, legs, everywhere. Psoriasis diet treatment plan to control your psoriasis and most The body gets rid of all the old harden toxins that are stuck in the intestine through psoriasis friendly foods. Keep away from perfumes and dyes and use mild soaps and shampoos due to the fact that delicate eyelid skin with rushes can really be affected negatively with the irritants that are contained in perfumes, dyes and cosmetics. Gulbranson SH, Hud JA, Hansen RC. Humectants, which include hyaluronic acid, lactic acid and glycerin, retain water in the skin, while occlusive agents seal the water in and prevent it from evaporating, which is why dermatologists always recommend applying a cream over your serum.", "pred_label": "__label__1", "pred_score_pos": 0.580337405204773}
+{"content": "Florida | State Map | Photos | About Florida\n\nWith only 528,000 inhabitants in 1900, Florida counted almost 5 million people in 1960 and nearly 16 million in 2000, making it the fourth most populous state in the nation. Many of the new residents are retirees from other parts of the country and immigrants from Caribbean countries.\n\nFlorida is one of the nation's most highly urbanized states and contains some of the fastest-growing cities and counties in the country. Today the Sunshine State has a highly diversified economy, driven by tourism, international trade, health and financial services, high-technology manufacturing and the production of citrus fruits and other agricultural commodities.\n\nMillions of tourists visit the state each year, lured by the warm climate and attractions such as the John F. Kennedy Space Center and Disney World. Florida's economy has also undergone rapid changes. Although agriculture is still expanding--accounting for most of the citrus production in the United States, as well as a large volume of vegetables--tourism, services and new industries have become increasingly important, as have military and other government installations.", "pred_label": "__label__1", "pred_score_pos": 0.7135601043701172}
+{"content": "Edible / Useful Plants\nWild Camping\n\nLightweight Backpacks\nSleeping Bags\n\nWilderness Survival\nHiking Adventures\n\nEdible Wild Plants\nSurvival Kits\n\nWild Onion and Garlic\n\nWild Onion and Wild Garlic\n\nAllium species\n\n\nAllium cernuum is an example of the many species of wild onions and garlics, all easily recognized by their distinctive odor.\n\nHabitat and Distribution\n\nWild onions and garlics are found in open, sunny areas throughout the temperate regions. Cultivated varieties are found anywhere in the world.\n\nEdible Parts\n\nThe bulbs and young leaves are edible raw or cooked. Use in soup or to flavor meat.\n\n\nThere are several plants with onion like bulbs that are extremely poisonous. Be certain that the plant you are using is a true onion or garlic. Do not eat bulbs with no onion smell.\n\nOther Uses\n\nEating large quantities of onions will give your body an odor that will help to repel insects. Garlic juice works as an antibiotic on wounds.\n\nSteve's notes:\n\nWild onions and wild garlic have compound in them that are anti-bacterial, and anti-fungal. That, along with the vitamins may explain why they have been used to treat colds and flues.\n\nWild leeks grow in huge quantities in eastern woodlands. The green leaves are edible, and come up before many other plants. The bulbs can be collected quickly and easily where the soil is soft.\n\n\nThe Ultralight Backpacking Site | Wild Onion and Garlic", "pred_label": "__label__1", "pred_score_pos": 0.8054115176200867}
+{"content": "Participation in the InCommon Federation (\"Federation\") enables a federation participating organization (\"Participant\") to use Shibboleth identity attribute sharing technologies to manage access to on-line resources that can be made available to the InCommon community. One goal of the Federation is to develop, over time, community standards for such cooperating organizations to ensure that shared attribute assertions are sufficiently robust and trustworthy to manage access to important protected resources. As the community of trust evolves, the Federation expects that participants eventually should be able to trust each other's identity management systems and resource access management systems as they trust their own.\n\nA fundamental expectation of Participants is that they provide authoritative and accurate attribute assertions to other Participants, and that Participants receiving an attribute assertion protect it and respect privacy constraints placed on it by the Federation or the source of that information. In furtherance of this goal, InCommon requires that each Participant make available to other Participants certain basic information about any identity management system, including the identity attributes that are supported, or resource access management system registered for use within the Federation.\n\nTwo criteria for trustworthy attribute assertions by Identity Providers are: (1) that the identity management system fall under the purview of the organization's executive or business management, and (2) the system for issuing end-user credentials (e.g., PKI certificates, userids/passwords, Kerberos principals, etc.) specifically have in place appropriate risk management measures (e.g., authentication and authorization standards, security practices, risk assessment, change management controls, audit trails, etc.).\n\nInCommon expects that Service Providers, who receive attribute assertions from another Participant, respect the other Participant's policies, rules, and standards regarding the protection and use of that data. Furthermore, such information should be used only for the purposes for which it was provided. InCommon strongly discourages the sharing of that data with third parties, or aggregation of it for marketing purposes without the explicit permission1 of the identity information providing Participant.\n\nInCommon requires Participants to make available to all other Participants answers to the questions below.2 Additional information to help answer each question is available in the next section of this document. There is also a glossary at the end of this document that defines terms shown in italics.\n\n1. Federation Participant Information\n\n1.1 The InCommon Participant Operational Practices information below is for:\n\n\nInCommon Participant organization name: Cirrus Identity, Inc.\nThe information below is accurate as of this date: 01/26/2014\n\n1.2 Identity Management and/or Privacy information\n\nAdditional information about the Participant's identity management practices and/or privacy policy regarding personal information can be found on-line at the following location(s).\n\n\n1.3 Contact information\n\nThe following person or office can answer questions about the Participant's identity management system or resource access management policy or practice.\n\nName: Patrick Radtke\nTitle: CTO\nEmail address:\nPhone: N/A\n\n2. Identity Provider Information\n\nThe most critical responsibility that an IdentityProvider Participant has to the Federation is to provide trustworthy and accurate identity assertions.3 It is important for a Service Provider to know how your electronic identity credentials are issued and how reliable the information associated with a given credential (or person) is.\n\n\n2.1 If you are an Identity Provider, how do you define the set of people who are eligible to receive an electronic identity? If exceptions to this definition are allowed, who must approve such an exception?\n\nAll Cirrus Identity employees receive an electronic identity. Contractors and advisors may also be eligible for an electronic identity, and these exceptions are approved by the CEO and CTO.\n\n2.2 \"Member of Community\"4 is an assertion that might be offered to enable access to resources made available to individuals who participate in the primary mission of the university or organization. For example, this assertion might apply to anyone whose affiliation is \"current student, faculty, or staff.\"\n\nWhat subset of persons registered in your identity management system would you identify as a \"Member of Community\" in Shibboleth identity assertions to other InCommon Participants?\n\n\nElectronic Identity Credentials\n\n2.3 Please describe in general terms the administrative process used to establish an electronic identity that results in a record for that person being created in your electronic identity database? Please identify the office(s) of record for this purpose. For example, \"Registrar's Office for students; HR for faculty and staff.\"\n\nWhen an employee is hired, the employee's electronic identity is created in Cirrus Identity's Google Apps account. This process is done by the CEO or CTO.\n\n2.4 What technologies are used for your electronic identity credentials (e.g., Kerberos, userID/password, PKI, ...) that are relevant to Federation activities? If more than one type of electronic credential is issued, how is it determined who receives which type? If multiple credentials are linked, how is this managed (e.g., anyone with a Kerberos credential also can acquire a PKI credential) and recorded?\n\nGoogle Apps\n\n2.5 If your electronic identity credentials require the use of a secret password or PIN, and there are circumstances in which that secret would be transmitted across a network without being protected by encryption (i.e., \"clear text passwords\" are used when accessing campus services), please identify who in your organization can discuss with any other Participant concerns that this might raise for them:\n\n\n2.6 If you support a \"single sign-on\" (SSO) or similar campus-wide system to allow a single user authentication action to serve multiple applications, and you will make use of this to authenticate people for InCommon Service Providers, please describe the key security aspects of your SSO system including whether session timeouts are enforced by the system, whether user-initiated session termination is supported, and how use with \"public access sites\" is protected.\n\nSSO is handled via our own Cirrus Identity Bridge product, which has a timeout of 5 minutes. However, users may still be logged into their Google account, and to deal with this, we will be deploying 2FA very shortly. This 2FA is required to be used if the user authenticated via the Bridge more than 5 minutes after their last authentication event.\n\n2.7 Are your primary electronic identifiers for people, such as \"net ID,\" eduPersonPrincipalName, or eduPersonTargetedID considered to be unique for all time to the individual to whom they are assigned? If not, what is your policy for re-assignment and is there a hiatus between such reuse?\n\nOur identifiers are unique for as long as Cirrus Identity is in business. Beyond that we can not say.\n\nElectronic Identity Database\n\n2.8 How is information in your electronic identity database acquired and updated? Are specific offices designated by your administration to perform this function? Are individuals allowed to update their own information on-line?\n\nInformation is acquired by meeting face-to-face with a user. Information is updated manually by an officer of Cirrus Identity. Users are not allowed to update their own information.\n\n2.9 What information in this database is considered \"public information\" and would be provided to any interested party?\n\nFirst name, last name, email, eduPersonPrincipalName\n\nUses of Your Electronic Identity Credential System\n\n2.10 Please identify typical classes of applications for which your electronic identity credentials are used within your own organization.\n\nEmail, calendar, documents, and website editing\n\nAttribute Assertions\n\nAttributes are the information data elements in an attribute assertion you might make to another Federation participant concerning the identity of a person in your identity management system.\n\n2.11 Would you consider your attribute assertions to be reliable enough to:\n\n[x] control access to on-line information databases licensed to your organization?\n[ ] be used to purchase goods or services for your organization?\n[ ] enable access to personal information such as student loan status?\n\nPrivacy Policy\n\nFederation Participants must respect the legal and organizational privacy constraints on attribute information provided by other Participants and use it only for its intended purposes.\n\n2.12 What restrictions do you place on the use of attribute information that you might provide to other Federation participants?\n\n\n2.13 What policies govern the use of attribute information that you might release to other Federation participants? For example, is some information subject to FERPA or HIPAA restrictions?\n\n\n3. Service Provider Information\n\nService Providers are trusted to ask for only the information necessary to make an appropriate access control decision, and to not misuse information provided to them by Identity Providers. Service Providers must describe the basis on which access to resources is managed and their practices with respect to attribute information they receive from other Participants.\n\n3.1 What attribute information about an individual do you require in order to manage access to resources you make available to other Participants? Describe separately for each resource ProviderID that you have registered.\n\nCirrus Identity uses the RequestedAttribute attribute in the SP's metadata. See each SP's entry in the the InCommon metadata for details. In general, however, our SPs operate with basic directory information, like givenName, sn, mail, andeduPersonPrincipalName.\n\n3.2 What use do you make of attribute information that you receive in addition to basic access control decisions? For example, do you aggregate session access records or records of specific information accessed based on attribute information, or make attribute information available to partner organizations, etc.?\n\nInformation is used for the individual user's ability to use the service provider only, and is never shared with partner organizations.\n\n3.3 What human and technical controls are in place on access to and use of attribute information that might refer to only one specific person (i.e., personally identifiable information)? For example, is this information encrypted?\n\nOnly limited Cirrus Identity staff have access to user information. Basic user attributes such as name and email are not encrypted, however, these are usually the only attributes we maintain for a user.\n\n3.4 Describe the human and technical controls that are in place on the management of super-user and other privileged accounts that might have the authority to grant access to personally identifiable information?\n\nOnly limited Cirrus Identity staff have privileged access to systems. Control is based on PKI, and strictly limited by firewalls (usually down to the IP address of the admin). Sensitive data (like passwords) is always encrypted over the wire (SSH, SSL, etc.). Cirrus Identity also employs 2FA whenever possible.\n\n3.5 If personally identifiable information is compromised, what actions do you take to notify potentially affected individuals?\n\nIn the event of an accidental exposure of user data, we will notify each customer point of contact in accordance with our Terms of Service.\n\n4. Other Information\n\n4.1 Technical Standards, Versions and Interoperability\n\nIdentify the version of Internet2 Shibboleth code release that you are using or, if not using the standard Shibboleth code, what version(s) of the SAML and SOAP and any other relevant standards you have implemented for this purpose.\n\nSimpleSAMLphp 1.11.0\n\n4.2 Other Considerations\n\nAre there any other considerations or information that you wish to make known to other Federation participants with whom you might interoperate? For example, are there concerns about the use of clear text passwords or responsibilities in case of a security breach involving identity information you may have provided?\n\n\n\n1 Such permission already might be implied by existing contractual agreements.\n\n2 Your responses to these questions should be posted in a readily accessible place on your web site, and the URL submitted to InCommon. If not posted, you should post contact information for an office that can discuss it privately with other InCommon Participants as needed. If any of the information changes, you must update your on-line statement as soon as possible.\n\n3 A general note regarding attributes and recommendations within the Federation is available here:\n\n4 \"Member\" is one possible value for eduPersonAffiliation as defined in the eduPerson schema. It is intended to include faculty, staff, student, and other persons with a basic set of privileges that go with membership in the university community (e.g., library privileges). \"Member of Community\" could be derived from other values in eduPersonAffiliation or assigned explicitly as \"Member\" in the electronic identity database. See", "pred_label": "__label__1", "pred_score_pos": 0.8411200046539307}
+{"content": "Parag and Ayesha Khanna of the Hybrid Reality Institute make their case that the Information Age is already behind us:\n\nMankind is now experiencing its fifth and most intense technological revolution, and we are transitioning into the Hybrid Age. Most people believe we are still living in the Information Age, but in fact we have already reached an inflection point, a brewing storm that will once again drastically change individual life and society. The revolution in the nature of technology is fundamentally distinct from previous ones in five ways:\n\nUbiquitous. Computers have exponentially become more powerful and cheaper at the same time.  This trend is expected to continue for at least another decade, after which molecular computer is expected to accelerate the trend for even faster, cheaper and nano-scale computers. (Already today’s smartphones used by teenagers to text friends have as much computing power as the Apollo spacecraft that traveled to the moon in 1969.) Soon extremely small computing machines and sensors will move from our smartphones and laptops into every single object we encounter in our daily lives, including being embedded in our own bodies. Hewlett Packard estimates that by 2015, there will be one trillion devices connected to the Internet constantly recording and sharing information. By 2020, we will literally live in technology.\n\nI was lucky enough to spend some time mind-sparring with the Khanna’s and a few of their Hybrid Reality colleagues at a recent salon. HRI’s take on the future is a wonderfully rare one, in that technology is viewed through the lens of people: culture, society, and art dominate the conversation, not the next great gizmo.", "pred_label": "__label__1", "pred_score_pos": 0.9721310138702393}
+{"content": "The Role of Atomism in the View of the Groups of Kalaam\n\nThe following was a required essay provided by Yasir Qadhi under the requirements of a PHD at Yale.\n\nIntroduction of the Concept\nThe concept of all matter being composed of small, indivisible particles called atoms most likely goes back to the fifth century B.C., when a young contemporary of Socrates, known as Democritus, first formally introduced the idea (most likely under the influence of his teacher Leucippus). He claimed that if one continually kept dividing matter, eventually a particle would be reached that could not be divided anymore: an a-tom, i.e., ‘not divisible’. He also posited the existence of empty spaces between these atoms within which they could move – a pure ‘void’. He believed that all of the workings of the universe were the result of the vibrations of these atoms through voids and their collisions with one another.\nPlato, and in particular his student Aristotle, strongly disagreed. The latter, in his Physics, wrote quite extensively against the existence of both the ‘atom’ and the ‘void’, claiming that not only were Democritus’ evidences lacking, but also that the existence of atoms and voids violated physical principles. In turn, Plato posited the ‘four natural elements’ theory: fire, air, earth and water form the basis of all else.[1]\nThese Greek philosophers – both the atomists and antiatomists – were attempting to explain natural occurrences and daily phenomenon without the need of resorting to supernatural explanations and believing in heavenly (or earthly) deities.[2] It is, therefore, rather ironic that this tool was then adopted by a faction of a monotheistic faith (i.e., the mutakallimūn) in their attempt to prove the all encompassing efficacy of an omnipotent God.[3] However, in their adoption of this cosmological view, they ensured that they sufficiently modified it so as to conform with and eventually support their theological positions.[4]\n\nKalām Atomism\nFrom its earliest inception in the second century of the hijra, kalām has always been fascinated with the theory of atoms. A cursory look at the relevant sections in al-Ash’arī’s (d. 324/935) Maqālāt shows the center stage this issue took.[5] And although the mutakallimūn disagreed about certain secondary issues regarding atomism (such as the minimum quantity of atoms required for a ‘body’, the quantity of atoms that a single atom is allowed to touch, and so forth), the broad theory was generally upheld by both the Mu’tazilites and Ash’arites.[6]\nThe mutakallimūn posited that all matter is composed of identical, miniscule, indivisible particles (i.e., atoms), that are devoid of any quantitative or qualitative properties. They only acquire quantitative properties of width, height, and breadth when two or more of them unite (at which point it becomes a ‘body’), and they only acquire qualitative properties when an ‘accident’ is created within it. An accident is something that exists above and beyond the actual body. It is an accident that gives each atom (and, thereby, each body) its specific qualities that separates it from other atoms (and bodies); qualities such as color, temperature, speed or rest, life, knowledge, power, and so forth. Such accidents must reside in the atom itself, in fact by definition an accident cannot exist except within an atom.\nBroadly speaking, the Mu’tazilites and Ash’arites were in agreement with regards to the affirmation of atomism, the most prominent exception being the eccentric al-Naẓẓām (d. 230/845), who was influenced by Aristotle’s denial of atomism. Due to this view, al-Naẓẓām was forced to invent the concept of the ‘leap’ (ṭufrah).[7] Also, in contrast to the Greek philosophers (and also the falāsifa), the mutakallimūn strongly affirmed the belief that both atoms and accidents were created, and that matter was not eternal.[8]\nOne of the most profound and unique contributions of the Ash’arites to the atomism debate was their proposition that ‘No accident can last two successive instances of time.’[9] In other words, as soon as an accident is created, it immediately ceases to exist. There is no continuity or connection between one moment in time and another. This means that if an object were to, say, remain in a state of rest, the accident of ‘rest’ must be continually created and re-created at each successive instant in time for the object to remain so. And, of course, it is only God who could create each and every accident on each and every body in each and every instance of time. The entire universe and all that transpires in it, according to the Ash’arites, must be directly controlled by God at each specific instance.\nAnother philosophical (albeit not original) contribution was the idea that time itself is composed of discrete and successive units, a type of ‘atomic-time’. This was derived not only from Aristotle’s notion that space, time and movement are all existentially equivalent, but also from the problem of trying to solve Zeno’s paradox as applied to time.[10]\nThese two positions necessarily leads to a denial of causality, meaning that the Ash’arites completely negated a cause-and-effect relationship between any two occurrences. Everything that occurred was disconnected, time and space, from anything preceding or following it. Even a body that remained a certain color did so because God continually re-created the accident of color in all of its atoms, at each instance in time (i.e., at each ‘atomic-time’ unit). A rock thrown at a window could not cause the window to shatter; an arm lifting a cup was not the cause of its lifting; the ingestion of food was not the cause of satiation; the proximity of fire to wool did not cause the wool to alight; and so forth.\nWith such a radical view of the world, the Ash’arites were then forced to explain not only the continuity of the universe around us (materials did not typically vanish, or transform into another substance, or change color, or inexplicably move from one instance to the next), but also the very clear causal connections upon which the livelihood of men rests. It is only because man eats that he does not starve to death, it is only because a fire is lit that food can be cooked, and so forth. Pressed with such factual realities, the Ash’arites (and in particular al-Ghazālī) developed the theory of ‘God’s habitual character’ or ‘ādah, meaning that God had ordained upon Himself to act within certain norms.[11] Thus, an object that is at rest is recreated by God at the second instance still at rest, an object that is brought close to fire and is flammable shall be set alight by God not due to the fire, but because God’s custom dictates so, and so on..\nThis theory safeguarded the permanent order of the universe, and also explained the apparent ‘causal’ relationship in daily life. What man perceives as ‘permanent’ is merely God’s habit (‘ādah) manifesting itself, at each successive instant. Contingent events, which man perceives as having been subject to natural physical causes, are in fact the direct result of God’s constant intervention.\n\nOther Theological Implications of Atomism\nThe concept of atomism was deployed by the Ash’arites in many different fields. In what can only be described as a pun on ideas, it is true to state that the concept of atomism itself became the fundamental building block of all other aspects of Ash’arite theology.\nSo, for example, based upon this cosmological view, the Ash’arites formalized more than one elaborate proof for the existence of God, the most common one being the ‘dalīl al-’a’rāḍ wa ḥudūth al-ajsām’, or the ‘Proof from accidents and temporality of bodies.’ This proof relies upon the fact that (i) existence is divided into bodies (composed of multiple atoms), and accidents; (ii) bodies are inherently composed of temporal accidents and cannot exist without them, and so: (iii) ‘that which is composed of temporal elements and does not precede it must also be temporal.’ Some of the Ash’arites sought to prove this method from the story of Abraham as he ‘searched’ for God via the celestial objects (Q. 6:71-79). They claimed that Abraham understood that the star, moon and Sun could not be gods because they were moving, and movement was an accident, hence Abraham realized that any body that carried within it an accident must be created and not a God.[12]\nFurthermore, based upon this atomic conception, they proved that God is One, and cannot be more than one. This proof is known as dalīl al-tamānu’, or the ‘Proof from mutual exclusion’. A summary of this is as follows: suppose that the universe had two gods, and one of them wished to create the accident of motion within an atom, while the other wished to create the accident of rest. Logically, there are only three possibilities: (i) both of them fail; (ii) both are successful; (iii) one of them is successful while the other fails. The first two logical possibilities are actually impossible, as the two are mutually exclusive, and the object has to be characterized with one of these opposing accidents. This only leaves the third option. And by definition, the one whose will is overpowering all else must be a God, and the one whose will was overpowered cannot be a god.\nThe Ash’arites and Mu’tazilites also propounded a theory of understanding God’s Attributes based upon their respective understandings of atomism. The primary issue at stake for them was that God could not be a place (maḥall) where accidents exist, as that would imply that He was a body composed of atoms (since accidents by definition need atoms to subside in), and hence created. So, for the Ash’arites, who defined an ‘accident’ as that which cannot last two successive instances, to posit any ‘change’ in God or from God would constitute an accident. And since all accidents must by definition reside in bodies, any accident posited of God would imply that God was a body. It was based upon this definition of ‘accidents’ that the Ash’arites could affirm God’s never-changing attributes of Life, Power, Knowledge, Hearing, Seeing, Will, and Speech, and interpret other Attributes figuratively, especially those that implied any type of motion (such as istiwā and nuzūl).\nFor the Mu’tazilites, on the other hand, an ‘accident’ was defined as ‘that which is superfluous to the essence (dhāt) of a substance.’[13] For them, any meaning that was not inherent to a being and extraneous to its essence (zā’id ‘alā al-dhāt) constituted an accident. Al-Qāḍī ‘Abd al-Jabbār expounded on this when he said that if God actually had power, this would imply that He were a body, as power can only be potentialized when it resides in a body.[14] Hence, to affirm any characteristic to God would imply that an accident resided within God, which would necessitate God being a body, which would in turn entail that God was created. This helps explain why Mu’tazilite doctrine concerned itself with how best to phrase some of God’s capabilities, (e.g., ‘God knows with His essence’, or ‘God knows with a knowing that is Himself’, or ‘God’s knowing implies that He is not ignorant’, and so forth) as they could not explicitly affirm any meaning within God, yet at the same time could not deny that God, for example, knows everything.[15]\nYet another theological tangent that atomism provided a basis for was that of predestination. In particular, the Ash’arite understanding of qadr was directly linked to their conceptualization of matter.\n\nAtomism and Predestination\nThe Ash’arite position on predestination is that God creates the actions of the servant directly without the servant himself causing that act, and that the servant then ‘acquires’ the reward or punishment of that deed. Hence, there is only an illusion of free-will, for in the end all actions are a direct result of God’s will and action. This theory, propounded by al-Ash’arī himself, is known as the theory of ‘acquisition’, or kasb. It is, of course, based directly on Ash’arite belief of God re-creating accidents within atoms at each and every second. Man, being merely the agency upon which these accidents are created, cannot actually be the cause of any of his own ‘actions’.[16] Hence, atomism was the key factor that led Ash’arites to deny both natural causality and human free-will.\nThis understanding led to another ethical dilemma, and that was the accusation of God doing something evil.[17] How was it possible, the Mu’tazilites charged, that God would Himself create the actions of His servant and then punish them for it? This was the essence of evil.\nIn response to this charge, or perhaps pre-empting it, al-Ash’arī developed his doctrine of what constitutes ‘evil’. For al-Ash’arī, evil was merely what God had prohibited, and good was what He had commanded.[18] Therefore, according to him, no act is inherently judged as good or evil – human intellect and rationality play no role in this regard. Later Ash’arite authorities concurred.[19] Hence, for the Ash’arites, unless God explicitly states so, there is nothing that is ‘good’ or ‘evil’ in the first place! God does not punish or reward based upon a deed – God’s rewards are a gift from him, and His punishment an indication of his Justice, and nothing is required or obligatory on God.[20]\nTherefore, for the Ash’arites, based on their definition of evil, the charge that it is evil to deprive man of free-will and then subsequently punish him for actions which God created holds no weight. Man does not have the capacity, or even right, to say what is evil and what is good.\nThe Mu’tazilites took the exact opposite view. Before explaining their position on free-will, it is interesting to note that, unlike the Ash’arites, the Mu’tazilites did not reduce the concept of causality to a simple and wholly unequivocal scheme, hence it is rather difficult to piece together the relationship between their version of atomism and their position on qadr; for this response, some general observations will be made.[21]\nThe Mu’tazilites were, of course strong proponents of free-will, hence they denied that God created man’s actions. Instead, they supported the doctrine that man created his own actions with the power that God had given him.[22]\nThis led to a detailed discussion of the concept of tawallud amongst them: whether (and to what extent) a human action could cause other actions. As an example, suppose a man shoots an arrow, and another person diverts it, and an innocent person is killed, who is morally responsible for his death?[23] Despite the differences that the Mu’tazilite had amongst themselves, as a whole they affirmed causality and believed that substances posses properties that have the capacity to affect other properties.\nIn contrast to the Ash’arites, they viewed that it was rationally possible to judge actions as evil or good (the issue of al-tahsīn al-’aqlī). This basic premise played a profound role in their understanding of qadr. For the Mu’tazilites, if God were to directly create man’s actions and then punish him for those actions, while man himself has been deprived of free-will, this would be the height of tyranny and injustice. Therefore, God cannot be the creator of man’s deeds. For the Mu’tazilites, the Sacred Law only confirms what the intellect has already judged; it does not play any extra role in this decision.[24]\n\nAtomism was accepted by all factions of kalām and incorporated into their theological models. Even though it was the Mu’tazilites who began the discussion, it was the Ash’arites who took it to a whole new level, and relied upon it even more than the Mu’tazilites.\nFor the Ash’arites, the only perpetual object is the atom. The atom itself is created at a specific point in time, but after that time, it remains in creation until God wills otherwise. Everything else in the world besides the atom is ‘accidental,’ meaning something that lasts for only a fleeting instant. And time itself is composed of discrete, successive units that are not directly connected to each other. It is God who must create and re-create each accident, on each atom, at each instance of time. Based upon this understanding, they extracted proofs for God’s existence, His Unity, His Attributes, and His all-encompassing power (i.e., predestination). Additionally, they denied natural causality.\nFor the Mu’tazilites, although they did use their understanding of atomism to derive similar proofs for God’s existence, since they defined ‘accidents’ in a manner different to that of the Ash’arites, their understanding of God’s attributes differed as well. Additionally, they did not elaborate upon the relationship of atomism with free-will as much as the Ash’arites did.\nOther issues, not directly related to atomism, also played a role in conceptualizing their respective positions on predestination versus free-will. For the Mu’tazilites, if God demanded obedience from man yet simultaneously created his actions and deprived him of any free-will, it would be the height if injustice and contradict Divine Wisdom. All of this is clear and incontrovertible, according to them, because the intellect is capable of deciding what is praiseworthy and what is not. For the Ash’arites, since the intellect plays no role in deciding good from evil, it was not possible to judge any of God’s actions. Therefore, if God requires us to do something and, at the same time, does not grant us an independent will to execute it, that is permissible, for God can commit no injustice, and we cannot judge the actions of God.\n\nThe debate of whether this elusive ‘smallest indivisible object’ actually exists remains alive up until today. The belief in such objects survived, even as it adapted and modified itself through many controversies, via medieval Christianity, Jewish philosophy, and the Renaissance. Finally, in the post-Enlightenment period, John Dalton (d. 1844) formulated his concept of the atomic theory, which was then developed and held sway for much of the 19th and early 20th century. For the first time, atoms were discovered to be of different types, and molecules to be combinations of atoms. Daltonian physics still considered the atom to be the smallest indivisible unit, but claimed (unlike kalām) that atoms of different substances were different from one another. From the early part of the 20th century, physicists, starting with Rutherford (d. 1937), discovered smaller sub-atomic particles from which atoms were made, namely, electrons, protons and neutrons. This then gave way (largely due to the efforts of Max Planck (d. 1947) and Albert Einstein (d. 1955)) to quantum mechanics, and later to the discovery of even smaller sub-atomic particles, such as quarks and leptons, which are currently believed to combine in specific ways to form protons and neutrons. Research is still being done in this field, and daily discoveries and experiments continue to shape and challenge current theories.\nFor those theologians who based aspects of their theology on atomism, it is interesting to posit how these new scientific discoveries might possibly affect their theological models and positions.\n\n[1] See: John McDonnell, The Concept of an Atom from Democritus to John Dalton (New York: 1991) p. 1-4, 21-25.\n[2] Bernard Pullman, The Atom in the History of Human Thought (Oxford University Press: 1998), p. 17.\n[3] Wolfson, Philosophy of the Kalām, p. 468.\n[4] It should be noted that there is a very strong possibility of Indian atomism heavily influencing the mutakallimūn as well, as Pines (p. 117) and Wolfson (p. 473) show.\n[5] Al-Ash’arī, Maqālāt, p. 314-321.\n[6] Much has been written on this. The standard introduction is that of Shlomo Pines, Studies in Islamic Atomism (Jerusalem: 1997). Also see Richard M. Frank, “Bodies and Atoms: The Ash’arite Analysis;” Bernard Pullman, The History of the Atom, p. 107-114; Wolfson, The Philosophy of the Kalām, p. 466-518; EI2, s.v., ‘Djuz’. It is interesting to note that the most accessible and elaborate explanation of kalām atomism has been written by the Jewish philosopher Maimonides, in his Guide to the Perplexed. D. Macdonald has translated and analyzed these passages in his article “Continuous Recreation and Atomic Time,” Isis, v. 9 (1927).\n[7] Wolfson, Philosophy, p. 495. The ṭufrah is the belief that an object has the capacity to move from point A to point C without traveling through the intermediate point B but rather ‘leaping’ over it. This belief was needed in order to explain how a body could traverse from point A to point C when, according to al-Naẓẓām, there were an infinite amout of points between them.\n[8] Ibid, p. 471.\n[9] See, for example, al-Ash’arī, Maqālāt, p. 358; al-Baghdādī, Uṣūl al-Dīn, p. 50, al-Ghazālī, Tahāfut, p. 88.\n[10] Macdonald, ‘Continuous Re-Creation,’ p. 320.\n[11] See al-Ghazāli’s Seventeenth Discussion in his Incoherence (tr. Marmura), p.171-3.\n[12] Al-Bāqillāni, al-Inṣāf, p. 44. I have written a paper on this specific issue elsewhere. Also see: Wolfson, The Philosophy of the Kalām, p. 386-390; Herbert Davidson, Proofs for eternity, creation, and the existence of God in medieval Islamic and Jewish philosophy.\n[13] Al-Ash’arī, Maqālāt, p. 369; Frank, “Bodies and Atoms,” p. 42.\n[14] Sharḥ Uṣūl al-Khamsah, p. 162.\n[15] It goes without saying that both the Ash’arites and Mu’tazilites had other concerns as well, all of which led them to formulate their respective doctrines regarding the Attributes of God; the point here is to stress how their theory of atomism directly affected their conceptualization of God’s Attributes.\n[16] Watt, The Formative Period, p. 315.\n[17] It also led them to develop a unique understanding of God’s justice: for the Ash’arites, God was never unjust, not because He chose not do show injustice (the Mu’tazilite position), but rather because whatever He did was always just. Hence, if He rewarded a sinner or punished a just man, that recompense in and of itself would constitute Justice on God’s part. This of course solved the conundrum of how God could (from the Mu’tazilite perspective) ‘force’ someone to do something and then punish him for it.\n[18] Al-Ash’arī, Risālah īlā Ahl al-Thaghr, p. 74.\n[19] See, for example, ‘Abd al-Qāhir al-Bahdādī, Uṣūl al-Dīn, p. 149; ‘Aḍad al-Dīn al-Ījī, al-Mawāqif, p. 323.\n[20] See, for example, al-Bāqillānī’s description of this in his al-Inṣāf p. 48.\n[21] See Pines discussion of this in his Studies, p. 32-34. I believe this issue certainly warrants further study.\n[22] al-Qāḍī Abd al-Jabbār, al-Mughnī, v 2, p. 340.\n[23] Pines, p. 37-8; al-Ash’arī, Maqālāt, p. 408-10.\n[24] See al-Qāḍī Abd al-Jabbār, al-Mughnī, v. 6, p. 26, 30 – 34. Also, it should be borne in mind that the Mu’tazilite authorities differed amongst themselves on some of the finer details of this issue. In particular, is an act inherently good or evil, or is it due to external consequences that such a description can be made? The former view is held by the Baghdadian authorities, while the Basrians held the latter view.", "pred_label": "__label__1", "pred_score_pos": 0.7188097238540649}
+{"content": "January: A Prompt in Itself\n\n\nPrompt Others; Prompt Myself\n\nI first used the word “prompt” when teaching high school English as an educational tool for students to jumpstart their individualized, brainstorm-like induced stories.\n\n“I remember….” is an often-used prompt for fiction and nonfiction.\n\nA photo of a man standing by a human-made wooden structure with artificial eagles perched by a real eagle’s nest is a visual prompt.\n\nAfter I left the classroom and pursued my own writing, I joined a newly-formed writers’ group with two former students. I made the third and was happy to follow their rules of organization. We met every Monday at Tim Horton’s. We came with copies, read our work aloud and offered verbal comments.\n\nThe final act of every gathering was my favorite. Each of us received a small strip of paper on which to write a prompt right on the spot. We placed it in one of the writer’s fedoras and picked a prompt that wasn’t our own.\n\nThe following Monday, we shared the story coming out of the prompt in addition to anything else we’d written.\n\nJust Because I Taught English\n\nJust because I taught writing and wanted to write a novel, I wasn’t exactly schooled in how to accomplish 70,000+ words of engaging fiction.\n\nShort stories were practices in creating beginning-middle-ends, in characterization, in dialogue and narration and in showing description.\n\nI’d take my writers’ group chosen prompt and spend a week on it and have a full story completed by Monday.\n\nAfter nine months, the group broke up, but I came away with a portfolio of several short stories in various stages of polish. Over the years, I’ve gone back to that file and tinkered with some and submitted some.\n\nA Prompt From Anywhere\n\nOut my window, a dingy white car with a noisy muffler makes its second of a minimum of three daily stops next door. My neighbor is an elderly woman and the mother of the daughter driving up the driveway to check on her.\n\nOr is she?\n\nPrompts come from anywhere and everywhere. As seeds, they bloom stories and stories and stories.\n\nIt’s January.\n\nThe first month of the year prompts us to make resolutions to rededicate our energies toward specific goals.\n\nI am prompted to exceed my number of accepted story submissions.\n\nMany good memories remain of that early writers’ trio. One of the most significant is realizing the power in the prompt.\n\nI am never without story ideas. And if I get stuck somewhere along a story line, I look around me in hope of a prompt to lead me forward.\n\n\n\n\n\nFinalizing the Final Draft\n\nIMG_0412The final draft of my first (as yet to be published) novel is done. Or is it? If you are a future debut novelist, you know how vague the term “final draft” can be when it applies to your own work. Or at least, to mine.\n\nLearning the Craft of the Draft\n\nI hope not to embarrass myself by saying I’ve been writing this mermaid novel for at least four years. [Being Mermaid: From Out of the Sea]  The journey has included taking workshops, seminars, a webinar or two, having conversations with writers and reading or scanning lots and lots of books, blogs and magazines.\n\nIn spite of all the information, my early writing felt like a crazy, all-over-the-place groping for meaning and the only way I could go in order to A) learn the fiction writing process and B) get the novel done.\n\nWas it the right thing to do?\n\nBetween Draft and Manuscript\n\nSara Megibow, an agent with KT Literary, spoke at a conference session entitled “Biggest Mistakes” that writers make when pitching or querying a work. In my paraphrasing, one of her reasons for not being interested is the work’s incompleteness. She said, “You’re at draft only. Your manuscript isn’t ready.”\n\nThe year was 2013 and I was preparing to pitch my completed manuscript, or was I?\n\nThe Early Draft\n\n“A Four-Step Plan for Revision” by Raymond Obstfeld In The Complete Handbook of Novel Writing (Writer’s Digest Books. 2002) elaborates on draft distinctions:\n\n“Early drafts lay down the basic story and characters while the final drafts fine-tune what’s already there.”\n\nAs I was writing this post, an article on my favorite blogger’s site, Jane Friedman, popped up. “How to Finish Your Book in Three Drafts” is great material and great timing by Stuart Horwitz who calls “the first draft the ‘messy draft,’ which is all about getting it [the story] down .”\n\nI was definitely messy as I wrote, rewrote, ditched, scratched out a section of, scratched out a lot of sections of, returned old material to and started all over again.\n\nThe Final Draft\n\nWhen the beta readers had done their work, I revised again and again.\n\nAt last, my final draft was done, the one Stuart Horwitz calls the “polished draft,” which [had been] all about making the story “good.”\n\nI was ready to query and pitch my manuscript.\n\nWhen the Story Goes Nowhere\n\nMy mermaid novel received mild interest.\n\nOne queried agent asked for the whole book after reading the first fifty pages before it was rejected. Another agent was excited about my pitch but later turned down the novel. An editor said it wouldn’t get past “acquisitions.”\n\nI knew I was getting close but also felt something may still be lacking. Perhaps, as Sara Megibow had told a large audience of writers that year, the error may be in my thinking the novel was a manuscript when it remained a draft.\n\nFinal Draft as Plural\n\nI was back at the books, blogs, workshops, etc., to seek an end to my story. To stamp FINAL on the final draft.\n\nRaymond Obstfeld said, “Although the phrase ‘final draft’ suggests the last time you’ll revise, that really isn’t the case. Final draft really refers to the final process of revising.”\n\nSeek Professional Help\n\nA professional editor is currently reviewing my mermaid novel as the journey continues.\n\nAfterward, I will be back at it again. This time will be the final, final draft.\n\nThank goodness, I really believe in my mermaid novel and will do all I can to learn how to tell her story most effectively.\n\n\n“Edit your manuscript until your fingers bleed and you have memorized every last word. Then, when you are certain you are on the verge of insanity, edit one more time!”  ~C.K. Webb\n\n\n\n\n\nWhere Will She Sit on the Shelf?\n\n\nI’ve sat in on enough writing sessions facilitated by writers, agents, editors and other workers in the publishing industry to know that if my book doesn’t conform to market standards, good luck on getting it published.\n\nToday’s post is on meeting that challenge and moving forward.\n\nMaybe a Story Really Does Tell Itself\n\nMy original intention when I began telling my mermaid story was for it to be a romance. A beautiful fishlike young woman washes ashore where a beautiful young man discovers her and along the way love arrives.\n\nThe story didn’t unfold as I’d planned.\n\nMy mermaid remains a young female but her story focuses on her journey toward the realization of who she is and where she belongs in the ocean world.\n\nA young man is a part of her narrative, along with issues of ocean pollution and extinction and motherhood and love.\n\nGenre Dilemma\n\nMy novel is complete. But what kind of novel is it?\n\n\n\n\nWomen’s Fiction?\n\nAdult Mainstream?\n\nAll of the above?\n\nNone of the above?\n\nI can’t imagine anything worse than a story being refused because the marketing department has no idea how to advertise it and the bookstores have no idea where to shelve it.\n\nWhat do I do?\n\nChange the story?\n\nKeep the story?\n\nForget the story?\n\nAdvice from Experts\n\nI expressed my dilemma with book editor, Rebecca Heyman. Her response was a recommendation to read three novels. One is Night Circus by Erin Morgenstern.\n\n\nErin Morgenstern’s story doesn’t fit a standard type; it’s fantasy, romance, maybe even steampunk.\n\nNo spoilers here: In Night Circus, two old competitive peers, artists in magic and illusion, pit their apprentices against each other for an eventual showdown.\n\nThe story itself is magic. It enchanted me with its vivid details, compelling storytelling and mystical tone.\n\nThe structure of the story is also as unique as the tale itself.\n\nHave readers found this strange, unusual novel in their bookstores, real or digitalized?\n\nThey certainly have.\n\nForging Ahead\n\nMy focus now isn’t on whether or not there’s a specific shelf for my mermaid novel but on how compelling and memorable my story is for the audience who will read it one day.\n\n\nBeing Mermaid: Manatee Born\n\n\nI’ve written a yet-to-be-published novel about a mermaid in today’s ocean whose story is as much about being a woman as it is about being a mermaid, maybe more. Being Mermaid: Creating Story\n\nI’ve spoken about worldbuilding in previous “Being Mermaid” posts. Today’s focus is about the mermaid herself.\n\n\nCharacterization is an element of the writing craft referring to the description of the characters in a story, which can encompass a wide range of personality traits, actions, looks. My mermaid character needed to be as plausible as possible, so I went looking for researched facts and my imagination to develop this half-fish, half-human creature.\n\nMermaid as Manatee\n\nAs legends go, sailors on the old wooden ships declared they’d seen mermaids, and in some stories they’d said they were sung to and lured into the sea, whereupon these mermaids would attempt to drown them. Such deadly woman-fishlike creatures were also called Sirens in mythology Being Mermaid: From Out of the Sea\n\nHave you ever seen a manatee? Hard to imagine anyone, except maybe a sailor who’d been on the sea for months and months, could mistake a manatee for a mermaid.\n\nYet, there had to be something to the stories, and the legends were where I sarted to develop the background character of my mermaid. As a result, three main aspects of a manatee’s life became a part of a mermaid’s life: diet, environment and reproduction.\n\nVegetation Diet\n\nLike manatees, the mermaid characters eat strictly sea plants, particularly the sweeter seagrasses.\n\n\nManatees have a wide range of travel in the U.S., going as far north as the Carolinas and west to Texas but they tend to live mostly in and around Florida’s waters and canals, especially during winter. The key to their envrioment is the temperature of the water. They can die from cold stress if water temperatures drop below 68 degrees Fahrenheit.\n\nManatee facts have become a part of the mermaid’s character as well. She is more at ease in salt water than the versatile salt or fresh water manatee, but a mermaid cannot survive long if the ocean temperature drops below 68 degrees Fahrentheit.\n\nTo ensure the lifespan of the mermaids in my novel, I’ve located them on an isolated island in the Caribbean Ocean, unless something freaky happens to drop the temperature.\n\n\nA significant issue in my mermaid novel is the role of the female mermaid and her ability to reproduce, the key to the survival of any species.\n\nThe mantatee gives birth to one calf every two to five years; twins are rare. After a gestation period of almost a year, a mother nurses her young for one to two years before the baby becomes independent.\n\nReproduction is a problem for the mermaids on my made-up island of Little Mangrove. A mermaid has an on- and off- fertile cycle. If she does get pregnant, her gestation period is one year, and she cannot become pregnant again until two years after giving birth. Twins are a much-heralded birth when they occur, which, like the manatee, is rare.\n\nAbout that Tail\n\nA manatee is a slow-moving, gentle, playful animal who normally swims at three to five miles an hour but can hit up to twenty miles per hour in a short burst. Its tail looks as thick as its fleshy, barrel-shaped body.\n\nA mermaid is not the same, except for having a tail. Somewhere along the evolutionary trail of the mermaid, she grew fish scales on her bottom half, not the fleshy skin of the manatee, and though the mermaid has a tail, it is lighter, filmier and more fishlike than a manatee’s.\n\nA mermaid swims fast, very fast, able to keep up with the dolphin at twenty-one miles per hour and the shark at thirty-one miles per hour. However, some of the big game fish, such as the marlin at fifty miles per hour and the sail fish at sixty-eight, can out-swim a mermaid in the long run.\n\nBuilding Character\n\nBuilding characters is a challenge for any writer. Sometimes the details of a character’s life come quickly; othertimes, there’s a lot of research necessary to make a character believable, especially when that character is a mix of legend, heresay and reality.\n\n“Believe in your character. Animate (or write) with sincerity.” ~Glen Keane (Animator for Walt Disney, incuding “The Little Mermaid.”)\n\n[Photo credit: Andrew Imanaka vis VisualHunt.com]\n\n\n\n\n\nBeing Mermaid: Creating Lore\n\n\n\nWorldbuilding is an element of the writing craft referring to the creation of an imaginary world within which the characters live. Today’s post is about lore, the accumulated knowledge and tradition held by a group that’s passed from generation to generation in the oral tradition.\n\nMermaid Lore\n\nWhat is the history of my mermaids? How do they know where they’ve come from and what is important in their lives? How do they share their stories? express their beliefs? What are the traditions and rituals that set them apart, as a family of mermaids and as one mermaid from another?\n\nBefore I began to work out the answers to these questions, I knew for certain there would be no history books, journals, diaries, nothing written. Mermaids do not write or read.\n\nWhat they would do is express music.\n\nThe Oral Tradition\n\nThe term “oral tradition” is a means of passing on one’s heritage only by word of mouth or example.\n\nTo specialize the oral tradition for my mermaids who, in part, stem from the mythology of Sirens Being Mermaid: From Out of the Sea, I focused on music. Rather than talk about their past, mermaids sing, chant and use body movement.\n\n“Subtle flips of her tail and twists of her arms and hands emphasized specific notes and images.” ~from When Oceans Sang (working title)\n\nEvery aspect of a mermaid’s life resonates music. The family sings praise as the sun rises and sings hope for a safe sleep when the sun sets and the moon rises. They have songs about the taste of sweet seagrass and enjoying freedom. Music reflects their moods and expresses their history.\n\nA Mermaid’s Personal Lifesong\n\nThe mermaids of Mangrove Island know the lives of the past and present mermaids. How?\n\nAs a mermaid ages, she chooses from the experiences of her life and creates lyrics and movements to express them, called her lifesong.\n\n“Her personal lifesong ebbed and flowed with her movements.” ~from When Oceans Sang (working title)\n\nThe song is as individualized as she is.\n\nThe Eldest female mermaid and the Elder male mermaid possess the longest repertoire of mermaid lore because they know the personal lifesong of each member of the family.\n\nA lifesong is s key aspect of the death ceremony. As a mermaid’s body is taken to the bottom of the sea in a ritual I’ve described as “Born of the sea; given back to the sea,” the mermaids sing her lifesong in honor of the being she was among them and will continue to be thereafter.\n\nCreative Challenge\n\nThe creative juices are at work here as I imagine a family who lives in the ocean and communicates through music. From conception until death, a mermaid expresses herself through song.\n\nMusic is the strongest link to mermaid lore.\n\n“After nourishment, shelter and companionship, stories are the thing we need most in the world.”  ~Phillip Pullman (The Golden Compass)\n\n\n\n\n\nBeing Mermaid: Creating Story\n\nDSCN0959I’ve written a yet-to-be-published novel about a mermaid living in today’s ocean whose story is as much about being a woman as it is about being a mermaid, maybe more. Being Mermaid: From Out of the Sea\n\nShe has a fish tail, lives on an isolated island in the Caribbean and struggles with issues dealing with family, their expectations of her and those of herself.\n\nLike many women today, she is faced with the results of the choices she makes. They challenge her. They develop her. They define her.\n\n\nWorldbuilding is an element of the writing craft referring to the creation of the imaginary world within which fantastical characters live. For the next few posts, I’ll be sharing my mermaid’s world.\n\nAs the ocean life came alive in my mermaid’s story, I had one goal: Make it as believable as possible.\n\nI want you to believe that mermaids could, indeed, exist among us today.\n\n\nBeing Mermaid: From Out of the Sea\n\n\nI’ve completed an unpublished novel about mermaids who live on an isolated mangrove island in the Caribbean Sea somewhere between Cuba and the Grand Cayman Islands.\n\nThe writing of their story has taught me the amazing power of fiction in its freedom to develop lives and places out of fact, legend and nothing at all.\n\nThe mermaid Tanis is one of those beautiful and mysterious females of the sea. She lives in contemporary times, though she doesn’t know what a minute is or a day; her life is counted in moon cycles and sun cycles and seasons. The size of her favorite fish, the tarpon, isn’t five feet but two mermaid tail lengths long. When she’s hungry, she eats seagrass, which is sweetest when its young.\n\nI’ve made up basic facts like these about her life because they make sense for a family of ocean creatures.\n\nI’ve also incorporate myth. Why not?  Myth serves a purpose in our lives. It must or it wouldn’t have endured since its origins during the eighth century.\n\nLike Sasquatch and Yeti, mermaids are a part of mythology to me. No matter how outlandish a myth may be–Really, Hercules held the world on his shoulders?–there exists a kernel of truth in the telling.\n\nOne ancient myth concerns mermaid-like women called Sirens who use their seductive singing to lure sailors to their deaths. In Homer’s epic Greek poem, The Odyssey, Odysseus’s crew stuffs beeswax in their ears as they sail toward the land of the sirens. Unlike his men, Homer goes without the wax; he wants to hear the sirens’ enchanting sound. To survive, Odysseus’s crew tie him to a mast and promise not to release him no matter how he begs.\n\nLike the Sirens, the mermaids on mangrove island are also musical; singing is their main form of communication. They resonate their emotions musically. Music is so vital, every mermaid creates her and his personal song throughout life. When mermaids die, their personal song lives after them. These intimate tunes are like scrapbooks and are sung again and again throughout the generations.\n\nTanis is a modern-day mermaid with an ancient background.", "pred_label": "__label__1", "pred_score_pos": 0.9842346906661987}
+{"content": "Tag Archives: Paleo\n\nProtect Gold Butte\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n“from sunset or sierra?\nWhat is the line between ourselves\nand the terrain from which we come?”\n\nHe thought he knew, but something in her eyes\ntransfixed him in a way he knew too well.\nDeep and dark and wet they stuck him fast.\n\nIn parts of California, long ago,\nimpressive monsters ambled in the hills:\nplacid armored sloths two people tall,\ncats with teeth as long as boning knives,\ndogs the size of bears. Now and again,\na glint of water tempted them, or else\na furry piece of meat held strangely still,\nand only after the imprudent pounce\nwould the tar entomb them.\nNow, the graduate students pick their bones.\n\nWhen the land thus asserts your membership\nin the vast assemblage of dust and bark,\nof feather, fur and rock in which we live,\nit’s best not to struggle overmuch.\nThe land is patient, yet insistent.\nFighting off the tar will muss your hair.\nPaleontologists an era hence\nwill find your clothes awry. Embarrassing!\nFar better just to let oneself be swallowed\nin all-consuming pitch, placidly slurped\ninto the balm of Quaternary ages.\n\nThat’s what her eyes felt like, he thought;\na sudden lack of individual\nidentity: nothing sets us apart\none from the other, nor from the land around.\n\nBreaking Pleistocene Update\n\nI Am Zed's Mandible\n\n\n\n\nMajor cache of fossils unearthed in Los Angeles\n\nFrom the Los Angeles Times:\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\nHere is a fine, very well-fed individual of the species Spermophilus variegatus, also known as the rock squirrel. This one happened to be working the crowd outside the El Tovar on the south rim of the Grand Canyon, but the species ranges throughout the Southwestern states and Mexico, edging just barely into that part of the state of California that fronts the Colorado River, for instance my neighborhood here.\n\nThe rock squirrel is one of 18 or so Spermophilus species in the western part of North America. There are currently 42 species worldwide.  Spermophilus itself — the name means “seed lover” — is one of three genera of true ground squirrels, along with Ammospermophilus, the antelope squirrels of the desert Southwest, and Cynomys, popularly known as prairie dogs. Close relatives of the three genera include marmots and chipmunks. Taxonomists group ground squirrels, chipmunks and marmots into a “tribe” within the squirrel family called Marmotini, which sounds like something you’d find on the menu in a spaghetti joint in Bozeman, or maybe a mixture of gin and wheatgrass juice.\n\nAnyway, there are Spermophilus of various species living everywhere in Western North America from the beaches of the Arctic Ocean to southern Mexico. Their appearances vary widely, with some looking very much like your basic tree squirrels, some — the golden-mantled ground squirrel, S. lateralis, for instance — looking like glorified chipmunks, the flickertails (S. richardsonii) essentially trimmed-down prairie dogs, and the thirteen-lined and Mexican ground squirrels (S. tridecemlineatus and S. mexicanus, and I bet you can guess which is which) looking like nothing I’ve ever seen.\n\nI found myself facing down a Spemophilus day before yesterday up at Cima Dome. I didn’t get a chance to ask it to display its tail. A tail with short hair would have made it a round-tailed ground squirrel, S. tereticaudus. Rock squirrels have bushy tails like tree squirrels. On reflection, though, I’ve decided it was probably a rock squirrel. Round-tails are low-elevation denizens, from what I can tell, preferring warmer, sandy wastes like the one I nearly got the Jeep stuck in about two hours before I saw the squirrel. The squirrel and I were up a bit, at around 5,500 feet. Also — another clue — it was hanging out in a big pile of rocks.\n\nStill, I was a little hesitant to make the call because my squirrel field guide, Tamara Hartson’s Squirrels of the West, has a range map for the rock squirrel that implied it was unlikely I’d find any Spermophilus variegatus near Cima Dome. I decided, though, that the maps in Hartson were — how do I put this kindly? — drawn without reliance on primary sources. The range map provided for the one other Spermophilus living in the Mojave Desert, Spermophilus mohavensis, was, well, inaccurate. It shows the Mojave ground squirrel as ranging south and east of Joshua Tree National Park, almost to the Colorado River at Blythe. The actual southeastern limit of the Mojave ground squirrel is pretty much the Mojave River. That’s about a 130-mile error, about a two-fold increase in the actual range of the species.\n\nThe southeastern limit of the Mohave ground squirrel’s range is, and not by coincidence, the northwestern limit of its closest relative, the round-tailed ground squirrel. To a first approximation, each species lives on its own side of the Mojave River and nobody fishes in the middle. This becomes a little confusing when you remember that while there is water flowing in the Mojave River, it mainly does that flowing beneath several feet of gravel and sand. There’s nothing in that riverbed, 364.5 days out of your typical 365, that would provide the kind of barrier to migration — and thus gene exchange —  that usually causes one species to diverge into two sibling species. A squirrel spotting a likely mate on the other side wouldn’t even have to get its feet wet to exchange some genes.\n\nAnd in fact, there is a little bit of interbreeding going on along the river, which is a pretty romantic spot when you get right down to it, and squirrelologists have found a few hybrids between the two species here and there, mainly in disturbed areas where the typical behavior of each species may have been disrupted. The breakdown of the natural order of things has likely resulted in interspecies mating, and yet the Mormon church is strangely silent on the matter.\n\nIf there’s no barrier to the populations of squirrels meeting, and they can still interbreed, what was it that split the original species in two in the first place?\n\nThe Mojave River is still a possibility despite its current lack of, well, current. Before 6,000 years ago there was water flowing in the river, lots of it, running down off the slopes of the Pluvial-era San Bernardino and San Gabriel mountains, filling what are now dry washes and alkaline playas with water too broad for a squirrel to ford. There was a vast network of lakes and streams in the Mojave then, with water off the east side of the Sierra Nevada joining in from the northwest, filling Owens and Searles lakes and spilling over into the Panamint Valley and Lake Manly on the floor of Death Valley. For its part, the Mojave River filled immense lakes where Harper Lake is now, near Hinkley, and Coyote Lake, north of Yermo. Its main flow continued past them and cut a gorge now called Afton Canyon, filled up Soda and Silver Lakes near Baker, and ended up in Lake Manly as well.\n\nIt may be that there were other factors beside swollen rivers keeping the squirrels apart. The heart of the Mohave ground squirrel’s habitat in the northwestern Mojave, smack dab in the rainshadow of the Sierra, is thought to have remained somewhat arid during the Pluvial, and may have been a refugium of sorts where desert-adapted critters were able to escape competition from less-droughty species taking advantage of the wetter Mojave elsewhere. But when you map out the boundary between the ranges of the Mohave and round-tailed ground squirrels, it’s never farther than about 30 kilometers from the Pluvial Mojave River System waterline. Things dried up 6,000 years ago, so that’s a migration rate of about five meters a year, not unlikely given ground squirrel behavior as we see it today.\n\nI love this kind of story so much. Who but a complete geek would take note of seemingly arbitrary boundaries between the ranges of two very similar squirrel species? The Mohave is a little more pink-gray than the round-tailed, and the underside of its tail is white where the round-tailed’s is solid cinnamon-colored; the first likes gravel and the second sand. These are differences all but invisible to the vast majority of people, especially in a genus as diversely-appearanced as Spermophilus.\n\nBut when you start paying attention to why the ranges of animals and plants and other living things are the way they are, when you start paying attention to how the arrangement of life on today’s Earth came to be the way it is, epics unfurl themselves before you. Caruthers Canyon, a valley near here full of incongruous oaks and manzanitas and other usually-coastal chaparral plants, reveals itself to be a redoubt, a place where hundreds of generations of plants have held on as mountain ranges rose, blocked the rain, made two hundred miles of desert between them and their nearest kin. Uninspiring, ratty rings of creosote bush become impossibly ancient matriarchs, already 5,000 years old or more when the First Dynasty struggled to power in Egypt.\n\nAnd a vague line between the ranges of two drab species of burrowing rodent becomes mythic, Noachic, the heavens opening up, a millennia-long flood separating brother from brother, sister from sister, two histories diverging from a common root, one nation cleft into two and the two meeting again as strangers.\n\nThe desert is woven of these stories, and I could spent the rest of my life reading them and be content.\n\nBy A Nail\n\nCanis latrans, running, by Carl Dennis Buell\nA running coyote, painting by Carl Dennis Buell\n\nThe ancestor of all dogs climbed trees like a cat.\n\nOr so the experts hypothesize. The raccoon-sized, foxy omnivore Prohesperocyon is as likely a candidate for the ancestor of all dogs, wolves and foxes as any fossil species known. It lived in what is now the American Southwest. It probably had retractile claws. The later, closely related species, Hesperocyon almost certainly had retractile claws. It had only been about ten million years since caniforms and feliforms had diverged, and most feliforms can sheath those daggers.\n\nIf you had to sum up the history of the world since Prohesperocyon‘s time in two words, the phrase “grasses won” would be as accurate and all-encompassing as most phrases you might choose. Cold spread, and with the cold came dry. Moist temperate and subtropical forests receded. Dry open woodlands became more common. Grasslands spread out from their riparian Eocene habitats. By the Miocene savannas covered much of the Earth.\n\nAs grasslands expanded, animals ventured out into them. It’s harder to hide in the grass than it is in the forest. In the forest, you can hold still and hope the trees hide you from the animal trying to eat you, or from the animal you’re trying to eat. In the grassland, you’d better run for your life.\n\nProhesperocyon‘s successors ran. It was, to mix a metaphor, an arms race. Grazing animals died if they couldn’t outrun the predators. Predators starved if they couldn’t catch their prey. Natural selection favored the survival of the fastest.\n\nProhesperocyon‘s successors ran, and natural selection sculpted them for running. Strides grew longer. (As legs grew longer necks grew as well, to accommodate running with the nose near the ground — a boon to scent-hunting.) Dog’s ancestors began running on their toes, adding the length of their foot bones to their effective leg length. Toes became less about grasping surfaces for climbing and more about cushioning the shock of impact while running, with frequent sideline use as digging tools.\n\nEventually, dogs lost the ability to retract their claws.\n\n\nThe bones on the left are the phalanges — fingerbones — of a cat. On the right, a dog’s equivalent phalanges. The drawing is by Mauricio Anton, from the book Dogs: Their Fossil Relatives and Evolutionary History by Xiaoming Wang and Richard Tedford. I’ve cleaned up the scan a bit and darkened the arrow pointing to a concavity in one side of the cat’s second phalange. When a cat retracts its claws, the first phalange slides back into that concavity, more or less locking in place. (Imagine being able to retract your fingernails up behind the first joint.)\n\nSee the dog’s far more symmetrical second phalange? No concavity means no retractile claws. This is why dogs make this noise on hardwood floors:\n\n…and cats don’t, usually.\n\nNon-retractile claws take a beating, from hardwood floors or rocky soil. Retracting one’s claws allows them to stay protected from wear and thus sharper. Still, in the modern hardwood-based environment, they sometimes don’t seem to offer much in the way of strategic advantage:\n\nNon-retractile claws would seem to offer an advantage in the cursorial lifestyle, offering a bit of extra traction like studded tires to help those sudden starts and stops and turns. It’s worth noting that the one cat with a truly cursorial hunting strategy, the cheetah, has claws that — while still technically retractable — are constantly exposed and probably noncoincidentally blunt. Other cats run, but rarely in more than short bursts.\n\nThere’s a lifestyle threshold for mammalian predators at around twenty kilograms — 45 pounds or so. Meat-eaters smaller than that threshold weight can sustain themselves on small prey: rodents, small lizards, invertebrates and such. Above 45 pounds, though, and moving fast enough to hunt requires more energy than small prey will provide. It’s not an entirely ironclad rule: smart carnivores will take easy pickings even if they’re the wrong size. But it’s not a bad rule of thumb: coyote-sized and smaller predators eat things smaller than themselves, while predators larger than coyotes eat things bigger than themselves.\n\nThat’s rather an abrupt change in strategy, and we see it now in Northern coyotes. Freed in most places from competition with larger wolves, and in some places hybridizing with those wolves, coyotes in the North have gotten their average weight up above that 45-pound threshold, and in places like Yellowstone those larger coyotes are now hunting in packs, taking down elk eleven times their size.\n\nThe pack thing is important. When cats evolved past the 45-pound mark, they had the tools to tackle larger prey on their own. Those sharp, protected claws let the cats get a secure hold on their intended meal, allowing the hunter to dispatch its prey with a precisely targeted bite. Tigers, for instance, will sever the spinal cord through the nape of the neck for prey of about human size, changing the angle of attack for buffalo-sized victims and crushing their tracheas. The old-school Smilodons, sabre-tooths, targeted a slashing bite at their prey’s abdomen, then stepped decorously back a bit to let it die of blood loss.\n\nDogs faced a serious disadvantage in taking down the larger grassland equids and camelids and gomphotheres and such. Those blunt claws were just fine for digging out rabbit warrens or slapping kittens off of coffee tables, but nearly useless for grabbing hold of a bison’s hide.\n\nThe solution, as expressed by those Yellowstone coyotes: cooperate in the hunt.\n\nLarge dog species, from wolves and coyotes and domestic dogs to African wild dogs, hunt cooperatively. They’ve done so for some time, as witness this rendering by Mark Hellet of a Miocene pack of Epicyon haydeni — members of the extinct Borophagine, or “bone-crushing dog” clade, at almost a meter tall at the shoulder the largest known dog in Earth’s history —  seriously ruining a Synthetoceras’ day near Red Rock Canyon State Park in Holocene Kern County. They work sophisticated and flexible strategies, acutely aware of the presence and activity of their packmates, and able to change plans as a group on a moment’s notice merely by communicating with one another.\n\nKind of like this one other blunt-clawed species of social hunting animals whose progenitors were thrown out of the forest and forced to make a living in the grasslands.\n\nAnd this, this cascade of consequences of a minor modification of a toe bone, is why dogs were, despite being large, dangerous predators, the first species we humans domesticated, and the one most closely interwoven into the human lifestyle. Losing the ability to retract their claws set the stage for innovation of a social hunting strategy into which we humans could cleverly intrude.\n\nYes, we domesticated cats as well — one of the smallest species available, and they still haven’t quite made up their minds whether the arrangement is really working for them. Domesticated cats live with us in an arrested foster-maternal roleplay, having avoided the near-paranoiac isolation wild adult cats prefer.\n\nDogs, on the other hand, live with us without repressing much in the way of their basic nature. It’s as if it’s in their bones.\n\nDesert Bones\n\nDespite its dangerous reputation among non-physicists, the typical uranium atom is only weakly radioactive. More than 99 percent of the uranium found in nature consists of the isotope U-238, whose atomic nucleus contains 92 protons and 146 neutrons. The laws of physics make this a very stable configuration, with a half-life of 4.46 billion years. In other words, it takes four and a half billion years for half of the sample of U238 you hold in your hand to decay. U-235, with 143 neutrons, is far more radioactive: it has a half-life of just 704 million years. Anti-nuclear activists, among whose number I count myself, will often view these long half-life statistics with alarm, as they imply the material being discussed will be radioactive for a mind-bogglingly long time. And that’s true. For your handful of U-238 to become completely non-radioactive, you’d need to wait maybe eleven times longer than the universe has existed so far. But very long half-lives mean relatively low radioactivity. Stable isotopes have the longest half-lives of all, at infinity and change. It’s the stuff with the short half-lives you have to watch out for. Out in the desert, the naturally occurring uranium mixed in with minerals such as zircons and apatites and such is approximately as dangerous as lead. You wouldn’t want to refine it and pour it on your cornflakes, but if you did the heavy metal poisoning would get you long before the radiation would.\n\nU-235 is a different matter: it’s what they make the bombs and nuclear power plants out of. U-235 spits out around seven times as much radiation as its heavier sibling, and is thus radioactive enough to support a self-sustaining chain reaction. U-238 isn’t. Of course, if you really want radioactive danger you turn to something like plutonium-239, which decays something like 200,000 times faster than U-238.\n\nBut U-238 does decay, and it does so at a known and predictable rate. Each decaying nucleus emits an alpha particle — a clump of two neutrons and two protons, a.k.a. a helium atom without its shell of electrons — to begin a cascade of decay, becoming one new unstable isotope after another as the nucleus tries to reach equilibrium. The first alpha emission transmutes the atom into thorium-234, which has a half-life of 24 days. The thorium-234 nucleus emits a beta particle, turning a neutron into a proton and raising its atomic number by one, and thus becomes protactinium-234. Protactinium-234 emits another beta particle to become the highly radioactive uranium-234, which emits an alpha particle to become thorium-230. Thorium begets radium; radium begets radon. Fourteen transmutations, in a cascade that can take a minute or millions of years, bring the decayed U-238 atom at long last to stable lead, 32 nucleons lighter. Eight alpha particles lighter.\n\nWhen that decaying atom is part of a larger hunk of rock, each of those departing alpha particles tears through the surrounding rock. The particle ionizes many of the molecules it passes, slowing down with each encounter until it finally comes to rest a few micrometers from its parent nucleus. That parent nucleus recoils like a rifle, doing a bit of ionizing of its neighbors as well. The result is a tiny ionized tunnel, sometimes as long as a thousandth of an inch, through the surrounding rock. Each ionized molecule is repelled from its newly ionized, like-charged neighbors, and the tunnel widens a bit. If that tunnel, or fission track, is in a piece of rock of more or less uniform characteristics — a crystal, say, or a bit of volcanic glass, to provide a little bit of uniform background — you could see the tracks with a cheap microscope.\n\nZircon often has a significant amount of U-238 in it. So do obsidian and mica and titanite. Apatite, a class of phosphate minerals that together make up one of the most common substances in the earth’s crust, is another mineral that reliably contains uranium. Each of these minerals displays fission tracks rather nicely. Researchers will polish and etch a surface, train a microscope on it, and count the tracks.\n\nApatites are interesting for a number of reasons. Our bones, it turns out, are a sophisticated composite material consisting of organic fibers and apatite nanocrystals. Bone apatite less resistant to acid than fluoroapatites, which is why dentists encourage us all to substitute fluorine atoms for the hydroxyl or carbonate ions in the apatites in our teeth. (Fluoroapatites also have less tensile strength than do the apatites in our bones, which is why people with lots of fluorine in their groundwater have more hip fractures later in life.) Apatite is a source of phosphorus for industrial fertilizer, and those of you who are alive when we run short on available phosphorus, probably in about thirty years, will probably see the price of apatite skyrocket as lots of people starve. (Peak Phosphorus will mandate organic agriculture the way Peak Oil will mandate bicycling.)\n\nApatite also does something interesting when its temperature begins to approach the boiling point of water: its crystalline structure relaxes ever so slightly. It begins at around 70°C (158°F): small imperfections, scratches, and gaps in the mineral begin to smooth over. Tiny little flaws in the rock, fission tracks included, are annealed. Eventually, they vanish. The higher the temperature, the faster the annealing: at about 400°C, some apatites anneal their fission tracks in the time it might take you to eat a leisurely lunch. At 70-100°C, the time scales needed tend more toward the geological than culinary. But rocks do have time in abundance.\n\nAll this means that if you have a sample of apatite of which you know the uranium content, you can count the number of unannealed fission tracks and divide by the rate at which fission tracks would be produced by the sample’s uranium content. The result: a chronometer of time elapsed since that material was heated past 100°C or so. Usually, that means burial under a whole lot of rock. The rule of thumb is that each kilometer below the surface adds about 25°C to the ambient temperature, so if you determine that the apatite crystals in your sandstone show six million years worth of fission tracks, and you’ve determined by, say, the fossil content of the rock that the rock was first formed forty million years ago, then you know that the rock was more than a mile beneath the surface when it was 33 million years old or so. It’s one thing to simply know the age of the rock you’re hefting, another to gain some insight into the evolution of the landscape from which the rock came. The layers that were above your sample may have eroded away completely, no vestige of them remaining anywhere on the earth, but you have tangible proof that they existed, and evidence of their magnitude.\n\nThe few kilograms of apatite I hope to leave behind as a minor mineral deposit in the desert when I die are unlikely to be of much use to future researchers: the crystals are too nano-, and besides in my lifetime the desert has had its share of fission tracks significantly enhanced. But the phosphorus in my bones does have an infinite half-life. It isn’t going anywhere. The patience of rocks is also infinite, and I have been pleased these last few months to imagine, some few dozens of millions of years hence, some of that phosphorus deep-buried, refined and metamorphosed. That part of what was me becomes fine green crystals. The crystals await their chance to cool. Uncovered, they begin to count out the age of the earth again.\n\nNot to scale\n\nThe Raven had come up to spend Thanksgiving in the desert, and we did. Rather than feasting, we whiled away that holiday with a long walk in the rainy creosote, watching dark winter storms trail through the Ivanpah Valley. Friday was taken up with moving belongings to my storage locker in Barstow.\n\nSaturday was my last full day in Nipton. So, of course The Raven and I spent most of the day not in Nipton. Instead, we headed for the Mitchell Caverns in the Providence Mountains, a visit to which I’d been promising her since she started spending time with me in the Mojave.\n\nWe stopped en route at my mailbox. The Post Office staff person was there, greeted us kindly, and asked again whether I was interested in her job. She’d offered it to me some time before, and I was tempted, but it would have been six days a week and four hours a day and less than ten bucks an hour to start and when I did the math the rosy romantic glow at the thought of becoming Cima’s postmaster faded in my mind. I told her I’d decided against it. Her attempt at PR thus made moot, she showed us a little of the conditions under which she was expected to work, including desk drawers full of rodent nests dating to the Eisenhower administration. Or perhaps the Pluvial.\n\nUp Cedar Canyon Road a ways, I decided we’d need to fill the Zheep’s gas tank before we went on any cave tour, and so — forgetting that Fenner and its gas pumps existed — we went on past the turnoff to the Providence Mountains State Recreation Area and made for Needles.\n\nWe made it back to the park just in time to watch the sold-out last tour of the day head up the trail to the cave mouth. Our disappointment was tempered by the presence of screaming kids on the tour. “One more reason to come back,” quoth The Raven.\n\nWe went uphill to the Visitor Center instead.\n\nThe Providence Mountains State Recreation Area’s visitor center is a sweet little underfunded place in an old cabin of stone and wooden beams, with your usual assortment of natural items from the area, tortoise shells and bighorn skulls and the like. One of the items on display is a very old leg bone, labeled carefully in the display as “from either a Harlans’ or Shasta ground sloth.” I was looking at the bone in its glass case. The Raven made a noise of choked astonishment.\n\n“Ground sloth leg bone,” I said, not particularly helpfully.\n\n“No,” she replied, “look. On top of the case.”\n\nIn a freestanding plastic photo frame atop the case was an image the park staff had Photoshopped to provide visitors with a sense of the size of your typical ground sloth.\n\nI got a copy of it.\n\nDetail, WT(ATS)MFF\n\nThere may be some readers here who don’t quite grasp the effect, on The Raven and me, of walking into a stray park visitor center and finding the above image in a paleontology exhibit. I can only explain by offering a link to this painting Carl Buell did of me and my dog Zeke and a friend a couple of years ago.\n\nI’m pretty sure I actually pushed my gaping jaw shut with my hand.\n\nA ranger was sitting at the information desk. I called out to him. “I have a question for you.” He looked up helpfully. I grabbed the photo frame and brought it over to him. “Does this guy look familiar to you?” It took him about ten seconds.\n\nIt was a nice chat, once he realized I wasn’t upset, and that the artist probably wasn’t going to be upset either. (He wasn’t.) And what else could The Raven and I do but stage a reenactment?\n\nA reenactment, sans Nothrotherium\n\nI spent the evening considering what meaning I should derive from the experience.\n\nI mean, visiting a natural history display in the Mojave Desert and finding myself as one of the exhibits? That has to mean something.\n\nMaybe I belong there.", "pred_label": "__label__1", "pred_score_pos": 0.7080441117286682}
+{"content": "Pi Hydrae (also known as Norkan) is a star system (spectral class K2III) in the Beta Quadrant, near the Romulan Neutral Zone, the origin point of the Norkan outposts, the theater of operations in the Romulan Star Empire's Norkan Campaign. (ST reference: Star Charts)\n\n\nAd blocker interference detected!\n\n", "pred_label": "__label__1", "pred_score_pos": 0.9953158497810364}
+{"content": "Item #4: Veteran-Owned Business List (\n\nAmong all the other things we have to be thankful for this time of year, let’s not overlook the sacrifices and contributions made by our fellow citizens that serve (or have served) in the Armed Forces.  Let’s also appreciate that the process of transitioning into civilian life can present an extra degree of difficulty for such individuals, given that many of the responsibilities and accomplishments involved in military service don’t readily “translate” into the private sector.\n\nIf you’re a veteran yourself, however, or know somebody with military service who is seeking a new opportunity, one great resource to steer them to is the website  As the name implies, this site provides a comprehensive list of all the organizations in the country that are owned by veterans, and as a result, one would hope and assume that a job candidate with military service under his/her belt would get farther, faster, in terms of pitching themselves to one of these enterprises.\n\nIf you visit the Washington State page on the site, for example, you’ll find hundreds and hundreds of diverse businesses listed — and to narrow these organizations down by industry and/or product category, as I’d recommend, you can simply hit CTRL-F and search for an appropriate keyword like wireless, engineering, software, retail, or the like.\n\nAdditionally, and along the same lines, I’d also recommend that veterans in transition visit the Advanced People Search page on LinkedIn and hunt for phrases like “armed forces” or “military service” or “veteran-owned” in the Keywords box.  Or search for terms like Army, Navy, or Air Force in the “School” or “Company” fields of the site.  Such searches represent yet another way a person with military service could proactively turn up the set of local contacts and employers most likely to understand their unique background—and where it might effectively translate into a viable career within the private sector.", "pred_label": "__label__1", "pred_score_pos": 0.923941433429718}
+{"content": "I sang in the car tonight to wake myself up, and it worked to a degree.\n\nI just closed my eyes and went with whatever came out. I stayed true to the main melody, coming back to it time and time again, after numerous departures and explorations.\n\nI juxtaposed odd combinations, for example, warm rhythms with the austerity of classical music, or a rapid twist from whatever is in our comfort zone to sticking our neck out and feeling very much alone, or abruptly doubling the rhythm and giving it a 6/8 feel while staying true to the main melody as well as to the \"explorations.\"\n\nTo listen to DailySing - 125, click here.", "pred_label": "__label__1", "pred_score_pos": 0.9994010329246521}
+{"content": "G is for Gertrude\n\nThough publishers originally deemed Gertrude Stein's To Do: A Book of Alphabets and Birthdays too complex for children, it's arguable that this whimsical survey of the ABCs, told though Stein's trademark repetitious and abstract style, was quite simply ahead of its time. Now, more than 70 years after its completion, Yale University Press has released the text with new commissioned artwork by New Yorker illustrator Giselle Potter. From Annie, Arthur, Albert, and a horse named Active, to a French girl called Zed who winds up in a zebra-painted world on her birthday,To Do is more than just a dizzying run through the alphabet. Consider it a concise and playful reader by one of the defining authors of modernist literature.\n\nAndrew Buckler Is Thinner Than You\n\nLa Pâtisserie des Rêves", "pred_label": "__label__1", "pred_score_pos": 0.5435703992843628}
+{"content": "What is Entrepreneurship and its importance and features ?\n\nEntrepreneurship is the tendency of a person to organize the business of his own and to run it profitably, using all the qualities of leadership, decisions making and managerial caliber etc. The term “entrepreneur” is often used interchangeably with “entrepreneurship”. But conceptually they are different.\n\nCampti Field of Dreams Inc. - Sustainable Entrepreneurship\n\nimage surce:\n\nIn a way, entrepreneur precedes entrepreneurship. It is concerned with the development and co-ordination of entrepreneurial functions.\n\nEntrepreneurship is an abstraction and entrepreneurs are tangible persons. Well designed and controlled research studies on entrepreneurship are very few. If we view entrepreneurship as opposed to management, it becomes still more difficult to define entrepreneurship.\n\n\nEntrepreneurship is a role played by or the task performed by the entrepreneur. The central task of the entrepreneur is to take moderate risk and invest money to earn profits by exploiting an opportunity. For this he must posses far-sightedness to perceive an opportunity so that he can exploit it well in time. Although an entrepreneur has to perform diverse functions yet he must manifest many qualities in himself to be a good entrepreneur.\n\nEntrepreneurship can be defined as the propensity of mind to take calculated risks with confidence to achieve a pre-determined business or industrial objective. That points out the risk taking ability coupled with decision making.\n\nThe word ‘entrepreneurship’ typically means to undertake. It owes its origin to the western societies. But even in the west, it has undergone changes from time to time. In the early 16th century, the term was used to denote army leaders. In the 18lh century, it was used to denote a dealer who buys and cells goods at uncertain prices. Towards 1961, Schumpeter, used the term innovator, for an entrepreneur. Two centuries before, the concept of entrepreneurship was shady. It is only in the recent years that entrepreneurship has been recognized widely all over the world like in USA, Germany, Japan and in the developing countries like ours. Gunnar Myrdal rightly pointed out that Asian societies lack entrepreneurship not because they lack money or raw materials but because of their attitudes. Till recently, in the west, the entrepreneurship is mainly an attribute of an efficient manager. But the success achieved by entrepreneurs in developing countries demolishes the contention that entrepreneur is a rare animal and an elusive character. In India, the definition of ‘an entrepreneur being the one who undertakes to organize, own and run a business’ has been accepted in a National Seminar on Entrepreneurship organized in Delhi in 1975. Still there has been no consensus on the definition of entrepreneurship and qualities of entrepreneurship.\n\nImportance of Entrepreneurship :\n\nEntrepreneurship being an intangible factor is the moving force and development is the consequence. It has an important role in the context of a developing nation like India which is confronted with major socio-economic problems. Entrepreneurship can play an important role not only in the industrial sector of a country but in the farm and service sectors also.\n\n\nIndia is being attacked by baffling problems of over population, unemployment, under-employment, poverty and the like. Entrepreneurship is consistently equated with the establishment and management of small business enterprises and setting up these units is the solution to these baffling problems.\n\nConcentration of economic power, regional imbalances, exploitation by monopolists, and many other giant problems find their solutions in the development of small scale industry which is another name of entrepreneurship in the developing countries. Mahatma Gandhi also asserted the same, entrepreneur ship has not grown much in India but it is gaining importance fast. The factors which retard the success of entrepreneurship in India are inadequate infrastructural facilities, shortage of capital, technical knowledge, and transport, absence of cheap and good quality raw material and shortage of power etc. The government has been taking significant steps to encourage entrepreneurship as entrepreneurship is the only solution to various problems of developing countries. Entrepreneurship caught strong waves during the last three decades and became a worldwide movement spreading across countries, regardless of their level of development. Even in Europe and United States, revival of small business has been seen for more than a decade. Constant change and innovations are simply a necessity of entrepreneurship and is becoming essential to survive in a global economy. An American magazine ‘The Economist’ (1999) recently put it, “Innovation has become the industrial religion of the late 20th Century.” It is being increasingly realized that’ day’s managers and businessmen need not only managerial skills but entrepreneurial skills as well. Entrepreneurship needs to be demystified and transformed into a skill by teaching and practicing. Skill of entrepreneurship knows how to turn an ordinary corporation, managed in a routine manner, into an entrepreneurial organization. People within the organization can be trained to :\n\n(i) detect the opportunities\n\n(ii) Pursue the opportunities and rewarded\n\n(iii) to lesson the consequences of failing.\n\nFeatures of Entrepreneurship :\n\nEntrepreneurship is the tendency of a person to organize the business of his own and to run it profitably, using various traits like leadership, decision making, innovation, managerial caliber etc. Entrepreneurship is a set of activities performed by an entrepreneur In a way, entrepreneur precedes entrepreneurship. The main features of entrepreneurship are as follows :\n\n(i) Economic Activity : Although classical economists like Adam Smith and Richard Cantillon and many others didn’t recognize entrepreneurship as an economic activity but since last few decades entrepreneurship is catching up and is primarily becoming an economic function because it involves creation and operation of an enterprise.\n\n\nSchumpeter’s argument was that all important changes in the economy are set off by an entrepreneur and then these changes slowly work themselves through economic system, in the form of a business cycle.\n\n(ii) Innovative Activity : According to Schumpeter, entrepreneurship is essentially a creative and an innovative activity. There are five ways of being innovative.\n\n(a) The introduction of a new good ;\n\n(b} The introduction of a new method of production ;\n\n(c) Opening of a new market ;\n\n(d) The conquest of a new source of supply of raw-material ;\n\n(e) The creation of a new organization of an industry.\n\nSchumpeter’s entrepreneur combines already existing materials and thereby produces something novel and innovative. It is only at that very moment when some one actually puts together such a combination that he is engaged in entrepreneurship. He suggests that it is very useful to study the constitutive parts of entrepreneurship, different motives that drive the entrepreneur and the main types of innovative behavior that entrepreneurship may result in.\n\nEntrepreneurs tend to tackle the unknown; they do things in new and different ways’ they weave old ideas into new patterns; they offer more solutions than exercises. However, just to be innovative is not enough unless that innovation is carried into production to benefit consumers.\n\n(iii) A Function of High Achievement : McClelland identified two features of entrepreneurship, (a) doing things in a different and better way; (b) decision making under uncertainty. People having high need for achievement are more likely to succeed as entrepreneurs. Psychological theories assert that people’s capacity for entrepreneurship is decisively influenced by the way they are socialized as children.\n\nDavid McClelland stressed that entrepreneurs are highly motivated by challenging and competitive work situations.\n\n(iv) Creative and Purposeful Activity : Entrepreneurship is virtually a creative, and purposeful activity. Entrepreneurship is a creative response to the changing environment. Earning profit may not be the sole objective but introduction of something creative and new is the purpose of entrepreneurship. The benefit of this creativity must be enjoyed by people at large.\n\n(v) Entrepreneurship : An Organizing Function : As J.B. Say says : The entrepreneurs function is to combine the productive factors, to bring them together. According to him, an entrepreneur is one, who combines the land of one, the labour of another, and capital of yet another, and thus, produces a product. By selling the product in the market, he pays interest on capital, rent on land, wages to labourers and what remains is his profit. Thus, J.B. Say clearly distinguishes between the role of a capitalist as a financer and the entrepreneur as an organiser.\n\nMarshall also advocated the significance of organisation among the services of special class of business undertakers.\n\n(vi) Entrepreneurship : A function of Risk-Bearing : Richard Cantillon, an Irishman living in France, defined entrepreneur who buys factors of production with a view to sell it at uncertain prices in future. Cantillon concerned of an entrepreneur as a bearer of non-insurable risk. Thus, Cantillon introduces elements of direction and speculation into the function of entrepreneurship.\n\nEntrepreneurship is a dynamic and multi-dimensional concept. It is both an art as well science. It is more an art than science. In short, Entrepreneurship is what entrepreneurs do.\n", "pred_label": "__label__1", "pred_score_pos": 0.9879366755485535}
+{"content": "Category Archives: MFin\n\nTrade and the global economy\n\nIn part of my new MFin elective Understanding the Global Economy and Financial System I explore the changing views of economists on international trade, which has been one of the most powerful causes of global economic growth over centuries. * The traditional view of trade – correct but incomplete The reason why trade works is specialisation. If… Continue Reading\n\nWhy are some countries richer than others?\n\nThe first part of my new MFin elective Understanding the World Economy and Financial System next term will explore the question, why are some countries richer than others? * One of the most important, interesting but hotly contested questions in economics is, why are some countries richer than others? The world is astonishingly unequal; the life… Continue Reading\n\nThree interesting facts about Chinese monetary history\n\nFormer IMF Chief Economist Eswar Prasad’s excellent book Gaining Currency – The Rise of The Renminbi starts with a fascinating chapter on China’s monetary history, the longest by far of any country. The book is ultimately a persuasive answer to the question, will the RMB become a leading international currency? His answer is yes, but only… Continue Reading\n\nWhat is helicopter money?\n\nThe possibility that central banks might resort to extreme monetary measures, including helicopter money, is much debated in monetary policy circles. But what is “helicopter money”? * In normal times, central banks in developed countries try to control inflation and the level of economic activity by controlling the short term interest rate. But since the… Continue Reading\n\nClassifying funds: the type of contract – is it equity or debt?\n\nAnother way to classify funds that are provided by a saver to an investor is whether they are in the form of debt or equity. These are the two main forms of contract through which one person or company can provide funding to another. Note that governments, which are very important actors in the financial system, can only… Continue Reading\n\nKey financial concepts: securities\n\nSecurities are a very important and useful piece of financial technology, including bank notes, shares and bonds. They make possible a wide range of financial transactions and provide competition to the other main source of funding, banks. * A security is a certificate representing a contract between two or more people which promises to pay… Continue Reading\n\nKey finance concepts: exchange rates\n\nExchange rates are among the most important macrofinancial prices, influencing many aspects of an economy. This post introduces exchange rates and their importance for macroeconomic adjustment * What is an exchange rate? An exchange rate is a ratio, the price of one currency relative to another. All prices are ratios, but normally they’re expressed in… Continue Reading\n\nDavie Bowie innovated in finance too\n\nDavid Bowie, among his many other creative achievements, was an innovator in finance, with the first ever intellectual property rights securitisation. * Nearly everyone seems to have been affected by the death of David Bowie, a uniquely creative and influential musical artist. I’ll add my own personal memories to the list. I think the first… Continue Reading\n\nThe IMF includes the RMB in the SDR basket\n", "pred_label": "__label__1", "pred_score_pos": 0.9504477381706238}
+{"content": "Sheela Berry and Jessica Green have been friends since school. Sheela is mother to Ethan and Rafi, and Jessica to Jonah and Isadora. Between them they have bought and thrown away more toys than they would care to remember.\n\nJessica has worked in the TV and Film industry since university, and Sheela has run her own successful music PR company for over ten years.", "pred_label": "__label__1", "pred_score_pos": 0.9700726866722107}
+{"content": "Home / Politics / We are All Egoists – and Why That’s a Good Thing\n\nWe are All Egoists – and Why That’s a Good Thing\n\nMany of those who end up exploring the political fringe – particularly on the Right – end up obsessed with various forms of what might loosely be called egocentricity. In those of a libertarian bent, this usually expresses itself as an obsession with contrasting honorable “individualism” against slavish “collectivism.” In the more anarchic and nihilistic types, it often expresses itself as an obsession with contrasting proud “egoism” against naïve “altruism.”\n\nAs an example of a typical statement from the former type, we can cite Ayn Rand in the January 1944 edition of Reader’s Digest: “Collectivism means the subjugation of the individual to a group – whether to a race, class or state does not matter. Collectivism holds that man must be chained to collective action and collective thought for the sake of what is called ‘the common good.’”\n\nThe problem with a characterization like this is that Ayn Rand wants to “subjugate the individual to the group” as well – the sole difference being that she wants to subjugate different individuals to a different group, for different reasons.\n\nIn The Virtue of Selfishness she writes, “Individual rights are the means of subordinating society to moral law.” “Society?” Doesn’t it border on becoming a fallacy of the stolen concept for Rand to use that word? According to her, “Society is [merely] a large number of men . . .” And the very problem with “collectivism” is that it “see[s] society as a super-organism, as some supernatural entity apart from and superior to the sum of its individual members.” What we’re really talking about here is still nothing other than imposing restrictions – violations of which will be met with violence – in how one individual is allowed to relate to another. If she had been asked about why it is that I cannot kill a random person if I would really enjoy doing it, and if I were certain that I would never suffer any adverse consequences from doing so in the future (say, because no one would ever find out), and could even walk away with spoils from the deed, Rand’s answer can’t ultimately be any more coherent than the so-called “collectivist’s” rationale concerning why I cannot stop paying taxes. The differences wouldn’t lie in the reasoning they use so much as in what it is they decide to apply that reasoning to.\n\nAnd the reason for that is simple: when it comes down to it, Rand likewise wants to live in a “collective” which – to some degree “altruistically” – acts to defend a certain kind of social order. She simply wants that social order to be centered upon a Right-wing conception of human rights rather than a Left-wing conception of human well-being. And she understands perfectly well that the individuals who comprise this social order would have to sacrifice some of their desires if they were to fulfill their greater desire to live within this type of society – namely, they would have to avoid actions that would “violate individual rights,” even if they would tangibly benefit both in the present and long-term from doing so.\n\nShe tries to get around this by engaging in some very unimpressive rationalization of the claim that there are “no conflicts of interests among rational men.” But this premise is self-evidently absurd, and it can be demonstrated in less than ten short sentences: I come across a homeless man under a bridge. I am a sadist, and I would enjoy torturing him for an hour and killing him. No one would ever find out. He has “an interest” in staying alive. I have “an interest” in killing him. We therefore have a conflict of interests. Trying to deny that situations like this occur in the real world is as preposterous as claiming to have used a philosophical argument to disprove the existence of gravity.\n\nTo briefly address the “reasoning” she uses to try to defend this claim: “A man’s ‘interests’ depend on the kind of goals he chooses to pursue, his choice of goals depends on his desires, his desires depend on his values – and, for a rational man, his values depend on the judgment of his mind . . . A rational man never holds a desire or pursues a goal which cannot be achieved directly or indirectly [i.e., by trading] by his own effort . . . He never seeks or desires the unearned . . . The mere fact that two men desire the same job does not constitute proof that either of them is entitled to it or deserves it, and that his interests are damaged if he does not obtain it.” (The Virtue of Selfishness, pp. 50-56)\n\nThe first major problem with this bit of sophistry is that it conflates deserving with having interests. Whether my interests are damaged by failing to acquire a job has nothing to do with whether I “deserved” it, much less whether I deserved it equally as much as my competitor. I literally have “an interest” in taking the job if taking it would benefit me, and whether the job would benefit me (and is therefore in my interests) has nothing to do with how much I “deserve” it. The second major problem is that the definition of “rational” applied here is completely unclear, and is thus really nothing more than a crooked stick rigged to try to prop up the incoherency of the whole philosophical system. “A rational man . . . never seeks or desires the unearned”? Would a “rational man” not only refuse to pick up a million dollars he found lying on the side of the road, but in fact never even desire to, according to Rand’s definition? Then damn near everyone has a completely different understanding than the one Rand proposes in terms of what it means to be “rational,” namely one that comprehends the first point: that what a person’s interests are and what a person deserves are at best only tangentially related.\n\nWith that specious excuse out of the way, we’re back to the fact that Ayn Rand, too, wants to be part of a collective. And she does indeed want people to practice “altruism” by sacrificing some of their interests in order to acquire their greater interest in maintaining a collective social order which is cemented upon the principles she puts forward. What she proposes is a type of social contract just as much as are the views of Hobbes or Rousseau. She simply proposes different terms for the contract, demanding different requirements from its parties, and different benefits in exchange for meeting those requirements.\n\nThe more nihilistic and anarchic brand of egoists – who are often iconoclastic admirers of the nineteenth-century philosopher Max Stirner, whose The Ego and Its Own helped inspire Nietzsche – will have already concluded that Ayn Rand’s “individual rights” are nothing more than a “spook” to which people irrationally sacrifice themselves, which is right on par with all of the other “spooks” Ayn Rand already condemns: religion, the state, “society.” As Ulrike Heider explains in her survey, of Anarchism: Left, Right, and Green, Stirner wants to abolish “not only the state but also society as an institution responsible for its members.” Thus, he would abandon not just the idea of society as an institution responsible for its members’ well-being, along with Rand, he would also abandon the Randian or libertarian idea of society as an institution responsible for protecting its members’ rights.\n\nWhat Stirner’s admirers miss, however, is that when the masses of people reject this brand of egoism, they are already in fact behaving “egoistically.” In my time within libertarian and anarchist circles, I’ve seen countless pasty white men in their early 20s acting dumbfounded that people are attacking them for endorsing this brand of pure egoism: “Why would people be offended by the suggestion that they should look out for their own interests?!” What they’ve failed to wrap their minds around is that the vast majority of psychologically healthy people want to be part of a community, and are therefore already acting precisely as “egoists” in their pursuit of that goal when they condemn the self-proclaimed “egoist.”\n\nFrom romantic relationships, to families, to community clubs, and even political movements, we spend the better part of our lives not just in but seeking prolonged relationships that require the sacrifice of whatever momentary value we might gain from indulging some of our desires in order to preserve our greater desire for the continuing value derived from a communal relationship. Relationships and communities, both public and private, are thus a type of commons – and single-minded pursuit of transient self-interest thus leads to a tragedy of the commons just as much as it does when cows graze on unregulated common land. I may have a transient interest in stealing a few groceries, for example, but I have an even greater interest in being able to live in a society where groceries are sold in open aisles instead of under lock-and-key beneath the watchful eye of CCTV cameras. Stirner’s is the philosophy of the run-down inner city; when actually lived by, it leads to a world in which none but the most nihilistic thugs and anarchic ruffians actually want to live.\n\nThus, the contempt directed by some towards the Stirnerites seems to me to be perfectly justified by the fact that what the Stirnerite is really signaling – if he is indeed signaling anything at all – is an unwillingness to compromise in order to maintain values that others would like to preserve within the shared social commons. What differentiates the Stirnerite from others is not that the Stirnerite is a woke egoist, whereas everyone else is acting mindlessly. What the Stirnerite is saying is that he “egoistically” desires and intends to take actions that would put him at odds with the sort of social commons those around him would like to maintain. Meanwhile, those around him are responding that if that is indeed the case, then they intend to just as “egoistically” run him out of that commons in order to preserve the things they value in it. Wouldn’t it be a detestable form of altruism for them to sacrifice the commons they desire just for him? And would it not be pathetic for a declared egoist to beg for altruistic sacrifice from those around him?\n\nThe obsessions that occasionally spring up, especially within the political Right, in relation to “egoism” versus “altruism,” or “individualism” versus “collectivism,” are complete red herrings. The truth is that these obsessions emerge not because there is any real, fundamental dichotomy between the two, but simply because we find ourselves at odds with the particular kinds of commons those around us prefer. All of us, even the most self-sacrificing Christian socialist, are “egoistic individualists,” attempting to form the sorts of communities we wish to live in because life in such communities is what we desire. Likewise, all of us, even Ayn Rand, are “altruistic collectivists” because what all of us desire is a community in which both we and others sacrifice some things  – whether it is the right to keep our entire paycheck, or the right to kill random people we find alone in dark alleyways – in order to maintain and secure others. This is the case regardless of whether we are discussing a society that aims to secure certain levels of well-being or a society that aims to protect certain kinds of rights.\n\nThe divide is not between “egoistic individualists” and “altruistic collectivists.” It is rather between immature, anti-social, or sociopathic “egoistic individualists” who obsess with those terms and labels in order to signal immaturity, anti-sociality, and sociopathy, and “egoistic individualists” who understand that their enlightened self-interest lies in maintaining a certain kind of social order which requires placing limits on their behavior so that others might do the same in order to secure greater shared, lasting benefits for all within a flourishing social commons. The differences lie in what kinds of “altruism” we request from those around us, and are willing to submit to ourselves, in order to obtain what type of social collective to live within. The differences lie not in whether we propose a social contract, but rather to what terms we’re willing to submit in order to reap which societal gains.\n\nOne benefit of framing this issue in a better way is that it makes it clearer that there is no objectively, universally correct answer to these questions: different people are going to be willing (or unwilling) to sacrifice different kinds of things in order to create different kinds of communities, not to mention the fact that different people are going to have what it takes to build particular kinds of communities more so than others. Ironically, Austrian-style libertarian proponents of the “subjective theory of value” should be the most inclined to understand this: different people put different values on having different kinds of “rights” protected, thus achieving different kinds of outcomes – including when it comes to economics.\n\nAllowing for the creation of communities possessing a relatively large degree of “authoritarianism” within, and a relatively large degree of freedom from interference without, is the only way to even begin to move in the direction of allowing a meaningful form of “diversity” to flourish once again in the world. When it comes down to it, we are all “authoritarians” by someone else’s lights; if given the option, we would all impose by force the sort of society we would prefer to live in over others, namely those who hold preferences different from ours and would likewise impose theirs by force over us. As Jack Donovan puts it, “violence is golden.” And this is no less true for someone like Ayn Rand than they are for the Social Justice Warrior. Of course, in the end, the consistent Stirnerian “egoist” would likely have trouble finding any community which desires his presence unless he effectively converts to some practical philosophy other than “egoism” as such. This, in the end, is why politics is more susceptible to the bias of tribal emotions than science, philosophy, or other fields: the first task of any real “political philosophy” is to define a community – and then, to negotiate terms. Those who deliberately eschew the very notion of community, or else are removed from or simply lack the capacity to demonstrate their value to one, therefore have no place in any “political” realm. And it’s very likely that this explains why Stirner’s so-called “union of egoists” has never manifested and why anarchists have so rarely built any meaningful organizations in the real world (though there have been a few), and why even organizations such as the Libertarian Party have only been marginally more successful.\n\nOur first task then, if we want to become a serious movement, is literally to create communities. Forming authentic, spontaneous networks of personal relationships is to creating a political movement as tilling soil is to creating a garden: it is the prerequisite for building the foundation out of which everything else will ultimately be grown. Then, we must draw clear boundaries regarding what it is we are asking from those who want to join our ranks, and what we have to offer them if they’re willing to meet our requirements. The stronger our communities become, and the greater the standards of loyalty and cooperation we can maintain between ourselves, the more compelling our offers will become. These are the standards to keep in mind when outsiders dox, harass, or otherwise attempt to pit us against one another. We’ve grown substantially stronger recently by demonstrating to outsiders how ready the Left is to “eat its own,” as we see when the various special interest groups attempt to form coalitions, only to turn against each other when one trespasses on the perceived territory of another; for example, when “anti-racists” condemn “feminists” as harshly as they condemn any other perceived racist for their emphasis on combating the abuse and rape of women among blacks.\n\nIf we want to be able to make better offers as a community to ordinary people than the Left, and to continue to grow through the authentic and spontaneous evolution of our sphere of influence, then we need to do everything in our power to make sure that this critique doesn’t become applicable to us.\n\n  • Nemon\n\n\n    There is a distinction which is being missed here (whether intentional on Rand’s part or not). Class and state are products of certain forms of economic and political organization. Race is an organic factor. One can abolish the state or revolutionize the classes. But race will still be there as long as the genes exist. Even if only one White person lived on the planet, that individual would still be White.\n\n    In any event, if Objectivism opposes collectivism, then there ought to be an Objectivist critique of the various race-based leftist identity groups, especially given their rent-seeking behaviors. When was the last time that Objectivists went after, say, the NAACP on anything more than a perfunctory note? It’s easy enough to attack White identity politics as “barnyard collectivism” because that is the Establishment position, and because White people in America are not organized as a racial group. But to attack, say, “diversity” programs or affirmative action would lead to a firestorm of resistance from the non-White collectives as well as, perhaps, egregious violations of the non-aggression principle on the latter’s part.\n\n    The practical result of the cited statement is to serve as a check on Whites organizing for their own self-interests. This is not to say there is no value in Rand’s advocacy of the individual. We might posit the heroic White man/woman of the mind, building a fantastic new civilization. But that brings back the racial-group factor, doesn’t it?", "pred_label": "__label__1", "pred_score_pos": 0.788320004940033}
+{"content": "Hello kitty!\n\n\n\nFound this very detailed pattern.\n\n\nI added one round to make it squared, did the sides with dc and the top and bottom with tc.\n\nI am planning a baby blanket and a small purse for the big sister (who loves hello Kitty)", "pred_label": "__label__1", "pred_score_pos": 0.8202224373817444}
+{"content": "Abhishake Yadav Abhishake Yadav - 8 months ago 66\nBash Question\n\nusing sqlite3 in for loop in shell script gives error\n\nNeed to query a certain value from each file in a directory and put it in a file. I use the code:\n\n\nls -lrt | grep -w \"458752\" | awk '{print $9}' | sort -V > list\n\nfor linename in cat list\n\n/d/home/alima0152/Desktop/sqlite3 $linename \"select trace_count from volume\"; >> trc_count\n\n\nrm list\n\nBut I get this error:\n\nfile is encrypted or is not a database\n\n\nThis code is trying to open the files cat and list.\n\nTo execute something and insert its output, use `...` or $(...):\n\nfor linename in $(cat list)", "pred_label": "__label__1", "pred_score_pos": 0.9333788156509399}
+{"content": "As a medievalist from the nouveau riche city-state of Singapore, I rarely need to be reminded how irrelevant my chosen subject can be to the average person on the street. Medieval history can often resemble a weathered castle high up on a hill – looming, majestic and probably important once upon a time, but largely meaningless to the passing observer lacking any specialised knowledge. When my contemporaries consider anything from the 1980s ‘old’ and when the study of history itself is being pushed increasingly to the sidelines in favour of more ‘practical’ subjects, I have a difficult time convincing anyone that my love for medieval history is not a waste of energy. The problem is compounded further since the Anglo-Saxon period belongs to that primordial chaos of European history broadly tarred as ‘The Dark Ages’. Too early for knights yet too late for Rome, the word ‘Anglo-Saxon’ is more widely used as a racial signifier for the people of Britain and America than a defined historical period. And an inhabitant of a post-colonial nation studying ‘Anglo-Saxon history’ can sound more than a little traitorous to his countrymen.\n\nIt is hoped that this site will contribute to the wider efforts to transform attitudes towards the Anglo-Saxon period. We cannot risk going about our usual business as academic historians, bickering over interpretations and schools of thought between themselves while very little of this information is transmitted beyond the realm of academia. With recent belt-tightening measures hurting funding across the humanities, we are at risk of devouring each other like starving prisoners in a dank dungeon fighting bitterly over the last piece of stale bread that will do little to rescue us from our collective doom. A jailbreak is in order, and it is hoped that this blog will contribute to the wider efforts to make the Anglo-Saxon period accessible to the non-specialist in the way that, say, Roman history or the two world wars have captured the imagination of the public. Evidently, I betray my youthful exuberance and idealism, but better to have tried and failed than not to have tried at all.", "pred_label": "__label__1", "pred_score_pos": 0.9468551278114319}
+{"content": "Just Decide Already\n\nIt all leads to the same place.\n\nIf you never had to make a tough decision again, would it lessen the quality of your life? If you could turn back the hands of time and re-choose your choices, would it serve you in the long run? Does the famed and extremely comforting idea of “keeping our options open” actually provide us with any solace?\n\nThe ideas behind these questions were spurred from an article a friend shared on Facebook.  It focuses on the idea that reversible decisions are less conducive to happiness than decisions we stand behind. The article touches on psychosomatic concepts describing how the mind can adapt to any given situation, making the present situation the best possible outcome. On the other hand, keeping your options open creates an endless query of uncertainty. This unknowable outcome produces stress, distraction, and ultimately unhappiness.\n\nDeciding to not to decide is one of the worst decisions to make. I know this from experience.\n\nMy life circa summer 2009.\n\nThe mother lode of life-altering choices came to me just after graduating college in Southern California. I had been in a ridiculously long-distance relationship with a woman from halfway across the world. For most of my entire senior year, I was hell bent on leaving everything I ever knew behind and transforming myself into an Argentine. As the months drew closer and summer approached, I crossed paths with an old fling that never really took off. Well, needless to say, it began to take off.\n\nI was stuck in the middle of two roads and time was running out. On top of this, I felt horrible. I tried to deny the problem and enjoy the moment, but behind every action, was a thousand pounds of guilt. I will never understand how men can be proud of cheating. Anyways that is another story.\n\nI had a decision to make. I could clearly see down each path and they were as opposite as day and night. To make matters worse, I decided to keep both doors open as long as I could. I would have been better off trying to eat soup with a fork. Not only was I unsuccessful, but I had changed my mind about 100 times a day. The stress was building and I could no longer decipher what I actually wanted. I felt responsible for the lives of three people, and I was blowing it on every account.\n\nNot exactly effective.\n\nIt finally began to be too much, to the point of breaking down. I didn’t remember who I was. I felt like I had a growing lump of coal burning a whole through my stomach. I knew I was afraid to leave my family and the life I had known for years, so I decided to stay in California.\n\nAs soon as I made this decision, the weight lifted. I became a new born soul, ready to live up to my choice. I had not an ounce of proof that the choice I made was correct, but I had all the time in the world to prove it. Within the first two weeks, I had already chosen to see how beautiful my life was going to be and how unfitting it would have been had I chosen the other direction. My mind was adapting to my new reality.\n\nThe choices in life do not matter as much as we lead our selves to believe. Surely, there are some decisions where a definite yes or no is understood, but in the more ambiguous choices, the most important factor is commitment. Once committed, we can begin to fulfill our decisions.\n\nThe part that we most often do not understand is that the illusion of choice—the idea that one path will lead us to something different than the other—holds us back from moving forward. In any given decision, the outcome will equate to the same result. This may be difficult to understand, especially in the example I have given between Argentina and California, but when you decide to change the focus from the decision at hand to the person deciding, a different story unfolds.\n\nOh the choices!\n\nAlthough the choices may look different, the one deciding them is the same. Any decision made will reflect the state of the person deciding. So whether I choose to move to Argentina or stay in California, I will attract exactly what I am already attracting. This is not to say that once I have lived in either place I will not have different experiences, but in the moment of choice, either decision will bring forth the same exact result. The choice at hand is a product of who I was in the past. In this light, the decision has already been made.\n\nIt is not choosing the correct path that is required, but choosing a path. All paths are correct. This is the same concept behind spirituality. Every spiritual practice is valid. There are infinite ways to reach Enlightenment/God/Satori/etc. It is not the path you choose, but the fervor for which you traverse it.\n\nSo choose. And stay committed. Don’t look back and steady on. The path you are on is correct because you are on it. There is no judgement, only progression or stagnation. Move forward and you will reach your goal.\n\nThe key to happiness is commitment.\n\nUnlock the door.\n\nWhy My Diet is Better Than Yours\n\n\nHere’s an article of mine that just went up on elephantjournal.com\n\nOne reason: Because it’s mine.\n\n\n\n\nClick here for the full article.\n\nThe Language of Food\n\nIf you’ve ever listened to a banana, it probably didn’t say anything to you.  If it did, then you most likely don’t need to read this blog as you’re much beyond the subversive language of food (that or you’re high as a kite).  However, for the rest of us, learning to understand the meaning of food is a much more subtle task.\n\nMost people eat food.  In fact, I’m positive that almost everyone—save those breezy breatharians—eats something.  Usually the process involves chewing, swallowing, and then a mad dash back to the crazy schedule of life.  The intention of food is thus focused on sustenance: energy needed to get through the day.  This is certainly one quality of food.  Yet there exists other unnoticed meanings of food that transcend physical health and speak to the greater tenants of existence.\n\nCan’t get enough of that air flavored ice cream\n\nIt’s mid-December and in the world of academia, its time to start handing in final papers.  So for the last month, I have been absorbing as much information pertaining to food and its relationship to the human experience as possible.  I have found an enormous amount of knowledge that defines food as a means of communication; a form of language.  Most commonly understood, food can relay messages of culture, nature, society, the individual, and the greater world.  Where the discourse falls short is about foods capacity to express the language of the universe.\n\nFood as the universe?  What?  How could my shy, little banana possibly tell me something about the universe? Well, in Vedic philosophy it goes like this: food is the embodiment of the Self (macro) and in its relationship to the human self (micro) it can reveal the tendencies of the ultimate reality.  Now to those of you peeking behind that banana peel looking for equation of the unified field, put the down the banana and read this quote:\n\nGod permeates the soul just as oil permeates a sesame seed ~Vasudev from the Upanishad\n\nVasudev was the father of Krishna, seen here being an awesome dad.\n\nThis small quote carries an epic message: as is the food, so is the thought. Or more specifically, as is the food, so is the universal human experience. In its complete, holistic nature, food reveals our perfection.  Just as a bruised banana embodies the universe, the imperfect soul is an expression god.  The language of food can be heard through its simple, yet perfected existence.\n\nThe human experience is a reflection of the universal experience.  Everything in existence is a reflection of truth, meaning there are no differences.  To quote Bob Marley, “One love, one heart, one destiny.”  And one food.\n\nSo if everything in the universe can speak this language, how is food any different from the rest? Well, because the food we eat becomes a vibrational AND physical part of us.\n\nJust like sound current affects one’s frequency, food can affect one’s consciousness.  That means that choosing between an industrially farmed triple-sized BigMac and an organically grown, home-cooked vegetarian meal is certainly going to have an impact on the way you think.  Mental clarity, perception, mood, and communication are just a few of the areas affected by food.  And not only does food influence our thoughts, but it controls our physical bodies.  Responsible for creating matter, dictating health, and supplying nutrition, food—unlike any other object in the universe—becomes a material part of us.  It is truly the connection between the tangible and the intangible.\n\nDoesn’t this mean you’d want to eat food that is of the highest universal vibration?  I’d surely think so.  That means that banana you were just having a one-sided conversation with should probably be an organic one. It also means that food treated like a commodity, infused with the stress of commercial kitchens, or devoid of anything resembling nature should be avoided.  Well, I shouldn’t say that.  Instead, I suggest if you want to achieve a greater cosmological existence, you should strive to eat better food.  Otherwise, do as you please.  The inorganic banana judges no one.", "pred_label": "__label__1", "pred_score_pos": 0.6955437660217285}
+{"content": "Investment Philosophy    A Speculators Dream     Market Commentary     Commodities Investing        \n\n               Blue Chip Equities     Portfolio Management      Forex Trading      Property Market Analysis \n\nInvestment is without a doubt the 2nd most important aspect of your personal life after your career. We can apply the term Investment broadly in the sense that its giving time, talent or energy towards the achievement of some purpose. This might include a business, stocks, perhaps even self improvement and health, in as much as these are activities that extend our lives. I will deal with the broader implications in this blog, and here I will restrict myself to the art of money making.\n\nThe great importance I place on investment rests on the premise that 'money makes money' and if you take an average salary of $60,000, after 10 years of savings, you might well be making as much money on your investments as your primary income. Depending on your career advancement, the prospects for your investment portfolio might look even brighter than your career prospects. The implication is that if you manage your money well you might be able to retire after 15 years of work.\n\nThis is however a hard call. Your capacity to make money depends on so many factors. I will expand on these points in more detail, however your capacity to make money depends on:\n\n1. Knowledge - Your capacity to find investments that offer higher yields or capital growth is critical. There is a misconception that risk is inversely weighted to reward, but this ignores the fact that risk is a element of knowledge management, so risk is not equal. Thus the market value for risky investments is lower for a technician than a layperson.\n\n2.Investment strategy - If you want to make money you can't haphazardly throw money at the market like its a crap game. You need a strategy based on evidence and the knowledge you are accumulating. It goes without saying tha your yields should improve over time due to developing expertise and growth in your asset base.\n\n3.Market timing - Its easier to expand your wealth during periods of economic expansion and easier to loose it during periods of economic contraction.\n\n4.Investment psychology - Some people might have a great knowledge and an excellent strategy, but they are unable to convert their strategy into action. Basically the state of their psychology prevents them from executing their plan, or their psychology undermines their outcomes. Their psychology might be motivated by self-righteousness (validation), or a fear response.\n\nTake a look at the links above to discover some of the investment strategies and tools I use for investing purposes.\n\nThere are several types of analysis that I employ to assess the different markets.\n\n1. Fundamental Analysis\n\nI use my knowledge of geology, mining engineering, metals and energy to make investments in mining stocks and commodities. This bottom-up approach to fundamentals involves estimates of future mining revenues or earnings.\n\n2. Technical Analysis\n\nI use my knowledge of charts to identify trends, as well as support & resistance levels. Understanding candle sticks is another useful tool I use.\n\n3. Economic Analysis\n\nI use a top-down fundamentals analysis to get a picture of the future direction of the market, starting with the bond market, then looking at property, equities, retail spending and commodities.", "pred_label": "__label__1", "pred_score_pos": 0.9017089605331421}
+{"content": "Odireleng Martin Ntwaeaborwa\n\nLearn More\nZinc oxide (ZnO) thin films were deposited on silicon substrates by a sol-gel method using the spin coating technique. The ZnO films were annealed at 700°C in an oxygen environment using different annealing times ranging from 1 to 4 h. It was observed that all the annealed films exhibited a hexagonal wurtzite structure. The particle size increased from 65(More)\nTerbium (Tb(3+)) doped zinc oxide (ZnO:Tb(3+)) thin films were grown on silicon (100) substrates by the pulsed laser deposition technique at different deposition times that varied from 15 to 55min. The effects of deposition time on the structural and optical properties of the ZnO:Tb(3+) films were investigated by X-ray diffraction, scanning electron(More)\nThe study of the fabrication of ultra-high sensitive and selective room temperature ammonia (NH3) and nitrogen dioxide (NO2) gas sensors remains an important scientific challenge in the gas sensing field. This is motivated by their harmful impact on the human health and environment. Therefore, herein, we report for the first time on the gas sensing(More)\nEuropium doped TiO2 (TiO2:Eu3+) down-shifting (DS) nanophosphors (NPrs) were synthesized by the solution-combustion method with different concentrations of Eu3+. The X-ray diffraction results confirmed the formation of a polycrystalline tetragonal structure of the TiO2. The emission of colour of the TiO2:Eu3+ DS NPr was tuned by varying the doping(More)\nTerbium (Tb(3+)) doped zinc oxide (ZnO) or (ZnO:Tb(3+)) thin films were grown on silicon substrates by the pulsed laser deposition technique at different growth temperatures that were varied from room temperature (RT) to 400°C. The effects of substrate temperature on the structural and optical properties of the ZnO:Tb(3+) films were investigated by X-ray(More)\nThe structure, particle morphology and luminescent properties of europium (Eu3+) doped ZnO nanoparticles (NPs) prepared by co-precipitation method are discussed. When excited using a 325nm He-Cd laser, undoped ZnO NPs exhibited weakly the well-known ultraviolet excitonic recombination emission (at ~384nm) and strongly broad band visible emissions associated(More)\nA scintillation cell and a portable radiation spectrometer for radon progeny were respectively employed to measure the concentration of radon and that of its progeny in the underground gold mine environment. The measured concentrations were subsequently used to calculate the equilibrium factor between radon and its progeny. The results obtained indicate(More)\nBluish-green photoluminescence from calcium 8-hydroxyquinolate (Caq2) powder, synthesized by a co-precipitation route, and a blended Caq2:PMMA thin film is reported. The film was obtained by mixing the Caq2 powder with PMMA (Polymethylmethacrylate) in a chloroform solution. X-ray diffraction analyses confirm the formation of the Caq2 powder and thin film.(More)\nTerbium-doped gadolinium orthovanadate (GdVO4 :Tb(3+) ), orthophosphate monohydrate (GdPO4 ·H2 O:Tb(3+) ) and orthovanadate-phosphate (GdV,PO4 :Tb(3+) ) powder phosphors were synthesized using a solution combustion method. X-Ray diffraction analysis confirmed the formation of crystalline GdVO4 , GdPO4 ·H2 O and GdV,PO4 . Scanning electron microscopy images(More)\nThis paper reports on the sonochemical synthesis of zinc oxide (ZnO) nanophosphors (NPr) at different ultrasonication times (5 min, 30 min, 1h, 5h, 10h and 15 h) for near white light emission applications. X-ray photoelectron spectroscopy indicated that the O1s peak consists of two components. These were O1 (ZnO) and O2 (deficient oxygen; OH groups) centred(More)", "pred_label": "__label__1", "pred_score_pos": 0.9901154637336731}
+{"content": "Dr Andile Dube\n\nDirector: Youth programmes, loveLife\n\nAndile Dube has always been driven by one question: \"How do we break the cycle of poverty?� When she considered how she broke her own cycle, she realised it was through education. After completing a BPead, a BEd and an MA in environment and development Dube obtained her PhD in 2011 with a thesis on \"Primary School Drop-Outs and Their Re-Entry into School�. Her interest in youth development started in 1995 when she volunteered as a tutor and mentor at a home for former street children. Today, as director for youth programmes at loveLife, Dube understands that \"the youth make up 50% of our population, but many of them never make the transition from childhood to adulthood�. In her experience, integrated youth development programmes are the only way to help them to become contributing members of society. After all, if she was able to break the cycle, why can't others do the same? � Vuvu Vena\n\nTwitter: @andiledube", "pred_label": "__label__1", "pred_score_pos": 0.9634811282157898}
+{"content": "Recent Post\n\nSeptember 14, 2013\n\nEssay on Good Socio Economic System\n\nA good socio-economic system\nIn order to understand and come up with a good socio-economic system, one must return to the philosophical and ethical foundations of the soioeconomic structure. It should be pointed out that in any context be it organization or a country, the economic activities are an expression of prevailing economic systems that also mirrors the manners, customs, traditions and all ethical and cultural features of the society.\nSo basically these manners, customs, traditions, and ethical traits (social philosophy) that we analyze are always likely to pose serious problems to the formation of a good socio-economic system. The economic behavior of individuals is primarily a cultural behavior, obeying a certain number of rules and ethical principles. \n\n  The economic system should be in harmony with the cultural system based on ethics such as social philosophy and world view, sanctifying human life and guided primarily by the quest for social justice, harmony between individuals (love). Thus, truth, love, and justice shape up a good socio-economic system. They are the centerpiece.(Richard, 1995)\n            In its economic system, indeed, isolation and individualism should be excluded as the man should only be part of a social harmony. The individuals treated fairly according to their behavior and roles in the society will lead to a situation in which they will live in harmony with each other and the environment and nature. The system of general and special education should be imbued with the general collectivism based on the principle of love, equality, and justice. The strong and influential people should assist those weak and resource less.  That is to say that the basis for productive activity and relationships that develop between individuals as a result of the process of production, exchange, is not the purpose of winning an absolute maximum, as in the capitalist system, but the purpose of gaining compatibility with the preservation of the material life of all members of society. This aim, which derives from the sacredness of human life, does not mean that the pursuit of gain is prohibited; only that it must be compatible with the requirements of preservation of the material life of all members of society and must be subject to these requirements. \n\n            This is one of the cornerstones of the organization of a good socio-economic development. For example, the hereditary caste occupation should be intended to mitigate competition and to guarantee every individual the means of subsistence, to correct the injustices of natural selection during the \"struggle for life\": the strong must not crush the weak, to correct social injustice in general, secure life.(David, 1991)\nThe ethical treatment of economic system should not result in the absolute rejection of such a system and its implementation should lead to the rule of dictatorship or the monopoly of certain corporation as we have seen in today’s globalized and highly capital-centric world. \n\n   Indeed, the ethical foundation of western capitalism is the natural order (natural law   : understanding natural selection) and individualism: each individual must seek his own interests, and doing it that individuals are \nmore useful to each other and to the whole society, if one believes the capitalist ideology. So it's \"every man for himself and God for all\" also the initiative and responsibility of the individual rise to the level of moral justification that everyone can pursue the goal of absolute maximum gain. This economic system is finally characterized by the cult of competition and therefore emulation. That is why economists call it a free market economy. (George, 1970)\n\n            Thus, the pre-colonial African economic system and the capitalist economic system was based on two Western cultures, social philosophies and world views. However, they coexisted within black African society today.However, although black Africans today are torn between the two systems under consideration, the pattern remains the dominant cultural system of precolonial African economic system even though it is more or less altered. For this reason, it is in the provisions of this socio-economic organization to look for the primary source of a number of current problems of the society.\n\nThe socio-economic that we adopt must have an inherent ability to strike the balance between the rich and the opulent, also the order, justice and security should characterized the socio- economic system. These characteristics undoubtedly reflect the success of the economic and social model. \n   However, some of the mechanisms on which it is based, among which the caste system of hereditary occupations and philosophical foundations, tend to condemn the decline of any socio-econmic system sooner or later. Unquestionably, however, the organization in hereditary caste occupations should be accompanied by the principle of mutual assistance, support from the strong to weak, correcting the injustices of the natural order and secure life. \nTo some degree, in fact, insecurity, anxiety, uncertainty and the vagaries of the near and distant future and so on can still exist and may not be fully eliminated. But it should be made sure that the wretched individuals in the society should be supported by others and they must have nothing to fear for their lives. The reverse, however, can have adverse effects giving way to different sources of problems. It should at all costs be ensured that the people are treated farily and justly. The downtrodden people should not be compelled to suffer from the gross injustices taking place due to the economic inequity. Welfare state should come into place through the imnplementation of the socio-economic system.   \n\n    Indeed, securing life completely, eliminating the anguish caused by hazards, uncertainty of the future, the assistant to the weak and strong mutual support eventually eliminates future concerns of the less privileged people of the society. They now have very little concern for the future, and make very few expectations on their socio-economic development of medium and long term and remain concerned with the present time where the life of poo continues to move in the right direction.\nThe hereditary caste occupation, because it leads to create an economy and society of monopolies, should be suppressed ensuring that competition is one of the fundamental factors of progress, understood that push forward the economy and society.Every man should have an equal opportunity to excel in the society irrespective of his caste, creed, and social status.\nThus, in the long term, over the centuries and millennia, with education resulting from this monopoly environment, jealousy and envy will replace the emulator and start to gradually erode the company: the behavior will then become : when you do better than me I'll try to stop you from advancing, rather than trying to overcome you. The remnants of such monopolistic behavior that is a veritable tomb of development are only too visible in the black African societies today. \n\n Slavery affects historically the most vulnerable populations and children first. The fate of the abandoned child and often led to slavery in Mesopotamia and later in Greece and Rome. \nIn the past two ancient civilizations, the exhibition right authorized the abandonment of a child, usually before a public building, a temple for example. The foster child was subject to the whim of his benefactor and rarely could escape slavery. \nWhen he was not abandoned, the child may also be sold. Contracts of sale of children, dating from the Third Dynasty of Ur, that the practice appeared to be widespread among civilizations. The slavery has now changed its form and shape in modern day setting.\nDebt bondage is a way to repay a debt by providing direct work rather than money or property. \n Often leading to forced labor, bonded labor is equated to slavery in many countries and by certain international conventions, particularly with regard to child labor.  \n  The system of bonded labor still exists today, although officially banned in national legislation in India has abolished debt bondage in 1975, under the leadership of Indira Gandhi and Pakistan passed a law to that effect in 1992, yet these remain poorly enforced laws. \n It is found especially in Nepal with the Kamaiya system in Nepal in such systems, parents may place a child at 7 or 8 years to work at the factory to get a loan or pay off debts.  \nThe best known examples of bonded labor are Nepal, Pakistan and India in the latter country, the practice is widespread in agriculture and industries of the cigarette, or silk carpets, and especially for the Dalits. \n Debtors, regardless of the country, are frequently the poorest ethnic minorities, lower castes, landless peasants. One study examined the lives of thousands of children working in carpet industry and described \nKidnapped, displaced or placed by their parents for small sums of money. Most of them are being held captive, tortured and forced to work 20 hours a day without a break. \nThese small children must squat on their toes, from dawn to dusk each day, severely handicapping their growth. Social activists in this area are unable to work because of control close to that of a mafia exercised by the managers of weaving. \nOther similar situations are found in Brazil with sugar cane plantations and charcoal. In 1993, children aged 4 had been delayed at work in cotton farms in Paraná. \n  The modern form of slavery in form of child labor is detrimental to the socio-economic system and must be abolished forcefully in order to come up with a good socio-economic system where the child is treated as child not as a source of income or debt.\n\nRichard Bonney (1995), Economic Systems and State Finance, 680 pp.\nDavid W. Conklin (1991), Comparative Economic Systems, Cambridge University Press, 427 pp.\nGeorge Sylvester Counts (1970), Bolshevism, Fascism, and Capitalism: An Account of the Three Economic Systems.\n\n\nPost a Comment", "pred_label": "__label__1", "pred_score_pos": 0.8397470712661743}
+{"content": "Personality Test\n\nThis morning some coworkers and I started discussing personality tests. There was one in\nparticular that takes your personality result and goes a step further to explain how the corresponding traits affect relationships with coworkers, friends, and family. In was interesting to read this article that, very accurately, described myself. There were a couple things that it didn't cover, but what test will after only 60 questions?\nBut there was more, it also had corresponding articles about how that personality functions in relationships with coworkers, family, and friends. It even gave tips on what to work on to strengthen the weaknesses inherent to my results.\nIt just added a certain, new level of self-awareness, pin-pointing those tendencies that I hadn't quite given a name to yet.\n\nAll this to say that being self aware is very important. I can be super pumped and ready to go out and share the gospel but if I am unaware of how I am being perceived, I could accidentally be coming across totally wrong. Self awareness is important for interactions with people we meet everyday and how we are perceived as believers. Knowing what my tendencies are, socially, allows me to use my strengths and know how to combat my weakness so that I am being interpreted as the Christ loving person I try to be.", "pred_label": "__label__1", "pred_score_pos": 0.9735233187675476}
+{"content": "Yudit Tiery Ecsedy\n\nYudit Ecsedy (neé Judit Tiery) was born on December 24, 1942 in Budapest, Hungary. Her parents were both part of the Budapest intelligentsia and her father worked for the U.S. company Price Waterhouse. Because they knew they would be penalized under the communist regime that would likely take over after WWII, her family fled the country. Although she was just a toddler, Yudit recalls a fear-filled time living in German refugee camps for 5 years before they were admitted to the United States as displaced persons in 1949.\n\nIn Germany, her father, who spoke 8 languages fluently, was the president of the association of Hungarian refugee university students. Their initial plans were that they would return home once the Russians left Hungary. When that no longer seemed likely and the Iron Curtain began to descend on Eastern Europe, Yudit's family emigrated to the United States.\n\nOnce in the United States, Yudit's family lived first in New York and then the New Brunswick, New Jersey area and became actively involved in Hungarian life there. Yudit recalls being hopeful in 1956 during the revolution, and then translating for the Hungarian refugees who fled the country after the revolution was crushed. Meeting the young revolutionaries, she was inspired to write a speech for her public speaking class in 1956 - a speech that won awards at a number of public speaking competitions around the state.\n\nIn 1961, because of her father's work, her family moved to Palm Springs, California. There, Yudit completed her university studies in English and art history. She became an artist, community organizer and mother of four - an inspiring member of both her Hungarian and American communities. She currently lives in Desert Hot Springs with her husband, Árpád Ecsedy, who was a freedom fighter in 1956.\n\nInterview conducted by Andrea Lauer Rice and Réka Pigniczky in Desert Hot Springs, California in April of 2016.\n\n\nOther videos from
the Visual Archive", "pred_label": "__label__1", "pred_score_pos": 0.50567626953125}
+{"content": "Doble Kara\n\nThis is the story of Sarah and Kara (both played by Julia Montes), twin sisters who grows up in a happy family despite being poor. However, when Kara is diagnosed of leukemia, the twins’ mother is forced to separate the two and give Kara to her real father because they don’t have the money for her treatments. What will Sarah and Kara do when fate brings them back together after many years? How will the sisters’ relationship change after they grew up having different lives?\n\nNo posts found.", "pred_label": "__label__1", "pred_score_pos": 0.9213337302207947}
+{"content": "We'll be blogging about health, beauty,natural cleaning methods, natural beauty secrets and natural living.  With a focus on the environment and healthy living.\n\ndisease 'cold spots' and how to live a healthier life\n\nDaphne Miller M.D in her book The Jungle Effect examines \"the healthiest diets from around the world\". Rather then focusing on hot spots - a community “where there is an unusually high number of people suffering from a particular disease.” Daphne Miller went on a exploration of  cold spots -  “a place or community where there are an unusually low number of people suffering from a particular disease.”\n\nAfter mapping out many cold stops throughout the world, Daphne Miller then went on to discover what may have led to these cold spots. She travels to remote areas and focuses in on the local diet and lifestyle that she feels has attributed to these cold spots.  Her book is readable and insightful with easy to follow recipes to bring those healthful diets home.", "pred_label": "__label__1", "pred_score_pos": 0.9817304015159607}
+{"content": "Monday, August 23, 2010\n\nYour Well-being Is Your Responsibility\n\nConcern with well-being has been with man kind for as long as we remember. However, the definition of well-being and how we generate it and who is responsible, however, has changed over time.\n\nThere was a time when people left the responsibility of one’s well being to their clan, their community and believed that if all was well with the community or clan, their well-being was taken care of as also the reverse; i.e. if they had a sense of well-being with themselves, then the community as a collective also had a sense of well-being with itself. Often in such diffused state, individual’s sense of well being had to be sacrificed at the alter of the collective well being.\n\nThen came a time when we were told that a sense of well being came with who you are in your roles that your establish with the world at large – be it in the family, at work, in the world and wherever else. If we maintained the balance in the relationship well, well-being would be guaranteed was the assurance. This created the misbalance that we did not know how to relate to ourselves and to others without the given roles and found a sense of identity only within the given roles. Any sense of well being that came outside the scope of roles were discarded and generated stress.\n\nToday, I believe we are going through a phase in the world, where the basic message that is being passed on to us is that “Your well-being is your responsibility alone”. We are going through a phase when we are individuals first and collective later but unlike the clan or the role era, the collective tells us who we should be and how we should be without taking any responsibility for it.\n\nWe are told, nobody else can or will take responsibility of your well -being and hence the individual is to maintain and generate her or his sense of well-being irrespective of the context. So, for instance we keep getting message through ads of chocolate, cars or even bottled water, which generates instant sense of well being even when the situation surrounding the protagonist is potentially fearful, disconnected or stressful. We are also given lessons on positive thinking which would generate well-being but often times some of these messages do not take into account the contextual reality.\n\nHowever, there is an associated message as well, which is while you are solely responsible for your well being, you must not disturb other people’s well being. This effectively means that not only you have to be continuously aware, competent and rational, you must also remain vigilant that you do not become a source of disturbance for others. On the surface of it, this sounds quite alright; if everyone took responsibility of their well-being, this world will be a happy and peaceful place. The problem occurs when remaining vigilant and aware at all points of time itself becomes difficult and when such things are simplified to such an extent that they become absolute, like a dogma.\n\nBefore I proceed any further, let me clarify that the kind of individuals and context that I am talking about here are largely urban, middle class, above school level and are mostly into employment or business or are professionals. I must also clarify that as a concept I am a great fan of positivity and positive thinking but I do take offence when they are passed on as an absolute reality without taking their context into account.\n\nLet me state a couple of small stories.\n\nStory number one in which a woman who is feeling quite direction less in her life. She is in her mid thirties, holds a responsible job and is intelligent, caring, perceptive and competent. The sense of confusion and directionlessness comes partly from her past history of stressful relationships and partly from her work context where she is new and is trying to find her feet. Despite her best efforts, she often finds herself on the verge of losing control over her emotions, falls sick quite often without any associated disease and ends up taking decisions that she regrets later on. In this situation, more often than not, she receives advice from her near and dear ones both at work as also from her personal context that she needs to sort herself out and only if she could do that, i.e. go to a therapist, practice yoga, take care of herself, has better routine, all such problems will be taken care of and things will come back to normal. This woman, despite doing all of the above, finds herself at the same crossroad and then starts doubting her sense of worth.\n\nAnd what does the context do, while she stands on her head trying to “sort herself out?” Her mother who is critical, gets hyper critical about this woman’s problems out of her own anxiety, her boyfriend stays away from her because he was unable to handle her emotional upheavals, her work context demands the same amount of attention, care, concern and competence from her irrespective of her situation and they all pass on this message to her that “please stay away from us, take care of your situation and come back to us as a “functional” person as we are unable to take care of your dysfunctionality. We however, wish you well and are willing to bear the cost of your medical bills, will hire a counselor for your or even help you find a yoga teacher, offer you gymming facility, etc, etc. This in turn increases this woman’s low sense of self worth and pushes her to the brink further and further.\n\nThe context in this case, would hardly ever look at reducing some of the stress causing factors that may contribute to her lack of well being, e.g. her mother becoming less critical, her boyfriend’s hyper sensitivity to her emotional outbursts, her work context not demanding her to be always sensible, rational and fair, etc, etc.\n\nStory number two is a multinational organisation where higher and higher responsibility, ownership and performance are demanded from the employees. The employees don’t mind, they see this as a rightful demand on the part of the organisation in return of the money, status, position, learning and value that are being provided to them by the organisation.\n\nSo far, so good- Right? Wrong. In a situation like this most of the time the employees would not know what to do with the stress and tension that they carry for a context that is ever changing, highly competitive and very demanding. One can of course argue that this is the way of the world and that people who come for this kind of work have made a choice. However my point here is not about the choice but whether just by making a choice, the responsibility of the generating well being becomes an individual responsibility or is it both? After all, if the context learns to take care of its inhabitants, the context generates its own well being as well. However, most of the time, organisations such as these would term such stresses as symptoms of lack of work life balance problem and would organize training programs to take care of such anomalies without making the slightest difference to the internal environment which is tipping off the balance continuously. Alternately the context usually not question the value frames from where such stressors are originating and whether they are an absolute must for the “development” and “progress” of the context.\n\nTherefore it is not surprising that often who we are and who we should be are defined and dictated by the popular media and even when we hear a heart breaking story of a model taking her own life, it often comes in the garb of how her professional life created this stress and how does one stay away from the stress through individual effort while the context goes away scot free in the name of being a “high stress” industry.\n\nThe opposite is also true, i.e. there are individuals and groups who would never look at how they are contributing to the stress of the context and would demand that the context makes all the changes while they retain all their dysfunctional habits and patterns in relation to the context.\n\nTill such time both the individuals and context look at each other as integral part of each other and that this relationship is not just contractual (work context), or societal (family, relationships), but are complimentary to each other and one will not survive without the other, but at the same time one can not subsume the other, this confusion and stress will continue to haunt us.\n\nOn a different take, why is a constant state of well being so important? What is wrong with unhappiness, struggle, sadness, confusion, anger, grief and lack of well being? Aren’t some of these great mobilisers for new path, new directions and new action choices? May be this calls for another post, later!\n\nWhat do you think and feel about your well being?\n\nThursday, August 12, 2010\n\n\nI will be out for the weekend and I realised how much am I going to miss my blog and my blogger friends.\n\nIf I look back at the last couple of months, I can see how many wonderful  and talented people I have met in the blogosphere.  People who write about varied subjects, people who are as different from me as cheese and chalk, people who have very similar interests in life as me, people who have known me differently and now also are my blog buddies and are co bloggers.  The experience has been extremely rich and rewarding.\n\nThere are so many blogs that I love reading and keep going back to get my fill every day;  some of which are: - for lovely and soulful poems - for great animation and humour - a wonderfully written blog for tips and tricks hosted by warm and friendly Jean Sarauer. - for touching and inspiring posts hosted by a very compassionate Corinne. - again a very well written helpful and friendly blog hosted by wonderful Barbara - for a humorous yet vibrant landscaping of a woman's life - posts on varied subjects coming straight from the heart of a passionate person.\n\nMany many other such ones are part of my blog roll that I visit every day to laugh, to think, to feel inspired, to feel touched, to act, to respond .... and everyday is a new experience.\n\nI have received responses to my posting in many different ways, some helpful tips, some friendly pats,  some kind comments, some helpful critiques, silent but regular visitors ...  All these make me want to write more.\n\nI have learnt from my friends about blog etiquette, about various techniques and tools that I can use, about what it means to be a blogger and why do we write and about passion, rigour, commitment and focus.  I am so grateful and appreciative of all my friends who comment, who visit and who teach me to be a better person and a blogger every day.\n\nWhat about you?  how's your experience of connecting in the blogosphere?\n\nWednesday, August 11, 2010\n\nWordless Wednesday - Monsoon!\n\nLazy afternoon\nmonsoon in Kolkata, India\nRight after a heavy shower!\n\nSunday, August 08, 2010\n\nWhere do we go from here?\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\nLooking forward to hearing from you.  What do you think?", "pred_label": "__label__1", "pred_score_pos": 0.6605292558670044}
+{"content": "Tuesday, June 3, 2014\n\nCommon Core IRL: Colonial America books to read aloud (grades 1-6)\n\nWelcome back for the latest installment of Common Core IRL (In Real Libraries), a blog hop featuring outstanding librarians and bloggers Mary Ann Scheuer at Great Kid Books, Alyson Beecher at Kit Lit Frenzy, and Cathy Potter and Louise Capizzo at The Nonfiction Detectives. Our goal: to provide examples of and facilitate thinking about what the Common Core State Standards look like in real libraries.\n\nThis month, we're visiting the topic of Colonial America. To cover this topic to the best of our abilities, resources for a variety of ages and uses will be on the following blogs:\n\nChildren across the United States usually encounter basic information about Colonial America when they learn about the First Thanksgiving, usually in preschool or in kindergarten. More in-depth learning, however, takes place in the older elementary years, when students encounter a (hopefully) more nuanced historical perspective. By supplementing this factual learning with historical fiction read alouds, children can engage in a deeper understanding of the time period and what it was like to be a Colonial American.\n\nI've divided the read aloud titles discussed in this post into two age ranges: grades 1-3, and grades 4-6.\n\nYounger Read Alouds (grades 1-3):\n\nAnne Hutchinson's Way by Jeannine Atkins, pictures by Michael Dooling (Farrar, Straus & Giroux, 2007)\n     This picture book conveys the story of Anne Hutchinson and her family, Puritans who arrived in the colonies only to experience further religious persecution. Anne had strict religious beliefs about inclusiveness, rights of all community members to preach, and non-violence, for which she was ultimately banished from colonial Boston. The story is based on the life of the real Anne Hutchinson and her family.\n     Anne's perspective on faith and what is right is clearly very different from male colonial lawmakers, and the story provides opportunities to connect to standard RL.3.3, which focuses on describing characters and how their traits and actions contribute to what happens in the story.\n\nPilgrim Cat by Carol Antoinette Peacock (Albert Whitman & Company, 2004)\n     This picture book follows a young girl, Faith, as she journeys on the Mayflower and endures the first year at Plymouth Rock, culminating in the First Thanksgiving. She shares the experience with a cat whom she discovers on the Atlantic voyage and names Pounce. Faith and her fellow colonists encounter Samoset and Squanto, Wampanoags who may be familiar to young readers from their previous Thanksgiving lessons.\n     The illustrations do much to convey the amount and variety of work that went into staying alive on the journey to and in the new colony, connecting to standard RL.2.7, which emphasizes using information from both words and illustrations to demonstrate understanding of the contents of a text.\n\nOlder Read Alouds (grades 4-6):\n\nOur Strange New Land: Elizabeth's Diary, Jamestown, Virginia, 1609 by Patricia Hermes (Scholastic, 2002)\n     Part of the \"My America\" series of fictional first-person historical diaries, this book (and its two sequels) allows readers insight to a young girl's perspective of the day-to-day struggles and new experiences associated with living in Colonial America. A number of historical figures, like John Smith and Pocahontas, make appearances in the storyline, allowing readers to make direct connections to historical facts they learn in social studies lessons.\n     The diary format of this book provides ample opportunity to explore pacing in storytelling. This exploration fits with standard RL.5.5, which deals with understanding how a series of chapters (or, in this case, diary entries) creates the structure of a story.\n\n*A note about read alouds on the topic of Colonial America: As I did some research to locate a variety of historical fiction titles that could fit this Common Core IRL topic, I discovered that there is something of a void in this area of literature for children. Most of the books I found were published before 2000, and of these, many were culturally insensitive--a disproportionate number added drama through tales of abduction by Native Americans. While abductions did occur in Colonial America, these texts overwhelmingly depict Native Americans in stereotypical and harmful ways. The majority of the more recent titles I found deal specifically with the American Revolution; while a worthwhile topic on its own, life during the American Revolution was not the same as life during the Colonial period between 1620 and 1775. There is a real dearth of high-quality children's historical fiction set in Colonial America. Given the ubiquity of the topic in school curricula, one would hope that authors and publishers will rectify this lack of sensitive and compelling Colonial America stories.\n\n\n  1. Thanks for these lists. the thing I don't understand about common core is this- why aren't we seeing textbooks with everything teachers need? Why keep reinventing the wheel? Sure, everyone teaches differently and has pet projects, but why not a standard text that can be supplemented? (Says the former Latin teacher who LOVED her Jenney and Scudder!)\n\n    1. From a marketing standpoint, I agree--it's interesting that we haven't seen textbooks that purport to include everything teachers need. What I like about Common Core, however, is that it plugs into subject and thematic curriculum, regardless of what that curriculum may be. That means students studying the same topic have opportunities to read different books from one another--as opposed to everyone having to read the same thing, which they may or may not enjoy.\n\n      I continue to see how implementation and usage of CCSS evolves.", "pred_label": "__label__1", "pred_score_pos": 0.6168668270111084}
+{"content": "Australia is second in UN Human Development report\n\nAustralia has come in as the second best country in the United Nations' Human Development report measuring improvements in health and longevity, income and education, and personal security.\n\nBut, the United Nations says in its annual report that, globally, improvements in life spans, education and incomes are slowing due to natural disasters, misguided government policies and worsening inequality in a world where the 85 richest people have as much wealth as the 3.5 billion poorest people.\n\nWith nearly a third of humanity poor or vulnerable to poverty, governments need to put a higher priority on creating jobs and providing basic social services, the United Nations Development Program said in the report, launched in Tokyo on Thursday.\n\nIt warned that improvements in longevity, education and income, which are the three main components of the UNDP's influential index of human development, are slowing due to worsening inequality and economic disruptions, to droughts and other natural disasters and to poor government policies. But the agency also said the solutions are not complicated.\n\n\"As this report says, it's not rocket science,\" UNDP head Helen Clark said in an interview before the report's release.\n\n\"Where people do address these things, development can come along very, very nicely. Where they haven't addressed a lot of vulnerabilities and development deficits, as in Syria, it all comes spectacularly unstuck.\"\n\n\nEradicating poverty was not just about \"getting to zero,\" Clark said, \"but about staying there\".\n\nMost people in most countries are doing better than ever before thanks to advances in education, technology and incomes, the report said. But it notes a \"widespread sense of precariousness in the world today in livelihoods, the environment, personal security and politics\".\n\nNearly half of all workers are in insecure or informal employment while some 842 million, or about 12 per cent, of all people go hungry, it said.\n\nThe report ranks Norway at the top of the Human Development Index, followed by Australia, Switzerland, the Netherlands and the United States. Among Asian countries, Singapore leads at number 9, followed by Hong Kong and South Korea at 15. Despite its lead in longevity, Japan is ranked 17th due to its lower income and schooling measures.\n\nThe report reflects the growing conviction among many working in global policymaking and poverty alleviation that the gains made in the late 20th century risk being eroded by climate change, a global \"race to the bottom\" by big corporations that is forcing more and more workers to live on less and government budgets \"balanced on the backs of the poor,\" said Khalid Malik, a lead author of the report.\n\nThe UNDP report, published annually since 1990, is intended to inform and influence policy makers. Governments watch the rankings carefully, and \"when they don't do well they put a lot of pressure on us to change the rankings,\" Malik said.\n\nIt cites exhaustive data to illustrate the costs both within countries and on a global scale of growing inequality, at a time when the 85 richest people in the world have as much wealth as the 3.5 billion poorest people.\n\n\"Most problems are due to inadequate policies and poor institutions,\" Malik said. \"It's not innate that people have to suffer so much.\"\n\nSuch issues apply not just to the poorest countries but to some of the wealthiest. When the index is adjusted for internal inequalities in health, education and income, some of the wealthiest nations drop out of the UNDP's top 20.\n\nThe US falls from 5 to 28 on that list, South Korea drops from 15 to 35, and Japan falls from 17 to 23.\n\nIncome support, job creation policies and equitable access to health, education and other services, are investments in \"human capital\" that can secure faster, more sustainable growth in the long run, the report says.\n\n\"If you invest in people, if you upgrade your infrastructure and increase the choices available to all you will have a more stable society,\" Malik said.", "pred_label": "__label__1", "pred_score_pos": 0.8345831036567688}
+{"content": "Oral or spoken defamation. Slander is the act of harming one person’s reputation by telling one or more other people something that is untrue about that person.\n\n\nLibel involves publishing a statement about someone in written form or via broadcast (in the securities industry the publication is on the form U-4 and U-5) that is untrue and would harm the reputation or livelihood of that person.\n\nLibel is considered a civil wrong (tort) and can be the basis of a lawsuit.\n\nContact Ms. Stoneman if you feel you've experienced slander or libel.\n\n- Stoneman Law (719) 783-0303 Free consultation, Nationwide Representation", "pred_label": "__label__1", "pred_score_pos": 1.0000076293945312}
+{"content": "\n\nAtmospheric Effects on Density\n\nby Flight Learnings\n\nin Aircraft Performance\n\nEffects of Pressure on Density\n\nSince air is a gas, it can be compressed or expanded. When air is compressed, a greater amount of air can occupy a given volume. Conversely, when pressure on a given volume of air is decreased, the air expands and occupies a greater space. That is, the original column of air at a lower pressure contains a smaller mass of air. In other words, the density is decreased. In fact, density is directly proportional to pressure. If the pressure is doubled, the density is doubled, and if the pressure is lowered, so is the density. This statement is true only at a constant temperature.\n\nEffects of Temperature on Density\n\nIncreasing the temperature of a substance decreases its density. Conversely, decreasing the temperature increases the density. Thus, the density of air varies inversely with temperature. This statement is true only at a constant pressure.\n\nIn the atmosphere, both temperature and pressure decrease with altitude, and have conflicting effects upon density. However, the fairly rapid drop in pressure as altitude is increased usually has the dominant effect. Hence, pilots can expect the density to decrease with altitude.\n\nEffects of Humidity (Moisture) on Density\n\nThe preceding paragraphs are based on the presupposition of perfectly dry air. In reality, it is never completely dry. The small amount of water vapor suspended in the atmosphere may be negligible under certain conditions, but in other conditions humidity may become an important factor in the performance of an aircraft. Water vapor is lighter than air; consequently, moist air is lighter than dry air. Therefore, as the water content of the air increases, the air becomes less dense, increasing density altitude and decreasing performance. It is lightest or least dense when, in a given set of conditions, it contains the maximum amount of water vapor.\n\nHumidity, also called relative humidity, refers to the amount of water vapor contained in the atmosphere, and is expressed as a percentage of the maximum amount of water vapor the air can hold. This amount varies with the temperature; warm air can hold more water vapor, while colder air can hold less. Perfectly dry air that contains no water vapor has a relative humidity of zero percent, while saturated air that cannot hold any more water vapor has a relative humidity of 100 percent. Humidity alone is usually not considered an essential factor in calculating density altitude and aircraft performance; however, it does contribute.\n\nThe higher the temperature, the greater amount of water vapor that the air can hold. When comparing two separate air masses, the first warm and moist (both qualities making air lighter) and the second cold and dry (both qualities making it heavier), the first must be less dense than the second. Pressure, temperature, and humidity have a great influence on aircraft performance because of their effect upon density. There is no rule-of-thumb or chart used to compute the effects of humidity on density altitude, but it must be taken into consideration. Expect a decrease in overall performance in high humidity conditions.Performance\n\nPerformance is a term used to describe the ability of an aircraft to accomplish certain things that make it useful for certain purposes. For example, the ability of an aircraft to land and take off in a very short distance is an important factor to the pilot who operates in and out of short, unimproved airfields. The ability to carry heavy loads, fly at high altitudes at fast speeds, or travel long distances is essential performance for operators of airline and executive type aircraft.\n\nThe primary factors most affected by performance are the takeoff and landing distance, rate of climb, ceiling, payload, range, speed, maneuverability, stability, and fuel economy. Some of these factors are often directly opposed: for example, high speed versus short landing distance, long range versus great payload, and high rate of climb versus fuel economy. It is the preeminence of one or more of these factors that dictates differences between aircraft and explains the high degree of specialization found in modern aircraft.\n\nThe various items of aircraft performance result from the combination of aircraft and powerplant characteristics. The aerodynamic characteristics of the aircraft generally define the power and thrust requirements at various conditions of flight, while powerplant characteristics generally define the power and thrust available at various conditions of flight. The matching of the aerodynamic configuration with the powerplant is accomplished by the manufacturer to provide maximum performance at the specific design condition (e.g., range, endurance, and climb).\n\n515G+mn0RuL._SX331_BO1,204,203,200_Learn more about aviation weather with Weather Flying by Robert Buck. Regarded as the bible of weather flying, this aviation classic not only continues to make complex weather concepts understandable for even the least experienced of flyers, but has now been updated to cover new advances in technology.\n\n\nComments on this entry are closed.\n\nPrevious post:\n\nNext post:", "pred_label": "__label__1", "pred_score_pos": 0.9655523300170898}
+{"content": "Computer Lab and STEM Updates\n\n\nComputer Lab/ STEM Updates\n\nDeveloping Catholic Stewards, Scholars and Leaders\n\nInterested in helping with the 2016-2017 St. Adelaide Yearbook?  Contact Mrs.Jasso for details\n\nThe Computer Lab is a resource available to all students, especially those researching and typing essays.  Keynote is also available for students to work on presentations and visual aids.  Students may make arrangements to come in during lunch or after school.\n\nInternet agreements when home August 25th, please return them by Monday August 29th.\n\nStudents will not be allowed to use any web sites or web based programs without a signed internet agreement.\n\nGrades 2nd-8th have a typing speed that need to achieve by the end of the year.\n\n2nd grade-5wpm (words per min)\n\n3rd grade-10 wpm\n\n4th grade- 15 wpm\n\n5th grade- 20wpm\n\n6th grade- 25 wpm\n\n7th grade- 30 wpm\n\n8th grade- 35 wpm\n\nStudents practice typing during computer time on Mavis Beacon.\n\nAt home students can practice online with Dance Mat Typing\n\nHere is the link for level 1:\n\nDance Mat Typing- Level 1\n\nHere is a link with all the levels:\n\nDance Mat Typing\n\nPart of the year long curriculum includes typing speeds, students will be practicing typing in the lab\n\nand are asked to use correct hand placement.\n\nImportant Reminder\n\nHonor Roll:  Qualification for Honor Roll is determined by grades in all core subjects, conduct, and Accelerated Reader.\n\nWith the use of technology rapidly increasing in education and the workforce,\n\nit is imperative that St. Adelaide students meet the Common Core Standards for Technology.\n\nSTEM – Science, Technology, Engineering, Mathematics\n\nStudents in grades 5-8 will experience their first science lab in an investigation projecting the long-term effects of continued drought at California’s largest lake, the Salton Sea. Students will study the plan to stop water replenishment after 2017, and the increase of water exportation from the Imperial Valley, which historically delivers 70% of the lake’s inflows. The students will study the expected problems associated with decreasing shoreline and will formulate hypotheses related to the bird habitat at the lake’s shoreline.  The investigation will incorporate web-based research, mathematical calculations and a somewhat simplistic hands-on lab experience. This work will generate a complete scientific method write-up, which will be an excellent way to begin a year filled with STEM learning.\n\n\n\nWelcome to our award-winning Science Fair! The fair is on Tuesday, FEBRUARY 9, 2016.\n• Each year, St. Adelaide students choose projects that are very interesting to them and that will be fun to investigate. Most important is how we at Saint Adelaide Academy show the wonder of God in the world around us.\n• All students are welcome to enter a project in the fair. These students do not have to write the research report that the Middle School students prepare.\n• Students in grades K-4 may work with partners on their project. The fair is optional for these grades.\n• All fifth grade students participate in the Science Fair. Fifth graders will work alone on a project.\n\nWhere are some good Science Fair ideas?\n• Mrs. Pettitt and Mrs. Kluge have many idea books that they will share. Students may check these out for overnight use. We will photocopy the project idea the student is interested in if we are asked to do so. The Highland local library has many good project idea books, too.\n• The internet has an endless supply of topics. Please have a parent search the net with the student. This way ideas can be shared before planning begins.\n• Projects cannot involve any experiments with animals or humans. Anything dangerous is NOT allowed.\n\nWhat kind of work is necessary for a Science Fair project?\n• First, a PROBLEM needs to be found. This problem is what the project is about. Write the problem as a question.\n• Next, a prediction has to be made. This is the HYPOTHESIS. This says what the results of the experiment might be. The hypothesis does not have to be proven correct.\n• List the MATERIALS that are needed for the experiment.\n• Tell what the PROCEDURE is. That is, tell how the experiment will be conducted.\n• What were the results of the experiment? What was found out? This is the data. Tell what OBSERVATIONS were made during the experiment. Use words to tell what happened. Take photos too, if possible. Make nice data charts and graphs to show what happened. Computers make nice charts, but so do hands, paper, and colors.\n• Next, analyze the data. This is the ANALYSIS. What does the data mean? Say how the data (findings) agree or disagree with the hypothesis. Is more information needed to prove or disprove the hypothesis?\n• CONCLUSION – Briefly tell what was learned from the investigation. Tell how we can use this information in our daily lives. Are there any new questions or problems that need to be investigated?\n\nWhat goes in the display for the Science Fair?\n• The information can go on a simple poster paper sheet. Information sheets can also be placed nicely on the table. If a fancy display board is bought, do not write on it. These can be used over and over again if the information is taped to them.  ****  Mrs. Pettitt has many tri-fold boards available for the science fair. ****\n• Nicely tell what the title of the experiment is. Be creative!\n• Neatly print all the information described above. A separate sheet for each heading (those in CAPS) is a good way to do this. Using a computer is okay, but neat printing is very nice, too.\n\nWhat else do I bring to the Science Fair?\n• A display of the project is a great way to share the experiment. However, these things cannot be brought in: Living or dead plants, liquids, anything edible or that may be dangerous to children of any age.\n• The journal and anything that has information about the project that did not fit on the board.\n\nWhat happens the day of the Science Fair?\n• Before the fair, practice telling people about the project. A judge will listen to you tell about the project. Be able to answer questions!\n• Have a good time sharing your knowledge with people!\n\n\nThe project will involve one of these three scientific problem-solving methods: observation, experimentation, or statistical study.\n\nWhat is observation?\nScientific observation involves listing characteristics or properties that may be identified with the senses. It is a gathering of data by actually observing events or behavior. It is made under natural conditions for best results. It usually involves an observer who observes without the subject being aware of the observation.\n\nWhat is experimentation?\nExperimentation is the testing of an idea to determine its validity. It is demonstrating the truthfulness of a known fact. It is the conducting of tests. All experiments must have a control. Controls are necessary to the experiment because they show what would happen in a given situation if the experiment had not been performed. A control is identical to what is being tested – however, the control is never tested.\n\nWhat is a statistical study?\nOnce facts have been gathered, the data must be analyzed for accuracy. This means that the data obtained in the experiments must be legitimate and can be obtained many times under the same conditions. Data should be presented in charts and graphs. A statistical study, therefore,\n• is counting something,\n• is analyzing the information obtained and making a general statement concerning the information, and\n• could be a comparison of numerical information.\n\nHow do I record what happens in my project?\n• If the project involves things that grow, then measure the growth. Taking pictures is a great way to record data.\n• Use a journal (like a diary with dates) to write down everything that happens and everything that was learned with the experiment. Real scientists do this!\n• Put all the data (what happens during the experiment) in a chart or graph so everyone can see the results of the experiment. Be sure the chart or graph has a title and tells what was measured.\n\nWater retention of different soils\nComposition of sands of various areas\nUsing a computer for mineral identification\nHow clean is our air?\nHow acid is our rain?\nSpeed of clouds using photography\nEffect of wave action on different rocks\nUse of feathers to clean up oil spills\nTerracing and how it affects erosion\nThe effects of water on different types of wood\nDoes a magnetic field affect the growth of beans?\nDoes electricity affect the growth of beans?\nDoes temperature affect the growth of beans?\nHow do plants react to different kinds of music?\nHow do detergents affect the growth of plants?\nDo plants grow better with tap water or distilled water? Why?\nThe effects of root bounding on plant growth\nDo roots always grown down?\nDo mirrors affect the way plants grow?\nLeaf size versus location\nEffects of artificial versus natural light on plants\nUnder which color cellophane do plants grow best?\nTesting different potting soils\nWhich mulch covering works best?\nDoes the phase of the moon affect the germination of seeds?\nUnder which thickness of plastic do radishes grow best?\nHow does the amount of light affect the growth of marigolds?\nDo avocados ripen more evenly with the stems left on?\nWhich banana has the most sugar – green, yellow, or brown?\nCompare the moisture content of various apple types\nDoes aspirin, soda pop, prolong the life of cut flowers?\nWhich solution will help cut flowers stay fresher longer?\nUnder what conditions do plant cuttings survive the heat?\nHow detergents affect the growth of algae in pond water\nStudy marine growth on various surfaces\nHow fast does a mealworm or snail travel under which conditions?\nSpeed of snails (others) on different surfaces\nHorsepower of snails (others)\nDo earthworms help plants grow?\nCan insects pull more than their own body weight?\nAnt control – natural versus chemical repellants\nDo goldfish grow larger in a larger tank?\nFish feeding – the effects of light\nCan mice see colors?\nCan mice distinguish shapes?\nHamster activity and the phases of the moon\nHow well do different liquids conduct electricity?\nWhat materials withstand corrosion by seawater?\nWhat materials are the best insulators of heat?\nMeasure the efficiency of airspace as an insulator\nHow does the design of an airfoil affect its flight?\nWhich metals conduct heat best?\nMeasuring the calories in a peanut\nDoes temperature affect the height at which different balls bounce?\nHow consistent is the temperature of my own refrigerator?\nHow accurate is the temperature in my own oven?\nThe effects of temperature on the strength of dry cells\nThe effect of light on dyed materials\nCalculating liquid density using light refraction\nWhich materials absorb sound?\nString telephones – what materials work best in conducting sound?\nConductivity of various liquids\nHow temperature affects the amount of electricity given off by a solar cell\nHow increasing the number of batteries affects the speed of a motor\nWhat is the voltage range of the GE-14 (or other) bulb?\nThe strength of a magnet versus distance\nWhich fabrics are the most fire-resistant?\nThe amount of dissolved salt in drinking water\nCan saltwater be desalinated by freezing?\nPopcorn – a graphical analysis of pops per second under various conditions\nInk evaluation with paper chromatography\nSplat – a study of droplet patterns\nChlorine levels in our drinking water\nQuality of tap water versus (vs.) bottled water\nComparing the effectiveness and duration of various rechargeable batteries\nTesting sugar amounts in soft drinks\nComparison of vitamin A content in frozen, canned, and fresh peas\nTesting various orange drinks for vitamin C\nHow well do various fabrics absorb and retain dye?\nHow strong is a spider web filament?\nHow does the tail affect the flight of a kite?\nWhat shutter speed is needed to photograph a moving fan?\nWhat is the velocity of water through different diameter-sized tubes of the same material?\nWhat is the density of various liquids?\nDo oil additives reduce friction on engine parts?\nCreate a frictionless magnetic bearing\nHow many rotor blades give maximum lift for a helicopter?\nRobots and robotics – computer generated\nUsing electromagnets to power a car\nVarious computer projects\nTesting a car headlamp as a satellite dish antenna\nStoring the sun’s energy\nPower generated by rising air\nPower generated from sea waves\nTesting different water turbine blades\nCharting the apparent motion of the star Polaris\nTesting the effectiveness of various batteries", "pred_label": "__label__1", "pred_score_pos": 0.7331767082214355}
+{"content": "Zillow Talk: A Real Estate Must Read\n\nFew topics reach the masses in the way that Real Estate does. And whether you rent or own your home, everyone is involved to some extent. While we live in a Real Estate obsessed culture, it’s still one of the least understood sectors of our economy. Zillow, the leader in Real Estate data, is changing that by providing us with access to more information now than ever.\n\nIf you are considering purchasing a home or already own a home, Zillow Talk is a fascinating read that can help you better understand what drives the Real Estate market. The authors of Zillow Talk explain how they use their massive database to identify trends, debunk common myths and accurately predict home values. It’s an informative read, with valuable insights, that gets you thinking about the housing market in new ways.\n\nUnderstanding #Hashtags\n\nHashtags are a great way to promote yourself, your brand, a promotion or other campaign and expand your reach on social media. However, all hashtags are not created equal and it’s important to understand how users engage across different social media platforms. This presentation will help you better understand hashtags and how to use them.", "pred_label": "__label__1", "pred_score_pos": 0.6694446802139282}
+{"content": "Didn’t have time in August (holidays) to write a complete blog posts on the DLL Hijacking thing. So I only did some YouTube videos, how explain better the dangerousity of this flaw. But what is interesting in this story, is the “Acros” position on the HDMoore proposed coordinate disclosure process and the collision between security researchers on the same vulnerability without knowing that they are working on the same thing but thousand of milles away from each other.", "pred_label": "__label__1", "pred_score_pos": 1.0000096559524536}
+{"content": "Communications to keep employees and customers happy\n\nThe ability to keep customers and employees happy determines a business' success. That's why waiting hours to days to receive feedback doesn't make sense. Instant Census automated two-way text messaging allows businesses to connect with and gather feedback from customers and employees in seconds to minutes.\n\nInstant Census interacts with customers as if they were holding a text message conversation with a real, live person: Instant Census texts a question, the recipient texts an answer, Instant Census parses the answer and determines how to follow up.\n\nEmployee Communications\n\nA business must communicate important information quickly and effectively with employees to maintain proper daily company operations. Business owners may spend hours using ineffective and outdated means of communication or wondering if employees received their messages. By using Instant Census automated two-way text messaging, businesses have the power to communicate with and gather feedback from employees in seconds to minutes.\n\nBusinesses use Instant Census to send messages and solicit feedback in a quicker, more advanced mode of communication.\n\nCustomer Engagement\n\nResponding to customer inquiries, addressing customer feedback, and handling general customer communications is necessary to keep customers happy. Communications via email, snail mail and phone do not offer solutions or services quick enough to satisfy customers' needs. They also lack the personal experience many customers crave when communication with businesses.\n\nInstant Census offers businesses a quick and effective solution to interact with customers in a personal and professional tone. With the ability to communicate with thousands of customers at once, Instant Census allows businesses to solicit feedback and respond to customer inquiries in seconds.\n\nTap Into The Power Of Text Messaging\n\n50% message response rate in 1.5 minutes\n\nAlmost 90% of Americans have unlimited texting\n\n85% message response rate overall\n\n90% of text messages are opened in under 3 minutes\n\n*Using compensated respondents\n\nWhy Automated Text Messaging?\n\nText messaging is the ideal medium for getting brief feedback from and communicating information with customers and employees.\n\n\n\nHow Do Businesses Use Instant Census?\n\nInstant Census' versatile nature allows for our SMS surveys to be used in a variety of industries for a variety of purposes.\n\nUse Cases\n\nWe offer discounts to select Nonprofits and Small Businesses.\n\nContact us to see if your business qualifies.\n\n", "pred_label": "__label__1", "pred_score_pos": 0.8485155701637268}
+{"content": "\n\nSubject Criminal Profiling - Essay Example\n\nOnly on StudentShare\nAuthor : princess70\n\n\nAutoerotic asphyxia is a paraphilia which is a sub-category of sexual masochism, autoerotic or sexual asphyxia. This potentially lethal sexual practice refers to sexual arousal that is produced while reducing the oxygen supply to the brain.\nThis project is made to assimilate whether or not the crime scene found was a suicide case or simply an accident attributed to autoerotic asphyxia…\n\nExtract of sample\nSubject Criminal Profiling\n\nIn the space provided, list those factors which substantiate an accidental death and were found at or in:\nAs a peace officer and a person whose career is on human protection and rights, it is common practice for the victim to have the weapons near arms reach so that in cases of turmoil and conflicts, the weapon will be always ready to be used. Also, it has been embedded in the victims' subconscious that the weapons should always be with him attached to his body or near him. In this case, it was near his place of demise.\nDuring the time of his deliberation of the act, the victim may not want to see his badge, credentials and uniform around the place of where the act will be done. This is based on the fact that the victim worked very hard to earn those items during a better time in his life. There is an underlying assumption that the victim may not want to see the things he deeply cared for so as not to influence his decision to do what he must. He hid them in a box on the floor below because he did not want them to be in the same room when he killed himself.\nWe have conducted a complete investigation regarding this unattended death and have come to the conclusion that this death was caused by accident attributed to autoerotic asphyxia. ...\nDownload paper\n\nRelated Essays\n\nracial profiling against american minorities\nRacial profiling will not help the policing procedures becomes effective and the insurance practices as well. The paper will enlighten some of us who are not aware that they are committing racial discrimination against the minorities. In this paper you will be able to identify the policing procedures and insurance policies for African Americans differs from the normal citizen of USA. To understand the topic fully it is best to define terms involved in the study. At the end of the paper the reader will agree or disagree on matter involving racial profiling against African American in policing…\n12 pages (3012 words)\nCriminal identification procedures\nJust as many other things have during the course of the last decade, the technological advancement in the pursuit of legal justice has been astonishing. Never before in history have investigators had tools at their disposal to solve a case and as such, giving the victim(s) some much needed closure for healing and getting the sense of justice which is entitled to them. With all of this advancement, each innovation in its own right played an instrumental role in crime solving. In that case, two of the specific advancements in technology to observe are DNA Analysis and the use of Intra-agency…\n6 pages (1506 words)\nCriminal Justice Ethics\nHowever, from the My Lai outrage at the height of the Vietnam war in the 1970s to the Guantanamo Bay horrors more recently, American law-enforcement authorities have behaved as though they are a law unto themselves and, therefore, not subject to the laws of the land; worse, the government has often tried to get round the judiciary to help the offenders get away with their crimes.…\n6 pages (1506 words)\nCollaborative Model of Criminal Justice\nInterest in the field hastened in the 20th century with the universal establishment of police force, crime management and control. According to Hirsch and Gottfredson (1990), the study of crime has evolved from being a corollary or application of social science into being a distinct field with the recognition of the impact of crime and victimization to society as well as in consideration of its operation as a social institution in ensuring peace, order and stability. However, the premise that crime as a social construct and individual criminality is not at question, has not been absolute or…\n16 pages (4016 words)\nCriminal and Racial Profiling\nexpectation that their communities will be safe, that individuals who commit crimes will be prosecuted, that freedom of mobility within the United States and outside its borders will be safeguarded and that the federal government’s primary responsibility must always be to protect the national security of the country. These expectations are uniformly held by Americans and transcend political affiliation, socio-economic status, ethnicity or geographic location.…\n10 pages (2510 words)\nCriminal profiling\nhat the “religious” aspect brings to the equation of profiling of terrorists prompted me to investigate further on how criminal profiling practices and theories, learnt in the class are applicable to such multi-dimensional problems. These complexities include deconstructing political motives from extreme religious beliefs, interpreting historical feuds with a neutral outlook, understanding whether profiling should be conducted for a person (the terrorist), a sect (terrorist group), a religion or a process (training camps).…\n12 pages (3012 words)\n\"The effect of Technological advances on the validity and reliability of criminal profiling\"\ns, the new technologies have had a profound influence on the developments shaping the contemporary criminal profiling process and completely impacted both its validity and reliability at the same time. This paper sets out to interrogate the effect of technological advances on the validity and reliability of criminal profiling; specifically, this paper will explore the manner in which the new technological innovations are preventing crime and enhancing police performance. Furthermore, this paper will investigate the allegations that criminal profiling and the American criminal justice processes…\n9 pages (2259 words)", "pred_label": "__label__1", "pred_score_pos": 0.9948977828025818}
+{"content": "Steady-State Cardio (running, biking, walking for 30 – 60 min) or High Intensity Intervals (30 sec full out and 90 sec rest)…Which is best for fat loss and muscle gain? Data seems to state that both offer benefits, but in surprising ways. Steady-State Cardio won’t provide a big fat loss or muscle gain, but strengthens the heart, reduces stress (lowering cortisol levels) and improves recovery times when done consistently. Read on to learn the benefits of HIIT Training and Read our previous article “Exercise Makes You Smarter” to learn about the other benefits. \n\nBenefits of High Intensity Interval Training\n\nHow Do I Do a HIIT/ Burst/ Interval Training Workout? \n\n  1. Warm up for 2 – 3 minutes with some light dynamic stretching to prepare the body for the high intensity motion. cycling-class\n  2. Exercise as hard and fast as you can (80% of your maximum heart rate) for 5 seconds to 8 minutes (we like the 30 second intervals). You want to get your heart rate up to your calculated maximum heart rate. A sign that you’re giving it enough effort is when you’re gasping for breath, couldn’t talk with a partner and feel like you couldn’t possibly go on another few seconds. You decide the exercise (common ones are running sprints, burpees, bike sprints, jumping jacks, squats, or even fast walking). \n  3. Recover and Rest between intervals. Rest for as long as you need to get your breathing and heart rate back down to normal. This can be anywhere from 10 seconds to 4 minutes and will not alter the effectiveness of the intervals. You can either just slow down your movements or stop completely. \n  4. Repeat the high-intensity exercise and recovery five to seven more times, for a total of six or eight repetitions, depending on your level of fitness. interval-timer At first go for a shorter time and less intervals because your muscles, lungs and heart need to adapt to the new routine. As your lungs get stronger, you can increase the duration – or you can just increase your intensity.  \n  5. Cool down, move slowly and stretch for about three minutes or longer until your heart rate and breathing return to normal.\n\nCauliflower Momentexercising for hours at the gym doesn’t make us lose more fat and get healthier – it’s actually the shorter, more intense sessions that gives us these results.", "pred_label": "__label__1", "pred_score_pos": 0.9996499419212341}
+{"content": "Find your cullinary voice\n\n4/04 - The ICE Tank: Food Business Presentation Workshop\n\nApril 04, 2016 - April 18, 2016 6:00 PM - 8:00 PM\nInstitute of Culinary Education\n\nMondays, April 4-18, 6-8pm\n$300 • 2 sessions\n\nICE's new workshop is an interactive two-session class for food entrepreneurs, whether you're already in business or planning to start one. This workshop will provide professional feedback on your food concept (either for a restaurant or a food product). Participants will be given eight minutes to present their concept, covering the following specific areas:\n\n1. Food Concept Description: What is the nature of the business?\n2. Menu: What is your menu of products?\n3. Unique Selling Points: What stands out about your concept that will lead to success?\n4. Target Demographic/Location: Who and where is your primary customer base?\n5. Design, Brand, Logo: What is the look and feel of your concept/product?\n6. Marketing Strategy: How do you plan to successfully sell in a competitive marketplace?\n7. Challenges to Success: What do you identify as the challenges to your success?\n8. Estimated Startup/Growth Costs: How much money do you need at this point to begin and/or to go forward?\n9. Leadership and Management: What qualities do you have to lead your concept to success?\n\nThe first session will go over guidelines on how to organize your presentation, as well as strategies to be more effective in your pitch. We will go over your presentation outline and give you two weeks to prepare. Then we'll discuss the current nature of the food business and trends that impact success. Note: Please bring a flash drive to store your own presentation.\n\nClick here to register.", "pred_label": "__label__1", "pred_score_pos": 0.9996465444564819}
+{"content": "random screengrabs\n\n\nwould you mind making a color and anatomy edit of this? (sorry if it’s been done before, i just picked a random screengrab that had particularly atrocious colors)\n\n\nThe anatomy isn’t the worst in this frame, just both their arms were a bit odd. However this is in a scene with a lot of movement so it’s not so bad imo.\n\nBut the colours….oh lord. Lapis’ skin was especially turquoise that episode, it’s actually a different colour to her normal cyan day palette so I toned it down and made it more blue. Did the same thing with Peridot and just toned down her skin a little bit.\n\nHope you like it!", "pred_label": "__label__1", "pred_score_pos": 0.7397171258926392}
+{"content": "The text of the invitation to a bachelorette party\n\nYou want to invite girlfriends on a hen party informat writing card? Then to start, make a guest list, decide with the style of the party. Then pick up the invitation card format, text and think of inviting guests to a bachelorette party. You can buy ready-made invitations, or use the printing services to create original invitations for a bachelorette party. If you are planning a theme party, then take care of the cards would have to advance.\n\nHighlights of writing the text\n\nBefore thinking about the text, you mustmake the invitation, to decide on his appearance. When a suitable design, material chosen, consider how you will sign the cards - hand, using ready-made forms or print the entire text. If you want a manual signature, but do not have beautiful handwriting, ask a girlfriend or a calligraphy expert. When printing, decide the font, its size. As for the text, there should be mentioned:\n\n  • Destination.\n  • The exact date of the bachelorette party - hour start number.\n  • Address collection facilities (restaurants, cafe, club) with the title.\n  • bride's name.\n  • Organizational issues (dress code, special requests).\n\nThis is the necessary information that should not be missed. Once you have thought through every detail - ready to order, you can safely send to the printing center.\n\nCreate an unusual invitation to a computer, see the example in this video:\n\ntext Styles\n\nWhen choosing a style that will be used whenwriting text, the bride should be based on your own preferences - personal wishes, nature, themes of the upcoming party. Postcard can be a full-fledged interesting story or consist of a pair of words, reporting the location of the time.\n\nThe classic text\n\nThe classic text like girls who haveI do not have time to organize even this moment before the wedding. Enough small: \"Dear (Name), I invite you to celebrate my bachelorette party! (Place and date) Kisses, your (bride's name). \"\n\nExample text invitation for a bachelorette party\n\n\nWell, if the bride will be able to compose herselfverses adorning them a postcard, which will go to invite guests. However, to call girlfriends to celebrate the last day of freedom as possible and not possessing poetic talent - make poetry a professional author or search the vast network.\n\nIn prose\n\nOption writing text-prose providesmany opportunities - experiment. Use quotes, sayings, proverbs, come up with an unusual invitation that will make girlfriends wonder what awaits them, for example: \"My favorite (name), our exit space station starts (date and time) from the station (name, address of the place). Waiting. With love, Captain (bride's name). \" Such an invitation is suitable for a bachelorette party in a limousine.\n\n\nFunny text adorning postcard, surely delight the recipient of. Funny example in the photo:\n\nFunny text invitations to the party, bachelorette party\n\n\nThis style is perfect for a bachelorette party, which will beheld at the chic restaurant or in the case where the bride invites unfamiliar people, which is a rarity. The main rule - courtesy and simplicity. And do not forget to add: \"Sincerely.\"\n\n\nSincere invitation text obtained ifhero of the occasion to write each guest individually by hand. It takes longer, but it's nice to be best friends to get something personal that is addressed to each of them separately. There may be mentioned memories relating only two - the first quarrel, going to an astrologer, an unsuccessful painting indoor walls together.\n\nSpiritual invitation for a bachelorette party\n\n\nFairy invitation should look like magic -feathers, ribbons, stars. Write a can: \"The Princess (Name)! I inform you that I was saved from the evil witch that has kept me captive for so many years ... Now I am free, but very soon I will take away the prince in his castle. I propose to meet in the tower (place and time), together with other princesses goodbye to me and my freedom - forever. I Love, Princess (bride's name). \"\n\n\nThematic invitation to bachelorette party: pajama party\n\nSubject text must be suitable to the scriptfuture parties. If you choose a marine style, invite your friends to visit your pirate ship, and instead of a plain text description of the place - invest a pirate map. Eastern style suggests an invitation to tea, Hawaiian - Happy Island. With postcard send girlfriends gifts, accessories, related topics - Chinese fan, leu.\n\nIn drawing up the plan for pre-wedding affairs, notRemember to include to the compilation and custom invitations for a bachelorette party. You can call the girls on the phone, but the written version will not only elegant solution, but also memorable.\n\nHow would you have signed the invitation for a holiday to their friends? Leave a comment to share your experience!", "pred_label": "__label__1", "pred_score_pos": 0.5731264352798462}
+{"content": "Articles Legal News Thailand Lawyer Links Home\n\n\nCompetition Law Part 7\n\nThe Philippines laws, even though there are several relating to unfair competition, mainly focus on trade, and do not cover investment. There is no regulation of mergers and acquisitions. Most laws do not clearly stipulate the amount of a fine or compensation in cases where competitors are injured. There are no criteria to justify the behaviour of firms, which might be regarded as unfair competition, and there is no measure to assess how the public interest would be affected. Also there is no clear procedure provided in the Philippines law for dealing with firms involved in unfair competition. Therefore, the existing laws are inadequate to cope with the problems that may occur when the ASEAN Investment Area is implemented.\n\nIn Singapore there is The Multi-Level Marketing and Pyramid Selling Prohibition Act. This Act makes it an offence for any person to promote or participate in a multi-level marketing scheme, which essentially embraces schemes, or arrangements, which recruit participants in pyramid selling on the chain-letter principle. However, apart from this, there is no Anti-competition law in Singapore. Its open economy and liberalised investment regime have been considered sufficient to guarantee free competition in Singapore.\n\nIn Thailand, there is The Prescription of Prices of Goods and Anti-Monopoly Act of 1979, and The Investment Promotion Act 1977 that includes a guarantee against state competition, against competition by state monopolies selling or dealing in similar products, against price control by the state, against export restriction, and against importation by the state or its agencies and enterprises. However, the practice of imposition of import bans on competing products to protect the activities of the promoted enterprise counteracts the guarantee of fair competition in this case. This is an example of the ineffective implementation of unsystematic competition rules.\n\nAll ASEAN countries also have Anti-Dumping laws and a Consumer Protection Law. But none of them has a systematic competition law that could regulate the rivalries of firms and control the potential restrictive business practices of producers in global networks. It is important that ASEAN countries should introduce a comprehensive regime of investment liberalisation, deregulation, privatisation and competition law enforcement rather than only relaxing laws on the spot and lifting barriers item by item, which is not effective and is likely to confuse foreign investors. Foreign investors usually feel burdened by tons of laws and regulations that sometimes counteract each other. Regulatory differences in the investment field are obstacles to foreign investors (Trisciuzzi, 1983)(14). Consequently, comprehensive regionalisation of competition laws could effectively enhance the favourable legal environment for attracting foreign investors (Geist, 1995; Baker & Holmes, 1991: 30)(15).\n\n1.2.1 Merger Regulations for Replacing Regulations on Restriction of Foreign Equity in ASEAN Investment Laws\n\nIn this section I propose to focus on merger control in ASEAN. Even though a comprehensive regional system of merger control does not yet exist, it is in the interests of ASEAN to establish merger control in the region. Since ASEAN will have to implement national treatment in the near future and eliminate investment laws, which are incompatible with the objectives of the ASEAN Investment Area, merger regulations are needed to replace those laws used to function as a screening instrument. This is to ensure that there would be no emergence of cartels, trusts, oligopolies, concentrations or dominant market positions to harm the ASEAN economy, when the screening process and regulations of ASEAN investment laws are eliminated.\n\nPart 8 \n\n\n(14)  Trisciuzzi (1983) says: \"Perhaps the most important potential benefit would be the harmonisation of currently diverse systems of national laws and regulations. For example, harmonisation could reduce the high costs borne by multinational corporations in dealing with widely divergent regulatory regimes in different countries\".\n\n(15)  Geist (1995) pointed out that it is not surprising to find that investors encounter and become discouraged with the potentially confusing and time-consuming regulations established by individual states. Also Professor Mark Baker noted in a 1991 review of Latin American FDI codes that \"the greatest disincentive to direct foreign investment was dealing with local authorities. Foreign investors", "pred_label": "__label__1", "pred_score_pos": 0.8619297742843628}
+{"content": "Nezlek, J. B., Vansteelandt, K., Van Mechelen, I., & Kuppens, P. (2008). Appraisal-emotion relationships in daily life. Emotion, 8, 145-150\n\nUsing a daily process design, the present study examined relationships between momentary appraisals and emotional experience based on Smith and Lazarus' theory of emotions (1993). Nine times a day for two weeks, participants (N = 33, 23 women) recorded their momentary experience of two positive emotions (joy, love) and four negative emotions (anger, guilt, fear, sadness) and the core relational theme appraisal contents Smith & Lazarus (1993) hypothesized as corresponding to these emotions. A series of multilevel modeling analyses found that the hypothesized relationships between appraisal contents and these emotions were stronger than relationships between contents and other emotions, although appraisals were related to other emotions in many cases. Moreover, there were some individual differences in the strength of these relationships. These results suggest that there are no one-to-one relationships between appraisal contents and specific emotional experiences, and that specific emotions are associated with different appraisal contents, and that specific appraisals are associated with different emotions.", "pred_label": "__label__1", "pred_score_pos": 0.9998413920402527}
+{"content": "Research / Blogs\n\nStairway to Heaven\n\n\nIn this blog post I claim that an important amount of the dialogue around the texts of Ramon Llull in the Monastery of El Escorial happened in manuscript form and it was restricted to a small circle of intellectuals. The first step in this dialogue was a treatise in defense of the Art written by the professor Dimes de Miquel that used Llull's visual model of the ladder of knowledge in order to relate him to the peripatetic and academic ways. Eventually, Dimes states that Llull is closer to Plato than to Aristotle, but also that Llull grants legitimacy to debated and unorthodox sources of knowledge from the pythagorean Syrian ancient philosopher Iamblichus to Marsilius Ficinus.\n\nScala Intellectus (ca. 1336) Scala Intellectus (1480) Scala Intellectus (1512)\n\n\nHeraclitus, Fragments LX\n\nNot unlike many other medieval authors, Llull borrows from Aristotle. In this case, he includes in the Art the idea of three different souls: elementative, sensitive, and imaginative, corresponding to basic living beings, to animals, and to humans respectively. Of course, he incorporates this classification to own system without quoting him, as the point of his system was to constitute itself as self-referential. The conceptual basis of Llull’s ontological model is the image of a ladder of beings that allows the human soul to ascend from the world to God and to descend from God to the world. Nevertheless, my interest here is not to fully explain Ramon Llull’s ontological model, but to explain the importance that this ontological model had on Dimes de Miquel’s manuscript treatise in defense of Ramon Llull entitled Apologia doctrinae lullianae (San Lorenzo del Escorial, BRM, MS. d.II.5). Partially because Dimes de Miquel, advisor to the king Philip II in Lullist matters and professor at the University of València, argued that the terms of this ontology where crucial in order to defend Llull against those who opposed his teachings. Partially because his treatise is designed to provoke discussion about this ontological model among intellectuals close to the king and to the Escorial who were interested in Llull or in authors perceived as kindred to him. If Ramon Llull opted for building an intellectually isolated body of work, Miquel wrote his Apologia in order to establish exterior points of reference that would, subsequently, produce engagement in the discussion of this body of work.\n\nLlull’s ladder of being represents the third great visual model he produced for readers in order to understand his philosophical system. The first is constituted by the figures of the Art, the ones that generated his whole evangelizing project that he wanted to be the best book the world had ever seen. The figures of the Art are complex devices to discuss about the inherent truth of Christianity with wise learned men from other faiths. Actually, the philosophical system is only a product of this evangelizing. The second one is the tree of disciplines, which is not an exclusively Lullist figure, but that he reworks so it will be a part of his own system. The tree of disciplines is a learning tool to expose his system in a pedagogical fashion for young students. The ladder of being starts a conversation different from the other visual models, it is not a way to convince Aristotelian scholars or to train young students that need to be eased into Ramon Llull. It is a way of introducing the Art to laymen (homines saeculares) who lack the training and the intellectual lexicon to operate it. As Michaela Pereira points, Llull’s ladder seems to be intended for a reader that is what he himself had been before his years of study and his revelation at Mount Randa. Even though the Liber de ascensu et descensu intellectus is about the division of the world into eight different fundamental different forms of being (Lapis, Flamma, Planta, Brutum, Homo, Caelum, Angelus, Deus), its nature is not exclusively ontological, but also encyclopedic. The treatise is about epistemological movements from the world to God and back defending that the divine nature is knowable. This epistemology is based on the three qualities composing the intellect (memory, imagination, and will) and then goes through natural philosophy, anthropology, and theology.\n\nObviously, one the reasons of the popularity of the Art of Ramon Llull during the early modern period was its compendious nature. The fact that a set of technical devices inside books is above any discourse of knowledge. Partially, that placed Ramon Llull at odds with the tradition of academic discourse preceding him. Hence, in his Apollogia doctrinae lullianae, Dimes de Miquel tries to place his works on a familiar reading axis, finding his place in the same philosophical tradition that he knew and avoided to quote. Dimes notes that the European academic tradition that has been transmitted to him is based in at least two main oppositions: Plato and Aristotle, on the one hand; Thomas Aquinas and Duns Scotus, on the other. These oppositions mirror the two directions that Ramon Llull’s ladder of beings allows. The academic way proceeds top-down (from the God to the things of the world), whereas the peripatetic way proceeds bottom-up (from the things of the world to God). The Art can combine both since the intellectual operations constituting it allow both directions, or, in other words, because it considers creation and creator as a whole:\n\nNotandum est hoc artificium potius sequi viam academicorum quam peripateticorum, et si neutram omnino sequatur, nec impugnet, imo ac Platonem ab Aristotele, nec divum Thomam ab Scoto, servata ratione instituti, in plerisque dissentire in eo exercitatus elicere potest; ad platonicam enim doctrinam aristotelica via est, termino autem via quomodo potest esse contraria? Imo ut quid altius dicam, utriusque vie hoc artificium est perfectio, nam peripatetice ascendimus, academice descendimus, lullistice vero ab aequalibus aequalia colligimus.\n\n[‪It is to be noticed that this Art follows the way of the Academics rather than that of the Peripatetics, even though it does not follow any of them entirely, nor does it attack any of them. Nor is it possible for he who is trained in this art to claim that Plato differs from Aristotle in many things, nor that the divine Thomas does from Scotus, in another institutional context. For it is certain that the Aristotelian doctrine is a path to attain the Platonic one, and how would it be possible for a path to contradict its end? On the contrary, so that I may speak a deeper truth, this Art embodies the culmination of both ways [sc. the Aristotelian and the Platonic] –for with the Peripatetic way we mount higher, whereas with the Academic one we go downwards. However, the Lullistic way helps us consider the equal from the equal.]\n\nDimes de Miquel sees this old set of dichotomies (Plato vs Aristotle; Aquinas vs Scotus) as a historical feature of Western scholarly debate, but as one that the Art of Ramon Llull is able to circumvent through training. If one can deduce or induce knowledge and that difference grounds different philosophical schools, Ramon Llull’s is the one that allows to practice both ways at the same time without detriment in the production of knowledge. Hence, even if Dimes is avoiding to state so, the Art would short circuit the path to intellectual legitimacy in academia by empowering a discourse external to it.\n\nDismissing the importance of the debates about the limits of what there is to know in the Escorial exclusively on the basis of its lack of coincidence with that lineage would constitute a mistake and an act of presentism. The potential new scientia that is being the object of discussions at the Escorial, the one that allows the king of Spain and any of his subjects go from the understanding of things to the understanding of the world through memory, comprehension, and will is the extension of an epistemological system that was being discussed and studied from the ending of the thirteenth-century, but never had such an important institutional outlet. This epistemological system integrates a form of teaching not separated that does not separate theology from the liberal arts and that makes everything an outcome of the learning of one language only, the Art of Ramon Llull. This discussion, as I will explain on the next chapter, is contemporary to the advocating for the cult and subsequent canonization of Ramon Llull, while at the same time implies a model for scientific knowledge that is being developed beyond Castile. Not only the Escorial wanted to promote and be a critical laboratory for the Art, it also wanted to become a center for its single isolated exercises of reading (from João de Barros to Diego de Valadés). Universalizing Christian faith and producing an all-encompassing model for conversion are not separated from the military and cultural aspects of the Iberian expansion, they constitute one only manifestation of the power of Austrian monarchy. The fact that Philip II tailors the Art of Ramon Llull to its own necessities is a consequence of this movement.\n\nSuch disruptive potential in the discursive context of academia was never stated as a main argument for the dismissal of the works of Ramon Llull. This argument was implied from the beginning of the circulation of the Art, when he was laughed after having presented it in Paris to an audience of theologians educated mostly in Aquinas. Scholastics during centuries tended to express doubts about the Art, particularly about one possibility of reaching the infinity of the being of God from the finitude inherent to human understanding. Specifically, Aquinas’s doctrine had established that even though it is possible to prove its existence, the nature of God is impossible to know by none other than the blessed. Not everybody can possibly access the knowledge of God. Hence, the disruptiveness of Lullism is not reduced to academic auditoria, but it is of a theological nature. When the Art creates an intellectual path for the ascension from the things towards God, it is circumventing a discourse of authority that controls intellectual and religious experience. This is not to say that Ramon Llull’s intent wanted to contradict ecclesiastical authorities. However, the contradiction comes from the idea that the dogmas of the Church are an indispensable part of preaching and building the discourse of the Church on faith. For Ramon Llull, dogmas are demonstrable propositions that can turn into simple combinations of the Alphabet of the Art and through it can beat the faith of other religions as less able to build a logic discourse around their propositions.\n\nParadoxically, Dimes de Miquel was trying to rehabilitate academically the Art in order to grant intellectual legitimacy to it, but ultimately trying to make it a model outside the realm of academic debate. To an extent, this is the same of what Ramon Llull was doing during his lifetime. In spite of the fact that academics dismissed the Art and fought it adamantly, they were not meant to be the only audience for the Art. If he tried to present the Art to them, it was only a consequence of the philosophical complexity of the method that required not only the endorsement of institutions but also to convince already trained scholars of the advantages of a new system of training. As it had happened in medieval universities and later at San Ildefonso, not all the people at the Escorial were on board with the maximalist vision that Dimes de Miquel, Pedro de Guevara, and Juan de Herrera associated to the Art. However, the real fábrica as a political concept is actively trying to produce a functional model that fits the epistemological model of the ladder of knowledge. While the ladder of knowledge is a visual metaphor for said epistemological model, the Escorial is trying to gather every knowable thing inside itself and project an image of Philip II. Dimes’s Apologia is trying to place everybody working at the Escorial on the Sacred Scripture, on theology, on maps, on mathematics, on geography, on economy, or on the mysteries of ancient Egypt among other disciplines of knowledge, under one roof.\n\nBy writing his apologia of the Art of Ramon Llull, the professor Dimes de Miquel argues the legitimacy of its connections to well respected systems of philosophical inquiry, but also defends its connection to ancient Egypt, Hermeticism, and other early modern non-academic ways of intellectual inquiry. Among all these forms and disciplines of knowledge Dimes establishes that the Art is the most efficient as it helps the student to master any discipline. In this sense, his defense of the Art is paradoxical: while the Art is mostly a way of knowing and producing discourse, he defends it as a knowledge in itself. Dimes refers himself to this difference as to the difference between pure knowledge (scientia, what there is to know) and disciplines of knowledge (modus sciendi, ways of knowing). In order to visualize this difference, the ladder of knowledge was conceived. Actually, the ladder is the ultimate visual metaphor of how the Art works: everything that there is to know is susceptible to be classified in one of the step, while the way of knowing admits both climbing up and down the ladder. The ladder of knowledge mirrors perfectly the way the intellect works as a result of the mastering of the Art. Obviously, this effect constitutes to a great extent the power of the ladder as an image of the Art of Ramon Llull, this is, the way in which allowed to understand the way such complex intellectual method processes subjects of knowledge.\n\nDimes de Miquel’s manuscript treatise is not only important in itself, but because of the six marginal notes that it contains. They prove two things. Firstly, that the intellectual network that surrounded the king Philip II was more complex and intricate that the one surrounding Cardinal Francisco Ximenez de Cisneros. The number of copyists and readers working on the manuscripts, on the one hand, and the number of books gathered, on the other, are also larger in comparison with San Ildefonso. In order to have a control over the materials in the library, manuscripts need to be revised. This is particularly true when manuscripts deal with subjects as important as the defense of the Art of Ramon Llull. Either Ambrosio de Morales (1513-91) or Antonio Agustín y Albanell (1516-86) reviewed the manuscript and were able to make precisions on some of the data about the content and history of Lullism. Manuscripts, as I will explore further in the next pages, are not only the way the Art of Ramon Llull circulates, or the way through which arguments around it are made, but also the way different authors around the orbit of the Escorial communicate some of their ideas about it. When the manuscript of Dimes de Miquel’s Apologia doctrinae lullianae was made, it was not meant as a way of reaching a wider audience than the one that read it at the Escorial. Contrarily to the Art itself, which Ramon Llull tried to expand and promote as possible, these ideas constitute a part of a private dialogue and the practice of its discussion serves the purpose of delineating a circle. Once that I have discussed the terms of defense of Llull’s ontological and epistemological model, I will argue that they were using it in order to design a universal form able to encompass everything the world contains.\n\nLast Updated 1 year ago\n\n\n  • Llull, Ramon. Raymundi Lully Doctoris illuminati de nova logica, de correlatiuis nec non et de ascensu et descensu intellectus. Ed. Alfonso de Proaza. València: Jordi Costilla, 1512. Print.\n  • —. Ars generalis ultima. Logica brevis et nova. Venice: Filippo Petri, 1480. Print.\n  • —. Breviculum ex artibus Raimundi Lulli electum. Ed. Thomas le Myésier. ca. 1322. Karlsruhe, Badische Landesbibliothek, St. Peter perg. 92. Manuscript.\n  • Miquel, Dimes de. Apologia doctrinae lullianae. San Lorenzo del Escorial: Biblioteca del Real Monasterio. MS. d.II.5. 138-155v. Manuscript.\n\n\nNoel Blanco Mourelle, « Stairway to Heaven », Blogs, Columbia University | LAIC, Department of Latin American and Iberian Cultures (online), published on May 10, 2016. Full URL for this article\n\nJoin the conversation", "pred_label": "__label__1", "pred_score_pos": 0.6491587162017822}
+{"content": "A Nervous Breakdown\n\nIn the weeks after a dream I had (described in \"An Encounter?\") which seems to parallel what many people have described as an \"alien abduction\" experience, I kept trying to recall the events of a specific night, a night on which I'd had a date with a young woman my sister Amy had introduced me to in that spring prior to her moving to Wynn and then to Jonesboro. I kept being unable to recall details about that night, yet felt it a crisis that I do so.\n\nI kept trying to pin \"it\" down. I'd focus on one article or another, would \"try it on\" and see if that was the thing that was causing this. But nothing really quite fit, and I could never quite get relief. I'd try to make myself believe it was some word or phrase in the articles. I'd try to pin it down; but each time I did the feeling would disappear like a chimera.\n\nI've described the stress I experienced in trying to recall that incident, trying to recall and understand this unintelligible something. It became too much for me--on top of trying to land and keep a job, and figure out some way to continue with school. I simply reached a point where I wasn't sleeping at all.\n\nI couldn't understand why, and came to be bewildered as much by my lack of self-understanding as anything else. What was I trying to recall? What was I trying to understand ? What was that unintelligible something that I couldn't quite recall? I tried, obsessed, didn't sleep, and finally broke down. I went to a psychologist, who got an M. D. to prescribe me a medication. But I\n\nwas too far along. I still didn't sleep; my obsessing was too strong.\n\nAs I also noted earlier (in \"An 'Encounter?'\") I could no longer bear to be in my room, that I'd normally gone to as a source of security. I could no longer bear to be in that house that I'd always run to as a source of refuge. My favorite place had become a hell, though all my patterns were built around it. I could no longer bear to be in it and, whenever I was, began to obsess again, to try to remember and understand that \"something,\" that unintelligible, un-remember-able something.\n\nI had to get out, asked to be admitted to the State Hospital and Dad obliged. I underwent three months of therapy, went to school, and after that Little Rock became home.\n\nAs much as I'd loved our house in Batesville--as much as I used to run to it, to see it as a virtual haven for my writing--I came to not even consciously miss it, even when my parents sold it in 1975. When my mother had told me they were selling it, in January 1975, I was still heavily-medicated. But I'd wanted to feel more genuine remorse, more desire to hang onto it. It didn't feel normal not to miss it: it was home. I had always hoped my parents would keep that house forever, but no more. I felt relieved at the thought that I'd never again have to set foot in it. And I was quite bewildered with myself for feeling that way.\n\nEven more bizarre--and something I've never admitted to my parents for fear of hurting their feelings--I kept feeling a need to get even further away from the house in Batesville, and, shamefully, a few months after finishing business and accounting school at Draughon's College of Business in Little Rock, (where I received a certificate in Sales or what today would be called Marketing, which, in truth, I'd been interested in doing some months before my \"dream\" and breakdown), in 1976 I moved to Houston, Texas.\n\nThe \"reason\" I resolved to give to myself, was that I needed even more of a \"change of scene\" than Little Rock--one which would allow me to recover even more quickly, effectively and painlessly--hopefully--from my breakdown. I chose to block out those thoughts and feelings I was having, which were motivating me to get as far away from that house as possible. However, I remained saddened by my inability to recover from my anxiety about the house. I longed to believe that I could someday return to it peacefully, to the extent that it became a major goal that I worked on in therapy groups. (In which, it should be noted, the idea of any \"encounter\" never even came up or ever even entered anyone's mind.) That goal was also Tim's goal, to an extent, as we both watched our parents' home be abandoned in 1975. He, like me, was saddened that he could never \"go home again.\"\n\nI also resolved to believe that my \"interest in politics\" had been a factor in my breakdown. So at the time, in 1976, I'd let myself get only mildly interested in the Presidential election, therefore not voting in '76.\n\nMy hospitalization experience in 1973 at Arkansas State Hospital, where I'd signed myself during October of that year, had been, as such hospitalizations usually were in those day, a traumatic experience in itself. But the hospital system in the state of Arkansas in those days was one of the better ones in the nation. Certainly there were individual staff personnel who were abusive, at least on the verbal level, with the patients, and there had been a series of scandals only a few years before my hospitalization, which probably explains the relatively benign nature of the staff during my stay there. And certainly there were other incidents in the maintenance of the State Hospital system around the state--especially those aspects relating to the care of the \"criminally insane\"--that were of poor quality. But, on balance, thanks in part, perhaps to some remarkably mental health-oriented administrations in Arkansas, the State Hospital system had been\n\nbeneficial to me.\n\nBecause I hadn't been one of the persons admitted for drug abuse, I can't evaluate that aspect of the Rehabilitation programs. But some persons I knew back then who were in those programs seem to have gone on to lead more productive lives, as they say. So\n\nperhaps that gives some indication that the system worked pretty well.\n\nMy doctors were impressed with my progress. I'd described nature of my symptoms to them. They included obsession with the opinions of \"someone\" I couldn't quite put my finger on; inability to remember details about something that I wasn't even sure I wanted to remember; and obsession with certain terms that seemed to indicate something traumatic but that were confusing to verbalize. Because of my descriptions, my doctors had initially diagnosed me as having a paranoid schizophrenic \"episode.\"\n\nLater, they would say that the consistent nature of my \"progress\" indicated that I wouldn't have a relapse, as, indeed, I have not. This, in turn, suggested that I hadn't had the typical biochemically induced \"schizophrenic episode.\" In fact, in Houston, the social worker I consulted periodically referred me to a psychiatrist for \"possible re-diagnosis\" based on my consistent ability to avoid further hospitalization and to function without medication. On two visits to two different psychiatrists for such a re-diagnosis, a distinct impression was formed that I might be better diagnosed as having a form of \"depressive or mood swing disorder,\" since I was no longer having any \"delusions\" or \"paranoid\" thoughts. They also indicated that my symptoms were mild to non-existent at that point.\n\nThe nature of that \"dream\" and the events immediately preceding and following it,\n\nmay be the key to an understanding of my \"acute\" episode. In \"Insectivorous?\" I try to write about a possible explanation for such dreams that doesn't involve the mandatory \"alien abduction,\" but rather another event similarly previously not offered as a \"conventional\" explanation, although perhaps not quite as \"spooky.\" Like Whitley Strieber in his book Communion, I have felt a need to draw on alternative possible explanations for the \"experience.\" After all, faced with no other choice than to believe the \"alien hypothesis\" gives one a \"boxed in\" feeling that, for me--and, based on what Strieber has written, him, too--is distinctly unpleasant. I feel no desire to have someone \"believe\" I was abducted by aliens. I'd just as soon have some other explanation that worked.\n\nAt this point, it might be useful to summarize the medical explanations offered for some of the phenomena we've looked at, including Sue's sleep disorders and my own \"encounter\" experience. A common explanation offered for the encounter experience is that of sleep paralysis. This disorder is included in a group of sleep disorders. Rita Brooks, writing in a manual titled Sleep Disorders for California College for Health Sciences (CCHS), lists several types of parasomnias, the medical term for various types of \"undesirable physical phenomena that occur predominantly during sleep.\" (43). I have taken the liberty of quoting Ms. Brooks, deleting certain highly-technical and medical specialty terms. The sleep disorder parasomnias Ms. Brooks describes include:\n\nArousal disorders--confusional arousals, and well known phenomena such as sleep walking and sleep terrors.\n\nSleep wake transition disorders that include sleep talking, as well as 'rhythmic movement disorders' such as headbanging and bodyrocking.\n\nParasomnias associated with REM (Rapid Eye Movement) sleep include dream anxiety attacks (nightmares), sleep paralysis. . . and REM sleep behavior disorder.\n\nOther disorders ('other parasomnias') can include sleep bruxism (tooth grinding), sleep enuresis (bedwetting), and primary snoring.\"(Brooks 43-4).\n\nIn an interesting summation of these disorders, the manual continues, (in part; I delete or define highly-technical or medically-specialized sections and terms):\n\nArousal disorders are believed to result from an impaired arousal mechanism in the brain. Most are accompanied by a period of confusion upon awakening, and occur primarily when the person is waking from slow wave sleep during the first third of the night. The three major types are: (1) confusional arousals; (2) sleep walking; (3) sleep terrors . . .\n\nConfusional arousals consist of episodes of confusion which occur following an arousal from deep sleep in the early part of the night. They occur most commonly among young children, and typically disappear during later childhood. Confusional arousals are rare in adults (Brooks 43-4).\n\nDuring a confusional arousal, says Brooks, although a child's eyes may be open, there is poor or inappropriate response to questions or commands, but no evidence of fear, as with sleep terrors or sleep walking behavior. And, she says, there is no evidence of acting out a dream (as in REM behavior disorder). There is usually no memory of the event, either, paralleling Sue's \"Marooned\" dream. Some aspects fit, though some don't.\n\nSleep walking. . .episodes can range from simply sitting up in bed to walking or even running behavior. Sleepwalking is most common in children between the ages of 4 and 8, and usually disappears by adolescence. Fever, sleep deprivation, obstructive sleep apnea syndrome, or external stimuli, such as noise, may cause, or increase, frequency of sleepwalking episodes.\n\nWaking the sleepwalker is difficult. Confusion is common on arousal, and may result in violent behavior. Falling down stairs, walking into the street, or running through a glass door in an attempt to escape can result in serious injury to the sleepwalker. The most important response to sleepwalking is to make the environment safe for the sleepwalker. Generally guiding the sleepwalker back to the bed is often all that is necessary to terminate the sleepwalking episode. The patient does not recall the event.\n\nSleep terrors . . .disorder is characterized by the sudden arousal from slow wave sleep with a piercing scream or cry and the appearance of intense fear. The patient usually sits up in bed, screams loudly, and is unresponsive to arousal attempts. If arousal is attempted, confusion and disorientation are common, and combative behavior may also occur. Tachycardia [rapid heart action] and tachypnea [abnormally rapid breathing], along with sweating and, sometimes, enuresis, may accompany sleep terrors (Brooks 43-4).\n\nBrooks says here that there is rarely any memory of the event. (43-4). Did we see this, therefore, in Amy's \"Little Bill\" dream? Yet Amy does recall it. Brooks continues:\n\nSleep terrors occur most commonly in children between the ages of 4 and 12, and usually resolve spontaneously. Sleep terrors also occur in adults, most commonly between the ages of 20 and 30.\n\nSleep terrors should be differentiated from temporal lobe epilepsy, confusional arousal, and nightmares. Diagnosis is based on episodes of intense fear occurring during first third of the night, with no memory of the event. Severe sleep terrors may occur almost nightly, and may be associated with physical injury to the patient or others.\n\nSleep wake transition disorders. . . occur during the transition from wakefulness to sleep or from sleep to wakefulness. These disorders commonly occur in otherwise normal individuals, and are not considered pathological unless they occur with significant frequency or severity. Sleep waking transition disorders include sleep talking and rhythmic movement disorders such as headbanging, bodyrocking, and headrolling, which are all common in children.\n\nSleep talking. . .is defined as talking or making sounds during sleep without significant awareness of the event. It may occur spontaneously or may be triggered by initiating a conversation with the sleeper. Generally, episodes are sporadic and short. Sleep talking may occur during all stages of sleep. However, it occurs most commonly during REM sleep (Brooks 43-4).\n\nSleep talking, says Brooks, often occurs in conjunction with other sleep disorders, such as REM behavior disorder, sleep walking, or sleep terrors. In patients with obstructive sleep apnea, (an intermittent cessation of effective repiratory gas exchange during sleep), sleep talking may occur during arousals (43-4). We seem to have seen this with Sue.\n\nRhythmic movement disorder is characterized by repetitive stereotyped movements, usually of the head and neck, which occur immediately prior to sleep and as the person moves in light sleep. Rhythmic movement disorder occurs most commonly in infants and children under age four, usually begins before age one, and resolves spontaneously.\n\nHeadbanging is the most common form of this disorder. The child may bang his head into the mattress or pillow, rock on his hands and knees and bang his head into the headboard or wall, or rock sitting up and bang his head against the headboard and wall. Bodyrocking consists of similar movements, without headbanging. Headrolling occurs with the child lying on his back, and consists of rhythmic side to side movements of the head. When they occur in adults, these disorders are usually associated with autism or mental retardation.Polysomnography during a rhythmic movement episode usually shows movement activity occurring during wake or light sleep, says Brooks (43-4). It's interesting that my \"head being moved\" sensation occurred as I came out of a deep sleep, though. However, she notes that \"movements may occur in any stage of sleep.\" (Brooks 43-4). There would be no evidence of seizure activity in the EEG, says Brooks, for this to be a mere sleep disorder ( 43-4). She continues her list of \"parasomnias\":\n\nParasomnias associated with REM sleep:\n\nNightmares are frightening dreams which usually awaken the sleeper. Nightmares occur most often during the second half of the night, when REM sleep periods are longer. The dream content is usually long and involved, and increasingly frightening. The sleeper commonly awakens from REM sleep and recalls the dream content. Nightmares occur most commonly in children between the ages of 3 and 6. They may occur for only a few weeks or months, or they may persist into adulthood, usually becoming less frequent and less intense with age. Nightmares are not usually associated with sleep walking. Significant stress or traumatic events may increase the severity or frequency of nightmares. Upon awakening from a nightmare, the person may note other aspects of REM physiology. These include feeling cold, due to REM hypothermia . . . (Brooks 43-4).\n\nWhen polysomnography is hooked up to a patient during a nightmare, says Brooks, it shows \"increased REM density, increased heart rate variability, and an increased respiratory rate.\" (43-4). The nightmare also usually terminates with an abrupt awakening out of REM sleep, says Brooks (43-4), the way Amy woke up from her \"Little Bill\" dream, which fits the age range; but which is also the way Sue woke up from her \"potato sack man\" dream, which doesn't.\n\nSleep paralysis disorder is characterized by inability to move upon awakening or at sleep onset. Eye and respiratory movements are intact, but skeletal muscles are paralyzed briefly. Dreamlike imagery may accompany sleep paralysis, and episodes may be frightening. Episodes can last from one to several minutes, and they may disappear spontaneously, or with stimulation (such as a touch). An isolated episode of sleep paralysis, usually occurring upon awakening, is not uncommon and is considered normal. Sleep paralysis is common in narcoleptics, and usually occurs at sleep onset.\n\nPolysomnography. . . may be useful to determine if episodes occur in association with REM sleep, and to differentiate isolated sleep paralysis episodes from narcolepsy. . .\n\nREM Sleep Behavior Disorder. . .is characterized by an absence of REM sleep. . . resulting in movement activity associated with dreaming. For example, a sleeping patient exhibiting fighting or kicking behavior when awakened, may state he was dreaming of fighting or running. Movements which occur in association with dreaming may include punching, kicking, or jumping up and running from bed. Episodes are frequent, and may result in injury to the sleeper or to others. REM behavior disorder is more common among the elderly, and may occur as a result of neurologic disorders. . .\n\nPolysomnography often shows persistent, increased muscle tone during REM sleep as well as periods of limb and body movements associated with dream content. . .\n\nA diagnosis is based on the presence of limb or body movements in association with dreaming, resulting in harmful or potentially harmful sleep behaviors or sleep disruption. REM sleep behavior disorder is considered severe when episodes occur more than once per week. . . associated with physical injury to the patient or bed partner. . . (Brooks 44-50).\n\nIn another section, Brooks cites a group of \"proposed sleep disorders.\" These are disorders which \"have not been unequivocally determined to be distinct disorders.\" They include terrifying hypnagogic hallucinations:\n\n. . .[T]errifying dreams that occur at the onset of sleep. They are indistinguishable from dreams that occur during sleep. They cause awakening with anxiety and the patient reports the occurrence of bad dreams. There is immediate alertness on awakening, and no evidence of confusion and disorientation. Sleep onset nightmares may occur as a result of withdrawal from Rem suppressant medications. They occur as an atypical form of hypnagogic hallucinations in 4-8% of patients with narcolepsy. (Typical narcoleptic hypnagogic hallucinations do not cause awakening with anxiety.)\n\nPolysomnography shows abrupt awakening from. . .REM [sleep]. Mild tachycardia and tachypnea may occur. . .[N]o evidence of seizure activity. Terrifying hypnagogic hallucinations should be differentiated from night terrors and sleep related complex-partial seizures with vivid hallucinations (Brooks 66).\n\nThe above information is included to help the reader be better informed on some of the several sleep disorders. If the reader has \"related\" to some of the experiences described, they should know they may have a possible sleep disorder. They should also know that some sleep disorders (including many not named above) are associated with serious medical conditions. I suggest further reading and a possible consultation with your physician for more in-depth information. The reader should also know, as Brooks notes, that \"Hypnagogic hallucinations are vivid, dream-like episodes which occur at sleep onset. (Sleep paralysis is the inability to move during a transition between wake and sleep.) Episodes of sleep paralysis. . . usually short . . . may occur in conjunction with hypnagogic hallucinations. . .\" (Brooks 8).\n\nGo to Sky After Storm\n\nGo back toThe George Bush-Undercurrents Website\n\nOR Click on \"Back\" (above) to return to the Table of Contents for Tim, George Bush and Me on the George Bush-Undercurrents Website.", "pred_label": "__label__1", "pred_score_pos": 0.5712183713912964}
+{"content": "Syrian government forces make major advances in Aleppo\n\nsyria.jpgSyrian government forces have recently made major advances in Aleppo, fully encircling various anti-government groups including ISIS, al-Nusra Front and the Free Syrian Army in eastern Aleppo.\n\nFull control of Aleppo, the largest city in Syria, is of extreme strategic importance for the outcome of the war as it is located very close to the border of Turkey to the north, on the main supply route of weapons and fighters from Turkey into Syria. For years, the eastern part of Aleppo has been held by Sunni extremist terror groups like ISIS, the al-Qaeda linked al-Nusra Front and NATO backed FSA.\n\nOn July 27, Syrian government forces captured Kastello road, cutting off the last supply route to eastern Aleppo. The following day, the government forces captured the Bani Za’id neighborhood and al-Liramoum industrial zone in northern Aleppo’s countryside on the supply route to Turkey. In Bani Za’id, the Syrian Army seized a large warehouse filled with U.S. and Turkish made weapons and ammunition including anti-tank missiles, launchers and hand grenades.\n\nOther warehouses stocked with homemade howitzers, also referred to as “Hell cannons” and large numbers of gas canisters were also discovered. Both areas were used by the opposition groups to launch mortar and missile attacks into the residential areas of the city held by the government. In al-Zahraa neighborhood, an al-Nusra Front command center was destroyed.\n\nUpon the news of the liberation of Bani Za’id, thousands of Aleppo residents took to the streets in celebration, waving Syrian flags and chanting support for the Syrian government.\n\nThe Syrian government issued a decree granting amnesty to all non-foreign fighters who surrender. Following the decree, some of the groups affiliated with the Free Syrian Army are reported to have surrendered their neighborhoods to the Syrian government.\n\nWhile a majority of Aleppo residents—more than a million—are in the government held parts of Aleppo, a large number of Syrians—up-to over hundred thousand according to some estimates—are trapped in eastern Aleppo under the control of terror groups.\n\nIn coordination with the Russian military, the Syrian government established four humanitarian corridors to help the evacuation of civilians trapped in eastern Aleppo as well as to provide food and medical aid.\n\nThe governor of Aleppo province Mohammad Marwan Olabi stated that opposition militants were blocking families from leaving eastern Aleppo. There were reports of civilians attempting to leave Bustan al-Qasr district being fired at by the anti-government fighters.\n\nOn July 31, in an attempt to break the entrapment in eastern Aleppo, a number of terror groups including the Islamic State, Jabhat Fateh al-Sham (formerly known as al-NusraFront), Ahrar al-Sham and smaller al-Qaeda affiliated groups operating under the FSA (Free Syrian Army) umbrella launched a major joint offensive against government held areas in southern Aleppo. The Syrian government forces were able to push back the attack.\n\nWestern media silent on the massacres of civilians by U.S. and French airstrikes in northern Syria\n\nAt this critical juncture when the NATO-backed terror groups are about to be defeated in Aleppo, it is no surprise that the Western imperialist governments and their corporate media are deploying the usual “regime versus the people” rhetoric in an effort to justify more imperialist intervention to “protect” civilians.\n\nFollowing the advances by the Syrian government in Aleppo, the U.S. embassy in Russia tweeted:\n“Russia and the regime are using provision of food and aid as incentives to abandoning the city to regime control.”\n\nThe foreign ministry of France issued a statement that said:\n“In this context, the idea of ‘humanitarian corridors’ consisting of asking Aleppo’s residents to leave the city does not offer a credible response to the situation.” Nothing but sheer hypocrisy and arrogance from the two imperialist governments that are directly responsible for the massacre of hundreds of civilians in the month of July alone, in northern Syria in Manjib, a northern province of Aleppo, as they bombed away, brazenly violating the sovereignty of Syria.\n\nHere is an account of U.S. led terror by the so-called coalition against the Islamic State:\n\n\nIn a letter to the U.N., following the earlier massacres, the Syrian government said:\n“[Syria] condemns, in the strongest terms, the two bloody massacres perpetrated by the French and U.S. warplanes and those affiliated to the so-called international coalition, which send their missiles and bombs to the civilians instead of directing them to the terrorist gangs.”\n\nAl-Nusra claims to break ties with al-Qaeda in an effort to pose as “moderate”\n\nFollowing the recent negotiations between U.S. and Russia for a potential joint effort against terror groups in northern Syria, al-Nusra Front announced that it was breaking its ties with al-Qaeda and changing its name to Jabhat Fatehal-Sham (Front for the Conquest of Syria). This is simply an attempt by the re-brand al-Nusra, one of its terror proxies on the ground fighting to overthrow the Syrian government as “moderate” opposition in the hopes of shielding it from the Russian airstrikes.Unlike the U.S. coalition against IS, Russia conducts airstrikes against all terror groups in Syria, in coordination and at the request of the Syrian government, conforming to international law.\n\nWhile al-Nusra can change its name to whatever form that may be deemed more palatable for the Western public’s consumption, the simple fact that it is still a Sunni extremist terror group in the service of U.S. imperialism remains the same.\n\nWhile the western corporate media and imperialist governments spin the story in an effort to turn reality upside down, it is a fact that a very large majority of the  population across all sectors of Syrian society are firmly behind their government. It is also a fact that were it not for the U.S.-led imperialist support of terror groups—“moderate” or not, Jabhat al-Nusra or Jabhat Fateh al-Sham—the battle for the liberation of Aleppo and the whole war in Syria would have come to an end much earlier with much less loss of life and destruction. In whatever “humanitarian” pretext it is framed in, U.S.imperialism’s interventions never result in anything but utter devastation any place it lays its hands, whether it is in Afghanistan, Iraq, Libya, Syria or elsewhere.\n\nAs progressives and revolutionaries in the U.S., it is imperative that we continue to reject the demonization of the Syrian government and defend the right to self-determination of the people of Syria, especially given the possibility of a proven war-criminal and war-monger such as Hillary Clinton becoming the next “commander-in-chief” of U.S. imperialism.\n\nU.S./NATO/France hands off Syria!\n\nReposted from Liberation News\n\n\nget updates", "pred_label": "__label__1", "pred_score_pos": 0.671093225479126}
+{"content": "Social Media\n\nFriday, 14 October 2016\n\nProject aims to identify elderly left isolated if they experience mental health problems\n\nWritten by The Editorial Team\n\nScotland's older generations can be left isolated if they experience mental health problems, according to a new project.\n\nAge in Mind is working to identify and reduce the discrimination faced by people over 50 who have experienced mental health problems.\n\nSo far the research has found the older generations experiencing mental health problems are faced with isolation, in some cases their families have abandoned them or live too far away to make regular visits.\n\nFor some who have experienced severe and enduring mental health conditions in their younger life, they were even denied the opportunity to start families of their own, meaning they have less support in later life, relying on extended families.\n\nThey also report increased discrimination within the health system, with limited mental health services available for people when they are over 65.\n\nThe project is being led by the Scottish Mental Health Cooperative, and has been funded by See Me.\n\nOver 160 people with lived experience of mental health problems, and over 50 organisations which support people with their mental health needs have taken part in focus groups, interviews and questionnaires to establish what discrimination people have faced, and where work needs to be done.\n\nDianna Manson, from Edinburgh, said people who spent their younger years in asylums were often not allowed to start their own families, impacting on the support they have in later life.\n\nThe 68 year old, who has been diagnosed with paranoid schizophrenia, said: “People who have experienced mental health problems absolutely find themselves far more isolated as they get older. The reason for this is usually your family have disappeared out of your life.\n\n“People of my generation who were in asylums were denied the opportunity to start our own families.\n\n“If we had children they were taken away as children would not be kept with a parent with a mental health problem.\n\n“So we are very much on our own and if we need to rely on people it is extended family. Friends we have made through our lives have often been other service users and we can’t keep in touch.”\n\nDavid Sinclair 72 from Glasgow, who was diagnosed with schizophrenia in 1965 although never given medication, said: “I certainly have faced stigma and isolation.\n\n“Being out of contact with people is a large issue, you feel outside the world, you can be stigmatised by family members and neighbours think you are part of a different generation so don’t bother.\n\n“I don’t mention my mental health at all outside, you get stigmatised as soon as you open your mouth, you see the barriers coming down.\n\n“I have faced stigma within my family, you feel like you are a secondary concern, younger generations don’t look after older generations enough, especially if you have a mental health problem.”\n\nDavid Delaney, chair of the Scottish Mental Health Cooperative said:  “Our members are all providing community-based mental health services to people across all ages, but we see how those with long term conditions are now growing older and the impact that mental health stigma and discrimination over many decades, has had on their lives.\n\n“As they reflect back on what mental health care has been in the past, we need to learn from their experiences for future generations so that we do not replicate similar situations but rather show ourselves to be a caring and understanding society and relegate stigma and discrimination to the past.”\n\nAngela Dias, the change network office running the project, said: “From the research we have found the main discrimination older generations face is from family members.\n\n“It is a complicated issue and mental health problems are difficult for everyone involved. People are worried that if they say or do the wrong thing they can make a problem worse.\n\n“But family members can help to reduce stigma and loneliness for people just by being there, listening to what someone has to say and not judging.\n\n“Outside of families we want to use this research to influence service areas where discrimination is taking place, including policy and practice nationally and locally.”\n\nCalum Irving, See Me’s director, said: “This project is developing a picture of what stigma and discrimination can be like for older generations in Scotland.\n\n“As a society we need to value older people in this country. If they are isolated then there needs to be better infrastructure in place to provide support so people aren’t alone.\n\n“People experiencing mental health problems need help and support quickly, no matter what their age their mental health needs to be taken seriously.”\n\nPictured - Angela Dias from Age in Mind and David Sinclair.", "pred_label": "__label__1", "pred_score_pos": 0.9970006346702576}
+{"content": "\n\n\nRobert F. Hershner, Jr. (Retired)\n\nThe Chapter 7 trustee asked the court to impose sanctions under Bankruptcy Rule 9011. The court determined that respondent has continued to relitigate virtually verbatim contentions of the trustee's fraud long after the court has ruled that the contentions have no merit. The court held that the respondent should be sanctioned under Rule 9011.\n\nThe defendant contended that a dispute concerning certain agreements was subject to binding arbitration. The court held that the agreements were contracts of insurance under Georgia law, § 9-9-2(c)(3) and were not subject to binding arbitration.\n\nThe chapter 7 debtor's sole shareholder used his personal funds to pay the debtor's obligation to deposit certain escrow funds with an escrow agent. The shareholder contended that he was equitably subrogated to the debtor's right to receive a return of the escrow funds because the shareholder had personally guaranteed the debtor's obligations. The Court held that the shareholder had not personally guaranteed the debtor's obligation to deposit the escrow funds and that the shareholder had waived any right to subrogation. The Court held that the debtor's bankruptcy estate was entitled to the funds held by the escrow agent.\n\n\nThe plaintiffs contended that the defendant-debtor, through fraud and false financial statements, induced them to invest in a business. The debtor was a shareholder, the president of, and managed the day to day operations of the business. The business failed. The plaintiffs contended that they suffered damages due to the defendant's fraud and that their claims were nondischargeable in bankruptcy under § 523(a)(2). The court held that the debtor had knowingly made false representations and published false financial statements. The court held that the damages suffered by the plaintiffs were nondischargeable in bankruptcy.\n\nThe debtor failed to make the payments on her residence. The lender foreclosed on its deed to secure debt and was the highest bidder. The debtor filed a Chapter 13 bankruptcy case nine days later. The debtor sought to set aside the foreclosure and deal with her mortgage obligation through her confirmed Chapter 13 plan. The court held that the debtor's rights, title and equity of redemption were terminated when the lender made the highest bid at foreclosure. The court held that the debtor had no interest in her former residence when she filed for bankruptcy relief. The court granted the lender relief from the automatic stay to proceed with its remedies under state law.\n\nJudge James D. Walker Jr. (Retired)\n\nCourt imposed sanctions on bankruptcy petition preparer for violations of § 110, including failure to identify himself on the petition and other documents he prepared, accepting fees without properly informing the debtor he is not an attorney, and unauthorized practice of law.\n\n\n\nCourt refused to grant stay relief when the creditor essentially ignores evidence that its records fail to reflect numerous payments made by the debtor and received by the creditor.", "pred_label": "__label__1", "pred_score_pos": 0.5853871703147888}
+{"content": "Books  General Natural History  Archaeology \n\n\n  • Presents the first synthesis of biological variation in an archaeological context for Point Hope, Alaska\n  • Brings together archaeology and biological anthropology to generate a holistic understanding of an archaeological site\n  • Combines different data sources (such as artifacts, dental microwear and faunal remains) to arrive at a deeper understanding about lifeways of past populations\n\nSeries: Cambridge Studies in Biological and Evolutionary Anthropology Volume: 68\n\nBy: Charles E Hilton(Editor), Benjamin M Auerbach(Editor), Libby W Cowgill(Editor)\n\n320 pages, illustrations\n\nCambridge University Press\n\nHardback | Jul 2014 | #210524 | ISBN-13: 9781107022508\nAvailability: Usually dispatched within 6 days Details\nNHBS Price: £76.99 $99/€87 approx\n\nAbout this book\n\nOn the edge of the Arctic Ocean, above the Arctic Circle, the prehistoric settlements at Point Hope, Alaska, represent a truly remarkable accomplishment in human biological and cultural adaptations. Presenting a set of anthropological analyses on the human skeletal remains and cultural material from the Ipiutak and Tigara archaeological sites, The Foragers of Point Hope sheds new light on the excavations from 1939–41, which provided one of the largest sets of combined biological and cultural materials of northern latitude peoples in the world. A range of material items indicated successful human foraging strategies in this harsh Arctic environment. They also yielded enigmatic artifacts indicative of complex human cultural life filled with dense ritual and artistic expression. These remnants of past human activity contribute to a crucial understanding of past foraging lifeways and offer important insights into the human condition at the extreme edges of the globe.\n\n\nList of contributors\n\n1. Introduction: humans on the edge of the Alaskan Arctic Charles E. Hilton, Benjamin M. Auerbach and Libby W. Cowgill\n\nPart I. Regional Archaeological and Biological Context:\n2. The archaeology of north Alaska: Point Hope in context Anne M. Jensen\n3. The Ipiutak cult of Shamans and its warrior protectors: an archaeological context Owen K. Mason\n4. Ancestor-descendant affinities between the Ipiutak and Tigara at Point Hope, AK in the context of North American Arctic cranial variation Blaine Maley\n\nPart II. Biological Variation among the Foragers of Point Hope:\n5. Contrasting of the Ipiutak and Tigara: evidence from incisor microwear texture analysis Kristin L. Krueger\n6. The diets of the Ipiutak and Tigara (Point Hope, Alaska): evidence from occlusal molar microwear texture analysis Sireen El Zaatari\n7. Postcranial pathological lesions in precontact Ipiutak and Tigara skeletal remains of Point Hope, Alaska Charles E. Hilton, Marsha D. Ogilvie, Megan Latchaw Czarniecki and Sarah Gossett\n8. Bone strength and subsistence activities at Point Hope Laura L. Shackelford\n9. Postcranial growth and development of immature skeletons from Point Hope, Alaska Libby W. Cowgill\n\nPart III. Contexts, Conclusions and Commentaries:\n10. Morphologies from the edge: perspectives on biological variation among the Late Holocene inhabitants of the northwestern North American Arctic Benjamin M. Auerbach\n11. The Ipiutak spirit-scape: an archaeological phenomenon William W. Fitzhugh\n12. Point Hope in certain contexts: a comment Don E. Dumond\n\n\nWrite a review\n\n\n\nCharles Hilton is an Assistant Professor in the Department of Anthropology at the University of North Carolina, Greensboro. As a biological anthropologist with a background in human skeletal biology, functional morphology, human evolutionary ecology, and epidemiology, his research focuses on how small-scale human groups, particularly foragers, develop and evolve both short- and long-term biological and cultural responses within environmental settings offering limited resources.\n\nBenjamin M. Auerbach is an Assistant Professor in the Department of Anthropology at the University of Tennessee, Knoxville. A functional anatomist, skeletal biologist and evolutionary biologist, he has spent fifteen years collecting osteometric and anthropometric data to document morphological variation among modern humans within the context of evolutionary forces.\n\nLibby Cowgill is an Assistant Professor in the Anthropology Department at the University of Missouri, Columbia. Her research interests include human growth, development, and functional morphology as well as Late Pleistocene human evolution. Her current research program explores the relationship between childhood behaviour and selection pressure and the formation of adult skeletal morphology.\n\n- Charles E. Hilton\n- Benjamin M. Auerbach\n- Libby W. Cowgill\n- Anne M. Jensen\n- Owen K. Mason\n- Blaine Maley\n- Kristin L. Krueger\n- Sireen El Zaatari\n- Marsha D. Ogilvie\n- Megan Latchaw Czarniecki\n- Sarah Gossett\n- Laura L. Shackelford\n- William W. Fitzhugh\n- Don E. Dumond\n\nBestsellers in this subject\n\nEarly Humans\n\n\nGiant Sloths and Sabertooth Cats\n\nNHBS Price: £25.95 $33/€29 approx\n\nEconomic Zooarchaeology\n\nNHBS Price: £39.99 $51/€45 approx\n\nArchaeology: Theories, Methods and Practice\n\nNHBS Price: £31.99 $41/€36 approx\n\nTrees and Woodlands of South India\n\nNHBS Price: £78.95 $101/€89 approx\n\nVAT: GB 407 4846 44\nNHBS Ltd is registered in England and Wales: 1875194", "pred_label": "__label__1", "pred_score_pos": 0.9978180527687073}
+{"content": "A Detailed Look at Computer Forensics\n\n\nThe professional world has become smaller and much more accessible. The barriers that previously existed between corporations and professionals located in different parts of the world no longer seem to exist. Huge technological advancements relating to information and communications have taken place in a myriad of industries, businesses and homes. And like many other countries, the United States of America has also been impacted by these advancements. America is primarily into management and information processing instead of making goods, which as a result has impacted the personal and professional lives of its citizens. Our funds get banked and transferred electronically almost on a daily basis, and emails have become more common than traditional letters. According to CommerceNet Research Council 2000 estimates, the global online population is approximately 349 million.\n\nIn this era of information technology (IT), law enforcement requirements are making huge leaps as well. Some conventional crimes, relating to commerce and finance, are being upgraded technologically on a continual basis. Electronic trails have replaced paper trails. Crimes relating to data manipulation and theft are detected every day. Crimes pertaining to violence also aren’t immune to information age and its effects. A costly and serious terrorist act is now much likelier to emerge from online sources than nuclear bombs. A serial killer’s diary could be documented on a hard disk or floppy disk drive instead of paper.\n\nSimilar to how industries have shifted from being primary manufacturers to information processing units, criminal activities have also predominantly adopted the cyber path, getting rid of the traditional physical dimensions. This means any evidence and investigation relating to criminal activity is now likely to be carried out on the Internet.\n\nComputer Forensic Science\n\nThe computer forensic science field was made to address the law enforcement’s articulated and particular requirements, thereby reaping the benefits of the electronic evidence format. The science entails acquiring, retrieving, preserving, and presenting information that has been electronically processed and amassed on various forms of computer media. The forensic discipline has had a major impact on quite a few prosecutions and investigations as well, quite similar to what DNA technology was able to achieve back in the day.\n\nAt its base, computer forensic science differs from the majority of conventional forensic disciplines. The examined computer material and techniques at the examiner’s disposal are the results of a private sector that’s driven by the market. Along with this, contrasting regular forensic analyses, it’s commonly required to conduct computer examinations virtually at any physical space, and not just within controlled settings. Instead of making interpretative conclusions, like in several forensic disciplines, this forensic science variant develops direct data and information. This direct data collection type has a range of consequences for both the forensic scientist-investigator relationship and forensic computer examination’s work product.\n\n\nPrimarily, computer forensic science refers to a demand response for service coming from the community of law enforcement. In 1984, FBI laboratory and similar law enforcing agencies started developing programs for computer evidence examination. To appropriately address the increasing demand of prosecutors and investigators in a programmatic and structured way, the FBI made CART or Computer Analysis and Response Team and made it accountable for computer analysis. Though CART’s positioning within the FBI is unique, its organization and functions are replicated in several similar law enforcement firms in America and quite a few other nations.\n\nAn initial issue that the law enforcement addressed was detecting resources within the firm that can be utilized for examining computer evidence. Often, the resources could be found scattered across the firm. Currently, shifting these examinations to a controlled or laboratory environment is gaining precedence. The U.S. Secret Service conducted a survey in 1995 indicating 48 percent of the firms were having computer forensic labs and close to 68 percent seized or recouped computer evidence was moved to the professionals in these laboratories. Though these statistics can be motivating enough to facilitate a monitored programmatic response for computer forensic requirements, the survey also reported that close to 70 percent of the law enforcement firms were carrying out the work sans a written procedure manual in place.\n\nComputer forensic exams are carried out in data processing departments, forensic labs, and the squad room of a detective, in some cases. Assigning personnel to perform these exams is often based on the expertise available, and also the departmental policy. Irrespective of the exams’ location, a reliable and valid forensic exam is needed. The requirement acknowledges no boundaries relating to bureaucracy, politics, jurisdiction or technology.\n\nEfforts are ongoing for developing exam standards and structuring computer forensic exams. In 1991, an ensemble comprising 6 global law enforcement firms interacted with many American federal law enforcement establishments. It was unanimously agreed that computer forensic science standards were not up to the mark. The conference convened again in 1995, in Baltimore, Maryland; in 1996, in Australia; and in 1997, in Netherlands. This ultimately resulted in the International Organization on Computer Evidence taking shape. Also, Scientific Working Group on Digital Evidence (SWGDE) became a thing to address the problems synonymous with several federal law enforcement establishments.\n\nA Fresh Relationship\n\nDisciplines of forensic science have dramatically impacted multiple criminal investigations, offering compelling testimonies during trials. To improve objectivity and reduce the bias perception, forensic science has traditionally stayed at arms distance from the majority of the real investigation. Only specific investigation details that are required for the examination end up getting used. The details could entail possible contamination sources at the scene of crime or individuals’ fingerprints that are not associated with the investigation but have come in physical contact with the evidence. The science depends on the scientists’ ability to draft a report using the scientific examination’s objective results. The actual case could have a small role to play in the exam process. In fact, a DNA exam for a rape case could be carried out without knowing the name of the victim, subject, or the crime’s specific circumstances.\n\nComputer forensic science can be effective if it is driven by the data unearthed at the time of investigation. With a personal microcomputer’s average storing capacity nearing 30 gigabytes, and 60 GB or more storage potential systems readily available for wide-scale use, it is highly impossible or not practical to examine all the stored computer files. Also, since computers provide such varied and wide uses in a household or company, searching each file may be going against the law. Computers of physicians or lawyers won’t just comprise evidence pertaining to fraud but also privileged patient and client information. Centrally stored computer server data could have an incriminating email made by the subject and also innocent third party emails.\n\nAs aforementioned, scanning each and every computer file is difficult and practically impossible. Similarly, reading and assimilating the information within the files would not be easy too. For instance, printed text information amounting to the size of 12 GB would create a paper stack as high as 24 stories. Therefore, for practical reasons, this type of forensic science gets most effectively used when just the investigation’s probative data and details are given to the forensic examination team. The examiner can use this data to make a keyword list that culls probative, specific, and case-related data from huge file groups. Though the examiner could be legally in the position to search for each file, several judicial constraints such as time limitations won’t provide approval. In most cases, the examination must only be limited to well-identified probative data.\n\nForensic Output\n\nHistorically, forensic science has given results that are known to be both reliable and valid. For instance, DNA analysis tries to make specific identifying data corresponding to a person. To endorse the findings, forensic DNA scientists gather extensive information on DNA profiles upon which the conclusions are based. By comparison, computer forensic science produces or extracts the data. The computer examination’s purpose is finding case-related information. For supporting computer forensic exam results, procedures are required to make sure the information stored on computer files aren’t altered during the exam process. Unlike many forensic disciplines such as DNA analysis, computer forensic science doesn’t interpret statements for the actual information’s reliability, accuracy, or discriminating power.\n\nBeyond the forensic item and pertinent information related to the case, there is one more major difference between computer forensic science and traditional forensic science. Conventional forensic analysis could be controlled within a laboratory and the progresses could be made incrementally, logically and in understanding with widely accepted practices of forensic science. Comparatively, market and technology drives computer forensic science, usually outside laboratory setting, with the exams presenting distinct variations in all situations possible.\n\nCommon Objectives\n\nKeeping the dissimilarities aside, scientific conclusions of both conventional forensic analyses and computer forensic science information are unique forensic examinations. Generally, all the good and legal traditional forensic sciences practice requirements are shared. Both would be furnished in the court during adversarial and at times extremely probing scenarios. Both should produce reliable and valid results from state-of-art detailed, peer-reviewed and documented procedures, and protocols that are accepted by the concerned scientific community.\n\nAs laboratories start examining further computer-related proof, they should substantiate policies relating to computer forensic exams and develop procedures and protocols from these policies. The policies must reflect the community-wide, broad objective of offering reproducible and valid results, despite the submissions emanating from different sources and presenting unique examination problems. As the lab shifts to protocol development from policy statement, every individual procedure should be documented properly and must be robust enough to resist challenges to the methodology and results.\n\nHowever, unlike a few conventional forensic counterparts, computer forensic science can’t depend on getting similar proof with each submission. For example, once the contaminants of a DNA are cleared and the DNA is decreased to its basic form, it becomes generic. Thereon, the forensic DNA analysis protocols could be applied similarly for all submissions. The system of criminal justice expects a reliable and valid output using the DNA protocols. For the below mentioned rationales, computer forensic science could seldom expect the same standardized repetitive testing elements in the majority of its submissions.\n\n  • Operating systems that define a computer’s identity and functioning vary across makers. For instance, personal computer techniques that incorporate the DOS (disk operating system) environment may not necessarily be similar to operating systems, like UNIX, which are ideal for multiple users.\n  • Unique application programs.\n  • Storage techniques could be distinct to both the media and device.\n  • Typical computer exams should recognize the diverse and fast-changing world wherein the examiner functions.\n\nAnalyzing Computer Evidence\n\nComputer evidence portrayed by physical items like boards, chips, storage media, central processing units, printers, and monitors could be easily and accurately described as a unique physical evidence format. The description, logging, disposition, and storage of physical proof are understood well. Forensic labs have detailed strategies that describe acceptable techniques for handling physical proof. The evidence doesn’t represent any specific challenge, provided there is no physical component to computer evidence. But the proof, while being stored in the physical things, is latent and only exists in an abstract electronic form. The output being reported from the exam is the discovery of this latent data. Though forensic labs are extremely good at maintaining the controlled physical items’ integrity, computer forensics also needs methods for ensuring the equity of the data in the physical items. The challenge with computer forensic science is developing techniques and methods that offer reliable and valid results while safeguarding the real proof from being harmed.\n\nTo further complicate matters, almost no computer evidence exists in solitude. It is the stored data’s output, the application used for creating and storing it, and the system directing these pursuits. To some extent, it is also an output of the software applications used in the lab for extraction.\n\nComputer forensic science problems should be tackled within a rapidly altering and emerging environment’s context. However, even with the environmental changes, both international and national law enforcement establishments acknowledge the requirement for typical technical approaches and standards. Due to this, a model should be erected that functions long-term even when the temporary changes are not the exceptions but the rules. The model described is a hierarchical three-level model that consists of the following:\n\n  • An overarching examination principles concept\n  • Practices and policies\n  • Techniques and procedures\n\nExam principles are big concepts that apply to the test almost always. They’re the consensus approaches relating to what’s important among laboratories and professionals. They are representative of collective technical practice, along with forensic computer examiner experience.\n\nOrganizational practices and policy are guiding rules that apply to forensic exams. They’re designed for ensuring workplace efficiency and quality. Within computer forensic science, they are the ideal lab practices that help plan, perform, record, monitor and report examinations to ensure the work product’s integrity and quality.\n\nTechniques and procedures are hardware and software solutions for particular forensic issues. These techniques and procedures are detailed directives for particular software applications and also a step-by-step manual for describing the whole exam procedure.\n\nAs a complete example, a laboratory could need the exams being carried out, if feasible, on the original evidence’s copies. The requirement is an exam principle. It is representative of a logical method adopted by the whole computer forensic group, and it relies on the principle of safeguarding the original proof from unintentional or accidental manipulation or damage. The principle is premised on the truth that digital corroboration could be precisely replicated for creating an accurate and true copy.\n\nDrafting the copy and making sure it is accurate and authentic comprises the principle’s subset – i.e., practice and policy. Each examiner and agency should decide on a case-by-case principle implementation strategy. The factors affecting the decision include the data set’s size, method used for creation, and the media it’s available on. In specific cases, comparing the listed files’ creation dates and size could be sufficient. In other cases, application of mathematically rigorous and technically robust techniques like message digest (MD) calculation or cyclical redundancy check (CRC) could be required.\n\nMD and CRC are computer algorithms producing the data’s unique mathematical representations. The algorithms are devised for both the copy and original and then put through comparison to determine identity. The tool selection should be based on the evidence’s character instead of just the laboratory policy. It is likely that the examiners would require multiple options for performing this function.\n\nAn examiner that duplicates proof should first determine the right verification level for weighing time constraints against the bigger file varieties. These algorithms’ discriminating power and mathematical precision typically correlate directly to the total time required for calculating them. In case there were a million files to be replicated, computational and time constraints would probably be a huge determining attribute for every file (not more than 1 kb size). The scenario will likely lead to the need to use a less discriminating and precise, but faster data integrity algorithm.\n\nAfter having determined the best way to assure the completion and accuracy of the copy process, next is the main task. It’s a subset of practice and policy, or techniques and procedures. These almost represent a standard cookbook method for protocol development. These are complete and comprise necessary detailed steps, which could be used for copying the information, verify the operation’s completion, and ensure production of an accurate and true copy.\n\nAgain, as per Figure 1 illustration, a principle could generate multiple policies, which could accept several different techniques. The route taken by the examiner in every case is technologically sound and properly documented for the specific case. However, it could not be the identical route the examiner adopts with another case. Conventional forensic exams, like the DNA exam of blood recouped from a crime spot, make way for a standardized and routine string of steps that could be repeated with every case. Generally, there isn’t anything as common computer proof procedures. The proof is likely to differ substantially each time the laboratory receives a submission, and a tailored examination plan would likely be mandatory as well. Though this scenario could present a recurring account of management controls and checks within the lab setting, the consideration should be looked into and enhanced if this rising forensic discipline needs to stay a reliable and effective tool within the criminal justice setup.\n\n\nReliable and valid techniques for recovering information from computers captured as criminal investigation evidence are becoming rudimentary for global law enforcement agencies. These techniques should be robust technologically to ensure recovery of all probative data. They should be legally defensible too for ensuring no part of the original proof gets edited and no information is deleted from or added to the original. The forensic regulation of acquiring, safeguarding, recovering, and exhibiting electronically processed and digitally stored information is known as computer forensic science.\n\nThis article looks into the problems enveloping the need for developing laboratory computer forensic science protocols that adhere to critical legal and technological objectives. Computer forensic scientists must develop long-term affiliations with criminal justice establishments they serve. The following are the reasons behind such relationships:\n\n  • While putting efforts to reduce the amount of information that should be retrieved and to make their exams more effective and efficient, scientists of computer forensic science should have particular know-how of the investigative details. This requirement is clearly more sought after than standard forensic science requests, placing more emphasis on case data.\n  • Courts require more data than seized equipment. This needs merged efforts between computer forensic scientists and law enforcement officers to make sure the needed technical resources for search warrant execution are good enough for addressing both the complexity and scope of the search.\n  • Computers could logically comprise both data detected in the warrant along with the information that could be protected constitutionally. Probably, a computer forensic scientist is the most qualified individual to direct both the prosecutor and investigator on how to detect technical answers for these intricate scenarios.\n\nMaking computer examination customs for the purpose of forensic computer study is unique for multiple reasons:\n\n  • Unlike a few standard conventional studies that try to amass maximum data possible from a proof sample, the intent with computer forensic analysis is recovering any probative data from a huge volume of heterogeneous data.\n  • Computer forensic science should consider the market-driven reality of computer forensic science, and the field should quickly adapt to fresh innovations and products with reliable and valid analysis and examination methods.\n  • A computer forensic exam’s work product also differentiates itself from the majority of conventional forensic work items.\n\nTraditional forensic science tries developing a string of reliable and accurate facts. For instance, the blood DNA gathered at a scene of crime could be matched to a particular individual for establishing the truth that the shed blood belonged to the particular individual. Generally, computer forensic science doesn’t make any interpretive statement regarding the obtained information’s reliability or accuracy and usually only renders the recovered data.\n\nThe protocols for computer forensic science must be laid down in a hierarchical way, as that would ensure the overarching principles stay constant and don’t fluctuate unnecessarily. However, examination techniques could quickly adapt to the computer setup that needs to be examined. The computer forensic protocols approach could differ from the ones created for several other disciplines of forensic science. However, making room for a unique forensic exam is necessary.\n\nRecovering and Examining Computer Forensic Evidence\n\nComments are closed.", "pred_label": "__label__1", "pred_score_pos": 0.8942826986312866}
+{"content": "Tag Archive: National Geographic Kids\n\n\n\n\n\nIMG_0069My 3rd graders just wrapped up a couple of weeks on volcanoes!  I started out by reading them The Magic School Bus: Volcanoes and Earthquakes. From there I brought in vinegar and baking soda where the kids were able to make a mini volcanic explosion in the classroom.  Let’s face it, I would have loved to have made a big mess, but it was a tablespoon of vinegar and a tablespoon of baking soda.  Don’t worry–it still got plenty of “whoa’s”, “ooooo’s” and “ahhhh’s”.\n\nThe students then read National Geographic Kids: Volcanoes and read about the different kinds of volcanoes, the difference between lava and magma, what happens when lava cools quickly or slowly, and the different kinds of lava.  On note cards they had to write about geysers, cinder cone volcanoes, stratovolcanoes, shield volcanoes, and calderas.  They each then made their own diagram of one of the volcanoes they wrote about.\n\nEach day they asked if they could make another volcanic explosion.  They were disappointed I wasn’t THAT cool to do daily explosions!\n\nIMG_0359My 3rd graders continue their quest of studying rocks and minerals.  We started reading Rocks and Minerals from National Geographic Kids (LOVE this book, by the way!) and read the first half of the book.  The first half goes over how rocks are made (the “rock cycle”) and goes into more depth on minerals, igneous, sedimentary, and metamorphic rocks.\n\nIMG_0357After the kids finished the first half of the book (“20 pages, Ms. Acuff!!!?!?! How are we going to get through all of that?!?!?!) We did some analysis on a box of rocks I have.  They had to decide if the rock was a mineral, igneous, sedimentary, or a metamorphic rock based on the information they had from their book and by looking at the rock.\n\nNext we’ll continue by writing about the different kinds of rocks and analyzing more rocks.  They are looking forward to being able to crack open their own geode and writing about it.\n\n2nd grade: Mother Sea Turtle\n\nIMG_5838My 2nd graders recently read Mother Sea Turtle which talks about the journey a sea turtle goes from hatching, growing up, and returning to lay eggs.  I read to the students about sea turtle migration and the life cycle of a sea turtle and the process of laying an egg…again National Geographic Kids makes it so easy with their amazing non-fiction books about Sea Turtles and Animal Migration.\n\nThe kiddos were so sad that mother sea turtle doesn’t take care of her little hatchlings.  They have to fend for themselves and many of them don’t survive, but instinctively they all return to the same beach they were born to lay their eggs.\n\nAfter we read all of our stories, the kids took the mentor text books I read and their Mother Sea Turtle book and mapped out the life cycle of the sea turtle or the process of laying/hatching an egg.  They did such a fantastic job of sorting out the information and putting it in a step by step life cycle model.\n\n\n\nIMG_0304One of my group of 2nd graders has been learning about dinosaurs and the process paleontologists go through in locating and extracting dinosaur bones.  As I’ve learned with this group, their questions and curiosity often lead us in IMG_0301a direction I wasn’t really expecting, but always takes us to a place of great learning.\n\nThis group was particularly interested in the locating of dinosaur bones more so than dinosaurs.  I read a mentor text initially (National Geographic Kids’ Dinosaurs–you know how I love those books) and the direction of the rest of the lesson went in the opposite direction of what I had planned.  We still continued on with the book All About Dinosaurs, which I planned for, but then we went into research mode.\n\nWe learned there is a more lengthy process to extracting dinosaur bones than we thought, including me.  We made IMG_1623this into an anchor chart.\n\n  1. Prospecting–looking around for a possible dig site.  (This may include waiting a lengthy time to get permits to dig.  The paleontologist we researched about had to wait a year to get the proper permits.  Wow!)\n  2. Quarrying–digging around the fossil to expose it.\n  3. Vinacing–putting plastic onto the bone to stabilize it.  (None of us knew this happened!)\n  4. Mapping–mapping, logging, documenting the area.\n  5. Jacketing–wrapping and protecting the bone in plaster. (This was new for us, too!)\n  6. Extracting–moving the bone to a new place to be transported to a museum/research area.\n\nThe kids were having a difficult time grasping the concept of how they know where to find dinosaur bones, which paleontologists don’t really know.  They can take a good guess and go off of where other bones have been located, but there’s no real way of knowing.  To make this concept a little more concrete I baked a pan of brownies (real brownies this time–they asked!) and put in different candies varying from twizzlers, tootsie rolls, nerds, mini oreos, etc. in various sizes just like would happen with a dinosaur bone.  I brought in the brownies and showed them the pan.  I asked them where the “bones” where.  They all shrugged their shoulders at me.  I had them draw a “map” of the brownies, which IMG_0302was just a rectangle.  I divided the pan into equal parts and gave them all a large portion of brownie.  From there, 2nd graders had to follow the steps paleontologists follow in locating bones.  They had to carefully expose “bones” and then map out in their writing journals where they found items.  And, of course, after all the scientific research had been completed, brownies were consumed.  This was a fun process and lots of giggles as new “bones” were discovered from each child.\n\nStudents then wrote about the step-by-step process they had to go through while extracting their “bones” during the brownie activity.  We had a great time learning and researching with each other–and I learned just as much as the kiddos did.\n\n\nIMG_0281If you are a follower of my blog then you probably read about my 3rd graders reading National Geographic Kids Rocks and Minerals last semester.  It was a big hit with my 3rd graders and thought I could use it with my 2nd graders.  I had mapped IMG_1294out what I wanted to do with them and had planned to do a lot of the same stuff, but one of the things I realize the longer I teach is how much teaching evolves as you do something and how the interests and questions of the kids somewhat guides the way you teach.\n\nWe started out with an indepth study on where we find rocks and then the differences between Igneous, Sedimentary, and Metamorphic rocks along with the rock cycle and minerals.  The more we read the more students were asking about different rocks, minerals, and gemstones.  They were so curious about the difference among rocks.\n\nThe thing I have really noticed about this set of five 2nd graders, which I truly appreciate, is how hands-on they are and how curious they are.  I am constantly taking notes of questions they have that arent answered in our readings that I have to research and bring back to them or that we research together.  So with all these questions I thought it was necessary that we research about the different types of rocks and then do an indepth analysis and categorization of different rocks/minerals/gemstones.\n\nIMG_0274I ordered a pack of 20 rocks/gemstones from Amazon and once they arrived students were given one rock at a time to analyze, categorize, and write about.  They were given 2 minutes to study the rock before then needing to write about it.  Although they didn’t get a chance to write about all 20 rocks in the box due to time, they were able to write about several of them.\n\nAfter they had analyzed and written about their rocks they were able to discuss what they had noticed with another group member.  The chattering about rocks was so focused that I had a hard time getting them to STOP talking about rocks.\n\nI was even impressed when on day 2 of rock analysis one of the 2nd graders brought in her own rocks she found outside and wanted everyone in the group to take one and analyze it for themself.  IMG_0275Wow!\n\nSince the kids were so enthusiastic about studying different rocks I ordered some geodes online as well and thought it would be fun for students to crack their own geodes and be able to study and write about those as well and then be able to take them home.\n\nToday we were able to take the rocks outside and hammer away at some geodes.  We had one particular geode that we had a difficult time cracking open.  After several attempts there were lots of cheers when it finally cracked open.  We cracked open 2 geodes (picture at the top) and the comments I kept hearing were 1. I wasn’t expecting them to be ugly on the outside, but pretty on the inside, and 2. I had no idea they were going to be sparkly and have so many different colors.\n\nIMG_0279Students were able to discuss their findings with a group member before selcting a geode piece to take home with them.  One of the students noticed that the geode left marks on the cement which turned into a coversation about how the cement was made out of rocks and how the geode was less hard which allowed the cement to scratch it.  This was based off our learning that diamonds are the hardest rock and can scratch steel.  I have really enjoyed these last couple of weeks as we’ve been researching, writing, reading, and exploring the world around us.", "pred_label": "__label__1", "pred_score_pos": 0.8204659819602966}
+{"content": "LED Lighting — Whats All the Rage?\n\n“L-E-D”. When it comes to lighting, you’re hearing these three letters over and over again… you see it posted all over lighting websites, and its starting to bug you. It seems to be an exciting new trend…some kind of new innovative light…but you have no idea what it is. You’d like to know what everybody’s talking about- what’s all the rage?\n\nLed display\n\nLED’s — Light Emitting Diodes — Simply put, LED’s are diodes that…(huh?) hang on, I’ll explain: a diode is the simplest sort of semiconductor device. (what’s that?) wow, you’re impatient: A semi-conductor is a material with the ability to conduct electrical current. Basically, instead of emitting light from a vacuum (as in an incandescent bulb) or a gas (as in a CFL), LED emits light from a piece of solid matter, its semi-conductor. Stated very simply, an LED produces light when electrons move around within its semiconductor structure.\n\nThey tell you when to stop and go. They have ruled your driving, saved your life countless times, and that little red man made you wait around till you were able to cross the street. That’s right — the red, yellow and green on the traffic lights are Led lights right in front of your nose. In fact, Light Emitting Diodes have been around for some time, conceptualized in 1907. However, it wasn’t until the 1960s that practical applications were found and LED’s were first manufactured. LED used to be used exclusively for traffic signals, brake lights and headlights on luxury cars, and indicator lights on appliances. You probably didn’t even know that LED lights were lighting up your digital clocks, flashlights and telling you when you’ve got a new voice message on your cell phone. Expensive at the start, as applications grew, benefits were discovered and manufacturing costs went down. According to the American Lighting Association (ALA), lighting manufacturers have invested considerable time, effort and research into adapting this super energy-efficient technology for household use. The technology has advanced enough to win approval from the government’s popular and well-respected Energy Star� program. So here’s why:\n\n  • They do more for less. LED’s are efficient-producing a lot of light from a little power. For example, one 5-watt LED can produce more light (measured in lumens) than one standard 75-watt incandescent bulb. The 5-watt LED could do the job of the 75-watt incandescent at 1/15 of the energy consumption. LED’s save energy and, therefore, money. This is because in LED lights, 90% of energy is converted into light, while in incandescent bulbs 90% of energy goes to heat and only 10% to visible light.\n    - They last longer. LED is virtually maintenance free — they don’t have a filament that will burn out, so they last much longer. A standard “long life” household bulb will burn for about 2,000 hours. An LED can have a useful lifespan up to 100,000 hours! By some sources, LED’s can last for as long as 40 years. Imagine not having to change a light bulb for years. There are LED products available this year that will make frequent light bulb changes so 20th century.\n  • Pendant light\n    - How it actually works… (skip this part if you don’t really care) Light is a form of energy that can be released by an atom. It is made up of many small particle-like packets, called photons, which are the most basic units of light. LED’s are specially constructed to release a large number of photons outward.When an electric charge strikes the semiconductor, a small electrical current, which is measured by watts (oh! so that’s what they mean by ‘has low wattage’!) is passed through the semiconductor material. this causes the electrons to move around, become “excited” and give off photons. Almost all of the energy emitted is light energy. In an ordinary diode, such as incandescent bulbs, the semiconductor material itself ends up absorbing a lot of the light energy so it produces more heat energy than light energy.This is completely wasted energy, unless you’re using the lamp as a heater, because a huge portion of the available electricity isn’t going toward producing visible light. LED’s generate very little heat, relatively speaking. A much higher percentage of the electrical power is going directly to generating light, which cuts down on the electricity demands considerably. As you can see in the diagram,they are housed in a plastic bulb that concentrates the light in a particular direction. Most of the light from the diode bounces off the sides of the bulb, traveling on through the rounded end.\n  • Pendant light\n    - They are a better buy (in the long run). Up until recently, LED’s were too expensive to use for most lighting applications because they’re built around advanced semiconductor material. The price of semiconductor devices has plummeted over the past decade, however, making LED’s a more cost-effective lighting option for a wide range of situations. While they may be more expensive than incandescent lights up front, a 60-watt LED replacement bulb runs in the area of $100, and even the lower-output versions, used for things like spot lighting, will cost between $40 and $80. That’s compared to a $1 incandescent and a $2 fluorescent bulb.The reality is, even at $100 for a single bulb, LEDs will end up saving money in the long run, because you only need one or two every decade and you spend less money on home lighting, which can account for about 7 percent of your electric bill [source: Greener Choices]. But don’t worry, the scary price you need to pay upfront won’t last too long, the lighting industry in general expects LED costs to come down quickly. Lighting Science Group, a company that develops and manufactures LED lighting, estimates a 50 percent price reduction within two years.\n    - It looks nice. The prime replacement for the incandescent light bulb would be the higher-efficiency compact fluorescent, or CFL. However, besides that there is toxic mercury in the design, it gives off a strange, sometimes unpleasant color that even gives some people headaches. Not the LED- its light is easy to see even in bright sunlight and can produce the same soft, white light as a regular bulb. (Although Energy Star does recommend looking for the Energy Star label when shopping for LED bulbs, since the organization tests for color stability as part of its certification criteria.) Here’s the coolest part about LED’s — they can be illuminated and change its light to many colors including a very recent addition of White and Blue. Other are Green, Red, Orange and Amber.\n    - It’s Safe. LED requires low voltage DC electric current and can run on batteries, so it’s safe to the touch — it doesn’t get hot.\n    - It’s Strong. LED’s are durable — they aren’t glass but small plastic bulbs.\n    - It’s Swift. LED’s are easy to implement — they are just tiny bulbs that fit easily into modern electric circuits. Additionally, because of their size, more bulbs can be used on an electrical circuit.\n    - The Rage. LED will lead and light up the future. The light bulb that has lit up our homes since the 1800s is officially on its way out. The inefficient incandescent, has fallen out of favor with the financially and ecologically concerned; starting in 2012, U.S. residents won’t be able to buy one even if they want to [source: Linden]. The government is taking the little energy suckers off the market.”This year 2010, will be the first year where LED’s will explode in the residential marketplace,” says architect Joe Rey-Barreau, education consultant for the ALA and an associate professor at the University of Kentucky’s School of Interior Design. “We are already seeing amazing LED developments in all parts of our lives, from Christmas lights to LED TVs. One area where LED’s will become predominant in 2010 is the category of desk and task lamps,” Rey-Barreau says. “Another major development will be in replacement bulbs, as the extreme long life of an LED bulb makes it ideal for replacing recessed lights in hard-to-reach areas such as vaulted ceilings in living rooms or kitchens”. If you aren’t sure yet if you want to devote a large portion of your living space to the technology, Rey-Barreau suggests trying under-cabinet lighting in the kitchen, a desk or task lamp or path lighting outside to see if you like the illumination it provides before investing in an entire ceiling of recessed fixtures or a large chandelier.", "pred_label": "__label__1", "pred_score_pos": 0.671607255935669}
+{"content": "Halfway to the Grave (Night Huntress Series #1)\n\nHalfway to the Grave - Jeaniene Frost 4th re-read(I think)Group read with the Dark SideThis book gets better and better with each re-read! I'll never have enough of this characters.Now 2 imagies that explain what this book means to me to perfection:Me(the cat) and the book(the lizard:D):", "pred_label": "__label__1", "pred_score_pos": 0.8516425490379333}
+{"content": "viernes, 6 de junio de 2014\n\nClassification of air quality in European cities\n\nThe Romanian city of  Cluj-Napoca ranks first among 100 larger cities of the European Union in terms of air quality, according to a research published by French magazine We Demain together with Respire association.\nCluj-Napoca, which is located in the center of Romania’s historical province of Transylvania, is the country’s third largest city, with 304,500 people.\nAccording to the research, Cluj-Napoca is one of the only two large cities in Europe where the average number of days of air pollution exceeding normal levels is zero. The other city is Edinburgh in Scotland, but Cluj wins due to lower average levels in the analyzed air pollution indicators.\nThe research takes into consideration three air polluting factors, which are small particles, nitrous dioxide and ozone and calculates the average number of days per year in which the level for these pollutants are exceeding the normal levels, which makes the air unhealthy to breathe.\nHowever, the authors of the research show that the data measurements are imperfect which makes the data not that relevant for comparison. For example, Cluj has only two stations for measuring air pollution, while Berlin has 48 such stations. Berlin is ranked 65th with 83 days a year of exceeding levels for air pollution.\nRead more at;", "pred_label": "__label__1", "pred_score_pos": 0.9969446063041687}
+{"content": "Monday, April 30, 2012\n\nDisneyland - The Flight\n\nSorry about the delay in posting, I went through some back to back illnesses and then with the craziness of Disneyland prep and travel, I've gotten behind. I'm back now and so excited to share with you all the fun things that worked and didn't work on our trip to Disneyland.\n\nSo the flight.\nWe flew with a 7 year old boy, 5 year old girl, 3 year old girl (my niece) and a nearly one year old girl.\n\nFor the 3 older children here is what I did -\nEach child got their own backpack for the flight. In the backpacks were packed the following:\n - Gum for ears, they chewed this during takeoff and the landing. It helped A LOT.\n-  Snacks, the airline we flew is a \"no-frills\" type airline and you had to pay for snacks or drinks.\n-  Drinks, you can't take liquids through security so I was just prepared to buy them drinks right    after we got through for the flight. You could also bring empty water bottles to fill with water at the drinking fountains. Your choice.\n-  New toys, the two older girls got a Disney Princess set and my son got a new Lego set.\n   They did not get the toys until right before we boarded the plane.\nHere the kids are playing with their new toys right before we got on the plane.\nThe kids were THRILLED to get some new toys to play with. It really helped with the boredom of sitting still for two hours.\nPlaying with his new Lego Set\nNow the nearly one year old. She was another story. I had to bring LOTS of snacks for her, I did not bring enough to entertain her. She was actually quite difficult, very wiggly and didn't want to be held or sit still after awhile.\nFirst Flight\nHere is what you should always bring when flying with an infant.\n- clean empty bottles and formula - you'll have to get water usually past security\n- snacks (I think a variety is good)\n- small toys, books, sensory items to keep them entertained\n- pacifier or be prepared with a bottle or to nurse during take off\n- diapers and wipes\n- change of clothes - one outfit at least\n- blanket\n- Lots of patience\n\nI think we actually did pretty well, my kids were so happy to fly instead of drive all the way to Disneyland. It was a very exciting part of the trip for my kiddos.", "pred_label": "__label__1", "pred_score_pos": 0.6543577909469604}
+{"content": "Research Experience for Undergraduates 2015\n\nNSF/DoD Summer Research Experience for Undergraduates in Trustable Computing Systems Departments of Electrical and Computer Engineering and Computer Science and Engineeringnsf1 May 26 – Jul 31, 2015\n\n\nThe 2015 REU class included the following students:\n\nCarrick Bartle, California State University, Northridge\n\nConvergent Encryption with Multi-Party Computation to Prevent Data Deduplication Side-Attacksbartle\n\nTo prevent “confirmation of file” attacks in cloud storage, each user could encrypt their files with unique keys, but that would eliminate the possibility of performing data deduplication. Carrick looked at a compromise between the two goals of greater security and storage savings: convergent encryption within a peer-to-peer network. Shee developed a tool that uses multi-party computation to deterministically generate file keys, which prevents “confirmation of file” attacks from outside the group while still allowing data deduplication within the group. The tool also employs rate checking to prevent brute-forcing from users within the group, and because the key generation process is distributed, there is no single point of failure. Carrick also refined a software application from previous work to measure duplicate data rates among cloud storage users to ascertain whether there’s a higher rate of duplicate data within peer groups (i.e. friends and family) than across unconnected users. If there is, convergent encryption within peer groups will be a viable strategy in protecting against these side-attacks while still achieving a relatively high rate of data deduplication.\n\nMichael Diamond, Pomona College\n\nAn In-Database Approach for Role-Based Access Control in Mobile Applicationsdiamond\n\nA 2014 Connecticut law requires greater reporting and tracking of concussions for students, and in response, UConn researchers designed “Connecticut Concussion Tracker”, an Android application to aid in this reporting. In this paper, we present issues with the app’s login security. Michael researched the limitations and vulnerabilities of two-factor authentication, the current industrial security standard, as well as what methods currently exist to expand on and strengthen two-factor authentication. We also explored how some of these methods could be implemented in Android. Additionally, he worked on implementing what is called “role-based access control” (RBAC) into the app. Within a RBAC system, there are different types of users that need specific levels of access based on their role. For instance, in the particular case of the “Connecticut Concussion Tracker” app, it is easy to imagine that a school nurse would need higher levels of access to information contained within the app than a parent would need. With this problem in mind, Michael helped design and implement a framework for a RBAC system that could be used not only for the “Connecticut Concussion Tracker” but also for any other application that both requires role-based security and is linked to a database.\n\nNathan Dunn, University of Massachusetts, Amherst\n\nCounterfeit Integrated Circuits: Defect Detection and Record-Keepingdunn\n\nThe integrity of electronic components is becoming an increasing concern for businesses and governments as greater numbers of counterfeit integrated circuits infiltrate the global marketplace. To meet this increasing threat, tools are needed by researchers and businesses to both detect and track known counterfeit defects. Nathan worked on two methods to meet this objective. First, he introduced a web application that allows both researchers and businesses to share counterfeit defect images and data through an online database. Participants in this application may view previous examples of counterfeit defects across a variety of product types, as well as obtain statistics regarding the prevalence of known defects.Second, to assist in the automation of defect detection, Nathan developed an image processing method to identify scratches on the surfaces of recycled integrated circuits. By adapting previous work on damaged photo and film restoration, he utilized image frequency filtering and the Hough Transform to identify exterior damages. The proposed method found scratches on 4 of 4 sample defective sample, and avoided detecting scratches on a sample legitimate component. However, significant problems were encountered in detected scratches that were darker than the surrounding background.\n\nSamuel Garfinkel, University of Connecticutgarfinkel\nEdward Powell, Texas A&M Commerce\n\nElectronic Poll Book Requirement Testing\n\nSamuel and Edward investigated an Electronic Poll Book (EPB) in accordance with the State of Connecticut’s published requirements for such devices at the University of Connecticut Center for Voting Technology Research (VoTeR Center).\n\nWilliam Johnson, DePauw University\n\nEmbedded System Securityjohnson\n\nAs the number of connected devices in the Internet of Things (IoT) greatly expands, so too does the number of concerns regarding consumer safety and privacy. These devices are constantly connected to the Internet, presenting a prime target for malicious attackers. Yet these devices often lack modern security mechanisms. In this research, Will performed a penetration test on a target cable modem, which was running an embedded Linux OS. He explored a number of attack vectors in order to identify and exploit software, hardware, and networking vulnerabilities. The goal of this testing was not only to identify vulnerabilities, however, but also to identify possible countermeasures to mitigate these security threats. A number of these mitigations were specific to individual attack vectors, including removing debugging ports and unnecessary network daemons. Additionally, Will explored Linux Containers (LXC) in order to limit the scope of any successful security exploitations. He developed a memory utility to dynamically track the memory usage and file accesses of a process. With this utility it is possible to identify feasible limits on the resource usage of a process.\n\nAmanda Murphy, Canisius College\n\nImplementing Adaptive Trust Negotiation on Mobile Devices\n\nMobile security is a serious issue with the rising prevalence of mobile devices in the workplace. These devices are being used to not only communicate but also to connect to systems with sensitive information. Currently we can identify whether an individual should have access to a system by associating this user with data that is exclusive to them. We can give individuals usernames and passwords which they must remember or even use biometric data like a fingerprint. Still both of these methods have serious limitations and one of the most serious is that they cannot grant a new individual access in time critical situations. For example, an emergency room doctor may have a new patient whose in critical condition. In order to get this patient’s records the doctor would need to access the servers of a different Hospital but the doctor is not authorized to see this information. This situations calls for a system that can not only identify individuals but also grant new individuals access. To do this Amanda designed a client side mobile app which works off the principles of adaptive trust negotiation. The app can communicate with servers in a secure fashion and allows users to send their credentials so that the server can decided whether or not to authorize the user. It also stores the user’s credentials and allows a user to decide which credentials should be sent for each situation.\n\nSomtochukwu Okwuosah, University of Connecticut\n\nAnalysis of SRAM cells for True Random Number Generation\n\nokwuosahA True Random Number Generator (TRNG) refers to circuitry that when given an input, gives anoutput possessing the highest entropy possible. The use of SRAM as a TRNG is as a result of the fact that some cells within the SRAM are biased to either 0 or 1. In the case of strongly biased cells, they tend to either 0 or 1 all the time. However, some cells are neutrally biased; meaning they have a 50 percent probability of being either 0 or 1. In order for the values of these cells to be considered truly random, they have to have no discernable pattern. Thus, the cells should have a 50-50% distribution under all conditions. Somtochukwu analyzed the property of these neutral cells to determine how effective they can be as true random numbers. He tested the SRAM cells in varying environmental conditions to find the most effective conditions in which to determine what cells are neutral. We also developed metrics that we were able to use to locate those neutral cells. The location of these neutral cells is important to know because SRAMs have large arrays of cells which make it crucial to narrow down the search for such cells. Without such knowledge, more time and resources are spent on just finding these cells and finding the best conditions to test their neutrality. All of the SRAM testing was performed on a Spartan 3 FPGA board. Results are still being analyzed but Somtochukwu’s research should be able to provide specific conditions at which the SRAM needs to be tested, as well as code that identifies the neutral cells thereby eliminating the need for a brute force approach to locating the desired cells.\n\nAstha Patni, University of Connecticut\n\nSecuring Processors against Buffer Overflow Attacks patni\n\nThe low performance, limited security and high modification costs associated with bounds checking programs are well known. Softbound + Compiler Enforced Temporal Safety (CETS) is a compile-time program combination which enforces complete spatial and temporal safety of C/C++ code while minimizing these costs; a revolutionary advancement in the field. Yet it still adds a runtime overhead reaching magnitudes of up to 10 times that of the original program with an in-order processor, making it an infeasible security measure for real-world systems. Astha investigated prefetching as a viable method to reduce the overall runtime overhead of Softbound + CETS. Softbound + CETS metadata was distinguished within three types of SPEC 2006 benchmarks using an in-order processor and found strong streams of metadata use with varying spatial locality. A hardware-based stream prefetcher integrated into our simulation software was able to reduce completion times by an average of 2.46 times (in-order core) and 1.87 times the improvement (out-of-order core) than with baseline tests.\n\nYouyou Tian, Smith College\nJason Townsley, University of Arkansas\n\nEvaluating the Functionality of Embedded User Interfaces in LayerCake\n\ntonswleytianLayerCake is a modified version of Android that enables developers to securely embed user interfaces in Android applications. It was constructed by researchers at the University of Washington, who assert that LayerCake addresses the security concerns that come with embedding user interfaces while having minimal impact on overall system performance. Youyou and Jason tested the functionality of LayerCake by writing several applications that embed both custom and legacy applications. They also measured and compared the performance times of applications with embedded user interfaces with standard applications. In the process of testing LayerCake, they discovered an error that occurs when an embedded application attempts to attach a sub-window to itself, such as when a user opens a drop-down menu. As a result, LayerCakes ability to provide complete functionality for embedding is disrupted. Youyou and Jason also determined the causes of this error and explored possible solutions.", "pred_label": "__label__1", "pred_score_pos": 0.8051744103431702}
+{"content": "FAQs - Storm Water Management\n\nWhat is Storm Water?\n\nStorm water is the surface runoff of rain and snow melt. In undeveloped areas, such as forests and grassy areas, the surface flow of water is slowed by vegetation, allowing much of it to seep into the ground. Developed areas reduce this natural seepage by covering the area with building and impervious surfaces such as parking lots, decreasing the surface area of soil and vegetation. This results in increased amounts and faster flows of storm water runoff. Storm water drainage systems become necessary to prevent flooding.\n\nWhat is Storm Water Management?\n\nStorm water management is the process of controlling and processing runoff so it does not harm the environment or human health. Storm water management is a tool used to prevent water pollution.\n\nWhat is meant by point source and nonpoint source pollution?\n\nPoint source is any discernible, confined and discrete conveyance, such as a pipe or channel used to discharge wastewater. Point sources are usually associated with a particular facility where the discharge can be traced directly back to the point of discharge. Nonpoint source is just the opposite. It could come from anywhere or everywhere. Storm water runoff is one example of nonpoint source pollution. Storm water runoff flows across yards, streets, parking lots, etc. picking up pollutants and depositing them in local waterways and lakes.\n\nWhat does the Municipal Separate Storm Sewer System consist of?\n\nMunicipal Separate Storm Sewer System (MS4)” is any system where the storm water is conveyed separately from the sanitary sewer system. A great variety of natural and manmade structures and land forms are used to construct an MS4. These may include inlets, pipes, earth berms and ditches, box culverts and catch basins, grass or concrete channels and culverts under roadways. All or any of these may be used to carry storm water out of urban areas.\n\nWhere Does Moberly's Storm Water Flow To?\n\nThe City of Moberly covers approximately 12 square miles. Several creeks and their tributaries flow through the area. There are four major receiving streams that receive the storm water.  These are Coon Creek and its tributaries, Sweet Springs Creek and its tributaries, Sugar Creek and its tributaries and the Elk Fork of the Salt River.\n\nThe storm water generated in the southeastern part of the city, areas east of the Norfolk Southern Railroad and the area south of Sinnock Avenue, flow into the tributaries of Coon Creek. It then enters Coon Creek and is carried to the Elk Fork of the Salt River in Monroe County where it eventually enters Mark Twain Lake.\n\nStorm water from the northeastern part of the City limits flows into the Elk Fork of the Salt River. This includes areas east of the Norfolk Southern Railroad and the areas north of Sinnock Avenue.\n\nThe northwestern part of the City flows into Sugar Creek, Sugar Creek Lake and their tributaries. This is the area west of Highway 63 and the Norfolk Southern Railroad and north of route EE.\n\nStorm water from the southwestern side of Moberly, areas west of the Norfolk Southern Railroad and south of Route EE, flows into Sweet Springs Creek. Sweet Springs Creek enters the Middle Fork of the Chariton River southeast of Clifton Hill. The various branches of the Chariton River empty into the Missouri River.\n\nPlease contact City Staff with any further inquiries that you may have.", "pred_label": "__label__1", "pred_score_pos": 0.8701398372650146}
+{"content": "Monday, 17 October 2011\n\nEvolutionary Comparison Finds Shocking History for Vertebrates\n\nWired UK (Oct, 12. 2011) - Evolutionary biologists from Cornell University have discovered that just about every vertebrate on Earth — including humans — descended from an ancient ancestor with a sixth sense: the ability to detect electrical fields in water.\n\nAbout 500 million years ago there was probably a predatory marine fish with good eyesight, powerful jaws and sharp teeth roaming the oceans, sporting a lateral line system for detecting water movements and a well-developed electroreceptive system to sense predators and prey around it. The vast majority of the 65,000 or so living vertebrate species are its descendants.\n\nA few hundred million years ago, there was a major fork in the evolutionary tree. One lineage led to the ray-finned fishes, or actinopterygians, and they’ve kept a weak electroreceptive system to this day. Sturgeon have receptors in the skin of their heads, for example, and the North American paddlefish has 70,000 receptors in its snout and head.\n\nThe other lineage led to lobe-finned fishes, or sarcopterygians, which in turn gave rise to land vertebrates. Some land vertebrates, including salamanders like the Mexican axolotl, still have electroreception. But in the change to terrestrial life, the lineage leading to reptiles, birds and mammals lost that electrosense and the lateral line.\n\nThe researchers took the axolotl (to represent the evolutionary lineage leading to land animals) and the paddlefish (as a model for the branch leading to ray-finned fishes) to find out the history of this sense. They found that electrosensors develop in precisely the same pattern from the same embryonic tissue in the developing skin, confirming that this is an ancient sensory system.\n\nAlso, the electrosensory organs develop immediately adjacent to the lateral line, providing compelling evidence “that these two sensory systems share a common evolutionary heritage,” said Willy Bemis, Cornell professor of ecology and evolutionary biology and a senior author of the paper.\n\nBemis and his colleagues will now be able to build a better picture of what the common ancestor of these two lineages looked like.\n\nClever Test Shows Meerkat Voices Are Personal\n\n\"Alan! Alan! Alan!\n...oh it's not Alan. Jeff!!\"\nWired Science (Oct, 12. 2011) - By using audio trickery to present meerkats with a puzzling situation, biologists have demonstrated that the adorable African critters recognize each other by voice.\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\nChildren Like Teamwork More Than Chimps Do\n\nLiveScience (Oct, 13. 2011) - Chimpanzees and humans are fairly close cousins, evolutionarily speaking. But a new study finds they lack something that we have (besides written language and hairlessness): a desire to work together.\n\nWhen all other things are equal, 3-year-old children prefer to do a task collaboratively rather than alone, while chimpanzees show no such preference, said study researcher Yvonne Rekers, a cognitive scientist at the Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology in Germany.\n\n\"We expected that difference between human and chimpanzee cooperation, because we can see it nowadays,\" Rekers told LiveScience. \"Humans collaborate in a larger variety of contexts and in more complex forms.\"\n\nHowever, that leaves the question: Why these differences in cooperation? Cognitive abilities may be at the root of some of them, Rekers said, but motivation could matter as well.\n\nWorking together\n\nTo investigate the motivations of both species, the researchers chose a task that both groups would willingly undertake: pulling a rope to get a food reward. The children in the study got gummy frogs as their treat, while the chimpanzees got bananas.\n\nFifteen chimps and 24 children were introduced to the same experimental set-up: a room containing both a single end of rope and a doubled-over rope with two available ends. The 3-year-olds and the chimps were all taught that by pulling both ends of the doubled-over rope at the same time, they could draw a food-laden board toward them, delivering a batch of gummy frogs or bananas.\n\nPulling the single rope would produce the identical food reward, but only with the help of another child or chimp in the room next door, who had to pull the opposite end of the rope at the same time. (The child or chimp acting as the potential partner in the experiment wasn't being tested; he or she had only the single end to pull. The potential partners were, however, highly motivated to pull that rope, because they too knew that a food reward would be coming their way.)\n\nCooperating kids\n\nDespite the fact that the chimps got their food four to five seconds faster when they pulled the single end and worked with a partner than when they pulled both ends of the doubled rope by themselves, they were just as likely to choose the doubled rope, the researchers said. The chimps chose the single-ended rope 58 percent of the time, a number not significantly different than chance.\n\nThe 3-year-old children, by contrast, chose to pull the collaborative single rope in 78 percent of trials, even though it did not produce snacks any faster.\n\nThe children had all practiced the game beforehand and so knew how it worked. They, like the chimps, could see their potential partner through a opening between the two rooms. But to make their experience more like that of the chimps, the kids were encouraged not to speak during the experiment.\n\nIn order to keep all factors constant, a snack went to the cooperating child (the one not being tested) regardless of whether he or she was called upon to pull. That set-up, however, led Rekers and her colleagues to worry that perhaps the tested children were picking the collaborative work to prevent their partners from getting gummy frogs for doing nothing.\n\nThe researchers set up a second experiment with 12 new children in which the potential partner never received a reward — at least not within the sight of the tested child. The results were essentially unchanged, with 81 percent of kids choosing to work together. That finding suggested that the original result was not influenced by any desire to prevent freeloaders.\n\nRekers and her colleagues aren't sure whether this preference for cooperation is innate in humans or not, but one theory is that evolutionary pressures at some point nudged humans, but not chimps, into becoming cooperative foragers. The next step, Rekers said, is to study other primate species, such as bonobos.\n\nShe said she also plans to look into what children get out of working together.\n\n\"Is it just that they enjoy doing stuff together?\" she said. \"Or are they following other strategies or goals?\"\n\nMonday, 10 October 2011\n\nAlison Gopnik: What do babies think?\n\nTED (Oct, 10. 2011) - \"Babies and young children are like the R&D division of the human species,\" says psychologist Alison Gopnik. Her research explores the sophisticated intelligence-gathering and decision-making that babies are really doing when they play.\n\nPsychologists Decipher Brain’s Clever Autofocus Software\n\n\n\nIn order to see an object clearly, an accurate estimate of blur is important. Humans and animals instinctively extract key features from a blurry image, use that information to determine their distance from an object, then instantly focus the eye to the precise desired focal length, Geisler explains. “In some animals, that’s the primary way they sense distance,” he says. For example, the chameleon relies on this method to pinpoint the location of a flying insect and snap its tongue to that exact spot. Altering the amount of blur by placing a lens in front of its eye causes the chameleon to misjudge the distance in a predictable way.\n\nBut scientists didn’t know how biological visual systems estimate blur so well. Many researchers had thought the brain used a system of guessing and checking to get to the answer, much like the way a camera’s auto-focus system works. Basically, the camera changes the focal distance, measures the contrast in the image it sees, and repeats the process until it has maximized the contrast, Burge says.\n\n\n\n\n“They’ve provided proof that there is enough information in a static image to determine if an object is too close or too far away,” says Larry Thibos, a professor of optometry and vision researcher at Indiana University, Bloomington. “We’ve known for 50 or 60 years that people are very good at knowing whether or not something is in focus. It’s taken this paper to show us how the visual system might accomplish this feat.”\n\n\n“What we discovered is that the imperfections in the eye—things like astigmatism and chromatic aberration—actually help it to focus,” Geisler explains. That may help explain why people who have had their astigmatism corrected through laser eye surgery often have trouble focusing for several weeks afterward, Geisler says.\n\nThat sort of understanding may have an impact on medical decisions, Thibos says. “People might be tempted to try and perfect nature,” he says, “when maybe it’s better to be a little bit imperfect.”\n\nSaturday, 8 October 2011\n\nProblem solving Elephant (Oct, 8. 2011) -- An elephant at the National Zoo in Washington devised a problem-solving strategy to reach a branch with his trunk and grab a treat, zoo officials said.\n\nKandula, the zoo's youngest elephant, figured out how to roll a large cube underneath the branch and stand on it to secure his meal.\n\nScientists said that sort of spontaneous problem-solving had never been seen in elephants before, even though they can recognize themselves in mirrors, drop logs to collapse fences to get to food and even dig wells, The Washington Post reported.\n\n\"We knew elephants were intelligent,\" said Diana Reiss, who studies animal intelligence at City University of New York. But although as intelligent as dolphins and chimpanzees in some ways, researchers said, all attempts to get elephants to spontaneously solve a problem had previously failed.\n\nIn a study published in the journal PLoS One, researchers described hanging bamboo and fruit just out of reach of elephants at the National Zoo, placing a cube or aluminum tub nearby.\n\nIn the seventh session, researchers said, Kandula \"just suddenly did it.\" And in the next session, Kandula rolled the cube all over the elephant compound, using it to reach a flower he wanted to sniff and to play with a toy hung from a tree, they said.\n\nThursday, 6 October 2011\n\nMonkeys Use Mind Control\n\nScienceNOW (Oct, 6. 2011) - By implanting electrodes into both the motor and the sensory areas of the brain, researchers have created a virtual prosthetic hand that monkeys control using only their minds, and that enables them to feel virtual textures.\n\n\n\nAlthough the monkeys are all adults, the motor and sensory regions of their brains are amazingly plastic, Nicolelis says: the combination of seeing an appendage that they control and feeling a physical touch tricks them into thinking that the virtual appendage is their own “within minutes.” And throughout this experiment, the monkey’s own general sense of touch didn’t seem to be affected. “The brain,” Nicolelis says, “is creating a sixth sense.”\n\n\n\nNicolelis says his group is currently working on fine-tuning the sensory feedback as well as exploring ways to link the brain and computer wirelessly. After many years of working on brain-computer interfaces, he says, “We’re getting very close to where they may be clinically useful” for paralyzed patients, not just in the lab, and for doctors as well. Touch feedback may allow surgeons, for instance, to perform microscopic surgery or countless other applications. “The brain,” Nicolelis says, “has evolved capabilities that go way beyond the body.”\n\nSaturday, 1 October 2011\n\nBen Goldacre: Battling Bad Science\n\nTED TALKS (Filmed July 2011, Posted Sept 2011) Every day there are news reports of new health advice, but how can you know if they're right? Doctor and epidemiologist Ben Goldacre shows us, at high speed, the ways evidence can be distorted, from the blindingly obvious nutrition claims to the very subtle tricks of the pharmaceutical industry.\n\nRichard Dawkins Interview\n\n\nArchaeologists find ancient 'child cave art' in the Dordogne\n\nBBC Science (Sept. 30, 2011)\n\n", "pred_label": "__label__1", "pred_score_pos": 0.6216394901275635}
+{"content": "Pink Flower Pendant with Lace Necklace\n\nSize (inches): 1.50 x 0.20 x 2.80\n\nNot yet rated\nWrite a review\n\nThis beautiful Pink Flower Fish Pendant with Lace Necklace is modern and fashionable. You can find the these Hand-crafted Necklaces in Fashion Jewellery.Ekriti is the destination for colorful and handcrafted fashion accessories for women.Our creative world of chic and handmade accessories offers the style-savvy customer exactly what she wants; to accessorize and nurture her free spirit, determination, creativity and individuality. This is made of Glass, Acrylic, Elastic, and Brass\n\nWrite a review\n\nNote: HTML is not translated!\n\nBad            Good\n", "pred_label": "__label__1", "pred_score_pos": 0.8152653574943542}
+{"content": "What Is So Special About Going to Summer Camp?\n\nChildhood lasts only a dozen or so precious years, a time of learning, growing, play and seminal experiences that will shape the course of a life. Each year of childhood is divided into two times: the school year and summer vacation. And while the school year is crisp and crackling with possibility, books with unbent spines, shiny shoes, and maps of the world, the summertime is magic. Summers are when real discovery happens, when children may run, and swim, and climb all day outside under a warm sun until late in the evening. It is a time to explore, create, and be free in a way that we chase forever after it ends. The months of June, July, and August can be spent in myriad ways. So why choose a summer camp experience for your child?\n\n\nBecause we love our children dearly and are lucky to live in a time and place of affluence and relative peace, we dote on them, sometimes to their detriment. Children need space for themselves, away from parents. They need to form their own tribe, test chaos, figure things out, choose their own adventures and live them out without fear of our reactions. They need to fall and get themselves up, without parents scolding or offering advice. It is absolutely critical that they develop the skills to function autonomously and in relation to others. Summer camp is special because of all of the give and take that happens at camp when they learn how to live with others. And it all plays out in a completely safe and controlled environment.\n\n+yogaYour children learn to function independently, to work as part of a cohort of peers, in an unparalleled setting of natural beauty, in a place that is charmingly rustic yet provides everything they could want, and is safe. Why send your child to camp? Their development depends on it.", "pred_label": "__label__1", "pred_score_pos": 0.9296791553497314}
+{"content": "Musician, Pianist, Composer, Vocalist, Artist\n\n‘A Bahá’í Perspective’ Radio Interview\n\nI recently had the privilege of giving a one hour radio interview with Warren Odess-Gillett from ‘A Bahá’í Perspective’.  The interview is now LIVE!\n\nVisit this link to hear the podcast where I share what inspired several of my pieces from 5 CDs, how I started on my music journey, the themes of the albums I have released so far, what it was like being raised in Kenya as well as what religious life was like growing up there.\n\nDo leave me a comment below and let me know if you have any questions about the music, the albums or the interview in general.  There was so much to talk about and not enough time.  I was only able to share 6 pieces from 5 albums out of the 8 albums released so far.\n\nYou can download the full podcast on iTunes here. \n\nA Bahá'í Perspective - Elika Mahony\n\n\n  1. I clicked on ‘listen to the podcast now��� but nothing happened. Oh dear. I do want to listen to it\n\n  2. Hi Aaron, many thanks for trying to listen to the podcast. I believe you can also try and listen to it on iTunes or try a different browser. Let me know if you still have trouble listening to it.\n\n  3. Looking forward to listening to this love Elly\n\n  4. Really looking forward to listening to this Elika. Thank you! Sally Lazanas.", "pred_label": "__label__1", "pred_score_pos": 0.9684971570968628}
+{"content": "What Is LEED\n\n Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design Building\n\nTo understand what part a Structural Engineering Design professional plays in LEED, one must understand what LEED offers. LEED, Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design is a program by which certification an area of expertise in green building.\n\nLEED provides a rating scale for the system by which Structural Engineers construct, design, operate, and maintain green buildings. These structures are found in all residential, commercial, and industrial areas who desire to go green with environmentally reliable resources to run more efficiently, breaking away from traditional methods of energy.\n\nWhat is an Energy Code?\n\nThere is a program, known as BECP, enacted by the President called the United States Department of Energy’s Building Energy Codes Program. This program supports more advanced energy codes for residential, commercial, and industrial areas who desire to go green. The focus is on increased efficiency in energy use. BECP works with local, state, national government agencies to support stronger building codes in energy. Responsibility lies in helping states adopt, implement and enforce these regulations.\n\nWhat Part Do Structural Engineers Play in Energy Codes and LEED?\n\nIt is easy to understand the role that a Structural Engineering Design Professional plays in LEED and the Energy Code. This program is devoted to the cause for using less energy, at less cost, using less carbon in residential, commercial, and industrial fields. These professionals design a more efficient structure when rebuilding is in the process. The industrial sector throughout the United States uses nearly 50% of the energy in America. For there to be a solution to America’s energy problem there needs to be energy rules and regulations set into place and the Structural Engineer must abide by these codes.\n\nengineersWhen these strict baseline laws are abided by, businesses show a minimum of energy efficiency. Industries find they use less energy, at a lower cost with less carbon output. BECP helps companies and homes go green. There are two strict codes, one for residential homes and the other for the commercial sector in which the Structural Engineer adheres. At structures, whether private residences, small businesses, or large corporations are built the goal is to create these structures using more energy efficient methods, such as but not limited to Savings Star products, with the goal being, 30% less energy used.\n\nBECP supplies free user guides, training materials, videos, and manuals to make sure the Structural Engineer remains within compliance. Additionally, BECP trains and continuously educates professionals and the community about code requirements, the implementation, and the compliance of energy systems. BECP keeps all entities updated on energy code changes.\n\nBECP sets a standard for architects, designers, engineers, and researchers on state and local codes. This agency offers clarity of code issues and informs people on the different energy systems working as a public advocate across the United States to exceed the minimum and necessary requirements. BECP helps to remove barriers to energy systems, contributes to implementing and assist in the compliance and enforcement of energy codes.", "pred_label": "__label__1", "pred_score_pos": 0.9961717128753662}
+{"content": "How to Troubleshoot Honda Accord Transmission Problems\n\nby Alibaster Smith\n\nThe Honda Accord is one of Honda's most reliable automobiles. The Accord's transmission is generally reliable, but not bulletproof. The automatic transmissions are typically more prone to failure than standard or five-speed version's of the Accord. Even so, before you take the car to a shop or have anything fixed, it's best to know what the potential problems could be.\n\nStart the engine and shift the Accord into \"drive.\" If the Accord won't shift properly, it is most likely due to a faulty shift linkage. While this is uncommon, it can happen on Accords with over 100,000 miles. This is due to the bushings and the linkage itself wearing out from extended use.\n\nLet your foot off the brake pedal while in gear. If the car doesn't creep forward, then your torque converter could be bad. This happens to high mileage Accords. Have your converter replaced by a qualified mechanic. For standard transmissions, you won't have this problem because there is no torque converter.\n\nCheck to see if your Accord stays in gear while driving. If your Accord won't stay in gear while you are driving, this can indicate a serious problem with an automatic transmission. For standard transmissions, this problem is most likely caused by a worn clutch disc. This is not a serious issue. However, in automatic transmissions, it can indicate anything from a worn clutch in the torque converter to broken or missing teeth on the planetary gear system that the Accord uses. Have the transmission serviced by a professional mechanic for both issues.\n\n\nAbout the Author\n", "pred_label": "__label__1", "pred_score_pos": 0.8444483280181885}
+{"content": "White Walkers: Why the Most Exciting Revelations are Still to Come\n\nFrom day one of the HBO’s adaptation of George R.R. Martin’s, ‘A Song of Ice & Fire,’ Game of Thrones viewers have been enthralled by the emerging presence of the series ultimate foes, the White Walkers. Moreover, the reason viewers have been so enthralled is simple. Unlike other fictional nemeses like Tolkien’s Sauron, the Walking Dead’s zombies and even the ’Others’ in J.J. Abrams Lost, the White Walkers have benefited from what can only be described as the most excruciating series build up of all time.\n\nFor almost four full seasons, the ever enigmatic White Walkers rarely appeared for more than merely snapshot scenes at the start and end of each season, scenes which usually left viewers with more questions than answers. However, up until recently, those who couldn’t wait for the return of Game of Thrones after season endings and episode cliffhangers have been able to learn more about White Walkers by turning to the original George R.R. Martin book series. The only problem? Things aren’t exactly that easy anymore.\n\nWith George R.R. Martin’s, ‘The Winds of Winter & A Dream of Spring’ still pending release, Game of Thrones fans are now having piece together who the White Walkers are and what their motives are all for themselves. The only question is, how much do we actually know already?\n\nWho & What Are The White Walkers Really?\n\nAs Game of Thrones advanced into it’s fourth season with a typical side relish of gore and Westeros-based political intrigue, we actually managed to learn quite a lot about the still semi-mythic White Walkers.\n\nFrom what we know of Game of Thrones legend and folklore, the original Nights King, leader of the White Walkers, was himself (possibly) the thirteenth Lord Commander of the Night’s Watch. Commanding during the so-called Age of Hero’s, it was this Lord Commander who apparently fell for a pale, cold, blue-eyed beauty, who for all intensive purposes has so far been described as a female White Walker herself.\n\nLater married, the Nightfort subsequently descended into chaos with the thirteenth Lord Commander declaring himself and his new bride King & Queen of the North, before also going on to commit a string of atrocities ranging from the worship of false gods to full-scale human sacrifice.\n\nAppalled, the Lord Commanders own brother, the true King of the North, united with the King Beyond the Wall against the Nightfort and freed the imprisoned Nights Watch. The Lord Commanders name was then erased from history. However, how this episode relates to the motivations of White Walkers at the present time is still something of a mystery.\n\nThe White Walker King\n\nIs the White Walker King actually the thirteenth Lord Commander of the Night’s Watch? Many speculate that the fall of the Nightfort under the thirteenth Lord Commander might have seen him flee further north into White Walker territory. If true, the Lord Commander can presumably be credited as having brought order to the White Walkers before mobilizing the semi-supernatural beings into the force that they are today.\n\nWhite Walkers & Wights in Game of Thrones\n\nHowever, many enigmatic questions are still posed by the very existence of White Walkers in the first place. If after all, White Walkers have always been able to create subservient Wights by reanimating dead human cadavers, and if their only weakness really are Valyrian Steel and Dragon Glass, how have the Night’s Watch and the Wildlings beyond the wall been able to suppress the White Walkers for so long?\n\nSadly, these are questions which only ‘The Winds of Winter & A Dream of Spring’ will be able to answer. The biggest question in this regard, is, therefore, will George R.R. Martin’s latest masterpiece be ready on time and if not, how exactly will HBO attempt to develop the ongoing saga in its absence?", "pred_label": "__label__1", "pred_score_pos": 0.9842236042022705}
+{"content": "Polo 24 Hour Bar\n\nsave place\nBreakfast of Champions\nHaving just arrived in London after taking a red eye I was ready for some local food while I waited to check into my hotel. I was staying by the Liverpool stop and wandered by Polo Bar—it looked more of a take out place but I walked in and there were a few tables filled with people and seemed like a local spot. The food was great and reasonably priced. They had the traditional English Breakfast and many other options to choose from. I also loved how the water was served from a local milk carton and the silverware was stored in tin cans.\nOriginal flemings mayfair.jpg?1478188190?ixlib=rails 0.3", "pred_label": "__label__1", "pred_score_pos": 0.8056684732437134}
+{"content": "Cleansing and Detoxing\n\nHow often do you think about your kidneys and all they do for you? Most of us don’t pay enough homage to these exceptional organs that are constantly working on our behalf.\nThe kidneys are two bean-shaped organs, each about the size of a fist. They are located just below your rib cage, on either side of your spine.\nThey are working hard every single day to cleanse and detox your body by filtering anywhere from 180-200 quarts of blood. They collect excess fluid and waste and excrete them out as 1-2 quarts of urine daily.\nThis is just one reason it’s so important to stay hydrated, so that you can help them do their job. A healthy bladder of a hydrated person urinates between 6-9 times daily.\nThe kidneys are crucial organs because they have the job of keeping blood composition stable, which allows the body to function well. When your kidneys are in good shape, they:\nPrevent the buildup of wastes and extra fluid in the body\nKeep levels of electrolytes stable, such as sodium, potassium, and phosphate\nProduce an active form of vitamin D that promotes strong, healthy bones (if you have chronic low vitamin D and you supplement with it, look to tune up kidney health)\nRelease hormones that help make red blood cells and regulate blood pressure\nMost people think the entire organ does the cleansing, but that’s not actually the case. Each kidney is made up of about a million filtering units, which are called nephrons (hence why the kidney doctor is called a nephrologist). Each of the many, many nephrons filters a small amount of blood.\n\nHow They Work is Interesting...\nThe nephrons first filter fluid and waste, while preventing blood cells and large molecules like proteins from passing through. The filtered fluid then goes through a tube that adds needed minerals back into the bloodstream and removes wastes. Urine is the final product.\nI tell you this not only because I find it fascinating and hope you do too, but because I hope it gives you reverence for the involuntary near-magical process that occurs in your body multiple times daily.\nIt’s these kinds of realizations that help us understand how powerful our bodies are (no matter your current state of health). Hopefully then, we’ll want to give back to these organs that do so much for us.\nA simple, easy way to love your kidneys is by occasionally cleansing and protecting them with this \"kidney love\" cocktail.\n\nThe Recipe:\n\n1 cup unsweetened cranberry juice\n¼ cup chlorophyll\n¼ cup raw apple cider vinegar\nJuice of two freshly squeezed lemons\nOptional: 3-5 drops of dark liquid stevia\nYou can make this and drink it daily for 7-14 days to give your kidneys the boost they deserve. And, this is a GREAT go-to at the very first sign of a bladder or urinary tract infection to help you knock it out fast and hopefully avoid antibiotics.\n\nWhy These Ingredients?\n\nCranberry Juice\nMedical research backs up the link between cranberries and kidney health. Cranberries prevent bacteria (mostly e. coli) from attaching to the wall of the bladder. This means that infections cannot stick around inside your body.\nChlorophyll is just a general rock star for health and a health food that often gets overlooked. It has many benefits for the human body well beyond the kidneys: it’s essential to the process of photosynthesis known as “the building block for life”. Chlorophyll contains the trace element of iron (not actually iron, see below), which is helpful for anemia, low energy, and headaches.\n“In 1913, Dr. Richard Willstatter, a German chemist found that the chlorophyll molecule is chemically similar to human hemoglobin – the red pigment found in our blood cells, except that its central atom is magnesium, whereas that of human blood is iron. Chlorophyll has an affinity for blood; indeed chlorophyll has been shown to increase oxygen uptake in the blood, which can increase energy, relieve fatigue and improve many blood disorders.”\nRaw Apple Cider Vinegar\nOne of the staples in my diet, apple cider vinegar helps detoxify the liver because it helps break down fats. Apple cider vinegar also helps prevent kidney stones from forming and helps remove bad bacteria (e. coli is usually at the root of a urinary tract or bladder infection). So you can see, when you add apple cider vinegar and cranberry juice together, bad bacteria are up against quite a match because they work synergistically together.\nLemon Juice\nGood old-fashioned lemon juice has been shown to increase citrate levels in the urine. Citrate is a known inhibitor of calcium stone disease. This means plain lemon juice is a powerful tool to discourage kidney stones from forming.\n\nYou might need this \"cocktail\" if you:\nAre prone to urinary tract infections or bladder infections (or if you’ve had more than 3 in your life)\nHave had more than 1 kidney infection in your life\nHave chronic low vitamin D levels and supplementation is slow to work or ineffective\nAre older than 50\nHave diabetes\nHave high blood pressure\nHave a family member who has chronic kidney disease\n\nPosted: Tue 11 Aug 2015", "pred_label": "__label__1", "pred_score_pos": 0.7529696226119995}
+{"content": "Calculate Road Distances in US\nhow to calculate distance between cities in US:\n\nTo find the distances between cities in US and other useful information such as average speed, driving time, the recommended breaks, fuel consumption, fuel price, type in the above fields the names of localities - FROM Chicago,IL TO Cottonwood-Heights,UT and then press ENTER key or click on DISTANCE button.\n\n\nChange the route for US\nAfter generating the route Chicago,IL - Cottonwood-Heights,UT could be changed by simply dragging the line with the mouse. The change can be applied to any intermediate points of that route as well as the points of departure and arrival.\naverage speed Chicago,IL - Cottonwood-Heights,UT\ndriving time Chicago,IL - Cottonwood-Heights,UT\nrecommended break Chicago,IL - Cottonwood-Heights,UT\nfuel consumption Chicago,IL - Cottonwood-Heights,UT\nfuel price Chicago,IL - Cottonwood-Heights,UT.\n\nAdjustment of fuel consumption and fuel price for Chicago,IL - Cottonwood-Heights,UT\n\n\n\nterms of using distancesonline.com\n", "pred_label": "__label__1", "pred_score_pos": 0.6619148254394531}
+{"content": "Women who have struggled with infertility have often been surprised when the impossible became possible, they were able to conceive due to  proper nervous system function. The focus of chiropractic is to allow the body to function properly.\n\nOnce conception has taken place the mother is going to undergo multiple changes physically and emotionally.  The health of a mother is vital to a healthy pregnancy.  Because of the physical and emotional changes, her nervous system needs to be able to adapt.\n\nSome of the physical changes:\n\nPoor Posture – due to the extra weight often leading to back pain.\n\nPelvic Imbalance – constricting the uterus and potentially causing a breech\n\nbirth due to intrauterine constraint.\n\nBreech Baby – when the child is not head down Dr. Ware has been certified in the Webster technique for several years. This is a gentle technique of adjusting that allows for the baby to turn in the womb.\n\nImproved labor – a majority of chiropractic clients report having shorter labor times and fewer difficulties with their pregnancy.", "pred_label": "__label__1", "pred_score_pos": 0.9364625215530396}
+{"content": "Statistics Assignment Help\n\nStatistics is understood as one of the important and yet interesting subjects. Statistics is one of the subjects that include collecting, organizing and interpreting the available data. It is usually associated with statistical methods. There are different types of statistical subjects which include Descriptive Statistics and Inferential Statistics. \n\nEasyAssignmentHelp - Statistics Assignment Help\n\nThe Descriptive Statistics are quantitative and the analysis of these statistics depends on the college data. It also includes measures of mean, median and mode, along with dispersion, Standard Score and P-value. The Inferential Statistics is understood as the process of drawing the inferences and conclusions from the data set. As understood it is realized that there are tons of concepts that are covered under Statistics, it is too hard to name one by one. However, it is understood that there are various types of analysis including multi-variate and regression analysis.\n\nTherefore, what are you waiting for, if you really want instant help and better grades in your term then take first step in contacting our experts? We have 24x7 services and please do not hesitate to call at any time. There will always be someone to assist you and guide you through the process and the assignments are really solved at the reasonable cost. \n\nCoupon 10% off\n\nWhat our clients say:-\n\n\n-Nick, USA\n\n\n-Christine, UK\n\n\n-Kenny, USA\n", "pred_label": "__label__1", "pred_score_pos": 0.5296926498413086}
+{"content": "\ncomment by rd95\nrd95  ·  73 days ago  ·  link  ·    ·  parent  ·  post: The Ugly Duchess\n\nthenewgreen  ·  72 days ago  ·  link  ·  \n\nSo your vote is for the painting that inspired the original duchess? It's pretty phenomenal, I'll give you that. Sort of what Eddie from the Iron Maiden albums would look like if he had skin and were a victorian era duchess.\n\nStJohn  ·  72 days ago  ·  link  ·  \n\nIt is an amazing painting. And I've been to Greek funerals, running the gauntlet of dozens of Greek grannies all dressed in black and pinching your cheeks… The painting isn't far off the mark.", "pred_label": "__label__1", "pred_score_pos": 1.0000052452087402}
+{"content": "HBR on Corporate Culture Design\n\nI had a chance to work for companies with very different corporate cultures. In my experience culture does not just happen. Instead, it should be deliberately designed and reinforced. So I found this Harvard Business Review article relevant and insightful:\n\nThink carefully about each of these four elements:\n\n  • Incentives are a basic element of doing good work. People should be paid fairly and competitively for their roles, and increases in compensation should be a predictable process. In addition to pay, the culture should work to reward results generated versus hours worked. Employees shouldn’t feel anxious about how visible they are in the office or on projects, and strict timekeeping can create a sense of mistrust between teams and management. Lastly, and this is something we care about a lot, good failure should not result in career suicide.\n  • Context and rules will determine what rituals and processes allow people to do great work. If initiative is punished instead of rewarded, people will feel less compelled to push new ideas internally. The ability to make quick judgment calls and move decisions forward will outpace any lengthy or cumbersome internal approvals process. The same goes for autonomy and flexibility—do you trust your teams to lead while you get out of the way? Are teams allowed to participate in flexible work options that encourage their productivity? Your teams need the right tools and resources to do their job—are they spending more time fighting for what they need? If access to those resources is limited, individuals will be less inclined to take part in initiatives with so many blockers in front of them.\n  • People are the core of a great organization and the processes and systems you use to hire, promote, and reward them can be both enablers and blockers. Bob Sutton’s famous “no asshole rule” is an important factor when hiring people for your company, especially if they’re “star performers”. Sutton believes that star performers who are demeaning can wreak havoc on organizations. You just can’t compromise your business on people like that.\n  • Leadership has to play a role in the culture if the whole organization is to transform. And leading by example is a pivotal component of management enablers (and blockers: leadership can lead by poor example as well, of course). If leadership exhibits the behaviors expected of teams and individuals, then people in the organization will follow suit.\n\nSapiens: A Brief History of Humankind\n\nSapiens: A Brief History of Humankind by Yuval Noah Harari is yet another mind-expanding book:\n\n“About 13.5 billion years ago, matter, energy, time and space came into being in what is known as the Big Bang. The story of these fundamental features of our universe is called physics.\n\n\n\n\n\n\nJust finished reading “Superforecasting: The Art and Science of Prediction” by Philip Tetlock. The book is similar to Nate Silver’s “The Signal and The Noise” in many ways.\n\nI’d definitely recommend this one if you’re interested in the application of the scientific mindset to forecasting of future events.\n\nHere is a quote to give you sense of what to expect:\n\n“Suppose someone says, “Unfortunately, the popularity of soccer, the world’s favorite pastime, is starting to decline.” You suspect he is wrong. How do you question the claim?\n\nDon’t even think of taking a personal shot like “You’re silly.” That only adds heat, not light. “I don’t think so” only expresses disagreement without delving into why you disagree. “What do you mean?” lowers the emotional temperature with a question but it’s much too vague. Zero in. You might say, “What do you mean by ‘pastime’?” or “What evidence is there that soccer’s popularity is declining? Over what time frame?” The answers to these precise questions won’t settle the matter, but they will reveal the thinking behind the conclusion so it can be probed and tested. Since Socrates, good teachers have practiced precision questioning, but still it’s often not used when it’s needed most.”\n\nChaos Monkeys\n\nEnjoying reading Antonio‘s Chaos Monkeys now. The book is a rather honest account of launching and working at tech startups in the Valley.\n\nHere is a quote on math behind Facebook growth, for example:\n\n“The reality is that Facebook has been so successful, it’s actually running out of humans on the planet. Ponder the numbers: there are about three billion people on the Internet, where the latter is broadly defined as any sort of networked data, texts, browser, social media, whatever. Of these people, six hundred million are Chinese, and therefore effectively unreachable by Facebook. In Russia, thanks to Vkontakte and other copycat social networks, Facebook’s share of the country’s ninety million Internet users is also small, though it may yet win that fight.\n\nThat leaves about 2.35 billion people ripe for the Facebook plucking. While Facebook seems ubiquitous to the plugged-in, chattering classes, its usage is not universal among even entrenched Internet users. In the United States, for example, by far the company’s most established and sticky market, only three-quarters of Internet users are actively on FB. That ratio of FB to Internet user is worse in other countries, so even full FB saturation in a given market doesn’t imply total Facebook adoption. Let’s (very) optimistically assume full US-level penetration for any market. Without China and Russia, and taking a 25 percent haircut of people who’ll never join or stay (as is the case in the United States), that leaves around 1.8 billion potential Facebook users globally. That’s it. In the first quarter of 2015, Facebook announced it had 1.44 billion users. Based on its public 2014 numbers, FB is growing at around 13 percent a year, and that pace is slowing. Even assuming it maintains that growth into 2016, that means it’s got one year of user growth left in it, and then that’s it: Facebook has run out of humans on the Internet.\n\nThe company can solve this by either making more humans (hard even for Facebook), or connecting what humans there are left on the planet. This is why Internet.org exists, a vaguely public-spirited, and somewhat controversial, campaign by Facebook to wire all of India with free Internet, with regions like Brazil and Africa soon to follow. In early 2014 Facebook acquired a British aerospace firm, Ascenta, which specialized in solar-powered unmanned aerial vehicles. Facebook plans on flying a Wi-Fi-enabled air force of such craft over the developing world, giving them Internet. Just picture ultralight carbon-fiber aircraft buzzing over African savannas constantly, while locals check their Facebook feeds as they watch over their herds.”\n\nWaking Up by Sam Harris, my notes\n\n\n\n\n\n\nContinue reading\n\n“How Google Works” by Eric Schmidt notes\n\nHow Google Works” by Eric Schmidt, despite being quite self-congratulatory and maybe even prone to confirmation bias, is full of inspirational ideas and bids of practical wisdom to learn from. I took a few (ok, quite a few) notes on smart creatives, decision making, hiring, innovation, strategy, career, management and even managing email.\n\nOn smart creatives:\n\n“And who, exactly, is this smart creative? A smart creative has deep technical knowledge in how to use the tools of her trade and plenty of hands-on experience. In our industry, that means she is most likely a computer scientist, or at least understands the tenets and structure of the systems behind the magic you see on your screens every day. But in other industries she may be a doctor, designer, scientist, filmmaker, engineer, chef, or mathematician. She is an expert in doing. She doesn’t just design concepts, she builds prototypes. She is analytically smart. She is comfortable with data and can use it to make decisions. She also understands its fallacies and is wary of endless analysis. Let data decide, she believes, but don’t let it take over.\n\nShe is business smart. She sees a direct line from technical expertise to product excellence to business success, and understands the value of all three. She is competitive smart. Her stock-in-trade starts with innovation, but it also includes a lot of work. She is driven to be great, and that doesn’t happen 9-to-5. She is user smart. No matter the industry, she understands her “get it right the next time around. She is self-directed creative. She doesn’t wait to be told what to do and sometimes ignores direction if she doesn’t agree with it. She takes action based on her own initiative, which is considerable.\n\nShe is open creative. She freely collaborates, and judges ideas and analyses on their merits and not their provenance. If she were into needlepoint, she would sew a pillow that said, “If I give you a penny, then you’re a penny richer and I’m a penny poorer, but if I give you an idea, then you will have a new idea but I’ll have it too.” Then she would figure out a way to make the pillow fly around the room and shoot lasers.\n\nShe is thorough creative. She is always on and can recite the details, not because she studies and memorizes, but because she knows them. They are her details. She is communicative creative. She is funny and expresses herself with flair and even charisma, either one-to-one or one-to-many.”\n\n\n\n“Hippopotamuses are among the deadliest animals, faster than you think and capable of crushing (or biting in half) any enemy in their path. Hippos are dangerous in companies too, where they take the form of the Highest-Paid Person’s Opinion. When it comes to the quality of decision-making, pay level is intrinsically irrelevant and experience is valuable only if it is used to frame a winning argument. Unfortunately, in most companies experience is the winning argument. We call these places “tenurocracies,” because power derives from tenure, not merit. It reminds us of our favorite quote from Jim Barksdale, erstwhile CEO of Netscape: “If we have data, let’s look at data. If all we have are opinions, let’s go with mine.”\n\nWhen you stop listening to the hippos, you start creating a meritocracy, which our colleague Shona Brown concisely describes as a place where “it is the quality of the idea that matters, not who suggests it.” Sounds easy, but of course it isn’t. Creating a meritocracy requires equal participation by both the hippo, who could rule the day by fiat, and the brave smart creative, who risks getting trampled as she stands up for quality and merit.”\n\n\nOn technical insights as a driver of innovation:\n\n“Bet on technical insights, not market research. Product leaders create product plans, but those product plans often (usually!) lack the most important component: What is the technical insight upon which those new features, products, or platforms will be built? A technical insight is a new way of applying technology or design that either drives down the cost or increases the functions and usability of the product by a significant factor. The result is something that is better than the competition in a fundamental way. The improvement is often obvious; it doesn’t take a lot of marketing for customers to figure out that this product is different from everything else.\n\nFor example, at that time Google was experimenting in applying some of our expertise from online advertising to other advertising markets, including print, radio, and TV. These were clever efforts, supported by smart people, but they lacked that fundamental technical insight that would shift the cost-performance curve non-incrementally and provide significant differentiation. All three ultimately failed. And when we look back at other Google products that didn’t make it (iGoogle, Desktop, Notebook, Sidewiki, Knol, Health, even the popular Reader), they all either lacked underlying technical insights from the outset, or the insights upon which they were based became dated as the Internet evolved.”\n\nContinue reading\n\nHow to Start a Startup Stanford class materials\n\n\n\nDate Speaker Topic\n9/23/14 Sam Altman, President, Y Combinator\nWelcome, and Ideas, Products, Teams and Execution Part I\nWhy to Start a Startup\n\nContinue reading\n\nGood vs Bad PM by Ben Horowitz\n\n\nHere is the full version found on khoslaventures.com worth looking at:\n\nContinue reading\n\nMental Math: Years to Double an Investment\n\n\n\n\nHappiest Countries According to Studies\n\n\n% Thriving in 3+ Elements of Well-being\n\n  1. Panama 61\n  2. Costa Rica 44\n  3. Denmark 40\n  4. Austria 39\n  5. Brazil 39\n  6. Uruguay 37\n  7. El Salvador 37\n  8. Sweden 36\n  9. Guatemala 34\n  10. Canada 34\n\n\nSubjective Happiness\n\n  1. Costa Rica\n  2. Croatia\n  3. Chile\n  4. Malaysia\n  5. Colombia\n\nContinue reading", "pred_label": "__label__1", "pred_score_pos": 0.6004947423934937}
+{"content": "\n\nShortcut Safari (2016)\n\n'Shortcut Safari' is about adventures of a group of 7 urban children, between ages 10 to 14 years, who get stuck in a deep, dense forest while returning from a day long trip organised by the Nature Club of their School.\n\nMovie Links:", "pred_label": "__label__1", "pred_score_pos": 0.9999480843544006}
+{"content": "Smoking: A retrospective on the discovery of the link between cigarettes and lung cancer\n\nHow we learned that smoking was dangerous.\n\nFeatured Article Image\n\n\nConsider for a moment the following claim, \"More doctors smoke Camel than any other cigarette\". If you found that statement to be alarming for any reason besides a personal preference for Marlboro, you would have found yourself in the minority in America in the 1940’s. This claim was the refrain of one of many now infamous advertising campaigns from 1940’s as American tobacco companies attempted to invoke a sense of benignity and scientific legitimacy around their products. At the time this ad was released, approximately 40% of American adults smoked cigarettes. While this number would rise during the 1950’s and peaked in the early 1960’s, the percent of Americans who smoke cigarettes as of 2014 was 16.8%. This drastic shift in smoking prevalence is one of the most important public health achievements in America in the past century. Scientists, from a variety of countries and fields, played a critical role in both instigating and ensuring the legacy of the anti-smoking campaign. This article will chronicle the work of a select subset of these scientists and reveal how their accomplishments influenced a nation.\n\nAn Abridged History of the Recognition of Tobacco Carcinogenesis\n\nThe turn of the 20th century brought with it a marked increase in the diagnosis of lung cancer, a disease once so rare physicians considered witnessing it to be a once in a lifetime event. This increase prompted Isaac Adler to investigate the etiology of lung cancer. In Primary Malignant Growths of the Lungs and Bronchi, published in 1912, Adler, a physician and teacher affiliated with several New York City hospitals, proposed a series of possible culprits including tobacco abuse. Unfortunately, Alder’s supposition that smoking caused cancer was largely ignored, and 20 years passed before the field would make any significant progress.\n\nAngel Honorio Roffo, an Argentinian physician and pioneer in the field of tobacco carcinogenesis, published a series of articles in the 1930’s demonstrating a causative link between condensed tobacco smoke and tumor formation. Roffo’s work acted as a foundation upon which Ernst Wynder and Evarts Graham (initially a skeptic and heavy smoker himself) published a number of epidemiological reports and animal investigations. The pair of researchers published a landmark study in 1950 in which they retrospectively interviewed 684 patients with bronchiogenic carcinoma. In the conclusion, they unambiguously linked smoking tobacco to lung cancer. In their most well-known animal experiment, Wynder and Graham (Adele Croninger was also listed as a co-author) used a ‘Cigarette Smoking Machine’ to simultaneously smoke 100 cigarettes and collect the by-product – a condensed cigarette tar stored in acetone. This tar/acetone solution was then painted onto the shaved backs of the experimental mouse group three times a week until they died. These mice developed papillomas and carcinomas at sites of application. The results of these experiments confirmed, in the eyes of Wynder, Graham, and several influential news organizations, the link between cancer and tobacco. The widespread media attention that these studies received triggered many Americans, including Graham, to give up smoking which in-turn caused stock prices of American cigarette manufactures to tumble. Graham would, in a letter written to Wynder in 1957, lament his earlier skepticism. He died of lung cancer several weeks later.\n\nThe Response of the Tobacco Industry\n\nBy the late 1940’s the tobacco industry decided to turn to public relations, a field through which they had achieved great success in years past, to assuage what was an unprecedented threat to their very existence. John W. Hill, president of one of the nation’s leading public relations firms, was called upon to guide the industry through this crisis. Instead of turning away from science, Hill advised the tobacco industry gain control over the science and publicly embrace a principal foundation of science, skepticism. By funding the work of academic scientists, Hill believed the industry could both solicit and amplify the views of skeptics and, more importantly, convey to the public that the tobacco companies were actively engaging in substantive research. The results of these studies were less relevant to Hill’s plan; he placed greater emphasis on the simple idea that there was more research to be done and, by extension, that the question of whether or not smoking caused lung cancer was exactly that, a question.\n\nIt is important to note that much of the research commission by the tobacco industry actually corroborated the notion that cigarette smoking was carcinogenic. For example, in 1952 researchers at the Brown and Williamson Tobacco Corporation identified dozens of carcinogens in tobacco smoke. Furthermore, in private reports made for executives in several tobacco companies, researchers concluded that the confluence of clinical and animal studies purporting a link between smoking and lung cancer clearly suggested that tobacco was carcinogenic. None of these studies or reports were made public, instead the tobacco industry invested more money in creating propaganda which denied or at least questioned the cigarette-cancer link.\n\nThe 1964 Surgeon General Report\n\nAs the evidence linking smoking cigarettes to lung cancer continued to mount, and public opinion began to shift from disregard to concern, the Surgeon General began to take steps to elucidate the position of the US government. In 1957, Surgeon General Leroy Burney took the first step by declaring that there may be a causal link between smoking and lung cancer. In an effort to avow a more concrete position, the U.S. Public Health Service convened a committee of experts which, over a span of two years (1962 to 1964), poured over 7,000 research papers.\n\nTheir conclusions were presented in the first Surgeon General Report which was published in 1964. According to the Surgeon General at the time, Luther Terry, the report, “hit the country like a bombshell. It was front page news and a lead story on every radio and television station in the United States and many abroad.\" Of the many findings presented in the report, the claim that regular cigarette smoking resulted in a 70% increase in mortality rates really stuck with the American public.\n\nThe report also influenced politicians. In 1965, Congress passed the Federal Cigarette Labeling and Advertising Act which required a health warning on all cigarette packages. Then in 1969, the Public Health Cigarette Smoking Act was passed which banned cigarette advertising across all forms of broadcast media.\n\n\nPublic opinion on smoking shifted significantly between the 1940’s and 1960’s as a result of the tireless work of a cadre of dedicated scientists. Their research has undoubtedly saved the lives of millions of people, yet the question remains, how many million more could have been saved if the tobacco industry had been more honest and spent less on undermining the science they knew was true.\n\nRecommended Further Reading\n\n  • Proctor RN. The history of the discovery of the cigarette e lung cancer link : evidentiary traditions , corporate denial , global toll. Tob Control. 2012;21:87-91. doi:10.1136/tobaccocontrol-2011-050338.\n\n  • Brandt A. Inventing Conflicts of Interest : A History of Tobacco Industry Tactics. 2012;102(1):63-71. doi:10.2105/AJPH.2011.300292.\n\n  • Cummings KM, Brown A, Connor RO. CEBP Focus : Nicotine and Tobacco-Control Research The Cigarette Controversy. Cancer Epidemiol Biomakers. 2007;16(June):1070-1076. doi:10.1158/1055-9965.EPI-06-0912.\n\n\nEtiology : The cause or origin of a disease.\n\nCarcinogenesis : The production or development of cancer.\n\nEpidemiology (Epidemiological) : The science concerned with the study of the factors determining and influencing the frequency and distribution of disease in a defined human population.\n\nBronchogenic carcinoma : Another, if somewhat outdated, name for lung cancer.\n\nPapilloma : A tumorous growth that is usually benign (won’t spread throughout the body).\n\nCarcinoma : A cancer that begins in a single cell of a tissue that lines part of the body, for example your skin or the lining of your lung. This mutated single cell develops into a malignant tumor of many cells that can then spread throughout the body.\n\nRetrospective study : An epidemiologic study in which participants are classified as either having some outcome (cases) or lacking it (controls); the outcome may be a specific disease, and the persons' histories are examined for specific factors that might be associated with that outcome.\n\nProspective study : An epidemiologic study in which the groups of individuals (cohorts) are selected on the bases of factors that are to be examined for possible effects on some outcome. The cohort is selected in the present and followed into the future.\n\nSurgeon General : Nominated by the President of the United States and confirmed by the Senate, the Surgeon General acts as the spokesperson for the federal government on matters of public health.", "pred_label": "__label__1", "pred_score_pos": 0.6451404094696045}
+{"content": "Virtual reality is making the transition from sci-fi daydream to commercial reality.  Head mounted display developers such as Oculus VR, have created amazing head mounted displays that deliver a truly  immersive VR experience.  At the same time, VR developers have created incredibly immersive virtual reality games and experiences.\n\nWith the focus on the diverse technical challenges of building a viable HMD and content ecosystem, human factors(ergonomics and hygiene) remain largely unmet needs.  To address these unmet needs, Jema VR is pleased to officially launch the About Face project, a line of research backed products to drastically improve actual comfort in virtual reality.", "pred_label": "__label__1", "pred_score_pos": 0.9984557032585144}
+{"content": "Posted in | Quantum Computing\n\nScientists Get Closer to Using Quantum Computing Instead of Traditional Computing\n\nIn the last six decades, computers have become faster, compact, and cheaper. However, for engineers, the options have almost saturated for how small the silicon transistors can be made and how fast they can transfer electricity via devices to form digital ones and zeros.\n\nSuch a restriction has led Jelena Vuckovic, a Stanford electrical engineering Professor, to turn towards quantum computing, which is dependent on light and not electricity. Quantum computers operate by distancing the spinning electrons inside an innovative kind of semiconductor material. Once the electron is struck by a laser, it emits one or more quanta (or particles) of light to display the manner in which the electron spins. These spin states replace the ones and zeros of conventional computing.\n\nVuckovic, one of the leading scientists in the field, stated that quantum computing is perfect for analyzing biological systems, performing cryptography, or data mining — or even solving any challenge with a number of variables.\n\nWhen people talk about finding a needle in a haystack, that’s where quantum computing comes in.\n\n\nAccording to Marina Radulaski, a postdoctoral fellow in Vuckovic’s laboratory, the problem-solving ability of quantum computers arises from the complexity of the interactions between laser and electron fundamental to the concept.\n\nWith electronics you have zeros and ones. But when the laser hits the electron in a quantum system, it creates many possible spin states, and that greater range of possibilities forms the basis for more complex computing.\n\n\nCapturing electrons\n\nAcquiring information related to the interactions between electrons and light is difficult. Few of the major technology companies around the world are endeavoring to construct massive quantum computers that are dependent on materials that are super-cooled to near absolute zero, which is the theoretical temperature at which the movement of atoms is restricted.\n\nVuckovic’s two decades of own research has focused on one facet of the problem, namely, developing innovative quantum computer chips that will be the building blocks of prospective systems.\n\nTo fully realize the promise of quantum computing we will have to develop technologies that can operate in normal environments. The materials we are exploring bring us closer toward finding tomorrow’s quantum processor.\n\n\nThe obstacle to be overcome by Vuckovic and her colleagues is to create materials with the ability to trap a single, isolated electron. The research team has worked alongside international collaborators and has recently investigated three disparate ways to overcome the problem. One way is to enable operations at room temperature, which is a crucial step if quantum computing is to be developed into a practical tool.\n\nFor all three approaches, the researchers began by using semiconductor crystals, which are materials that have a regular atomic lattice similar to the girders of a skyscraper. When the lattice is slightly modified, a structure can be developed in which the atomic forces applied by the material have the ability to trap a spinning electron.\n\nWe are trying to develop the basic working unit of a quantum chip, the equivalent of the transistor on a silicon chip.\n\n\nQuantum dots\n\nOne method of developing such a laser-electron interaction chamber is by means of a structure called as a quantum dot. In physical terms, the quantum dot is a small quantity of indium arsenide enclosed inside a gallium arsenide crystal. The atomic characteristics of the two materials are known to confine a spinning electron.\n\nIn a latest paper published in the journal Nature Physics, Kevin Fischer (who is a graduate student at Vuckovic’s laboratory) has reported the ways in which laser-electron processes can be used within such a quantum dot to regulate the input and output of light. When more laser power is applied to the quantum dot, it can be forced to emit precisely two photons in the place of one. According to the researchers, the quantum dot has practical benefits when compared to other major quantum computing platforms. Yet, it mandates cryogenic cooling, and hence might not prove handy for general-purpose computing. However, it can be used for developing tamper-proof communication networks.\n\nColor centers\n\nVuckovic employed a varied approach to electron capture in two other papers, where she modified a single crystal to confine light in the so-called color center.\n\nIn a latest paper in the journal NanoLetters, Vuckovic and her colleagues have analyzed color centers in diamond. Naturally, the crystalline lattice in diamond is made of carbon atoms. Jingyuan Linda Zhang (who is a graduate student in Vuckovic’s laboratory) reported the manner in which a 16-member research group substituted certain carbon atoms with silicon atoms. The single modification led to the formation of color centers that could efficiently confine spinning electrons inside the crystalline lattice in diamond.\n\nHowever, similar to the quantum dot, most of the diamond color center experiments mandate cryogenic cooling. Despite the fact that it is an enhancement over other techniques that mandated an elaborate cooling, Vuckovic aspired to achieve more.\n\nTherefore, she collaborated with another international team of researchers to analyze a third material, namely, silicon carbide. Silicon carbide is generally called as carborundum, and is a hard, transparent crystal used for manufacturing brake pads, clutch plates, and bulletproof vests. Earlier studies have demonstrated that silicon carbide can be altered to form color centers at ambient temperature. However, this potential has not been made adequately efficacious to synthesize a quantum chip.\n\nVuckovic and her colleagues removed specific silicon atoms from the silicon carbide lattice to form highly efficacious color centers. They further produced nanowire structures around the color centers to enhance photon extraction. Radulaski was the first author of that study, which was reported in another paper published in NanoLetters. According to Radulaski, the net outcomes, such as efficacious color center, working at ambient temperature, in a material well known in the industry, were highly advantageous.\n\nWe think we’ve demonstrated a practical approach to making a quantum chip.\n\n\nHowever, this field is just emerging and electron confinement is not so easy. Not even the scientists are confident on the technique, or techniques, that will be effective.\n\nWe don’t know yet which approach is best, so we continue to experiment.\n\n\nTell Us What You Think\n\n\nLeave your feedback", "pred_label": "__label__1", "pred_score_pos": 0.9620112180709839}
+{"content": "Repairing for better service….\n\n\n\n  • Over 8,000 efficient cook stoves were installed in the area\n  • The project has so far saved massive tonnes of firewood\n\nKass 1\n\n\nKass 2\n\n\nKass 4\n\n\nkass 3\n\n\nA word from the Old……\n\n\nMaungu 222\n\n\nMaungu 111\n\n\nMaungu 3333\n\nHousehold Surveys in the District of Kaliro, Uganda\n\nSurveys are conducted to uncover answers to specific, important questions that are varied, cover a diverse range of topics, and can be asked in multiple formats. Surveys also help to know the impact of a project and serves the purpose of informing decision makers what impact the project has had on the target community. Accordingly, along with other strategies such as use of control groups, it also helps in attributing change in the target population to the project.\n\nAs a requirement of the Gold Standard, co2balance conducts monitoring exercises from time to time for purposes of improving the project and keeping it in line with its objectives. These surveys are done annually in randomly selected households and all the work is done with respect and consideration for the local community at all times.\n\nAll monitoring studies are recorded on a hard copy which the monitoring team transfers into digital format for analysis documentation and reporting.\n\nCo2balance with its NGO partner WAACHA recently carried out this year’s surveys in the Eastern district of Kaliro and through that were able to generate lots of positive feedback from the community. 3 years down the road, they have continued to use the water and are happy with its quality and yield. Frequent chlorination and water quality testing has also guaranteed them of safe clean water.\n\nDifferent surveys ranging from project surveys, sustainable development and water usage surveys are carried out.\n\nHere are some pictures from the surveys.\n\n\n\n\nGo Ahead for the ‘Lango Safe Water Project’ in Northern Uganda\n\nExpanding on its successful activities in Northern Uganda, Co2balance has just listed a group of 12 new Gold Standard Projects in the Lango Sub-Region.\n\nThe ‘Lango Safe Water Project’ seeks to increase access to safe water supply for thousands of households within the six districts of Dokolo, Otuke, Alebtong, Kole, Lira and Oyam. Focusing on boreholes, the project will utilize a variety of zero-emission technologies like hand-pumps or solar-powered pumps to provide water in rural communities. With over 45% of the rural population in Uganda relying on unprotected and easily contaminated water sources like rivers, lakes or open wells, the project shall reduce the need for water purification and the combustion of firewood.\n\n\n\nUnprotected water collection point in Alebtong District.\n\nIn the Lango region, many boreholes have fallen into disrepair because maintenance proved too expensive or programs have been poorly managed. Co2balance will use carbon finance to work with community groups to deliver a long-term rehabilitation and maintenance program. Stakeholders are currently invited to provide their feedback towards the project until the middle of October.\n\n\n\n\n\nIntroducing myself\n\nHello everyone,\n\nA short post to introduce myself and express how happy and thankful I am to have joined such a nice team. I started at Co2balance a bit more than two weeks ago and it has been a great learning experience so far. I am truly impressed at how much is accomplished by such a small team. It reflects how dedicated, enthusiastic and knowledgeable people are here. I am looking forward to interacting with the rest of you over the next few months and contribute to some of the great work that is being carried out.\n\nA bit more on my background, I recently graduated with a MSc in Environmental Management and Policy from Lund University in Sweden, after having completed an undergraduate degree in business. The place I call home is France, Montpellier in the South to be more precise, but I kind of feel home wherever the “wind takes me” like we often say in French. I have a passion for learning languages and traveling, which has led me to move around quite a lot in the past six years, mostly in Asia. Other than that, I enjoy fitness/running and photography. Below is a picture of me at a camel festival in Pushkar, India around 4 years ago.\n\n\n\nCooking Differently\n\nApproximately three billion people across the globe cook every day using open, three-stone fires or rudimentary traditional stoves. Cooking with these traditional cook stoves is inefficient and grossly polluting, harming health and the environment, and contributing to global warming. In many places worldwide, women must walk for hours to collect firewood, risking their safety and sacrificing energy and time that could be used to earn a living. While often overlooked as a major contributor to the global burden of disease, cooking over open fires indoors is the largest environmental health risk in developing countries i.e. Kenya.\n\nIn Kenya the case is not different, many households can relate with the simple and accessible mode of cooking. For decades, women have been using this cooking style not knowing the danger that they expose themselves to.\n\nTo curb these menace Carbon Zero has developed various  improved cook stove models  that suit the needs of different local communities with higher efficiencies that have been able to cut down on the amount of fuel used and reducing the time spent cooking allowing women some free time to engage in other income generating activities. Carbon Zero stoves have enabled women to cook with less than a half of the wood they used to use on wasteful three stone fires and in much less time. This saves lives because less wood means less smoke and thus less disease.\n\nAbigael 1\n\nIn the Western part of Kenya in Kisumu Carbon Zero has distributed over 10,000 improved cook stoves. Among the stove models distributed in the area was a brick rocket stove that locals have over time complimented for its good service. The rocket stove was the first cook stove to be built in Kisumu East region as part of the pilot project to be used in the rural settlement, where wood used for cooking had led to the immense deforestation of trees. The liner effect on the stove creates a highly efficient, largely smoke-free burn.\n\nAbigael 3\n\nMrs. Abigael Awour who is 65 years old lives in Rapogi village in Kisumu county were she has been married for the past 35 years and stays with  her daughter and 2 grand children. She is a beneficiary of the rocket stove and we seek to get her opinion on the stove after using it for the last four or so years. With a smile she narrates that “Before receiving the brs cook stove, I had the traditional three stone open fire cook stove, which consumed a lot of fuel and I had to cut down most of the trees I planted so that I could sustain my family. I stay with my grand children who are very young which means I had to cook several meals a day and it was devastating because it was time consuming, very expensive, I also developed health complications, severe back pains and was on a lot of painkillers because I had to bend while cooking since the stove is practically on the ground and cannot be raised.\n\nAbigael 2\n\nShe further adds that “After receiving the Rocket Stove I have seen a lot of changes especially in matters that deal with health because I no longer cough a lot due to the smoke reduction since I dry my wood completely and my back pain is no longer severe. The stove was done by professionals who considered all ages; I can now sit down and cook comfortably without straining, save money since I don’t need too much drugs for the back pain, now I have time to do farming and from the savings from firewood I buy maize seeds. Also the stoves retain heat so I only cook twice a day and leave the food warm on the stove for anyone to consume. Now it’s not necessary to cut down a tree to cook, all you need is a few small branches. Energy saving stoves are of great importance to our community, says Rhoda, one of the youth volunteers on the project. The stove saves a lot of energy and money because less firewood has to be collected or purchased. It also cooks faster so women have more time to engage in other income-generating activities and it is more hygienic than the traditional model. The stoves have greatly improved our living standards and for me the rocket stove form Carbon Zero is the best thing that ever happened to women in Rapogi.\n\nCompiled by Christine Atira and Moses Maina\n\nTheir Stories…………….\n\nAminoleke“My name is Omara George aged 49 and I live in Dokolo District. I am a user of the Aminoleke borehole that was rehabilitated by co2balance in 2013. Before the borehole was fixed, my family used to walk long distances in search of water and would collect it from the swamps because the only alternative source was too far away. Having a large family meant we had to collect water twice a day to meet our needs. I was also afraid that my wife and daughters could be attacked or raped while they were collecting water especially during the evening hours since we still had rebel activities in our village. The water we drank was always dirty and I worried my children would become sick with typhoid or other water borne diseases that are common in this area. Our lives have improved so much since the borehole was repaired; the water yield is always good and clean, and most of all I am happy because my family are safe and have more time for going to school and the farm. We are very happy with the project and grateful for all the help you have provided us.”\n\nIMG_1204“My name is Ogwang Paul, I am 11 years old and I fetch water from Atek B borehole. I am happy that we now have a borehole close to our house that provides clean water. We no longer have to go to the lake to fetch water like before. I used to wake up at 5am and go with my siblings to fetch water before going to school. This greatly affected my studies because we were always late for school and missed the first lessons. This greatly affected our performance in school. Now that we have a working borehole close to us, we can fetch water and get to school on time. I want to be a doctor when I grow up.”\n\n\nPurency Altero Okori aged 60 is a resident of Akwangi village and a user of Akwangi borehole which was rehabilitated and is being maintained by co2balance.\n\n“I live a few meters away from the borehole and this has made my daily life easy. I am able to do my housework on time and still go to the market and attend to my stall where I sell vegetables to earn some extra income for my family. I no longer have to boil the water we drink as the water collected from the borehole is clean and safe since water treatment is done frequently. That means I no longer collect so much firewood for use at home.”\n\nFiona“My name is Adongo Fiona, I am 13 years old and I study in Telela Primary school. I am in level 3 and my best subject is science. I want to be a nurse when I finish school. I am happy for this borehole because I no longer have to travel long distances to collect water for our household. We no longer suffer from diseases like diarrhea and typhoid because the water is clean.\n\nThank you for this water.”", "pred_label": "__label__1", "pred_score_pos": 0.9463865756988525}
+{"content": "Five Grammar Habits Every Writer Should Adopt\n\ngood grammar\n\nDo you have good grammar habits?\n\nCan you imagine a nutritionist who eats exclusively at fast food restaurants? A personal trainer who never exercises? A writer who can’t be bothered with grammar, spelling, and punctuation?\n\nIn most professions, best practices and tools of the trade are mandatory. If you want to be a doctor, you have to earn a PhD. If you want to land a job in accounting, you need math skills. But writers can easily finagle around best writing practices, especially with the increasing accessibility of self-publishing.\n\nBasic grammar skills used to be mandatory — not just for writers but for all high school graduates. These days, you can get out of college with a degree but no clue how to properly structure a sentence or differentiate between they’re, their, and there. Read more\n\nGood Grammar, Spelling, and Punctuation\n\ngrammar spelling and punctuation\n\nGet the lowdown on grammar, spelling, and punctuation.\n\nLet’s get technical for a minute. What, exactly, is grammar?\n\nAccording to Wikipedia:\n\nIn linguistics, grammar is the set of structural rules that govern the composition of sentences, phrases, and words in any given natural language. The term refers also to the study of such rules….Linguists do not normally use the term to refer to orthographical rules, although usage books and style guides that call themselves grammars may also refer to spelling and punctuation.\n\nTechnically speaking, in linguistics and academia, spelling and punctuation are not components of grammar. When we discuss the mechanics of writing, we don’t refer to grammar. We refer to grammar, spelling, and punctuation because spelling and punctuation are separate components from grammar.\n\nSo how is grammar meaningful if words aren’t spelled properly and if punctuation isn’t applied correctly in a piece of writing? Aren’t spelling and punctuation critical to the structure of written language?\n\nGrammar and Orthography\n\nThere are two common ways that language manifests: it is either spoken or written. Grammar deals with how we structure the language, and it is applied to both speech and writing. Orthography, on the other hand, addresses the rules of a language’s writing system or script.\n\nOrthography deals with spelling and punctuation, because these elements are only relevant when the language is written.\n\nAfter all, when you say a sentence aloud, you don’t say period, question mark, or exclamation point at the end. However, if you’re reading the sentence aloud, you need these punctuation marks to help you navigate the text, and they also provide cues that inform the way we stress words or inflect the reading.\n\nProper Grammar and Popular Grammar\n\nI’m not a linguist. I’m a writer. I’m interested in linguistics and etymology, but only to the extent that these fields of study inform my writing and can help me better understand how to use the tools of my craft.\n\nGrammar addresses how we structure our language and includes concepts such as tense agreement, modifiers, sentence diagramming, word order in a sentence, and sentence order in a paragraph.\n\nBut when we’re dealing with written language, proper spelling is just as essential as tense agreement. It would be quite difficult to get through a written text that was not punctuated or if the majority of the words were spelled incorrectly.\n\nGrammar, Spelling, and Punctuation\n\nOddly, I’ve found that spelling and punctuation are misused far more than structural (or grammatical) elements in writing. Most people know how to put their words in order, and a writer of average skill is usually good at verb and tense agreements and other aspects of writing that would be construed as grammatical in nature.\n\nYet plenty of folks struggle with orthography (punctuation and spelling) even if their grammar is in good order. This makes sense, because we are primarily exposed to spelling and punctuation through reading and writing. But the structure of our language comes to us through listening and speaking as well.\n\nIn other words, we writers are probably far more immersed in grammar than we are in orthography.\n\nPutting it All Together\n\nTechnically speaking, grammar may not include spelling and punctuation, but we need all these elements in our writing. We talk about grammar, spelling, and punctuation because these are separate but related elements that work together to produce a mechanically coherent piece of writing.\n\n10 Core Practices for Better Writing\n\nDon’t Let the Decline of Spoken English Ruin Your Writing\n\nDo Not Let the Decline of Spoken English Ruin Your Writing\n\nKeep your writing sharp by following the rules.\n\nPlease welcome author Debra Brenegan with an insightful guest post about grammar and writing.\n\nWe are all a little sloppy when we speak. We skip some of the basic grammar rules in order to create intimacy and shortcuts — like secrets between best friends. Such conversation helps us connect to others. But when casual phrases and speaking patterns seep into your writing, it can reflect negatively on you as a writer.\n\nWhat Your Writing Says About You\n\nIn these Internet times, written communication is king, and the proper use of it separates the pros from the wannabes. Readers take writers’ messages more seriously when those messages are properly punctuated and correctly written. Readers don’t want to work to understand meaning. They might not realize it, but readers feel calm, serene, and cozy when you don’t make them strain for understanding. Realistically, the only time most people want to struggle with written language is when they’re stopped in traffic and faced with a vanity license plate.\n\nIn our split-second culture, time is essential. You want your message to get there fast and without misinterpretation. If the reading is easy, then the argument you’re making is easier to follow and easier to agree to. Let’s face it: All writing contains an argument, even if that argument is simply, “Read me – you won’t regret it.”\n\nGood writing communicates that you are smart, or at least educated. This is not a bad impression to give – really! It makes what you’re trying to say more credible if you know how to say it.\n\nIn addition to demonstrating your education, you help educate others when you write correctly. Bad language/grammar usage is like a cold – it spreads until everyone is cranky and sick, and nobody remembers the days of clear-headedness. Don’t be afraid to counter this.\n\nRemember Your Audience\n\nProper grammar matters most when you’re trying to communicate with people who aren’t your best friends, people who might judge you or think you’re unintelligent. Instead of giving you what you want – a job, attention, a vote — you end up turning off people because of your “spoken word” writing. Many people understand this regarding professional writing. Of course you want your résumé, application letter, and business memos to be clearly written and easy to understand, but creative writers need to know – and use – proper English, too.\n\nEven in creative writing, editors and readers judge the writing. They want gorgeous prose, but they also want to be able to read it, to disappear into it, to forget that there are any mechanics behind the spin. Proper grammar and writing provides that invisibility and lets readers slip into your ideas, your story, and your writing.\n\nKnow the Rules before You Break the Rules\n\nOne of the underlying problems with rule-breaking is the question of its cause. Are you breaking the rules because you’re exercising your poetic license or because you can’t remember the difference between insure and ensure? If your reader can’t tell, you’re in trouble.\n\nThere’s certainly room for realistic-sounding dialogue and conversational prose, but underneath any stretching of proper rules are – the rules. You have to know the rules before you can break them. Good creative writers break the rules all the time, but they do so with purpose. It is unknowing breakage that damages credibility and your ability to communicate.\n\nIf you’re not feeling overly confident in your grammatical understanding, pick up a copy of the book Eats, Shoots & Leaves by Lynne Truss [Editor’s note: this book uses British grammar] for a fun and simple review of the basics. In the meantime, here are a few common errors you can watch out for (and avoid!).\n\nCommon Mistakes\n\nMisuse of prepositions has spread like the plague. I fumed one day when I was standing in the check-out line at Wal-Mart. After I swiped my credit card, the automatic display read, “Waiting on authorization.” It should be waiting for. Another misuse is “meeting up with” someone. People meet other people. They always have, and they always will. Only in a brief period of history (now) will anyone know what it means to meet “up” with someone else.\n\nIt is also common for people to say, “A student needs to learn all they can.” This is mixing a singular subject with a plural pronoun. Realistically, it should read, “A student needs to learn all he or she can.” The he/she construction, although correct, is bulky. You can usually avoid this type of confusion by making the subject plural so that it reads, “Students need to learn all they can.” [Editor’s note: using they as a generic pronoun is becoming more acceptable, though it’s still technically incorrect. Grammar Girl has a detailed article that thoroughly addresses “Generic Singular Pronouns.”]\n\nAnd finally, it seems too obvious to even include here, but people often use texting shortcuts in professional settings. “OMG” and “UR Gr8” have no place outside of texts and Twitter. And even in an email, don’t forget to capitalize things like my name. I’ll be much more likely to finish reading what you wrote.\n\nOutdated Rules You CAN Break\n\nComma use has become more streamlined, thanks to widespread Internet copy and Associated Press (AP) style for journalism. Moreover, colons and semicolons seem like daguerreotypes of great ancestors, especially in modern writing. Yes, they are sometimes needed, but often, a comma or a dash will do instead. Don’t use a hyphen (also known as an en dash) instead of a dash (the big one, or em dash) or vice versa. Hyphens bring together, and dashes separate.\n\nThe rule most commonly broken without freaking people out is the one about fragments. They are now considered almost cool. As long as they’re not overused. Or senseless. Or too repetitive. Or used when someone is allergic to verbs. But other than those occasions, fragments are a nice way to occasionally break the rules. Just don’t use comma splices, which is the fancy word your 5th-grade teacher meant when he/she wrote, “run-on sentence,” over and over, down the right margin of your essay.\n\nThe English language is beautiful and complex, but it can also be a little daunting if the rules don’t come naturally to you. Take the time to relearn some of the rules you may have forgotten. Your readers will appreciate it, and there will be more of them!\n\nAbout the Author: Debra Brenegan is the author of Shame the Devil, a historical account of nineteenth-century American writer Fanny Fern. Debra is also an English and Women’s Studies professor at Westminster College in Fulton, Missouri.", "pred_label": "__label__1", "pred_score_pos": 0.9872075319290161}
+{"content": "4 Famous Psychology Experiments & How They Relate to Inbound Marketing\n\nMy love of marketing runs deep, and it has always been evident, but my first love will always be psychology. Most people don’t know (not even my own colleagues) that I have a Bachelor of Science in Psychology, and when they find out, they usually ask me if I’ve been secretly reading their minds. Newsflash: that’s not how psychology works. Psychic readings, perhaps, but not psychology.Read the full article\n\nselective attention test\n\n\nThe Asch Experiment\n\nDuring the 1950s Solomon Asch conducted and published a series of experiments that demonstrated the degree to which an individual's own opinions are influenced by those of a majority group. Demonstrating how a \"normal\" human being can be pressured into unusual behavior by people they deem as authority figures, or by the consensus of opinion around them.", "pred_label": "__label__1", "pred_score_pos": 0.947632372379303}
+{"content": "Sunday, August 1, 2010\n\nEditing on Final Cut Pro...nevermind, wait let's do FCP...maybe\n\nI have been editing since the beginning of the summer and I am not yet finished. For the record, it does not and should not take this long to edit 5 hours of raw footage. I've just been taking it in stride, sometimes going 2-3 weeks without looking at the footage, simply because I had other things to do or I just didn't feel like going through all of the interviews. Also, it took longer than expected for me to collaborate with Dr. Durington, a Towson professor and producer of Record Store. We had plans to use the department's iMac to utilize Final Cut Pro (iMovie's big brother) so the production and editing would be, for the lack of a better word, awesome. Basically, there are more options and the quality is better. Once we finally got together we had problems with the computer. To make a long story short I ended up finishing a rough cut on iMovie and we will be collaborating within the next week to close the editing process.\n\nThere is still much to discuss about the presentation of the movie (i.e., where it will be held, how should it be advertised, who is my audience, etc.). Ideally, I want it to be huge and I want it to impact a lot of people from different multicultural backgrounds. I decided that while I love academic material I want to go way outside of that box and engage in applied anthropology that has an effect on the lives of not just anthropologists and culture studies scholars, but also the average woman or man.", "pred_label": "__label__1", "pred_score_pos": 0.9584636688232422}
+{"content": "\n\nMonday, April 7, 2008\n\nThe world does not depend on me.\n\nEven if all that one wishes were to happen, this could still only be called the Grace of God. There is no logical association between one's will and the world to guarantee it. The physical association one presumes to exist between any and every thing is surely nothing we could will ourselves. Just as only logical necessity exists, so too only logical impossibility exists. For example: that two colors are simultaneously present at the same place in the visual field is in fact logically impossible, since it is ruled out by the logical structure of color.\n\nIn physics, this contradiction appears like this: a particle cannot have two velocities at the same time; it cannot be in two places at the same time; particles that are in different places at the same time cannot be identical.\n\nIt is clear that the logical product of two elemental propositions can neither be a tautology nor a contradiction. The assertion that a point in the visual field has two different colors at the same time is a contradiction.\n\nThe relative position of logic and science.\n\nThat an image can be described using a grid with a given form tells us nothing about the image. (A grid works for all such images.) But what does characterize the image is that it can be completely described by a particular grid with a particular mesh size. So too, it tells us nothing about the world that it can be described by Newtonian mechanics or whatever. That it can be described at all, and in a particular way, does tell us something indeed. That one method of theoretical description is simpler than another also tells us something about the world.\n\nTheoretical physics is an attempt to construct all the true propositions that we need to describe the world using a single plan. Throughout their whole logical apparatus, the laws of physics still speak about the objects of the world. We ought not forget that any theoretical description of the world will always be completely general. In mechanics, for example, one never speaks of particular point-masses, but only about any whatsoever.\n\nAlthough the spots in our image are geometrical figures, it is obvious that geometry can say nothing at all about their actual form and position. The grid, however, is purely geometrical; all its properties can be given a priori. Laws like the principle of sufficient reason, etc. deal with the grid and not with what the grid describes.\n\nIf there were a law of causality, one might state it as: \"There are laws of nature.\" But of course that cannot be said: it can be seen. Using Hertz's terminology, one might say: \"Only regular correlations are thinkable. Hence the only way we can describe the lapse of time is to rely on some process such as the movement of a chronometer.\"\n\nSomething entirely analogous applies to space. Wherever one says that neither of two exclusive events can occur because there is no reason one should occur rather than the other, one is really dealing with the fact that one cannot describe either without some sort of asymmetry between them. And if such an asymmetry is found, we can regard it as the cause that made one occur and not the other.\n\nKant's problem about the right hand and the left hand, which cannot be made to coincide, exists already in two dimensions; indeed, even in one-dimensional space. The two congruent figures, a and b, cannot be made to coincide unless they are moved out of this space.\n\n\nThe procedure of induction consists in accepting as true the simplest law that can be reconciled with our experiences. But this procedure has no logical, only a psychological, justification. There is no reason to believe that the simplest case will in fact be realized. That the sun will rise tomorrow is a hypothesis; we do not know whether it will rise. There is nothing to compel one thing to happen because something else has. There is only logical necessity.\n\nThe whole modernist world view is based on the illusion that the laws of nature actually explain natural phenomena. Thus they stand before the laws of nature as something inviolable, just as the ancients did before God and Fate. Both, in fact, are both right and wrong. Nevertheless, the view of the ancients is clearer in so far as they acknowledge it as closure, while the modern system tries to make it seem as if everything were explained.\n\nSunday, April 6, 2008\n\nMathematics is a method of logic.\n\nUsing equations characterizes the essence of the mathematical method. Because this so, every proposition of mathematics must be self explanatory. Mathematics arrives at equations by the method of substitution. Equations express that one can substitute an expression for another and so, starting from a number of equations, we advance to new equations by substituting different expressions as we go along in accordance with them. Thus the proof of the proposition 2 + 2 = 4 runs as follows:\n(Ω^ν)^μ'x=Ω^(ν×μ')x Def.,\n\n\nExploring logic exploring everything that is subject to regularity, so everything outside of logic is happenstance. The law of induction cannot possibly be a law of logic, norcan it be an a priori law, since it is obviously a proposition that makes sense. The law of causality is not a law but the form of a law. 'Law of causality' that is the name of a type. Just as mechanics has minimizing principles, such as the law of least action, so too does physics have causal laws, laws of the causal form. In fact, one even surmised that there must be a 'law of least action' before know ing exactly how it went. (As always, what is a priori proves to be purely logical.)\n\nWe do not believe the law of conservation a priori, but rather know a priori that such a logical form is possible. All such propositions, including the principle of sufficient reason, tile laws of continuity in nature and of least effort in nature, etc. etc., all these are a priori insights about the forms which the propositions of science can take.\n\nNewtonian mechanics, for example, provides a unified form for describing the world. Let us imagine a white surface with irregular black spots on it. Whatever kind of image these make, one can always approximate its description as closely as one wishes by covering the surface with a sufficiently fine square grid, and then declaring every square black or white. This grid provided a unified form for describing the surface. That form is optional, since I using a triangular or hexagonal grid would have achieved the same result. It could be that a triangular grid would have been simpler; that is to say, that we could describe the surface more accurately with a coarse triangular grid than with a fine square grid (or conversely), and so on. The different grids correspond to different systems for describing the world.\n\nMechanics determines one particular form of description of the world by saying: All propositions describing the world must be obtained in a given way from a given set of propositions, the axioms of mechanics. It supplies the bricks for building the edifice of science, and says: 'Any building that you want to erect, it must be with these and only these components.' (Just as we must be able to write down any amount we wish using the number system, so we must be able to write down any proposition of physics that we wish using the system of mechanics.)\n\nLogic is transcendental.\n\nLogic is not a body of doctrine, but a mirror-image of the world. Logic is transcendental. Mathematics is a logical method. The propositions of mathematics are equations, and therefore pseudo-propositions. A proposition of mathematics does not express a thought.\n\nIndeed in real life a mathematical proposition is never what one needs. Rather, one uses mathematical propositions only to make inferences from propositions that do not belong to mathematics to others that likewise do not belong to mathematics. (In philosophy the question, 'What do we actually use this word or this proposition for?' repeatedly leads to valuable insights.)\n\nThe logic of the world, which is shown in tautologies by the propositions of logic, is shown in equations by mathematics. If two expressions are joined by the sign of equality, they can be substituted for one another. But it must be manifest in the two expressions themselves whether this is the case or not. When two expressions can be substituted for one another, that characterizes their logical form.\n\n\n\nIt is impossible to assert the identity of meaning of two expressions. For in order to be able to assert anything about their meaning, I must know their meaning, and I cannot know their meaning without knowing whether what they mean is the same or different. An equation merely marks the point of view from which I consider the two expressions, it marks their equivalence in meaning.\n\nIntuition is needed to solve mathematical, but language itself provides the necessary intuition. The process of calculating serves to bring about that intuition. Calculation is not an experiment.\n\nOne can describe all true logical propositions in advance.\n\nIt is possible, even according to the old conception of logic, to describe all true logical propositions in advance. Hence there can never be surprises in logic.\n\nOne can calculate whether a proposition belongs to logic, by calculating the logical properties of the symbol. This is how one proves a logical proposition. For, without bothering about sense or meaning, we construct the logical proposition out of others using only rules that deal with signs. One proves logical propositions by generating them from logical propositions by successively applying certain operations that always generate further tautologies out of the initial ones. (And in fact only tautologies follow from a tautology.) Of course this way of showing that the propositions of logic are tautologies is not at all essential to logic, if only because the propositions from which the proof starts must show without any proof that they are tautologies.\n\nIn logic process and result are equivalent. (Hence no surprise.) Proof in logic is merely a mechanical expedient to facilitate the recognition of tautologies in complicated cases. It would be altogether too remarkable if a proposition that had sense could be proved logically from others, and so too could a logical proposition. It is clear from the start that a logical proof of a proposition that makes sense and a proof in logic must be two entirely different things.\n\nA proposition that makes sense states something, which is shown by its proof to be so. In logic every proposition is the form of a proof. Every proposition of logic is a modus ponens represented in signs. (And one cannot express the modus ponens by means of a proposition.) It is always possible to construe logic so that every proposition is its own proof.\n\n\n\nWe can do without logical propositions.\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\nRecognizing a Tautology.\n\nIn order to recognize a tautology in cases where no generality-sign occurs in it, one can employ the following method.\n\nInstead of 'p', 'q', 'r', etc. one writes elemental propositions as 'WpF', 'WqF', 'WrF', etc. ('Wahr' is 'True' in German.)\n\nOne expresses combinations using brackets, e.g.\n\nLines connect the truth or falsity of the compound proposition with the truth value combinations that are its arguments.\n\nThis sign, for instance, represents the proposition (p⊃q) 'p implies q'.\n\nNow, one can examine the proposition ~(p .~p) (the law of contradiction) in order to determine whether it is a tautology.\n\nIn our notation the form '~ξ' is written as\n\nand the form 'ξ.η' as:\nHence, one writes the form ~(~p .q) as\n\nWhen one substitutes 'p' for 'q' and examines how the outermost T and F connect to the innermost, the result will be that the truth of the whole proposition is correlated with all the combinations of its argument, and its falsity with none of them.\n\nSaturday, April 5, 2008\n\nThe propositions of logic are tautologies.\n\nThus, propositions of logic (analytic propositions) tell one nothing. So theories that let a logical statement appear to have content are always invalid. One might think, for example, that the words 'true' and 'false' signified properties just like others. Remarkably, every proposition has one of these two properties. Now that seems nothing less than obvious, just as, for instance, the proposition, 'All roses are either yellow or red', would sound obvious if it were true. Indeed, the latter acquires all the characteristics of a proposition of natural science - a sure indication that it has been misconstrued. A valid explanation of the propositions of logic must assign them a unique status among all propositions.\n\nIt is the unique characteristic of logical propositions that one can recognize that they are true from the symbol alone. In itself, this fact contains the whole philosophy of logic. And so it is also one of the most important facts that the truth or falsity of non-logical propositions can not be recognized from the statement alone.\n\nThat the propositions of logic are tautologies, is shown by the formal, logical properties of language, of the world. That the constituents of logic, thus connected, yield a tautology, characterizes the logic of those constituents. Propositions must have certain structural properties to yield a tautology when joined in an appropriate way. When they do yield a tautology, that shows they possess these structural properties.\n\nThat, for example, the propositions (p) and (~p) yield a tautology in the combination (~(p . ~p)) shows that they contradict one another. The fact that the propositions (p⊃q), (p), and (q), combined with one another in the form ((p⊃q).(p):⊃:(q)), yield a tautology shows that q follows from p and (p⊃q). That ((x).fx:⊃:fa) is a tautology shows that (fa) follows from ((x).fx) etc.\n\nIt is clear that one would reach the same conclusions using contradictions instead of tautologies.\n\nThe General Form of a Truth Function.\n\nWittgenstein did not fully explain his symbolism in the Tractatus. The following uses text from Russell's introduction.\n\nThe general form of a truth function is: [p-, ξ-, N(ξ-)] where\np- stands for all elemental propositions,\nξ- stands for any set of propositions, and\nN(ξ-) stands for the negation of all members of ξ-.\n\nThis general form of a proposition simply says that every proposition generated by successive negations of elemental propositions. The whole symbol [p-, ξ-, N(ξ-)] is an algorithm:\n• select a set of any of the atomic propositions,\n• negate them all,\n• then take any selection of the set of propositions now obtained,\n• together with any of the originals\n• -- and so on indefinitely.\n\nThis describes a procedure which, when performed on given elemental propositions, can generate all other propositions that are not elemental. The process depends upon:\n(b) Wittgenstein's theory of the derivation of general propositions from conjunctions and disjunctions; and\n\nIf the general form of constructing propositions is given, then how one proposition can be generated from another is also given. Thus, the general form of an operation Ω'(η-) can be written as: [ξ-, N(ξ-)]'(η-) or as [η-,ξ-,N(ξ-)]. This is the most general form of transition from one proposition to another.\n\nTo apply this method to arrive at numbers one defines:\nx=Ω^(0)'x Def.\nΩ'Ω^(ν)'x=Ω^(ν+1)'x Def.\n\nNow, according to the rules of our notation, one write the series\nx, Ω'x, Ω'Ω'x, Ω'Ω'Ω'x,...,\nso that\nΩ^(0)'x, Ω^(0+1)'x, Ω^(0+1+1)'x, Ω^(0+1+1+1)'x, .....\n\nTherfore, one can rewrite the general form [x, ξ, Ω'ξ]) as\n[Ω0'x, Ων'x, Ων+1'x]\nand define:\n0+1=1 Def.,\n0+1+1=2 Def.,\n0+1+1+1=3 Def.,\nOne sees from this that a number is the exponent of an operation.\n\nThe concept number is just the general form of a number which is common to all numbers; it is the variable number. Also, the concept numerical equality is the general form of all particular cases of numerical equality.\n\nSo the general form of an integer is: [0, ξ, ξ+1].\n\nThe theory of classes is completely superfluous in mathematics due to the fact that the generality required in mathematics is not accidental generality.\n\nThe microcosm.\n\nI am my universe of discourse; there is no thinking, imagining subject.\n\nIf one wrote a book called \"The World as I found it\", it would include a report on the body that tells which parts were subordinate to the will, and which were not, etc. Now this would be a way to isolate the subject, or rather of showing that in an important sense there is none. For it alone could not be discussed in that book. The subject is not a part of the world, but part of its boundary.\n\nWhere in the world is a metaphysical subject to be perceived? One could say that this is just like the eye and the visual field. But really you do not see the eye. And nothing in the visual field allows you to infer that it is seen by an eye.\n\nIn this connection, experience is not a priori. All one sees could be different. All one can describe at all could be different. There is no way things should, a priori, be.\n\nHere one sees that strict solipsism coincides with pure realism. The subject of solipsism shrinks to a point without extension, but the reality associated with it remains. Thus there really is a sense in which philosophy can talk about the self in a non-psychological way. The self enters philosophy through the fact that 'the world is my world'.\n\nThe philosophical self is not the human being, not the human body, or the human psyche of psychology, but rather the metaphysical subject, the boundary - not a part - of the world.\n\nThe boundary of my language represents the boundary of my world.\n\nLogic spreads throughout the world, so the boundaries of the world are also its boundaries. One cannot logically say that the world has one thing in it but not the other. This exclusion would mean one can go beyond the boundaries of the world. That, after all, is the only way to view those boundaries from the other side. What we cannot think, we cannot think; so also, we cannot say what we cannot think.\n\nThis remark provides the key to deciding how much truth there is to solipsism. What the solipsist means to say is quite correct; only it cannot be said, but proves to be so. That the world is my world is shown by the fact that the limits of language (the only language I understand) comprise the limits of my world. The world and life are one.\n\nElemental Propositions.\n\nWe now discuss all possible forms of elemental propositions a priori. An elemental proposition consists of names. However, because we cannot state all the names with different meanings, we cannot state the composition of an elemental proposition.\n\nOur fundamental principle is that deciding anything at all by logic must be straightforward. (If we find ourselves looking to experience for an answer, we are definitely on the wrong track.)\n\nWhat one needs to understand the logic of something is not how that something is, but rather, that it is. But that is not an experience. Logic is prior to every experience, the experience that something is so. It is prior to 'How?' not prior to 'What?' And if this were not so, how could we apply logic? We might put it in this way: If logic could exist even if there were no world, how then could logic exist given that there is a world?\n\nAccording to Russell, there are simple relations between different numbers of things (individuals). But between what numbers? And how is this supposed to be decided? By experience? (There is no pre-eminent number.)\n\nAny specific form we use has to be completely arbitrary. For example, one should be able to say a priori whether the sign for a 27-termed relation will be needed order to signify something. But may we even ask such a question? Can one set up the form of a sign unless one knows what it is for? Does it make sense to ask: What must be for something to be the case?\n\nIt is clear that, apart from its special logical form, we have a concept of an elemental proposition. But when one can create symbols using a system, the system is what is logically important and not the individual symbols. How, then, can the forms in logic be something one can invent? Rather, one must deal with what enables one to invent them. The forms of elemental propositions cannot have a hierarchy. We can foresee only what we ourselves construct.\n\nEmpirical reality is limited by the entirety of objects. This limit appears again in the entirety of elemental propositions. Hierarchies are independent of reality, and necessarily so. If purely logical grounds tell us that elemental propositions must exist, then all that is required to know that is to understand them in their unanalyzed form.\n\nIn the event, all the sentences of our everyday language are entirely, logically ordered just as they are. That most simple thing that we now formulate is not a likeness of the truth, but in itself the whole truth. (Our problems are not abstract, but perhaps the most concrete that there are.)\n\nLogic is applied to decide what elemental propositions there are, but logic cannot anticipate what it will be applied to. It is clear that logic must not clash with its application, but must be in touch with it. In any case, logic and its application must not overlap. Since one cannot state elemental propositions a priori, then trying to state them anyway makes no sense.\n\nPropositions occur in each other only as bases of a truth operation.\n\nThe general propositional form permits one proposition to contain another only as the basis of a truth operation, even though, at first sight, a different way seems possible.\n\nIn certain forms of proposition in psychology, such as 'A believes that p is the case' and 'A has the thought p', etc. it seems as if the proposition p stood in some kind of relation to an object A. In the event, however, 'A believes that p', 'A thinks p', and 'A says p' are actually the form 'p' says 'p'. This last is not an assignment of a fact to an object. Rather, facts are assigned to each other by assigning their objects to each other.\n\nThis also shows that the psyche - the subject, etc. - as conceived in Freud's psychoanalysis makes no sense. Namely, a composite soul would no longer be a soul.\n\nThe correct explanation of the form of the proposition, 'A concludes that p', must show that one cannot reach a conclusion that does not make sense. (Russell's theory does not satisfy this requirement.) To perceive a complex means to perceive that its constituents are related to one another in a particular way.\n\nThis, no doubt. also explains why there are two possible ways of seeing the figures in the drawings of M.C. Escher. We really do see two different facts. Each alternative perception of the drawing, though it is an illusion, is a fact. If I first perceive one and then the other, I have imagined two different images although all else has remained the same.\n\nFriday, April 4, 2008\n\n\nOn occasion, one is tempted to use forms such as (a = a) or (p ⊃ p) and the like. In fact, this happens when discussing prototypes, such as proposition, thing, etc. Thus in Russell's Principles of Mathematics, the phrase 'p is a proposition' or (p ⊃ p) was placed in front of certain propositions as an hypothesis in order to exclude everything but propositions from their arguments. But that makes no sense. A non-proposition as argument does not make the hypothesis false but empty, and the wrong kind of arguments make the proposition itself empty. So it prevents invalid no worse than the empty hypothesis.\n\nThe same would apply if one wanted to express 'There are no things' by writing (~(∃x).x =x). But even if this were a proposition, would it not be equally true if in fact 'there were things' but they were not identical with themselves?\n\n\nWittgenstein's notation does not use a sign of identity, but expresses the identity of an object by using the identical sign for it; if the objects are different, so are the signs. Identity is not a relation between objects. This becomes very clear if one considers the example: \"All x such that x satifies the function f and x=a.\"\n((x):fx.⊃.x = a).\nThis proposition simply says: \"Only 'a' satisfies the function 'f', and not that only things that have a certain relation to 'a' satisfy the function. Of course, it might then be said that only 'a' has this relation to 'a'; but in order to express that, we would have to use the identity sign itself. Russell's definition of '=' is inadequate for this purpose, because according to it we cannot say that two objects have all their properties in common. (Even though this proposition is never correct, it still makes sense.)\n\nBy the way: to say two things are identical is absurd, and to say that one thing is identical with itself is to say nothing at all.\n\nIn Wittgenstein's notation, one does not write (f(a, b).a = b) but (f(a, a)) or (f(b, b)).\nNot (f(a,b).~a = b) but (f(a, b)).\nAnalogously, one does not write ((∃x, y). f(x, y). x = y), but ((∃x).f(x, x));\nand not ((∃x, y).f(x, y)).~x = y), but ((∃x, y).f(x, y)).\n\nSo instead of Russels ((∃x,y).f(x,y)) one writes ((∃x,y).f(x,y).∨.(∃x).f(x,x)).\nInstead of ((x):fx⊃x = a) one writes ((∃x).fx.⊃:(∃x, y).fx.fy).\nAnd the proposition, 'Only one x satisfies f( )', will read ((∃x).fx:~(∃x, y).fx.fy).\n\nThe identity-sign, therefore, So a sign of identity is not essential in a correct conceptual notation, and pseudo-propositions like (a=a), (a=b.b=c.⊃a=c), (x).x = x), ((∃x).x = a), etc. cannot even be written down. This also disposes of all the problems that were connected with them.\n\nAll the problems with Russell's 'axiom of infinity' can be solved now by considering that it would be expressed in language by the existence of infinitely many names with different meanings.\n\nTruth Functions do not Include the Concept All.\n\nWittgenstein dissociates the concept all from truth-functions. If the values of ξ are all the values of a function fx for all values of x, then its negation negates them all.\n\nN(ξ‾) = ~(∃x).fx\n\nFrege and Russell introduced generality in association with logical product or logical sum. This made it difficult to understand the propositions ((∃x). fx) and ((x).fx), which include both ideas.\n\nWhat is peculiar to the generality-sign is first, that it indicates a logical prototype, and secondly, that it gives prominence to constants. The generality-sign appears as an argument. But if objects are given, then that already gives us all objects. If elementary propositions are given, then all elementary propositions are thereby given.\n\nIt is incorrect to render the proposition '(∃x) . fx' in the words, 'fx is possible ' as Russell does. The certainty, possibility, or impossibility of a situation is not expressed by a proposition. Rather we determine which applies by an expression's being a tautology, a proposition that makes sense, or a contradiction. The precedent which we cite must lie in the symbol itself.\n\nOne can describe the world completely by means of fully generalized propositions, which means that one need not begin by assigning a name to any particular object. To then arrive at a conventional expression, one must simply follow the expression: \" There is one and only one x such that ... \" with: \"And this x is a\".\n\nA fully generalized proposition, like every other proposition, is composite. (This is shown by the fact that in ((∃x, φ).φx) we have to mention 'φ' and 'x' separately. They both, independently, stand in signifying relations to the world, just as is the case in ungeneralized propositions.) It is characteristic of a composite symbol to have something in common with other symbols.\n\nThe truth or falsity of every proposition, after all, changes the general construction of the world. And the range that the totality of elementary propositions leaves open for its construction is exactly the same as that which is delimited by entirely general propositions. (If an elementary proposition is true, that means, at any rate, one more elementary proposition i true.)\n\nHow is this useful?\n\nHow can such specialized rigs and catches be used so that logic acts as the all inclusive the mirror of the world? Well, in that they all hook up in an infinitely fine grid to form that great mirror.\n\n(~p) is true if 'p' is false. Therefore, in the case when the proposition (~p) is true, proposition (p) is false. How then can the prefixed tilde '~' make it agree with reality? In (~p) it is not '~' that negates, but rather what it is that all the signs in this notation that negate p have in common. And that is the common rule that governs the construction of (~p), (~~~p), (~p ∨ ~p), (~p.~p), etc. etc. ad inf. It is this common rule that mirrors negation.\n\nWe might say: What is common to all symbols that affirm both p and q is the proposition (p.q). What is common to all symbols that affirm either p or q is the proposition (p∨q). Similarly, we can say that two propositions are opposed to one another if they have nothing in common with one another. And we can also say that every proposition has only one negative, since there is only one proposition that lies completely outside if it. Thus, in Russell's notation as well, we see that (q:p∨~p) says the same thing as 'q', and that (p∨~p) says nothing.\n\nOnce a notation has been established, it will contain a rule governing the construction of all propositions that negate p, affirm p, affirm p or q, and so on. These rules are equivalent to the symbols and reflect their sense.\n\nOur symbols themselves must show that compounds created by using '∨', '.', etc. can only be propositions. This is indeed the case, since the symbol in (p) and (q) itself presupposes '∨', '~', etc. If the sign 'p' in (p∨q) could not stand for a complex sign, then it would not make sense in isolation. But in that case, the signs (p∨p), (p.p), etc., which have the same sense as (p), could not make sense either. But if (p∨p) makes no sense, then neither can (p∨q).\n\nMust the sign of a negative proposition be constructed from that of the positive proposition? (Such as: when 'a' does not stand in a certain relation to 'b' then this could say that (aRb) was not the case.) The positive proposition necessarily presupposes the existence of the negative proposition and vice versa.\n\nThursday, April 3, 2008\n\nEvery truth-function an be obtained by successively negating elemental propositions.\n\nSuccessive applications of the operator (-----T)(ξ,....) to elemental propositions can generate every truth-function. Wittgenstein calls it the negation of all the propositions in the right-hand pair of brackets.\n\nLet the sign 'ξ' indicate a variable whose terms are propositions. Let ξ‾ indicate the list of all those values where the order of the terms is indifferent. The bar indicates that the variable represents of all its values. The declaration describes the propositions the variable represents. If ξ has the three values P, Q, R, then (ξ‾)=(P, Q, R).\n\nWhat the values of the terms are are must be fixed, but how the each term of the bracketed expression are described is indifferent. There are three ways that it can be done:\n  1. Direct enumeration, in which case we can simply substitute constant values for the variable.\n  2. Stating a function fx whose values for all values of x are the propositions to be described.\n  3. Stating a formal law that governs the construction of the propositions. In that case the bracketed expression has all the terms of a series of forms as its members.\nSo instead of '(-----T)(ξ,....) we can write 'N(ξ‾)' where N(ξ‾) is the negation of all the values of ξ. If ξ‾ has only one value, then N(ξ‾) = ~p (not p); if it has two values, then N(ξ‾) = ~p . ~q. (neither p nor g).\n\nTt is now clear that this operation may be used to construct propositions, but exactly how it can be done must be made clear as well.\n\nOccam's rule points out that unnecessary signs mean nothing.\n\nLogic must provide for itself, so if a sign is possible it must be able to signify. In logic, whatever can be done is also allowed. ('Socrates is identical' is absurd because 'identical' is not a property. The proposition makes no sense because we have not made an arbitrary assignment and not because the symbol itself is invalid.) In a certain sense, we cannot err in logic. Self-evidence can only be dispensed with in logic because language itself prevents every logical mistake. So logic is a priori because illogical thought is not possible: We cannot give a sign the wrong sense.\n\nOccam's maxim is, of course, not an arbitrary rule, nor is it one justified by practice: It points out that unnecessary signs mean nothing. So signs that serve one purpose are logically equivalent, and signs that serve none are logically meaningless.\n\nFrege says: any legitimately constructed proposition must make sense. Wittgenstein says: Any possible proposition is legitimately constructed, and can only be absurd because we have not given some of its constituents a meaning. (Even if we think that we have done so.) Thus 'Socrates is identical' says nothing because we gave the word 'identical' no meaning as an adjective. For when it appears as a sign for identity, the signifying relation is an entirely different one, so the symbols also are entirely different. In the two cases, the symbols have only the sign in common and that by chance.\n\nThe number of necessary fundamental operations depends only on our notation. We need only construct a system of signs with a particular number of dimensions - with a definite mathematical multiplicity. It is clear that this is not a matter of some primitive ideas that need a sign, but rather of expressing a rule.\n\nSigns for logical operations are punctuation marks.\n\nWhen logical signs are introduced properly, then one has in effect also introduced the content of all their combinations; i.e. not only (p ∨ q) but (~(p ∨ q)) as well, etc. etc. Thus it is clear that the actual general primitive signs are not (p ∨ q), ((∃x).fx), etc. but the most general ones required to form them and their combinations. The seemingly unimportant fact that, unlike real relations, the pseudo-relations of logic, such as '∨' and '⊃', need brackets is actually significant. The use of brackets with these signs already indicates that they are not really primitive. And surely no one is going to believe brackets have an independent meaning. So signs for logical operations are punctuation marks.\n\nClearly, whatever we can say in advance about the form of all propositions, we must be able to say all at once. In the event, an elemental proposition already contains all logical operations in itself. For (fa) says the same thing as\n((∃x) . fx . x = a).\n\nIn any composite sentence, there are argument and function, and with these, all the logical constants. One could say that the sole logical constant is that which all propositions, by their very nature, must have in common with one another. But that is the general propositional form. The general propositional form is the essence of the proposition. Stating the essence of the proposition means to state the essence of all description, that is the essence of the world. The description of the most general propositional form is the description of the one and only general primitive sign in logic.\n\nLogic must be clearly constructed from its primitive signs.\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\nLogical objects or logical constants in Frege's and Russell's sense are superfluous.\n\nWe now see that 'logical objects' or 'logical constants' in Frege's and Russell's sense are superfluous. This is because truth operations on truth functions that are one and the same truth function of elemental propositions will yield identical results.\n\nIt is self-evident that ∨, ⊃, etc. are relations in a different sense than that in which right and left etc. are. The interdefinability of Frege's and Russell's 'primitive signs' of logic is enough to show that they are not primitive signs, still less signs for relations. And it is obvious that the '⊃' which we define by means of '~' and '∨' is identical with the one by which we define '∨' using '~'. It is also obvious that the latter '∨' is identical with the former; and so on.\n\nOn the other hand, it seems implausible one fact p should generate infinitely many others, namely (~~p), (~~~~p), etc. And it is no more plausible that the infinite number of propositions of (mathematical) logic follow from half a dozen 'fundamental laws'. All the propositions of logic say the same thing; namely nothing.\n\nTruth-functions are not material functions. When one can, for example, produce an affirmation by double negation, is then negation - in some sense - part of affirmation? Does (~~p) negate (~p), or does it affirm (p) - or both?\n\nThe proposition (~~p) does not treat negation as an object; but the possibility of negation is nevertheless already hinted at in affirmation. And if there were an object called '~', it would follow that (~~p) said something different from what 'p' said, just because the one proposition would then be about '~' and the other would not.\n\nThe apparent logical constants also disappear in the case of (~(∃x).~fx) that says the same as ((x).fx), or when((∃x).fx.x = a), says the same as (fa).\n\nIf we are given a proposition, then with it we are already given the results of all truth operations that have it as their base as well.\n\nAll propositions are the result of truth operators applied to elemental propositions.\n\nA truth operation is how a truth function originates from elemental propositions. According to the nature of truth operations, a truth function turns into a new truth-function just as an elemental proposition turns into its own truth function. Every application of a truth operator to truth functions of elemental propositions generates another truth function of elemental propositions, another proposition. Whenever a truth operator is applied to the results of truth operations on elemental propositions, there is always a single operation on elemental propositions that has the same result. Thus, every proposition is the result of truth operations on elemental propositions.\n\nTruth value tables have a meaning even when 'p', 'q', 'r', etc. are not elemental propositions. And it is easy to see that a propositional sign in truth table form expresses a single truth-function of elemental propositions even when 'p' and 'q' are themselves truth-functions of other propositions. So all truth functions are the result of successive application of a finite number of truth operations to elemental propositions.\n\nWednesday, April 2, 2008\n\nThe structures of propositions relate internally to one another.\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\nPropositions of probability.\n\nPropositions of probability do not have anything special about them. If Tr denotes the number of basic truth values of proposition 'r', and Trs denotes the number of basic truth values of proposition 's' that are also basic truth values of 'r', then we call the ratio Trs / Tr the probability of 'r' given 's'. In a truth table, let Tr be the number of 'T' scores in proposition r, and let Trs, be the number of T scores in proposition s in rows in which the proposition r has T. Then given proposition r, proposition s has the probability value: Trs / Tr.\n\nPropositions with no truth value arguments in common are independent of one another, so two elementary propositions give one another a probability of 1/2. If p follows from q, then the proposition q gives proposition p a probability of 1. The certainty of logical inference is a limiting case of probability. (This can be applied to tautology and contradiction.) A proposition is neither probable nor improbable on its own: Either an event occurs or it does not; the middle is excluded.\n\nAn urn contains black and white balls in equal numbers (and none of any other kind). I draw one ball after another, and replace them. With this experiment I can establish that the number of black balls drawn and the number of white balls drawn grow closer as the draw continues. So that is is not a mathematical fact. Now, if I say: \"It is equally likely that I will draw a white ball as a black one,\" this means: All the circumstances that I know of (including the laws of nature assumed as hypotheses) give no more probability to the occurrence of the one event than to that of the other. That is to say, they give each case the probability 1/2 as can easily be gathered from the above definitions. What I confirm by the experiment is that the occurrence of the two events, the circumstances of which I do not know in more detail, is independent.\n\nA normal probability proposition is: Circumstances of which I have no further knowledge give a degree of probability to the occurrence of a particular event. Thus, probability is a generalization, a general description of a propositional form. We use probability only in default of certainty, when our knowledge of a fact is not complete, but we do know something about its form. (A proposition may well be an incomplete picture of a certain situation, but it is always a complete picture.) So a statement of probability can be likened to a synopsis of other propositions.\n\nAll deduction is a priori.\n\nOne cannot deduce an elementary proposition from another. There is no way to infer the existence of a situation from the existence of another, entirely different situation. There is no causal nexus which would justify such an inference. We cannot infer future events from present events. Belief in a causal nexus is superstition.\n\nFree will consists of not being able to know future actions now. We could only know them if causality were an internal necessity like that of logical inference: The connection between knowledge and what is known is that of logical necessity. ('A knows that p is the case', makes no sense if p is a tautology.) If the truth of a proposition does not follow from the fact that it is self-evident to us, then its self-evidence in no way justifies our belief in its truth.\n\n• A tautology follows from all propositions: it says nothing.\n• Contradiction is that common factor of propositions which no proposition has in common with another.\n• Contradiction, one might say, vanishes outside all propositions: tautology vanishes inside them.\n\nLogical Inference.\n\nIf all the verifiers common to a number of propositions are also verifiers of a particular proposition, then the truth of that proposition follows from the truth of the others. In particular, the truth of one proposition (p) follows from the truth of another proposition (q) if all the verifiers of (q) are also verifiers of (p). In that case, the sense of (p) is contained in the sense of (q). If a god creates a world in which certain propositions are true, then by that very act he also creates a world in which all the propositions that follow from them come true. And similarly he could not create a world in which the proposition (p) was true without creating all its objects.\n\nA proposition affirms every proposition that follows from it. (p.q) is a proposition that affirms (p) as well as (q).\n(TFTF)(p,q) (p)\n(TTFF)(p,q) (q)\n(TFFF)(p,q) (p.q)\n\nTwo propositions are opposed to one another if no proposition that makes sense affirms them both. Every proposition that contradicts another negates it.\n\nOne can see that the truth of one proposition follows from the truth of others from the structure of the propositions. When that is the case, the relations between the forms of the propositions express that. Furthermore, we need not associate them in a compound proposition. Rather, these relations are internal, an immediate consequence of the existence of the propositions.\n\nWhen we infer q from (p∨q and ~p), the relation between the propositional forms of (p∨q) and (~p) is masked by our notation.\n\n(TTTF)(p,q) (p∨q)\n(FTFT)(p,q) (~p)\n(TTFF)(p,q) (q)\n\nBut if instead of (p∨q) we write, for example, (p|q . | . p|q), and instead of (~p), (p|p) where (p|q = ~p.~q), then the internal relation becomes apparent.\n(FFFT)(p,q) (~p.~q or p|q)\n(FTFT)(p,q) (~p)\n(FFTT)(p,q) (~q)\n\n(TTTF)(p.q) (~(p|p).~(p|p))\n(FTFT)(p,q) (p|p)\n(TTFF)(p,q) (q)\n\n(That one can start with (x).fx and conclude fa shows that the symbol (x).fx itself is generalizable.)\n\nIf p follows from q, I can infer p from q; deduce p from q. The nature of the conclusion can be gathered only from the two propositions; only they themselves can justify the inference. 'Laws of inference', which are supposed to justify inferences, as in the works of Frege and Russell, have no purpose, and would be superfluous.\n\nA proposition is a truth function of elemental propositions.\n\nAn elemental proposition is a truth function of itself. The truth value arguments of a proposition are elemental propositions.\n\nThe arguments of functions are readily confused with the indices of names because both arguments and indices enable me to recognize the meaning of the signs containing them. When Russell writes '+c', the 'c' is an index and the sign as a whole indicates addition of cardinal numbers. But this use is arbitrary and it would be quite possible to choose a simple sign instead of '+c'. In (~p) however, 'p' is not an index but an argument: the sense of (~p) cannot be understood unless the sense of 'p' has been understood already. (An index always describes the object to whose name we attach it. In the name Julius Caesar, 'Julius' is an index: e.g. the Caesar of the Julian gens.) According to Wittgenstein, Frege's theory about the meaning of propositions and functions is based on the confusion between an argument and an index. Frege regarded the propositions of logic as names, and their arguments as the indexes of those names.\n\nTruth functions can be ordered as rows of a table. Probability theory is based on this.\n\nThe truth functions of any given number of elemental propositions can be written out in a table like this one for all binary combinations:\n\n(TTTT)(p,q) (If p, then p, and if q, then q.) (p⊃p.q⊃q) Tautology\n(FFFF)(p,q) (p and not p, and q and not q.) (p.~p.q.~q) Contradiction\n(TFTF)(p,q) (p)\n(TTFF)(p,q) (q)\n(FTFT)(p,q) (Not p.) (~p)\n(FFTT)(p,q) (Not q.) (~q)\n(TFFF)(p,q) (p and q.) (p.q)\n(FTTT)(p,q) (Not (p and q).) (~(p.q))\n(FFFT)(p,q) (Neither p nor q.) (~p.~q or p|q)\n(TTTF)(p,q) (p or q.) (p∨q)\n(FTTF)(p,q) (p or q, but not both.) (p.~q:∨:q.~p)\n(FFTF)(p,q) (p and not q.) (p.~q)\n(FTFF)(p,q) (q and not p.) (q.~p)\n(TFTT)(p,q) (If q, then p.) (q⊃p)\n(TTFT)(p,q) (If p, then q.) (p⊃q)\n(TFFT)(p,q) (If p, then q, and if q, then p.) (p≡q)\n\nWittgenstein calls those truth arguments that make a proposition true its verifiers.\n\nTuesday, April 1, 2008\n\nThe general propositional form is the variable: 'It is thus and so'.\n\nWe now state the most general form of a sentence. That is, we describe sentences in any notation whatsoever so that every possible sense can be expressed by a symbol fitting that description, and so that every such symbol can make sense, once appropriate meanings of the names are chosen. It is clear that the description of the most general propositional form should only include what is essential - otherwise it would not be the most general form.\n\nThat there is a general form of a sentence is proved by the fact that there is no grammatical sentence whose form it did not allow us to foresee (i.e. derive). The general form of a sentence is: It is thus and so.\n\nSuppose that all elemental propositions are given. What propositions can one construct with them? That would be all propositions and that is their limit. Propositions are all that follows from the entirety of elemental propositions (and, of course, from its being all of them). In a certain sense, it could be said that all propositions were generalizations of elemental propositions. The general propositional form is a variable.\n\nTautology and Contradiction.\n\nWe can use a mathematical function to calculate that n elemental propositions produce L(n) groups of truth values. These can be ordered in a row (or added as a column to the truth table).\n\nAmong all the possible groups of truth values there are two extreme cases. The first case agrees with all combinations of truth values and we call the proposition a tautology. The second case agrees with none and we call it a contradiction.\n\nA proposition shows what it has to say; tautologies and contradictions show that they have nothing to say. Because a tautology is unconditionally true, it has no truth-conditions; and a contradiction has none because it is never true.\n\nTautologies and contradictions have no sense; just as a point from which arrows go out in two directions. (For example, I know nothing about the weather when I know that it is either raining or not raining.) Tautologies and contradictions are not, however, absurd. They belong to symbolism; much as zero to the symbolism of arithmetic.\n\nTautologies and contradictions are not images of reality. They do not represent possible situations, for the former admit all situations, and latter none. In a tautology the conditions of agreement with the world - the embodying relations - cancel one another, so that it does not express reality.\n\nThe truth-conditions of a proposition determine the range of the facts. (Interpreted in the negative sense, a proposition, a picture, or a model is like a solid body that restricts the freedom of movement of others. Interpreted in the positive sense, it is like a space bounded by solid substance in which there is room for a body.) A tautology leaves the infinite whole of logical space open to reality. A contradiction fills it, leaving no point of it for reality. Thus neither of them can determine reality in any way.\n\nA tautology is certainly true, a proposition possibly, and a contradiction certainly not. (We have the scale that we need in the theory of probability.) The logical product of a tautology and a proposition says the same thing as the proposition and is therefore identical with the proposition because one cannot change the essence of a symbol without changing its sense.\n\nA particular logical combination of signs corresponds to a particular logical combination of their meanings. Absolutely any combination corresponds to uncombined signs, but only to them. In other words, propositions that are true for every situation cannot be sign combinations at all, for if they were, only particular combinations of objects could correspond to them. (And what is not a logical combination has no combination of objects corresponding to it.)\n\nTautology and contradiction are the limiting cases of sign combinations - their dissolution. Admittedly the signs are still combined with one another even in tautologies and contradictions. That is, they relate to one another. But these relations have no meaning, they are not essential to the symbol.\n\nTruth Value Tables and Propositions.\n\nThe truth values of elemental propositions denote the possibility that matters of fact may be the case or not. We can exhibit these in tables that can easily be understood. Each column is dedicated to an elemental proposition listed in the heading followed by as many truth values as needed. ('T' means 'true', 'F' means 'false'.) The truth table for a single elemental proposition has two rows and the number of rows in the table is doubled for each additional elemental proposition.\n\n\np q\n\np q r\n\nA proposition expresses both agreement and disagreement with the truth values of elemental propositions. This makes those truth values the conditions that determine whether the proposition is true or not.\n\nIt immediately strikes one that introducing elemental propositions provided the vasis for understanding all other kinds of sentences. Indeed, elemental propositions are palpably required to understand general propositions.\n\nGiven n elemental propositions, we can calculate the L(n) ways a particular proposition can both agree and disagree with their truth values. In an additional column dedicated to that proposition, we can denote that the proposition agrees with the combination of values in that row of the truth table by assigning the mark 'T' to the row. The absence of this mark denotes disagreement.\n\nNow, expressing agreement with the truth values of the elemental propositions expresses the truth values of the proposition itself. Thus, the proposition is the expression of its truth values. The sign that results from adding the correlating marks to the truth table is its propositional sign.\n\nIt is clear that the complex of signs 'F' and 'T' in the truth table has no object (or complex of objects) corresponding to it, just as there is none corresponding to the horizontal and vertical lines or to the brackets. There are no 'logical objects'. Of course the same applies to all signs that express what truth tables express.\n\nFor example:\n(p q\nF F T)\nis a propositional sign.\n\nIf the order of the truth table is fixed once and for all by a combinatory rule, then the last column by itself will express the truth-conditions. If we now write this column as a row, the propositional sign will become\n'(TT-T) (p,q)' or more clearly '(TTFT) (p,q)'.\n(Note that the number of places in the left-hand pair of brackets is determined by the number of terms in the right-hand pair.)\n\nThe sense of a proposition.\n\nA proposition corresponds, or not, to matters of fact. These, in turn, can be the case or not. The sense of a proposition consists of this correspondence. The simplest propositions, the elemental propositions, assert that a matter of fact is the case. An indication that a proposition is elemental is that no elemental proposition can contradict it.\n\nAn elemental proposition consists of a list of names liked to each other. It is clear that when we analyze propositions, we must reach elemental propositions which consist of names in direct combination. This raises the question of how to combine them into propositions. Even if the world is infinitely complex, so that every fact consists of infinitely many matters of fact and each of them is composed of infinitely many objects of consideration, there would still have to be objects of consideration and matters of fact.\n\nNames only occur in the context of an elemental proposition. They are simple symbols, indicated by single letters ('x', 'y', 'z'). Wittgenstein writes elemental propositions as functions of names, so that they have the form 'fx', 'O (x,y)', etc. or indicates them by the letters 'p', 'q', 'r'.\n\nWhen using two signs with one and the same meaning, he expresses this by putting the sign '=' between them. So (a = b) means that the sign 'b' can be substituted for the sign 'a'. If he uses an equation to introduce a new sign 'b', deciding that it shall replace a known sign 'a', then, like Russell, he writes the equation, a definition, in the form 'a = b Def.' A definition is a rule dealing with signs. Expressions of the form 'a = b' are, therefore, mere tools of representation. They say nothing about the meaning of the signs 'a' and 'b'.\n\nCan we understand two names without knowing whether they signify the same thing or two different things? Can we understand a proposition in which two names occur without knowing whether their meaning is the same or not? If one knows both an English word and a German word with the same meaning, then it is impossible for me not to know that. It is not possible that one cannot translate them. Expressions like 'a = a', or those derived from them, are neither elemental propositions nor significant in any other way. (This will become evident later.)\n\nIf an elemental proposition is true, the matter of fact it describes is the case; if false, then not. Giving all true elemental propositions describes the world completely. What amounts to the same thing, one can give all elemental propositions and mark them as true or false. Of these matters of fact any combination can be the case and the remainder not be.\n\nA variable is the sign of a formal concept.\n\nWittgenstein now extends the discussion to formal concepts in the same sense as he discussed formal properties. He introduced the expression 'formal concepts' to distinguish between them and concepts proper. (They are confused in the whole of traditional logic.) The sign for the object itself shows us that something falls under a formal concept. A proposition cannot tell us that. (A name obviously signifies an object, a numeral signifies a number, etc.)\n\nFunctions can express concepts proper but not formal concepts. This is because functions do not express formal properties. Instead, all symbols whose meaning falls under a formal concept express the formal property that is a characteristic feature of that concept. In this way, a propositional variable in which this characteristic feature alone is constant expresses the formal concept. The propositional variable signifies the formal concept, and its values signify the objects that fall under it.\n\nA variable is the sign of a formal concept, because it displays a constant form that all its values possess, and that form can be regarded as a formal property of those values. Thus the variable name 'x' is actually the sign for the pseudo-concept object of consideration.\n\nWherever the word 'object' ('thing', 'matter' etc.) is used properly to denote a formal concept, it will become a variable name in conceptual notation. For example, in the proposition, 'There are 2 objects which. . .', 2 objects is expressed by ' (∃x,y) ... ' and not otherwise.\n\nWherever objects is used as a proper concept, pseudo-propositions result that make no sense. So one cannot say, for example, 'There are objects', as one might say, 'There are books', and it is just as impossible to say, 'There are 100 objects'.\n\nIt is absurd to speak of the total number of objects. The same applies to the words 'complex', 'fact', 'function', 'number', etc. They all signify formal concepts, and are represented in conceptual notation by variables, not by functions or classes (as Frege and Russell believed). Expressions such as '1 is a number', 'There is only one zero', and all similar ones make no sense. (It also makes no more sense to say, 'There is only one 1', as to say, '2 + 2 at 3 o'clock equals 4'.)\n\nA formal concept is a given once an object falls under it. One cannot, therefore, introduce both a formal concept as well as objects belonging to it as primitive ideas at the same time. So one cannot introduce both the concept of a function and specific functions as primitive ideas (as Russell does), nor, for that matter, the concept of a number along with particular numbers.\n\nIf we want to express the general proposition 'b is a successor of a' in conceptual notation, then we need to express the general term of a series of forms. We can do this by giving its first term and the general form of the operation that produces the next term out of the proposition that precedes it, like this:\n\nWe can only express the general term of a series of forms using a variable, because the concept 'term of that series of forms' is a formal concept. (This is what Frege and Russell overlooked: consequently the way in which they want to express general propositions like the one above is incorrect; it contains a vicious circle.)\n\nTo ask whether a formal concept exists makes no sense, for no proposition can give an answer. (So, for example, the question, 'Are there unanalysable subject-predicate propositions?' cannot be asked.)\n\nLogical forms are not enumerable. For this reason, there are no preeminent numbers in logic, and no possibility of philosophical monism or dualism, etc.\n\nFormal Properties and Relations.\n\nIn a certain sense, we can assign formal properties to objects and matters of fact as we discuss them. This applies to structural properties of facts as well. In the same sense, we can also discuss formal relations and structural relations.\n\nAlso, Wittgenstein prefers to say 'internal property' instead of structural property in case of a fact and say 'internal' instead of structural in case of a relation. He introduces these expressions to clarify the very widespread confusion between internal relations and relations proper (external relations).\n\nA property is internal if it is unthinkable that its object should not possess it. Different shades of blue relate, eo ipso, as lighter to darker. Because it is unthinkable that these two particular objects should not relate in this way, the relation is internal. (Note the shift in the use of 'object of consideration.' It corresponds to both 'property' and 'relation.')\n\nInternal properties and internal relations cannot be declared in assertions. Rather, they can simply be seen in those sentences that describe the relevant circumstances and deal with the relevant objects. An internal property of a fact can also be called a feature of that fact (in the sense in which we speak of facial features, for example).\n\nThat a situation has an internal property, becomes apparent in the proposition that describes it as an internal property of the proposition. It is not expressed by means of another proposition. It makes no sense to assert that a proposition has a formal property or not. One cannot distinguish forms from one another by saying that one has this property and another that property because doing that presupposes that it makes sense to ascribe either property to either form.\n\nThat situations have an internal relation to each other, expresses itself in language as an internal relation between the sentences describing them. This resolves the controversy of whether all relations are internal or external.\n\nWittgenstein calls a series that is ordered by an internal relation a series of forms. The series of natural numbers is not ordered by an external relation but by an internal relation. The same is true of the series of propositions\nand so forth.\n(If b stands in one of these relations to a, b is a successor of a.)\n\nLogical Form - What can be shown, cannot be said.\n\nPropositions must have logical form in common with reality in order to be able to describe anything real. But one cannot use propositions to describe logical form. In order to do that, one would need to be located somewhere outside of logic, that is to say outside the world. A proposition cannot exhibit a logical form because the form is reflected in it.\n\nLanguage cannot describe what is reflected in it. We cannot express by means of language what expresses itself in our use of it. Propositions show the logical form of reality: They exhibit it.\n\nThus, the single proposition (fa) shows that object 'a' occurs in its sense. The two propositions (fa) and (ga) show that the same object is mentioned in both of them. If two propositions contradict one another, then their structure will show it. The same is true if one of them follows from the other, and so on. This explains our conviction that a logical conception is valid once we have the formalism right.\n\nWhat can be shown, cannot be said.\n\nA proposition exhibits matters of fact which both are and are not the case.\n\nThe entirety of true propositions is the the entirety of natural science. Philosophy is not a natural science, the aim of philosophy is to clarify thoughts logically. That makes it an activity, not a doctrine. Essentially, a philosophical work explains, so philosophy does not result in 'philosophical propositions', but rather in their clarification. It should, as it were, put thoughts in focus.\n\nPsychology is no more closely related to philosophy than any other natural science. Theory of knowledge is the philosophy of psychology. Does not my study of symbolism correspond to the study of thought processes, which philosophers used to consider so essential to the philosophy of logic? Only in most cases they got entangled in unessential psychological investigations, an analogous risk with my method as well.\n\n\nPhilosophy delimits what can be discussed in natural science. It delineates what can be thought; and, in doing so, what can not. It marks the border to what cannot be thought by working outwards from what can be thought. It will signify what cannot be said, by presenting clearly what can be said. Everything that can be thought at all can be thought clearly. Everything that can be put into words can be put clearly.\n\nEvery proposition must make sense on its own.\n\nTo illustrate the concept of truth, imagine a black spot on white paper. One can describe the shape of the spot by saying, for each point on the sheet, whether it is black or white. To the fact that a point is black there corresponds a positive fact, and to the fact that a point is white (not black), a negative fact. If I designate a point on the sheet (a truth-value according to Frege), then that corresponds to the supposition being evaluated, etc. etc.\n\nBut in order to be able to say that a point is black or white, I must first know when a point is called black, and when white. In order to be able to say, \" 'p' is true (or false)\", I must have determined in what circumstances I call 'p' true, and by that have already determined the sense of the proposition. But now the the simile breaks down.\n\nWe can indicate a point on the paper even if we do not know what black or white is. but if a proposition makes no sense, nothing corresponds to it, since it does not designate an object (truth value) which might have properties called 'false' or 'true'. The predicate of a proposition is not 'is true' or 'is false', as Frege thought: rather, that which 'is true' must already include that predicate.\n\nEvery proposition must make sense on its own. It cannot be given a sense by affirmation since its sense is just what is affirmed; and the same applies to negation, etc. One could say that negation must be related to the logical space determined by the negated proposition. The negation determines a logical space different from that of the negated proposition. The negation determines a logical space with the help of the negated proposition, for it describes the former as lying outside the latter's logical space. That a negation can be negated shows that what is negated is already a proposition, and not a mere preliminary.\n\nA proposition can be true or false only by being an image of reality.\n\nWhen reality and the proposition are compared, one must not overlook that fact that a proposition makes sense independently of the facts. That error would lead one to suppose that true and false are relations between signs and what they signify, and have equal status. One could declare, for example, that (p) signifies in the true way what (~p) signifies in the false way, etc.\n\nCould we not communicate using false propositions just as we have up to now with true ones, as long as one knows that they are meant to be false? No!\n\nA proposition is true if things really are as it says they are. Now let us mean (~p) if we say (p) and let things actually be as we mean them. Then, because we construe reality in the new way, (p) is true and not false.\n\nBut that the signs 'p' and '~p' could possibly say the same thing is important. For it shows that nothing in reality corresponds to the sign '~'. The occurrence of negation in a proposition is not enough to characterize its sense (~~p = p). The propositions 'p' and '~p' may have opposite sense, but one and the same reality corresponds to them.\n\nA proposition must have just as many degrees of freedom as the situation it represents.\n\nThey must possess the same logical multiplicity. (See Hertz's Mechanics on dynamical models.) This mathematical multiplicity, of course, cannot itself be depicted and one cannot get out of it while depicting.\n\nIf, for example, we wanted to express ((x) . fx) by a prefix such as (Gen. fx), we would not know what was being generalized. If we wanted to signalize it with an index 'α' by writing (f(xα)), we would not know the scope.\n\nIf we were to try to do it by introducing a mark into the argument position by writing\n((G,G) . F(G,G))\nwe could not establish the identity of the variables. And so on.\n\nAll these notations are inadequate because they lack the necessary mathematical multiplicity. For the same reason, the idealist's explanation of seeing of spatial relations with 'spatial spectacles' is inadequate because it cannot explain the multiplicity of these relations.\n\nA sentence must use old expressions to tell us something new.\n\nA sentence must use old expressions to communicate a new sense. A sentence must be essentially associated with the situation it tells us about. That association is precisely the fact that the sentence is the situation's logical image. A sentence states something only in so far as it is an image.\n\nIn a sentence, a situation is assembled on trial, as it were. Instead of, 'This sentence makes sense in such and such a way', we can simply say, 'This sentence depicts such and such a situation'. A name stands for one thing, another for another, and, they are combined with one another; thus the whole - like a tableau - presents a matter of fact. The principle that signs represent objects makes sentences possible.\n\nWittgenstein consider it fundamental that the 'logical constants' do not stand for something; that the logic of facts cannot be representational. A sentence is only an image of a situation in so far as it was organized logically. (Even the sentence 'Ambulo' is composite; for its stem with a different ending yields a different sense, and so does its ending with a different stem.)\n\nMonday, March 31, 2008\n\nA proposition describes of a matter of fact.\n\nA proposition must restrict reality to two alternatives: yes or no. In order to do that, it must describe reality completely. A proposition describes of a matter of fact. Just as a description of an object describes it by giving its external properties, so a proposition describes reality by its internal properties. A proposition constructs a world with the help of a logical scaffolding, so that one can actually see from the proposition how everything stands logically if it is true. One can draw conclusions from a false proposition.\n\nTo understand a proposition means to know what is the case if it is true. (One can understand it, therefore, without knowing whether it is true.) It is understood by anyone who understands its constituents. When translating, we do not translate each sentence of one language into a sentence of the other, but merely translate the constituents. (And the dictionary translates not only substantives, but all the parts of speech and it treats them all in the same way.) The meanings of simple signs (words) must be explained to us if we are to understand them. With sentences, however, we make ourselves understood. It belongs to the nature of a sentence that it should be able to communicate a sense new to us.\n\nA sentence is an image of reality: it shows its sense.\n\nA sentence is both an image and a model of what we think reality is. At first sight, the (printed) sentence does not seem to be an image of the reality it treats. But neither do written notes seem at first sight to be an image of a piece of music, nor our phonetic notation (the alphabet) to be an image of our speech. And yet these sign languages prove to be images, even in the ordinary sense, of what they represent.\n\nObviously, we perceive the proposition (aRb) as an image. In this case the sign is a likeness of what it denotes. And if we penetrate to the essence of this representation, we see that it is not impaired by seeming irregularities (such as the use of ♯ and ♭in musical notation). For these exceptions also depict what they are meant to express; only in another way. A gramophone record, the musical idea, the written notes, and the sound-waves, all relate to one another in the same internal relation that holds between language and the world. They are all constructed according to a common logical pattern.\n\nThere is a general rule by means of which the musician can obtain the symphony from the score, and which makes it possible to derive the symphony from the groove on the gramophone record, and, using the first rule, to derive the score again. It constitutes the inner similarity between such entirely different constructs. And that rule is the law of projection which projects the symphony into the language of musical notation. It is the rule for translating this language into the language of gramophone records.\n\nThe possibility of all imagery, of all vividness of expression, is contained in the logic of depiction. In order to understand the nature of a sentence, consider hieroglyphic script, which depicts the facts that it describes. Alphabetic script developed from it without losing what was essential to depiction. We can see this from the fact that we understand the sense of a propositional sign without its having been explained to us.\n\nA sentence is an image of reality: for if I understand a sentence, I know the situation that it represents and I understand it without having had its sense explained to me. It shows its sense, it shows how things stand if it is true; and it says that they do so stand.\n\nA thought is a sentence that made sense.\n\nThoughts are sentences that make sense. In their entirety, they constitute language. Mankind constructs languages that allow one to express any sense without needing to have much of an idea what each particular word means or how that is so. This is also just how one speaks, without knowing how individual sounds are made. Natural language is a bodily function and no less complicated than that body. It is not humanly possible to directly obtain the logic of natural language from itself.\n\nLanguage disguises thought, so that one cannot infer, from the outward form of the clothing, the form of the thought clothed by it. This is so, because the outward form of the clothing is designed for entirely different purposes than to let the form of the body be recognized and the tacit conventions that are part of understanding natural language are so complex.\n\nMost of the statements and questions to be found in philosophical works are not false; they just make no sense. Consequently we cannot give any answer to questions of this kind, but can only point out that they do not make sense. (They belong to the same class as the question whether the good is more or less identical than the beautiful.) Most of the propositions and questions of philosophers arise from our failure to understand the logic of our language and it is not surprising that the deepest problems are in fact not problems at all.\n\nAll philosophy is a 'linguistic critique' (though not in Mauthner's sense). Russell's achievement was to show that the apparent logical form of a proposition need not be its real one.\n\nA propositional sign, applied by thinking it, is a thought.\n\nThe sentence determines a location in logical space. The existence of this logical location is established by the mere existence of the components, by the existence of a sentence that makes sense. The sentence and the logical coordinates together constitute a logical location. The geometric and logical location are alike in that both allow something to exist.\n\nAlthough the sentence is allowed to determine only one location in logical space, nevertheless, it must already establish the whole of logical space. (Otherwise negation, logical sum, logical product, etc., would introduce more and more new elements in co-ordination.) The logical framing of an image determines its logical space, while the sentence extends through the whole of logical space.\n\nAny valid symbolic language must be translatable.\n\nA proposition possesses essential and accidental features. Accidental features are those that result from the particular way in which the propositional sign is created, while essential features enable it to make sense. So what is essential in a particular proposition is what all propositions that can express the same sense have in common. And in the same way, what is generally essential in a symbol is what all symbols that can serve the same purpose have in common.\n\nSo one could say: All symbols that signify an object have its actual name in common. Thus, it would follow that no particular composition is essential to a name.\n\nThere is indeed something arbitrary in the notations we use, but this is not arbitrary: That once we have fixed on one thing arbitrarily, then something else must necessarily be the case. (This lies in the nature of notation.) A particular notation may be unimportant but that it is possible is always important. And that is generally so in philosophy: again and again the individual case turns out to be unimportant, but the possibility of each individual case discloses something about the nature of the world.\n\nDefinitions are rules for translating from one language into another. Any valid symbolic language must be translatable into any other in accordance with such rules: This they all have in common. What denotes in a symbol is what is common to all the substitute symbols that the rules of logical syntax allow.\n\nFor instance, what all notations for the truth function have in common can be expressed in this way: They all have in common that the notation '~p' ('not p') and 'p ∨ g' ('p or g') can replace any of them. (This characterizes the way in which a specific notation can disclose something general.)\n\nThe sign of a complex is not resolved arbitrarily upon analysis; its resolution would not be different when it is incorporated in a different sentence structure.\n\nRussell's Paradox\n\nIn 'theory of types' Russell had to consider the meaning of signs when establishing the rules for them. This is an error. We can dispose of Russell's paradox as follows: No proposition can make a statement about itself, because a propositional sign cannot contain itself. (That is the whole of the 'theory of types').\n\nThe reason why a function cannot be its own argument is that the function sign already contains the prototype of its argument, and it cannot contain itself.\n\nLet us suppose that the function F(fx) could be its own argument. In that case, we would have propositions such as: 'F(F(fx))' where the outer function F and the inner function F must have different meanings. This is because the inner one has the form ϕ(f(x)) and the outer one has the form ψ(ϕ(fx)).\n\nOnly the letter 'F' is common to the two functions, but the letter by itself signifies nothing. This immediately becomes clear if instead of 'F(Fu)' we write '(∃φ) : F(φu) . φu = Fu'.\n\nThe rules of logical syntax must be self evident, once one knows how each individual sign signifies.\n\nThe sign is that aspect of a symbol perceivable by the senses.\n\nTwo different symbols can share a sign (written or spoken etc.) yet still signify in distinctly different ways. However, a common characteristic of two different objects can never be indicated by using a single sign with two different modes of signification. For the sign, of course, is arbitrary. We could just as well choose two different signs instead, and then where would the common significance be?\n\nIn everyday language it is common for the same word to have different modes of signification and thus belong to different symbols. By the same token, two words that have different modes of signification are commonly employed in sentences in what is superficially the same manner. Thus the word 'is' figures as the copula, as a sign for identity, and as an expression for existence. 'Exist' figures as an intransitive verb like 'go', and 'identical' as an adjective. We speak of something, but also say something's happening. (In the sentence, 'Green is green' - where the first word is the proper name of a person and the last an adjective - these words do not merely have different meanings: they are different symbols.)\n\nIn this way the most fundamental confusions are easily produced (the whole of philosophy is full of them). In order to avoid such errors, we must use an object language that prevents them. It must do so by not using the same sign for different symbols and by not using signs that have different modes of signification in a superficially similar way. A notation, therefore, that observes logical grammar and has logical syntax. (The conceptual notation of Frege and Russell is such an object language, though, it is true, it fails to exclude all mistakes.)\n\nIn order to recognize a symbol by its sign we must mind that it be used in a manner that makes sense. The sign only determines a logical form in conjunction with its logical, syntactic use. If a sign is not needed, it has no meaning: That is the point of Occam's maxim. (If everything acts as if it has meaning, then it does.) The meaning of a sign should never play a role in establishing logical syntax; it must be possible to do it by merely describing expressions.\n\nOnly a sentence makes sense; only in the context of a sentence does a name have meaning.\n\nWittgenstein now explicitly defines the word expression as any part of a sentence that characterizes its sense. (The sentence itself is also an expression.) In terms of making sense, expression is all that sentences can have in common. An expression denotes both a form and a content.\n\nPrerequisite for an expression are the forms of all the sentences in which it can appear. That makes it a common, characteristic attribute of a class of sentences. Thus, an expression will be exemplified by the general form of the sentences that it characterizes. Once in this form, the expression will be constant while all else can vary.\n\nThus, an expression will be embodied by a variable whose values are all the sentences containing it. (In the limiting case, the variable will have a constant value and the expression will be one sentence.) Wittgenstein calls such a variable a \"propositional variable\". Because an expression has meaning only in a sentence, all variables can be construed as propositional variables. (Including variable names.)\n\nIf we declare a component of a sentence as a variable, the resulting sentence is now variable and constitutes a class of sentences all of which are values of that variable sentence. In general, this class will also depend on what we mean, according to our arbitrary conventions, by components of that sentence. But even if we turn all the signs with arbitrary meanings into variables, such a class will still exist. Only now the class no longer depends on convention, but solely on the nature of the sentence. This nature fulfills the conditions of a logical form - a logical prototype. What values that propositional variable may take must be specified, and that specification is what constitutes the variable.\n\nSpecifying the values of a sentential variable is to specify the sentences whose common characteristic the variable is. The specification is a description of these sentences, so it will only deal with symbols, not their meaning. The sole requirement is that the declaration be a mere description of symbols and state nothing about what is signified. How the sentences are described is not essential.\n\nLike Frege and Russell Wittgenstein construes a proposition as a function of the expressions contained in it.\n\n\nBlog Archive", "pred_label": "__label__1", "pred_score_pos": 0.6922789216041565}
+{"content": "Fissure Sealants\n\n\n2.8.1_Fissure sealand model\n\n\nResin-based fissure sealants should be applied to the permanent molars of all children as early after eruption as possible.\n\nWhat’s involved?\n\nThe process is usually quick and easy taking only a few minutes per tooth.\n\n\nHow long does fissure sealant last?\n\n\nIt can wear over time, and sometimes needs to be added to or replaced to be sure that no decay can start underneath it.", "pred_label": "__label__1", "pred_score_pos": 0.9998710751533508}
+{"content": "Web Performance,Coding,and Advancements\n\nCoding Web Performance\n\nAdvanced web developing is always beneficial on a multi-facet of scales. With the internet always evolving into something greater and better, we must find out a way to keep up. Every web designer must constantly practice different techniques and apply some specific tricks (earned through the knowledge of experience) on every website layout. Read additional info below.\n\nThe A - B -C Guide the Web Developing\n\nThere is a wise A, B, C guide that we have created. This guide will improve your web design skills and further advance your coding. Follow along with the quick guide below. The Website Performance. The better performing a website is, the better. What does it mean when a website has good performance?\n1-Fast content delivery.\n2-Fast loading pages.\n3-No Broken Links or Media.\n4-Website is usually tested and working the same on all different browsers\n5-Easy Navigation.\n\nB) The Internal Coding. Take a look that the internal source code of a website. Web designers must always keep in mind that a short source code that does a lot of work is always better than a long source code in web design. A developer must always check if all the div tags are closed inside a code. This is the most common way that a web design isn’t working or showing up on the page properly due to an unclosed div tag, the layout cannot execute the line of code for a specific item. The other way is to always add comments. Commenting lines is a responsible and smart thing to do. It makes it much easier to go back and further edit anything else in the future.\n\nC) Further Techniques inside the Design . Before designing a website, a web developer must take a breath of fresh air and go to the drawing board. Sketching out the design, getting inspired, and learning about the new web trends must always be done before starting the project.\n\nThe above methods can further enhance one's web design skills so much as to produce great, custom, and advanced web designs with validated internal coding.\n\nNext Article: How to Increase E-Commerce Store Sales\n\nWeb Design | Company | SEO", "pred_label": "__label__1", "pred_score_pos": 0.5127216577529907}
+{"content": "How Does She Do It? Young Artist Edition\n\nMegan Fatherly is a young artist from England who reached out to me earlier this year. She is currently exploring the life of an artist, and we sat down for a chat over living a creative life and pursuing your artistic dreams as a young woman.\n\nWhen did you first know you wanted to become an artist?\n\nI've always wanted to recreate things that have visually stimulated me. As a child I was always making something. It has always been the thing I enjoy doing. I would say finding printmaking has really been a game changer for me because it calms me down and I find the whole process meditative. I had some amazing tutors on my foundation who taught me a lot about the process. I am so grateful to them for this. \n\nWho are some of the artists that inspire you the most?\n\nThere are so many! Malevich, Hannah Hoch, Sol Lewitt, Stanley William Hayter, Egon Schiele. The list goes on and on! I am also inspired by artists who use experimental mark making.\n\nWhat does your artistic process look like?\n\nI tend to go for a walk for inspiration. My work is very much influenced my patterns within nature and the chaos of the outside world. This is reflected in my work and the way I work. I use spontaneous mark making contained within shape to resemble the chaos and trying to control it. At times this very much resembles my mental state. I use my art as an outlet for this.\n\nI love your portrait work. What makes a good subject in your eyes?\n\nSomething that has the ability to connect with someone on multiple levels. Through subject matter but also process, mark making and colour. \n\nWhat's inspiring you lately?\n\nThe work of recent falmouth graduates who I've been in contact with over the summer. I love collaborating with people and learning from their practice. The work of Sophie Eliza, Mimi Robson and Amy Hodkin in particular. Seeing their work has spurred me on in times of doubt.\n\nWhat do you do when you hit artistic blocks?\n\nStick my head in the sand of cry. I don't deal with it well at all. I work 100% of the time as just crash. I have been finding new ways to deal with it recently through writing and talking to people. I put myself under a lot f pressure.\n\nWhat advice would you give young women hoping to explore a creative life?\n\nJust have a go. Art and creating is such a fantastic outlet an there are so many different avenues you can go down. It's expressing yourself in a new and exciting way.", "pred_label": "__label__1", "pred_score_pos": 0.873534083366394}
+{"content": "arborescent plant\n\nAlso found in: Thesaurus.\nThesaurusAntonymsRelated WordsSynonymsLegend:\nNoun1.arborescent plant - having the shape or characteristics of a treearborescent plant - having the shape or characteristics of a tree\nAustralian grass tree, grass tree - any of several Australian evergreen perennials having short thick woody stems crowned by a tuft of grasslike foliage and yielding acaroid resins\nReferences in periodicals archive ?\nAngel's trumpet (Brugmansia candida) is an arborescent plant that can grow up to 10 feet in height.\nCalamites were the only Carboniferous lowland arborescent plants that had the capability for extensive vegetative propagation (Tiffney, 1985).\nStriking morphological differences within these groups include small herbaceous forms vs arborescent plants within the woody Sonchus alliance, the presence of pachycaul trees or tree like herbs in Dendrosenecio, and of spectacular monocarpic rosette plants in the silversword alliance and Espeletia.", "pred_label": "__label__1", "pred_score_pos": 0.9976028203964233}
+{"content": "Courtesy of the YUAG\n\nJosef Albers’ “Homage to the Square” paintings may be among the most well-known of his pieces, but in this exhibit, it is the crudely carven four-footed tray next to “Homage to the Square” that we are encouraged to appreciate instead. Part artistic travel itinerary, part historical exploration of ancient Latin American civilizations, “Small-Great Objects: Anni and Josef Albers in the Americas” pays homage not so much to Anni Albers’ textiles or Josef Albers’ abstract compositions, but to the relics that inspired the two artists.\n\nThe phrase “small-great objects” is taken from Anni Albers’ description of the clay figurines that she and her husband collected over many years. These figurines make up much of the exhibit, and in studying the diversity of bodies portrayed through such simple forms, one can understand the Albers’ fascination. A group of pre-Hispanic female figurines, for example, are all assembled from basic ceramic spheres, pyramids and cubes. Minor yet crucial variations in features, accessories, expression and posture distinguish them, so that no two are the same. In Anni Albers’ textile works and Josef Albers’ drawings and paintings, we see this same motif of geometric shapes emerge over and over again, each time made interesting by subtle variations.\n\nIn addition to purchasing and preserving these figurines, Albers also sketched and photographed them. He drew “Male Figurine with Hands on Knees” from different angles and even referred to it as a reflection of himself, a “modern man.” His photographs take this idea of the figurine as a proxy for flesh and blood one step further. In exposing the various ways in which light and perspective can change our perception of an object, Albers makes the figurine perform the duties of a human model.\n\nYet the transformation of inanimate figurine into dynamic model is not all that Albers accomplishes in his photographs. His gelatin silver prints of architecture focus on patterns and the myriad ways an object can occupy three-dimensional space. He alternatively portrays a particular architectural detail in its structural context — how it enhances the whole building’s presentation — and as an individual component, dominant and complete in itself. Albers’ photographs of the protruding hook nose of Chaac, the Mayan rain god, contrast the shadows of its protrusions on the front of the wall with the exaggerated shape of the nose in the side view. Although the same architectural feature is shown, in one case we concentrate on the nose’s larger impact, whereas in the other we are drawn to study its distinctive shape.\n\nSmall, singular parts can achieve an effect just as powerful as the whole, but the joining of independent parts is rich with artistic interpretation as well. Albers’ lithograph, “Sanctuary,” uses the differing boldness of the unbroken lines and the overall mazelike design to give viewers a sense of looking down into the center of a terraced temple similar to those found at Mesoamerican archaeological sites. Meanwhile, Anni Albers’ textiles join both the separate strands of fiber and the varied geometric patterns into a means of communication. Woven into her “Code” is a message to be deciphered. In creating this piece, Albers alludes to the history of using durable and light textiles as a way for ancient civilizations to send messages — they were easy to transport and not easily damaged by the journey. Albers similarly draws inspiration from jewelry artifacts; after seeing a colorful bead necklace, she created necklaces in the same style from found objects like bobby pins and paperclips on a sink strainer.\n\nTo develop their artistic insights, Anni and Josef Albers frequently returned to the traditions and cultures of the ancient Mesoamerican civilizations. Despite the widespread misconception that such art was “primitive,” the Albers were convinced that the pieces were timelessly sophisticated in form and design, that in the figurines “monumental and meaningful could lie in the handheld.” The magic of small objects lies in their willingness and flexibility to be manipulated, to be able to convey more when approached with a different artistic vision and still remain playful, clever and reverent.\n\n“Small-Great Objects: Anni and Josef Albers in the Americas” is on view at the Yale University Art Gallery until June 18th.\n\nContact Tiana Wang at .", "pred_label": "__label__1", "pred_score_pos": 0.9625206589698792}
+{"content": "Climate change may have significant effect on wave heights\n\nNature: An international group of researchers has used five independent models of wave-climate behavior to project wave patterns over the next century. The models showed three changing trends: shifts in a ring of climate variability that circles the South Pole, stronger westerly winds in the Southern Ocean, and a northward shift of high pressure systems over the Pacific. These changes could result in an increase in wave heights in Antarctica, Indonesia, and the east coast of Australia and a decrease in wave heights in almost one quarter of the rest of the oceans. The exact impact on coastal areas and fishing industries isn’t certain, but areas with lower waves will likely experience less shoreline erosion.\n\nTidal power may have large future in the UK\n\nBBC: Turbines put in place in the UK’s tidal estuaries and streams could cover 20% of the nation’s current demand for electricity, according to a study published in the Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society A. Because tides are regular, tidal generators could provide a more reliable source of energy than wind turbines. However, the technology for tidal generators is also very expensive. One design is a barrage, built across tidal estuaries, where the turbines are turned by the ebb and flow of the water. An alternative design is an underwater turbine powered by tidal streams. A proposal for a massive barrage generator across the Severn River was rejected by the government because of its environmental impact. Nicholas Yates of the National Oceanography Centre, coauthor of the study, says that the Severn project is too big and that tidal energy efforts should begin with smaller generators. One such project is a 40-MW tidal stream turbine to be constructed in the Pentland Firth by MayGen later this year. It will be the first array of tidal stream turbines in the UK and will join the SeaGen project in Northern Ireland as a major tidal electricity provider in the UK.", "pred_label": "__label__1", "pred_score_pos": 0.8782697319984436}
+{"content": "This page contains a Flash digital edition of a book.\nTransmission & Distribution Technology\n\n“Utility companies are in a powerful position to secure the smart grid because they can apply pressure to meter vendors so that they produce more secure devices.”\n\nJoshua Pennell, IOActive.\n\ncritical to examine the security of these smart meter devices, which are appearing rapidly on homes across the globe. In 2008, IOActive researchers evaluated the security of a series of smart meter devices and uncovered several security vulnerabilities. In addition to being vulnerable to common attack vectors, IOActive achieved proof-of- concept, worm-able code execution on standard smart meters. Since the smart meter’s radio communication chipset is publicly sourced and the communication protocols lacked authentication and authorisation, IOActive researchers were able to leverage these weaknesses – among others – to produce a proof-of- concept worm. If an attacker were to install a malicious program on one meter, the internal firmware could be made to issue commands that would flash adjacent meters until all devices within an area were infected with the malicious firmware. Teoretically, once the worm spreads to meters, the attacker gains several abilities including connecting and disconnecting customers at predetermined times; changing metering data and calibration constants; changing the meter’s communication frequency; and rendering the meter non-functional. While IOActive’s findings are serious and warrant immediate attention, it is certainly not too late to secure the smart grid. So, how is that done, exactly? Just like remediating any serious security vulnerability, securing the smart grid is a joint effort that requires the support of utility companies, smart meter vendors, the government, and leading privacy and security experts. Utility companies are in a powerful position to\n\nsecure the smart grid because they can apply pressure to meter vendors so that they produce more secure devices. By continuing to conduct security reviews that test the meters’ security, quality, and reliability for the entire duration of the product lifecycle, utilities can ensure that meter vendors continually improve their security protocols. To help meter vendors develop more secure\n\nproducts, IOActive advocates for the adoption of leading security methodologies including Microsoft’s Secure Development Lifecycle (SDL).\n\nThird-party auditing\n\nTaking a proactive stance, the SDL implements security and privacy measures during each stage of a product’s development, requires third-party auditing, and conducts a final review before software is released.\n\nTe SDL also makes business sense, as it is a\n\nproven tool to save money – studies indicate that overall project costs are 60 times higher when gaps in information security controls are addressed late in the development phase. Following an SDL will help meter vendors resolve many of the design flaws discovered in their devices including the lack of layered defences.\n\nMultiple layers of defence provide the best security, using the theory that if one mechanism fails you have several others to prevent a breach. It is especially important for smart meters to have a layered defence because they are installed on the outside of homes with minimal physical protection. Without a layered defence in place, someone with a basic understanding of electronics could easily steal a meter, reverse engineer it, and potentially uncover exploitable vulnerabilities.\n\nStrong encryption\n\nContributing to the lack of layered defences, IOActive discovered that strong encryption, authentication, and authorisations were often poorly implemented in smart meter devices. IOActive found that many devices do not use\n\nencryption or implement any authentication before carrying out sensitive functions like executing software updates and performing disconnect operations. Even when meters had encryption algorithms in place, it was found that functionality was unmanageable, and that the keys were often exposed, extremely weak, and could be recovered through simple hardware hacking techniques. Just like the invention and implementation of\n\nany new technology, the smart grid promises many benefits, but it also displays many weaknesses. A lot of work needs to be done to secure this critical infrastructure and it is fortunate that this effort currently is taking place. With the help of the government and security\n\nexperts, utilities are taking strides to improve the security of the smart grid and all of its components. As a result of improving security protocols, both consumers and utilities will thrive from the vast benefits of the smart grid, while ensuring the present and future safety of the world’s critical infrastructure. IOActive is an industry leader that offers\n\ncomprehensive computer security services with specializations in smart grid technologies, software assurance, and compliance. IOActive works with a Global 500 companies, including power and utility, game, hardware, retail, financial, media, travel, aerospace, healthcare, high- tech, social networking, and software development organisations. Infosecurity Europe runs a series events for\n\nbuyers and sellers in IT Security in Europe for sourcing opportunities, information updates and free educational forums, tackling the key technology issues set to affect your business. Forthcoming shows include: Infosecurity\n\nNetherlands, 3rd–4th November 2010, Jaarbeurs Utrecht, Netherlands ( ) and Infosecurity Russia, 17th–19th November 2010, Sokolniki Expo & Cultural Center, Moscow, Russia\n\n( l\n\nJoshua Pennell is with IOActive.\n\nProduced with Yudu -", "pred_label": "__label__1", "pred_score_pos": 0.9976442456245422}
+{"content": "Center for Sustaining Agriculture and Natural Resources (CSANR)\n\nSustainable Dryland Farming\n\nWednesday, June 19, 2013\n\n\nBrowse on keywords: alternate crops buckwheat\n\nUse a different search term\n\nSearch results on 06/19/13\n\n10049. Kephart, K.D., G.A. Murray and D.L. Auld. . Alternate crops for dryland production systems in Northern Idaho.. ID Agr. Expt. Sta. Contribution 88762, Moscow, ID..\nIncreased interest in low-cost input management practices and changes to conservation-oriented government programs are providing incentive for farmers to diversify rotation schemes. However, a lack of commercially viable alternate crops has restricted the number of options available to northern Idaho farmers. This paper lists the results of 10 years of alternate crop experiments into four groups. 1) Species offering no production potential are grain sorghum, quinoa, and soybeans. 2) Crops with limited production potential are meadowfoam, mustard and spring rapeseed, lupines, faba beans, flax, and crambe. 3) Commercialized crops with limited production potential are buckwheat, safflower, sunflowers, and chickpeas. 4) Commercialized crops with unlimited production potential are winter peas and winter rapeseed. Tables 2 and 3 summarize planting requirements and erosion control potential for many of these crops.\n\nUse a different search term\n", "pred_label": "__label__1", "pred_score_pos": 0.629242479801178}
+{"content": "The Mayan numerical system was vigesimal (20-base); symbols were given a value according to position and the concept of zero was known. Three symbols were used in writing numbers: a dot for one, a bar for five and a seashell for zero. This was the most common way of expressing mathematical computations.\n\nAnother mathematical system, more intricate and complex, was also employed. This one utilized glyphs representing assorted deities.\n\nFig. 1-1. One way of writing Mayan numbers. Each number from 1 to 12 is represented by the head of a different deity, while the glyphs for 13 through 19 are composites formed by adding part of the sign for 10 (the fleshless jaw of a skull) on the heads for 3 to 9. Some, but not all Mayan languages form the words for these numbers in just this way, with unique words for \"eleven\" and \"twelve\" but with \"three\" through \"nineteen\" combining the elements for the words \"three\" through \"nine\" with that for \"ten.\"\n\nFig. 1-2. Maya numbers. The commonest method of writing numbers features a dot for 1 and a bar for 5. For numbers greater than 19, Maya place-notation employs a stylized sign (a shell in the painted books) for 0. The place system is vigesimal, so that the value of the places increases by 20 (reading up). For time calculation, however, a special convention sets the third place equal to 360 instead of 400.", "pred_label": "__label__1", "pred_score_pos": 0.8139005303382874}
+{"content": "The geodatabase compress operation\n\nThe geodatabase compress operation removes unnecessary states and rows from the system tables that track versions and versioned edits.\n\n\nTo understand compression, you must first understand how versioning works. If you are unfamiliar with this concept, see Understanding versioning.\n\nWhat is a compress operation?\n\nThe compress operation removes the states that are no longer referenced by a version and can move rows in the delta tables to the business table. A compress operation can only be performed by the ArcSDE administrator and operates against all states in the geodatabase, regardless of the version owner.\n\nCompress operations are necessary because, as a geodatabase is edited over time, the delta tables increase in size and the number of states increases. The larger the tables and the more states, the more data ArcGIS must process every time you display or query a version. Therefore, the greatest impact on performance is not the number of versions but the amount of change contained in the delta tables for each version. As a result, versions can have different query response times.\n\nTo maintain database performance, the ArcSDE administrator must periodically run a compress operation to remove unused data.\n\nYou can use the the ArcCatalog Compress command or the Compress geoprocessing tool or Python script to compress a geodatabase. See Adding the Compress command to ArcCatalog for information on how to make the Compress command available in ArcCatalog or Compress for information on the geoprocessing tool or script.\n\nWhat happens during a compress operation?\n\nThe compress operation first scans into memory the instance's state tree configuration. Using this information, compress deletes all states that do not participate within a version's lineage. Deleting a state deletes all the rows from the delta tables that are associated with that state.\n\nThe next step the compress operation performs is to collapse any candidate lineage of states into one state. A candidate lineage is a collection of states that can be compressed into one state without affecting the logical representation for any table in a given version.\n\nThe final step, when applicable, is to move rows from the delta tables into the business tables.\n\nFor each step of the operation, database transactions are started and stopped for each table being compressed. The transaction verifies each table is consistent during each step of the process.\n\nThe compress operation can be stopped, or killed, while it is executing because the operation is designed to be transactionally consistent. Therefore, if the operation encounters an error, fails, or abruptly stops, the versioned tables being compressed are still logically correct with respect to any version's representation. One reason you might stop the compress operation is if you run it while users are connected to the geodatabase, then discover the compress is consuming a large amount of system resources. In that case, you might want to stop the compress operation and run it again when fewer or no users are connected.\n\nSince the compress transaction can be large, be sure to create enough logical logs and have enough log file space to handle the transaction.\n\nFully compressing a geodatabase\n\nIn a fully compressed geodatabase, there are no rows in the delta tables and the state tree is trimmed back to zero. Performance improvement is greatest if the geodatabase is fully compressed. To achieve this, do the following:\n\n*ArcIMS services (except ArcIMS map services) do not acquire locks on states and, therefore, would not influence the compress operation. ArcGIS clients, including ArcIMS map services, do acquire locks and, therefore, will influence the compress operation.\n\nYou can see the results of each compress operation in the COMPRESS_LOG table in the geodatabase (SDE_compress_log in SQL Server and PostgreSQL databases). You can also check the VERSIONS table (SDE_versions in SQL Server and PostgreSQL databases) to see if the state ID for the DEFAULT version has returned to zero. If it has and there are no other outstanding versions, full compression has been achieved.\n\nIt may not always be possible to reconcile, post, delete versions, and disconnect all users before a compress operation. For instance, if you are tracking history using versions or need to maintain design versions for a project, the historic and design versions remain pinned to a state within the state tree; therefore, these states will not be removed during compression of the geodatabase. You can successfully compress without doing all these steps, and you will still see some performance improvements.\n\nSee Compressing an ArcSDE geodatabase licensed under ArcGIS Server Enterprise to learn how to perform a compress operation.\n\nFrequency of compress operations\n\nThe frequency with which you need to perform a compress operation is based on the amount of editing that takes place in your geodatabase. If you have a high volume of edits, you should probably compress the geodatabase once a day. For average or low edit volumes, you should compress at least once a week.\n\n\nIt is important not to wait too long between compress operations; the greater the amount of versioned editing activity that takes place, the longer it will take to compress the geodatabase. If you do not compress the geodatabase at least once a week, compression could take several hours to complete when you do finally run it.\n\nAfter compressing a geodatabase\n\nYou should update the statistics on your geodatabase after you have run a compress operation. For information on updating statistics, see Updating statistics on a geodatabase using Analyze and the topic for your database management system (DBMS).", "pred_label": "__label__1", "pred_score_pos": 0.9992147088050842}
+{"content": "Broker Disputes\n\nMany financial and investment products are not sold directly to the public but are instead only available for purchase through brokers. Brokers are governed by agencies such as the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission and the National Association of Securities Dealers, which ensure that brokers act in their customers' interests. Disputes arise when a broker fails to meet the reasonable expectations of the consumer as supported by the law. The body of financial law that specifically governs broker disputes addresses prohibited behaviors like fraud, and allows consumers to file claims against fraudulent brokers. To learn more about the area of law dealing with broker disputes, and for advice on how to protect yourself, refer to the articles in this section.", "pred_label": "__label__1", "pred_score_pos": 0.9832969307899475}
+{"content": "\n\nYesterday, U.S. Department of Energy Secretary Steven Chu announced that he would be increasing the number of buildings with white roofs for DOE and other buildings belonging to the government. This is part of the promise by the Federal government to reduce their emissions by 28 percent by 2020. White roofs are so effective because they reflect the sun's rays rather than absorbing them, thus cooling the inside of the house. In cities, it can also help cut down on the urban heat island effect. This effect occurs in cities where the landscape is dominated by dark roofs and pavement, and it creates a rise in temperature comparative to the surrounding, non-city landscape. If the transition was made to more and more white roofs our cooling costs could be reduced tremendously. The DOE itself has claimed to have already installed more than two million square feet of white roofs, claiming a savings of $500,000 a year in energy consumption. To take this a step further, in the video below, Steven Chu explains how if we were to retrofit all existing buildings with white roofs, and replace dark paving materials with light, it would be comparable to removing all automobiles on the planet for 11 years in terms of carbon emissions. Check it out:", "pred_label": "__label__1", "pred_score_pos": 0.9831538200378418}
+{"content": "Curious Chrome: Cross Platform Extension Behaviors\n\nChrome is a curious browser. It’s extremely popular, cross platform, and has an incredible cadence for updates. I typically use Chrome when I am developing for it. I don’t mean a developer that uses Chrome, I mean a developer that develops for Chrome.\n\nChrome supports Browser Extensions. I’ve briefly discussed them in the past, and because they are pure HTML, JavaScript, and CSS they are readily cross platform, too. The extension requires extra coding whether you are writing it for Windows or OSX.\n\nThere’s one particular case where I wasn’t seeing a consistent behavior between Windows and OSX, and that has to do with the lifecycle of the application. To catch those up to the details of OSX, closing the window does not mean you closed the application. You just closed the last open window. The application is still running, it still receives events, and it can still do work.\n\nWindows Chrome is a bit different. When you close the last window, the process is gone: kaput. This small difference in application lifecycle is important when dealing with the event. With the Windows lifecycle of Chrome, its impossible to react to the last window being closed because the process, and all extensions, are being unloaded too.\n\nOn a Mac, this behavior doesn’t exist. The window just closed, but the extension is still able to respond to that event.\n\nThe only way I was able to get this to work on Windows was to give my application “background” permission in the manifest:\n\n\t\"optional_permissions\": [\"background\"]\n\nFortunately, I could make this permission optional since the extension didn’t need it full time, only if certain features were enabled.\n\nWith this setting on, Chrome correctly fires off the onRemoved event, even if it is the last window open on Windows.", "pred_label": "__label__1", "pred_score_pos": 0.5283704996109009}
+{"content": "Select text and it is translated.\nThis area is result which is translated word.\n\n\nConrad II, Holy Roman Emperor\n\n14th century miniature of Conrad II.\n\nConrad II (c. 990June 4, 1039) was the son of a mid-level nobleman in Franconia, Count Henry of Speyer and Adelaide of Alsace, who inherited the titles of count of Speyer and of Worms as an infant when Henry died at age twenty. As he matured he came to be well known beyond his power base in Worms and Speyer, so when the Saxon line died off and the elected monarchy for the German realm stood vacant, he was elected King of Germany in 1024 at the respectably old age of thirty-four years and crowned emperor of the Holy Roman Empire on March 26, 1027, becoming the first of four kings and emperors of the Salian Dynasty.\n\n\nEarly life\n\nSalian family tree\n\nDuring his reign, he proved that the German monarchy had become a viable institution. Survival of the monarchy was no longer dependent on contracts between sovereign and territorial nobles.\n\nThe father of Conrad II, Henry, Count of Speyer was a grandson of Luitgard, a daughter of the great Emperor Otto I who had married the Salian Duke Conrad the Red of Lorraine.\n\nDespite his bloodline in that age when people died young and younger, the orphaned Conrad grew up poor by the standards of the nobility and was raised by the bishop of Worms.\n\nHe was reputed to be prudent and firm out of consciousness of deprivation. In 1016, he married Gisela of Swabia, a widowed duchess. Both parties claimed descent from Charles the Great (Charlemagne) and were thus distantly related.\n\nStrict canonists took exception to the marriage, and Emperor Henry II used this to force Conrad into temporary exile.\n\nThey became reconciled, and upon Henry's death in 1024, Conrad appeared as a candidate before the electoral assembly of princes at Kamba in the Rhineland. He was elected by the majority and was crowned king in Mainz on September 8, 1024, arguably in the prime of life. It was equally obvious that the Saxon line of Emperors was at an end, and all of Europe speculated and maneuvered to influence the Prince-electors in unseemly disrespect for the aging Henry II\n\nThe Italian bishops paid homage at Conrad's court at Konstanz in June 1025, but lay princes sought to elect William V of Aquitaine, as king instead. However early in 1026 Conrad went to Milan, where Ariberto, archbishop of Milan, crowned him king of Italy. After overcoming some opposition of the towns Conrad reached Rome, where Pope John XIX crowned him emperor on Easter, 1027.\n\n\nHe formally confirmed the popular legal traditions of Saxony and issued new constitutions for Lombardy. In 1028 at Aachen he had his son Henry elected and anointed king of Germany. Henry married Gunhilda of Denmark, daughter of King Canute the Great of England, Denmark and Norway by Emma of Normandy. This was an arrangement that Conrad had made many years prior, when he gave Canute the Great parts of northern Germany to administer[citation needed]. Henry, the later Emperor Henry III, became chief counselor of his father.\n\nConrad campaigned against Poland in 1028 and forced Mieszko II, son and heir of Boleslaus I, to make peace and return land that Boleslaw I had conquered from the Empire during his father's reign. At the death of Henry II the bold and rebellious Duke of Poland Mieszko II had tried to throw off vassalage, but then submitted and swore to be Emperor Conrad's faithful vassal. Mieszko II quit being self-anointed king and returned to being duke of Poland.\n\nIn 1029 some Bavarian border conflicts undermined the good relations with Stephen I of Hungary. One year later Conrad launched a campaign against Hungary. The Hungarians successfully used the scorched earth tactics and the emperor had to withdraw with his army. Finally the Hungarian army forced him to surrender at Vienna. After his defeat Conrad was obliged to cede some border territory to Hungary.\n\nWhen Rudolph III, King of Burgundy died on February 2, 1032, he bequeathed his kingdom, which combined two earlier kingdoms of Burgundy, to Conrad. Despite some opposition, the Burgundian and Provencal nobles paid homage to Conrad in Zürich in 1034. This kingdom of Burgundy, which under Conrad's successors would become known as the Kingdom of Arles, corresponded to most of the southeastern quarter of modern France and included western Switzerland, the Franche-Comté and Dauphiné. It did not include the smaller Duchy of Burgundy to the north, ruled by a cadet branch of the Capetian King of France. (Piecemeal over the next centuries most of the former Kingdom of Arles was incorporated into France - but King of Arles remained one of the Holy Roman Emperor's subsidiary titles until the dissolution of the Empire in 1806.)\n\nConrad upheld the rights of the valvassores (knights and burghers of the cities) of Italy against Archbishop Aribert of Milan and the local nobles. The nobles as vassal lords and the bishop had conspired to rescind rights from the burghers. With skillful diplomacy and luck Conrad restored order.\n\nLast years\n\nThe grave of Conrad II, Holy Roman Emperor at the crypt of the cathedral of Speyer, Germany\n\nIn 1038, Prince Guaimar IV of Salerno requested his adjudication in a dispute over Capua with its Prince Pandulf, whom Conrad had released from imprisonment in 1024, immediately after his coronation. Hearing that Michael IV the Paphlagonian of the Byzantine Empire had received the same request, Conrad went to Southern Italy, to Salerno and Aversa.\n\nHe appointed Richer, from Germany, as abbot of Monte Cassino, the abbot Theobald being imprisoned by Pandulf. At Troia, he ordered Pandulf to restore stolen property to Monte Cassino. Pandulf sent his wife and son to ask for peace, giving 300 lb of gold and a son and daughter as hostages. The emperor accepted Pandulf's offer, but the hostage escaped and Pandulf holed up in his outlying castle of Sant'Agata dei Goti. Conrad besieged and took Capua and gave it to Guaimar with the title of Prince. He also recognised Aversa as a county of Salerno under Ranulf Drengot, the Norman adventurer. Pandulf, meanwhile, fled to Constantinople. Conrad thus left the Mezzogiorno firmly in Guaimar's hands and loyal, for once, to the Holy Roman Empire.\n\nDuring the return trip to Germany an epidemic broke out among the troops. Conrad's daughter-in-law and stepson died. Conrad himself returned safely and held several important courts in Solothurn, Strasbourg and in Goslar. His son Henry was invested with the kingdom of Burgundy.\n\nA year later in 1039 Conrad fell ill and died in Utrecht.\n\nA biography of Conrad II in chronicle form, Gesta Chuonradi II imperatoris, was written by his chaplain Wipo of Burgundy, and presented to Henry III in 1046, not long after the latter was crowned.\n\nDepictions of Conrad II\n\nThe Basilica of Aquileia (northern Italy) contains an apse fresco (c. 1031) showing emperor Conrad II, his wife Gisela of Swabia and Patriarch Poppone of Aquileia.\n\nSee also\n\n\nRegnal titles Preceded by\nHenry IIKing of Germany\n10241039Succeeded by\nHenry IIIHoly Roman Emperor\n1027–1039 King of Italy\nv • d • eEmperors of the Holy Roman EmpireCarolingian EmpireCharles I · Louis I · Lothair I · Louis II · Charles II · Charles III · Guy · Lambert · Arnulf · Louis III · BerengarHoly Roman EmpireOtto I · Otto II · Otto III · Henry II · Conrad II · Henry III · Henry IV · Henry V · Lothair II · Frederick I · Henry VI · Otto IV · Frederick II · Henry VII · Louis IV · Charles IV · Sigismund · Frederick III · Maximilian I · Charles V · Ferdinand I · Maximilian II · Rudolph II · Matthias · Ferdinand II · Ferdinand III · Leopold I · Joseph I · Charles VI · Charles VII · Francis I · Joseph II · Leopold II · Francis II v • d • eMonarchs of GermanyCarolingians: Louis II · Carloman · Louis III · Charles III · Arnulf · Louis the Child — Conradines: Conrad I — Ottonians: Henry I · Otto I · Otto II · Otto III · Henry II — Salians: Conrad II · Henry III · Henry IV · Henry V — Supplinburger: Lothair III — Hohenstaufen: Conrad III · Frederick I · Henry VI · Philip — Welf: Otto IV; Hohenstaufen: Frederick II · Conrad IV — Habsburg: Rudolf I — Nassau: Adolf — Habsburg: Albert I — Luxemburg: Henry VII — Wittelsbach: Louis IV — Luxemburg: Charles IV · Wenceslaus — Wittelsbach: Rupert — Luxemburg: Sigismund — Habsburg: Albert II · Frederick III · Maximilian I · Charles V · Ferdinand I · Maximilian II · Rudolph II · Matthias · Ferdinand II · Ferdinand III · Leopold I · Joseph I · Charles VI — Wittelsbach: Charles VII — Lorraine: Francis I — Habsburg-Lorraine: Joseph II · Leopold II · Francis II — Hohenzollern: William I · Frederick III · William II — Family tree Categories: Holy Roman Emperors | German kings | Kings of Burgundy | Dukes of Carinthia | Salian Dynasty | 990 births | 1039 deathsHidden categories: All articles with unsourced statements | Articles with unsourced statements since April 2008\n\nRelated word on this page\n\nRelated Shopping on this page", "pred_label": "__label__1", "pred_score_pos": 1.0000072717666626}
+{"content": "Home      Discussion      Topics      Dictionary      Almanac\nSignup       Login\nAlbert Gleizes\n\nAlbert Gleizes\n\nAsk a question about 'Albert Gleizes'\nStart a new discussion about 'Albert Gleizes'\nAnswer questions from other users\nFull Discussion Forum\nAlbert Gleizes was a French painter. Born Albert Léon Gleizes and raised in Paris, he was the son of a fabric designer who ran a large industrial design workshop. He was also the nephew of Léon Comerre\nLéon Comerre\nLéon François Comerre was a French academic painter, famous for his portraits of beautiful women.-Life:Comerre was born in Trélon, in the Département du Nord, the son of a schoolteacher. He moved to Lille with his family in 1853...\n\n, a successful portrait painter who won the 1875 Prix de Rome\nPrix de Rome\nThe Prix de Rome was a scholarship for arts students, principally of painting, sculpture, and architecture. It was created, initially for painters and sculptors, in 1663 in France during the reign of Louis XIV. It was an annual bursary for promising artists having proved their talents by...\n\n\nThe young Albert Gleizes did not like school and often skipped classes to idle away the time writing poetry and wandering through the nearby Montmartre cemetery. Finally, after completing his secondary schooling, Gleizes spent four years in the French army then began pursuing a career as a painter, primarily doing landscapes. Initially influenced by the Impressionists\nImpressionism was a 19th-century art movement that originated with a group of Paris-based artists whose independent exhibitions brought them to prominence during the 1870s and 1880s...\n\n, he was only twenty-one years of age when his work titled La Seine à Asnières was exhibited at the Société Nationale des Beaux-Arts in 1902.\n\nIn 1907 Gleizes and some of his friends pursued the idea of creating the Abbaye de Créteil\nAbbaye de Créteil\nThe Abbaye de Créteil or Abbaye group was an utopian, artitstic and literary community founded in 1907...\n\n, a self-supporting community of artists which would allow them to develop their art free of any commercial concerns. For nearly a year, at a large house in Créteil\n-Health:As of 1 January 2006, 27 pharmacies, about 60 dentists, about 60 general practitioners, 10 pediatricians, and a half-dozen ophthalmologists and dermatologists constitute the general medical staff of the city.Health facilities include:...\n\n, Gleizes along with other painters, poets, musicians and writers, gathered to create. A lack of income forced them to give up their cherished Abbaye de Créteil in early 1908 and Gleizes moved temporarily into La Ruche\nLa Ruche\nLa Ruche is an artist's residence at the Paris South-Western outskirts.Located in the \"Passage Dantzig,\" in the 15th arrondissement of Paris, La Ruche was an old three-storey circular structure that got its name because it looked more like a large beehive than any dwelling for humans...\n\n, the artist commune in the Montparnasse Quarter of Paris.\n\nGleizes' evolving cubism\n\n saw him exhibit at the Salon des Indépendants in Paris in 1911 in a room together with Robert Delaunay\nRobert Delaunay\n\n, Jean Metzinger\nJean Metzinger\nJean Metzinger was a French painter.Metzinger was born in Nantes, France. Initially he was influenced by Fauvism and Impressionism, but from 1908 he was associated with Cubism. Metzinger was a member of the Section d'Or group of artists...\n\n, Henri le Fauconnier\nHenri Le Fauconnier\nHenri Victor Gabriel Le Fauconnier was a French cubist painter born in Hesdin. He studied art in Paris at the Academie Julian and later exhibited with the Puteaux Group.He died in Paris....\n\n and Fernand Léger\nFernand Léger\nJoseph Fernand Henri Léger was a French painter, sculptor, and filmmaker. In his early works he created a personal form of Cubism which he gradually modified into a more figurative, populist style...\n\n. The result was a public scandal which brought Cubism for the first time to the attention of the general public (Picasso and Braque were exhibiting in a private gallery selling to a small circle of connoisseurs). Gleizes then collaborated with Jean Metzinger to produce a theoretical essay about cubism - Du \"Cubisme\" - that was published in 1912. In the fall of that year, he joined the Puteaux Group which met in the studio of Jacques Villon\nJacques Villon\nJacques Villon was a French cubist painter and printmaker.-Early life:Born Gaston Emile Duchamp in Damville, Eure, in the Haute-Normandie region of France, he came from a prosperous and artistically inclined family...\n\n (Gaston Duchamp) and also included Villon's brothers, Raymond Duchamp-Villon\nRaymond Duchamp-Villon\nRaymond Duchamp-Villon was a French sculptor.Duchamp-Villon was born Pierre-Maurice-Raymond Duchamp in Damville, Eure, in the Haute-Normandie region of France, the second son of Eugene and Lucie Duchamp. Of the six Duchamp children, four would become successful artists...\n\n and Marcel Duchamp\nMarcel Duchamp\nMarcel Duchamp was a French artist whose work is most often associated with the Dadaist and Surrealist movements. Considered by some to be one of the most important artists of the 20th century, Duchamp's output influenced the development of post-World War I Western art...\n\n. In February 1913, Gleizes and other artists introduced the new style of painting to an American audience at the Armory Show in New York City\nNew York City\n\n\nWith the outbreak of World War I\nWorld War I\n\n, Albert Gleizes re-enlisted in the French army. He was put in charge of organizing entertainment for the troops and as a result was approached by Jean Cocteau\nJean Cocteau\nJean Maurice Eugène Clément Cocteau was a French poet, novelist, dramatist, designer, playwright, artist and filmmaker. His circle of associates, friends and lovers included Kenneth Anger, Pablo Picasso, Jean Hugo, Jean Marais, Henri Bernstein, Marlene Dietrich, Coco Chanel, Erik Satie, María...\n\n to design the set and costumes for the William Shakespeare\nWilliam Shakespeare\n\n play, A Midsummer Night's Dream\nA Midsummer Night's Dream\nA Midsummer Night's Dream is a play that was written by William Shakespeare. It is believed to have been written between 1590 and 1596. It portrays the events surrounding the marriage of the Duke of Athens, Theseus, and the Queen of the Amazons, Hippolyta...\n\n\nDischarged from the military in the fall of 1915, Gleizes and his new wife, Juliette Roche, the daughter of a prominent and wealthy French statesman, moved to New York City. From there, the couple sailed to Barcelona where they were joined by Marie Laurencin\nMarie Laurencin\nMarie Laurencin was a French painter and printmaker. -Biography:Laurencin was born in Paris, where she was raised by her mother and lived much of her life. At 18, she studied porcelain painting in Sèvres...\n\n plus Francis Picabia\nFrancis Picabia\nFrancis Picabia was a French painter, poet, and typographist, associated with both the Dada and Surrealist art movements.- Early life :...\n\n and his wife. The group spent the summer painting at the resort area of Tossa del Mar and in December Gleizes had the first solo exhibition of his works at the Galeries Dalmau in Barcelona. Returning to New York city, Gleizes began writing poetic sketches in verse and in prose. Traveling to Bermuda\nBermuda is a British overseas territory in the North Atlantic Ocean. Located off the east coast of the United States, its nearest landmass is Cape Hatteras, North Carolina, about to the west-northwest. It is about south of Halifax, Nova Scotia, Canada, and northeast of Miami, Florida...\n\n, he painted a number of landscapes but when the war in Europe ended he returned to France where his career evolved more towards teaching through writing and he became involved with the committee of the Unions Intellectuelles Françaises. In 1927, still dreaming of the communal days at the Abbaye de Créteil, he founded an artist's colony at a rented house called the Moly-Sabata in Sablons\nSablons may refer to the following communes in France:*Sablons, Gironde, in the Gironde département*Sablons, Isère, in the Isère département...\n\n near his wife's family home in Serrières in the Ardèche\nArdèche is a department in south-central France named after the Ardèche River.- History :The area has been inhabited by humans at least since the Upper Paleolithic, as attested by the famous cave paintings at Chauvet Pont d'Arc. The plateau of the Ardeche River has extensive standing stones ,...\n\n département in the Rhône Valley.\n\nIn 1931, Gleizes was part of the committee of Abstraction-Création\nAbstraction-Création was a loose association of artists formed in Paris in 1931 to counteract the influence of the Surrealist group led by André Breton....\n\n that acted as a forum for international non-representational art\nAbstract art\nAbstract art uses a visual language of form, color and line to create a composition which may exist with a degree of independence from visual references in the world. Western art had been, from the Renaissance up to the middle of the 19th century, underpinned by the logic of perspective and an...\n\n. By this time, his work reflected the strengthening of his religious convictions and his 1932 book, La Forme et l’histoire examines Celt\n\nic, Romanesque\nRomanesque art\nRomanesque art refers to the art of Western Europe from approximately 1000 AD to the rise of the Gothic style in the 13th century, or later, depending on region. The preceding period is increasingly known as the Pre-Romanesque...\n\n, and Oriental art. On tour in Poland\n\n and Germany\n\n, he gave lectures titled Art et Religion, Art et Production and Art et Science and wrote a book on Robert Delaunay\nRobert Delaunay\n\n but it was never published. In 1937, Gleizes was hired to paint murals for the Exposition Internationale des Arts et Techniques dans la Vie Moderne\nThe Exposition Internationale des Arts et Techniques dans la Vie Moderne was held from May 25 to November 25, 1937 in Paris, France...\n\n at the Paris World’s Fair. He collaborated with Delaunay in the Pavillon de l'Air and with Léopold Survage\nLéopold Survage\nLéopold Survage was an important French painter of Russian-Danish-Finnish descent born in Vilmanstrand, Finland .-Biography:At a young age, Survage was...\n\n and Fernand Léger\nFernand Léger\n\n for the Pavillon de l'Union des Artistes Modernes. At the end of 1938, Gleizes volunteered to participate in the free seminars and discussion groups for young painters set up by Robert Delaunay at his Paris studio.\n\nIn the late 1930s, the wealthy American art connoisseur Peggy Guggenheim\nPeggy Guggenheim\nMarguerite \"Peggy\" Guggenheim was an American art collector. Born to a wealthy New York City family, she was the daughter of Benjamin Guggenheim, who went down with the Titanic in 1912 and the niece of Solomon R. Guggenheim, who would establish the Solomon R...\n\n purchased a great deal of the new art in Paris including works by Albert Gleizes. She brought these works to the United States which today form part of the Peggy Guggenheim Collection\nPeggy Guggenheim Collection\nThe Peggy Guggenheim Collection is an art museum on the Grand Canal in Venice, Italy. It is one of several museums of the Solomon R. Guggenheim Foundation....\n\n. During World War II\nWorld War II\n\n, Gleizes and his wife remained in France under the German occupation. His religious convictions deepened and at war's end he was hailed by some as having laid out the principles for a renewal of religious art. In 1948, Gleizes accepted an offer from a publisher in Casablanca\nCasablanca is a city in western Morocco, located on the Atlantic Ocean. It is the capital of the Grand Casablanca region.Casablanca is Morocco's largest city as well as its chief port. It is also the biggest city in the Maghreb. The 2004 census recorded a population of 2,949,805 in the prefecture...\n\n to create a series of etchings illustrating the Pensées sur l'Homme et Dieu of Blaise Pascal\nBlaise Pascal\nBlaise Pascal , was a French mathematician, physicist, inventor, writer and Catholic philosopher. He was a child prodigy who was educated by his father, a tax collector in Rouen...\n\n. In 1951, he was made a jury member for the Prix de Rome and the government of France awarded him the Legion of Honor. In 1952, he did his last major work, a fresco titled Eucharist that he painted for a Jesuit\nSociety of Jesus\nThe Society of Jesus is a Catholic male religious order that follows the teachings of the Catholic Church. The members are called Jesuits, and are also known colloquially as \"God's Army\" and as \"The Company,\" these being references to founder Ignatius of Loyola's military background and a...\n\n chapel in Chantilly\nChantilly, Oise\nChantilly is a small city in northern France. It is designated municipally as a commune in the department of Oise.It is in the metropolitan area of Paris 38.4 km...\n\n\nAlbert Gleizes died in Avignon\nAvignon is a French commune in southeastern France in the départment of the Vaucluse bordered by the left bank of the Rhône river. Of the 94,787 inhabitants of the city on 1 January 2010, 12 000 live in the ancient town centre surrounded by its medieval ramparts.Often referred to as the...\n\n in the Vaucluse\nThe Vaucluse is a department in the southeast of France, named after the famous spring, the Fontaine-de-Vaucluse.- History :Vaucluse was created on 12 August 1793 out of parts of the departments of Bouches-du-Rhône, Drôme, and Basses-Alpes...\n\n département on 23 June 1953 and was interred in his wife's family mausoleum in the cemetery at Serrières.\n\nExternal Sources\n\n  • Albert Gleizes, illustrated article in French from the website of the Association des Amis de Jean Chevalier. Chevalier, a painter based in Lyon, was closely associated with Gleizes from the late 1930s until Gleizes's death in 1953.\n  • Albert Gleizes, entry in Wikipédia (translated 24 Oct 2007)\n  • Examples of the work of Gleizes and his pupils, together with a range of articles and translations of his writings can be found at the Form and History section of Peter Brooke's website\n  • Further information, in French and English, can be found at the website of the Fondation Albert Gleizes, copyright holders of Gleizes's work.", "pred_label": "__label__1", "pred_score_pos": 0.8606587648391724}
+{"content": "\n\nstart date (MM-DD-YYYY):\n -  - \nend date (MM-DD-YYYY):\n -  - \n\nWhat to wear\n\nThink of your clothing as the first line of defense against hypothermia.\n\nA layered clothing system is the best choice for a variety of weather conditions, but not just any material will do. In Central Oregon, the adage is “cotton kills” because the fibers get saturated with....\n\nRead complete article\n", "pred_label": "__label__1", "pred_score_pos": 0.9993756413459778}
+{"content": "Code optimization (for a competition)\n\nHi, can we optimize more this code?\n\nmain(){int n,i;scanf(\"%i\",&n);while(n--){scanf(\"%i\",&i);printf(\"%d\\n\",(i+1)*i/2);}}\n\nWhat kind of optimization are you after? It looks like you are trying to write the program in as few characters as possible but that will not affect the run-time performance.\nYes, I know. The code must be just as short as possible and,\nevidently, works.\nWrite it in J\nTopic archived. No new replies allowed.", "pred_label": "__label__1", "pred_score_pos": 0.8315515518188477}
+{"content": "Smart questions for analyzing virtualization-cloud products\n\nThere are many security issues to consider when selecting virtualization cloud products for your organization. Gregory Machler suggest questions to ask when you're examining your choices\n\nBy Gregory Machler\n\nFebruary 21, 2011CSO\n\nThere are a variety of popular virtualization-cloud-infrastructure products that enable the virtualization of multiple applications on one server. With so many to consider, and so many questions to ask, let's start with this: What type of infrastructure virtualization product do you look for when you have security in mind?\n\nYou want one that has clean virtual machine integration (Infrastructure as a Service) with host intrusion detection software, anti-virus protection and malware protection. Each virtual machine supports the latest protection measures that are normally addressed within servers (Platform as a Service). What security measures should be deployed within the server that runs the supports the multiple virtual machines within its kernel or operating system? This server should execute HIDS (Host Intrusion Detection System), anti-virus protection, and server monitoring software to monitor its uptime and health.\n\nSee also: Security for large-company cloud providers\n\nWhat security-related network features do you want? It would be beneficial to have a network virtualization management layer that integrates within the infrastructure management layer. This network management layer addresses three areas. First, the virtual machines need to support web application load balancing over multiple virtual machines to support high bandwidth web traffic. Secondly, like the quality of service (QoS) functions that exist when requesting bandwidth over the internet backbone, it is beneficial to have allocations of bandwidth for each application running on a virtual machine. Applications split up the network bandwidth dedicated to a given server. Thirdly, the bandwidth rules must be tethered to specific virtual machines even when the virtual machines migrate from one server to another. This bandwidth migration is one portion of the puzzle that is necessary for seamless disaster recovery.\n\nWhat about storage security concerns? First it would be beneficial to have a storage virtualization management layer that integrates with the infrastructure management layer. This management layer addresses three areas. The first one is the mapping of storage capacity to a specific virtual machine. If a virtual machine nears storage capacity limits, it can allocate more capacity by linking one allocation of cloud storage to the next allocation of cloud storage (like a linked list in software) so that storage can grow as the application needs it.\n\nSecondly, the storage virtualization layer sets the policy for a given application\u0019s storage replication, both remote (over 200 miles) and/or local distances. This is a critical component of disaster recovery. Thirdly, the storage virtualization layer defines the policy that gives direction to the virtual machine, helping it reconnect to the allocated cloud storage chain, when migrating to another server locally or to a server in another city.", "pred_label": "__label__1", "pred_score_pos": 0.892140805721283}
+{"content": "What is a Receivership?\n\nA receivership is created by a court at the request of the United States Securities and Exchange Commission (the “SEC”) in a securities fraud case involving a sufficiently large number of investors and a sufficiently large enough amount of money.   The SEC typically will ask the court to create a receivership and to appoint a receiver. \n\nA receiver is an individual who is charged with marshalling the assets of the fraud and holding them in trust for the SEC to distribute them to aggrieved investors once all of the remaining assets are recovered. \n\nReceiverships often are created in the context of a Ponzi scheme, which is a form of investment fraud where the money of new investors is used to pay earlier investors, making the investment opportunity seem attractive and viable.  Ponzi schemes are always unstable and inevitably collapse and the SEC may bring an emergency action to freeze the assets of the Ponzi scheme before it collapses to prevent the assets from disappearing and to ensure proper distribution of the remaining assets.\n\nThe Claims Process\n\nIn order to receive a distribution from the receivership, defrauded investors typically must submit a claim with the receiver.  \n\nClaims forms generally ask for information about the investment in the fraud such as the date and amount of the investment(s) along with any supporting documentation about such investments.\n\nThere is no standard receivership claim form as the claim form is tailored to the circumstances of each case. \n\nReceivers often put deadlines on claim submission to ensure that claims are submitted in a timely manner.\n\nDistribution of Receivership Assets\n\nOnce the receiver has marshaled the assets from the investment fraud and determined the amount of claims submitted by investors, a plan of distribution is filed with the court. \n\nThe plan of distribution often will identify the individuals who will receive money from the receivership as well as the amount they are to receive.\n\nAfter the plan of distribution is approved by the court, the assets of the receivership are distributed to investors who have filed claims, and the receivership is dissolved.\nAttorney Advertising\n\nThis Website may be considered advertising under the rules of some states. To the extent that any information contained within this Website constitutes a \"testimonial\" under professional rules of conduct, the testimonial does not constitute a guarantee, warranty, or prediction regarding the outcome of any legal matter. Prior results described on this site cannot and do not guarantee or predict a similar outcome with respect to any future matter that we or any lawyer may be retained to handle. This Website is not intended as, and does not represent, legal advice. No one should act or rely on any information in this site without first seeking professional legal counsel.", "pred_label": "__label__1", "pred_score_pos": 0.9928705096244812}
+{"content": "Closing in\n\nThe book on Patan Hospital is about to be finished. I’m fortunate to have some great people supporting me. Now all the stories have been proofread several times and I’m closing in on a finished product. Hopefully I’ll get it printed in a couple of months.\n\nAttacked by a rare syndrome\n\n“It hurts. My leg. Where is mum?”\n\nIt’s not easy for Rikit Pal to express himself. He cannot move his legs or arms anymore. When he opens his mouth, only air comes out. Strangers in green clothes lift him and put tubes into his nostrils. The hospital room is so bright and scary. Nothing reminds Rikit of life in his village so far away in the Terai. He looks up from his bed with frightened eyes. Only a week ago Rikit was out playing with his friends. That evening he complained that his knees hurt. The next day he could not lift his hands, and the following day he was not able to walk. His parents brought him to the closest hospital, but nothing could be done there. By the time they got him on a bus to Kathmandu, he was totally paralyzed. At Patan Hospital, Rikit was immediately admitted to the new Pediatric intensive care unit (PICU). “Will he ever be better?” asks his mother Dhupkali Pal. “We have been terrified for him. I wonder if we have done anything wrong to upset the gods.”\n\nGuillain–Barré syndrome is a rare disorder affecting the peripheral nervous system. Less than 2 people in 100,000 get the syndrome annually. By some unknown trigger, the nerves that control the body’s muscles are damaged, causing severe weakness beginning in the legs. This can spread up to involve the entire body, and in severe cases the patient will not even be able to breathe on his own. Rikit had such a case and was put on a mechanical ventilator.\n\n“Intensive care facilities are scarce and mostly unaffordable in our part of the world. The hospital charity fund is limited, but we would surely like to spend it on patients like Rikit where a full recovery can be expected. Though it may take several weeks to months, no mental handicap or intellectual deficit will occur, as the disease does not affect the brain. However, without the intensive care services patients like Rikit would die gasping for breath,” says pediatrician Dr. Shrijana Shrestha.\n\n“I’m worried for my son, but not so much for the money. We are poor, but I can sell my ornaments and we can borrow some money. His health is the most important,” says his mother. But she is probably not aware that the hospital bill after several weeks in the PICU already exceeds $1,000. They have paid about $200 in advance, but there is no way they will be able to pay the final bill. Along with so many other patients, they will rely on the hospital’s Charity Fund, but the need far outweighs the limited funds available.\n\nMost people get well from the Guillain–Barré syndrome if they just get the support they need. It may take a few weeks to several months, but Rikit will get his strength back again.\n\nSince 1981, Patan Hospital has been a beating heart in the Kathmandu valley, meeting the challenges of life in Nepal with compassion and care. It has a strong reputation for clinical excellence and a well-established ethos of service to the poor and disadvantaged. With a total budget of US$6 million, the hospital’s statistics are impressive. It would not be possible without the committed doctors and staff who are making a difference in people’s lives every day.\n\nLife does not always turn out as planned. Too many dreams are crushed in poverty, underemployment, and the realities of life in Kathmandu. But inside the doors of Patan Hospital, no one is turned away because of money. It’s a tough mission in one of the world’s poorest countries.", "pred_label": "__label__1", "pred_score_pos": 0.8235301971435547}
+{"content": "Red-eyed Tree Frog (Agalychnis callidryas) mating pair\n\nphoto by brian.gratwicke on Flickr\n\nRed-eyed Tree Frog (Agalychnis callidryas) mating pair — Fotopedia\nno description yet\nWikipedia Article\nSee encyclopedia photos — \nLitoria chloris\n\nLitoria chloris, also commonly known as the red-eyed tree frog or orange-eyed tree frog, is a species of tree frog native to eastern Australia; ranging from north of Sydney to Proserpine in mid-northern Queensland.\n\nSee encyclopedia photos — \nTree frog\n\nA tree frog is any frog that spends a major portion of its lifespan in trees, known as an arboreal state. Several lineages of frogs among the Neobatrachia have given rise to tree frogs, even though they are not closely related to each other.\n\nMany millions of years of convergent evolution have resulted in almost identical morphology and ecologies. In fact, they are so similar as regards their ecological niche that in one biome where one group of tree frogs occurs, the other is almost always absent. The last common ancestor of some such tree frog groups lived long before the extinction of the dinosaurs.[citation needed]\n\nSee encyclopedia photos — \n\n\nThe body plan of an adult frog is generally characterized by a stout body, protruding eyes, cleft tongue, limbs folded underneath and the absence of a tail. Besides living in fresh water and on dry land, the adults of some species are adapted for living underground or in trees. The skin of the frog is glandular, with secretions ranging from distasteful to toxic. Warty species of frog tend to be called toads. Frog warts are elevations in the skin where glandular toxins tend to concentrate. The distinction between frogs and toads is based on informal naming conventions concentrating on the warts rather than taxonomy or evolutionary history; some toads are more closely related to frogs than other toads. Frogs' skins vary in colour from well-camouflaged dappled brown, grey and green to vivid patterns of bright red or yellow and black to advertise toxicity and warn off predators.\n\nSee encyclopedia photos — \n\nThe Lissamphibia (Greek λισσός, lissos, \"smooth\" + ἀμφí, amphi, \"both\" + βíος, bios, \"life\") are a subclass of animals that includes all recent amphibians. For several decades, this name has been used for a group that includes all extant amphibians, but excludes all the main groups of Paleozoic tetrapods, such as Temnospondyli, Lepospondyli, Embolomeri, and Seymouriamorpha. Some authors hold that Lissamphibia is a clade, that the subclass consists of all the descendants of an ancestral lissamphibian, but others hold that frogs and salamanders derive from temnospondyls, whereas caecilians derive from lepospondyls, so Lissamphibia is polyphyletic.\n\nLiving amphibians fall into one of three orders: the Anura (frogs and toads), the Caudata or Urodela (salamanders and newts), and the Gymnophiona or Apoda (the limbless caecilians). An extinct group, the family Albanerpetontidae in the order Allocaudata, was moderately successful, spanning 160 million years from the Middle Jurassic to the Early Pliocene, an interval that ended 3.6 million years ago.\n\nSee encyclopedia photos — \n\nAgalychnis is a genus of tree frogs native to forests in Mexico, Central America and northwestern South America.\n\nEight species were placed within the Agalychnis genus, but a recent major revision of the Hylidae family [1] moved two species to the newly created genus Cruziohyla, leaving six species in this genus:\n\nBlue-sided leaf frog, Agalychnis annae (Duellman, 1963) Red-eyed tree frog, Agalychnis callidryas (Cope, 1862) Pink-sided leaf frog, Agalychnis litodryas (Duellman and Trueb, 1967) Morelet's tree frog, Agalychnis moreletii (Duméril, 1853) Misfit leaf frog, Agalychnis saltator (Taylor, 1955) Gliding leaf frog, Agalychnis spurrelli (Boulenger, 1913)\n\nData related to Agalychnis at Wikispecies Media related to Agalychnis at Wikimedia Commons", "pred_label": "__label__1", "pred_score_pos": 0.5792080163955688}
+{"content": "Jura-Capresso Launches Special-Order Program\n\n\nCLOSTER, N.J.–Jura-Capresso has created a special-order program for retailers, permitting them to offer more choices to shoppers without increasing their inventories.\nThe company provides a binder to retailers containing images and descriptions for 27 Jura-Capresso SKUs, including automatic coffee centers and accessories, espresso machines, coffeemakers, grinders and other kitchen electrics. Retailers that stock some of the products can thus sell all of them. A scannable UPC code is provided for each item, for those retailers that have UPC code scanning capability.\nAlso as part of the program, Jura-Capresso will drop-ship special orders directly to the consumer. The binder also includes reference material on espresso-based drinks.", "pred_label": "__label__1", "pred_score_pos": 0.532218337059021}
+{"content": "Special Education\nLanguagesA-Z IndexPrinter Friendly Image\n\n  Special Education\n\nGuidance for Families about Special Education Services\nIndependent Educational Evaluations (IEEs)\n\nIf you disagree with the results of a district evaluation, you may request an Independent educational evaluation (IEE). An IEE is an evaluation conducted by a qualified examiner who is not employed by the district responsible for the education of your child. Public expense means that the district either pays for the full cost of the evaluation or ensures that the evaluation is otherwise provided at no cost to you. You are only entitled to one IEE of your child at public expense each time the district conducts an evaluation of your child with which you disagree. If you request information about an IEE, the district must provide you with information about where you may obtain an IEE and what criteria the examiner you choose needs to meet (the same criteria the district sets for their own examiner). The district should also provide you with guidance about how far you may travel to obtain your IEE. \n\nWhile a request for an IEE is not required to be in writing, this is encouraged as it can serve as documentation of your request. Districts must either grant or deny your request within 15 calendar days of receiving the request. \n\n  1. If your IEE request is GRANTED\n    If a district grants your request for an IEE it can require that your selected evaluator have the qualifications to conduct the IEE and it may impose reasonable geographic limitations. They may not set of conditions or timelines related to obtaining an IEE at public expense, including limiting your evaluator selection to those identified by the district. Once you have selected an independent evaluator who is qualified to conduct an evaluation, the district will need to contract with the evaluator, so that they can pay for the IEE.\n  2. If your IEE request is DENIED\n    When a district denies your request for an IEE, they are taking the position that the district’s evaluation is an accurate and comprehensive one, providing all the information needed to establish eligibility and develop an appropriate educational program for the student, if appropriate. Should a district deny a request for an IEE, they must request a due process hearing to defend their evaluation. If the administrative law judge (ALJ) determines the district’s evaluation is appropriate, you still have the right to an IEE, but not at public expense. If the administrative law judge (ALJ) determines the district’s evaluation is not appropriate, the district must pay for the IEE.\n\n    Whether the IEE is provided by the District or paid for privately by a parent, the district must take the results of the IEE into consideration when determining a student’s services and placement. They are not obligated to follow all of the IEE recommendations, if they do not believe that the recommendations are needed to provide a student with a FAPE. However, the parent may present the IEE results as evidence at a later due process hearing regarding the student.\n", "pred_label": "__label__1", "pred_score_pos": 0.8106021881103516}
+{"content": "skip navigation | text only | accessibility | site map\nstill from 'Resistance', film (Copyright 2008 Liz Crow)\n\nLiz Crow\n\nLiz Crow is a filmmaker drawn to the power of the arts to trigger change. The themes of her work are identity, resistance, and survival. Her creative work and her experience of living with a disability are entwined—the themes of her work are the themes of her life. Crow has recently had her work screened at Tate Modern, the British Film Institute, and India’s Ability Fest. She lives and works in Bristol, United Kingdom.", "pred_label": "__label__1", "pred_score_pos": 0.988905668258667}
+{"content": "Antidepressants vs SR\n\nThe Only Proven Process\n\nDepression is the primary symptom for PTSD, Obesity, Anorexia, Bulimia, ADHD, Alcohol abuse, Drug abuse, and virtually all other behavior disorders.  you absolutely must understand how an emotional state comes about if you want to have any control over your emotional state.\n\nIf you do not know how an emotional\nstate comes about you are guessing how to help someone (or yourself) and this is exactly what everyone in coaching , counseling, psychology,and psychiatry is doing. Guessing!\n\nYou must understand that everything you do produces a result and the SR\ntm process has only produced positive documented results since it's introduction into psychiatric care in 1990.  Since our initial study in 1992, The Burris Life Coach and the SRtm process has been the only proven process for depression.\n\nWhy is it Important to Take Control of Your Subconscious?\n\nEverything that you have ever seen, heard, smelled, tasted or felt is stored in your subconscious.\n\nYour subconscious uses this information to determine how you emotionally react to your world.  To give you an idea of the power of the subconscious it processes information at 4 billion bits/second which is faster than your conscious mind can do which processes information at 2000 bits/second according to Quantum Physics.  It runs faster than you can speak and right now you do not even know what it is doing.  In other words if you do not know how your subconscious works... you are Not Running Your Life!\nYour Life Is Running You!\n\nQuantum Thinking\n\nQuantum Thinking (pure potential) means starting at the very origin of the thought process and this is the foundation of The Burris Life Coach and the SR\ntm process.  Everything we know and think is based on our perceptions.\n\nThese \"Perceptions\" are stored in your subconscious.   \n\nThe definition of \"Perception\" is an awareness of environmental signals stimulating the antennas on every cell of your body resulting in a physical sensation.\n\nRemember you are not a body.  You are a community of cells responding to the software running the program. \n\nShould you know \"How to Unlock the Power of your Subconscious\" to achieve what you were meant to be? \n\nGeorge Maris, SR® Life Coach,\nP.O. Box 55568\nValencia, CA 91355\nFax 661.255.1919\nBlack Box Warning for All\n\nOn May 2, 2007, the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) ordered that all antidepressant medications carry an expanded black-box warning incorporating information about an increased risk of \"suicidal symptoms\" in young adults 18 to 24 years of age.\n\nWhat should I talk about with my Health care Provider?\n\nPatients on antidepressants and their families or caregivers should with for new or worsening symptoms, unseal changes in behavior, thoughts of suicide, anxiety, agitation, panic attacks, difficulty sleeping, irritability, hostility, aggressiveness, impulsivity, restlessness, or extreme hyperactivity.\n\nCall your Health care Provider right away if you have thoughts of suicide or if any of these symptoms are severe or occur suddenly.  Be especially observant within the first few months on antidepressant treatment or whenever there is a change in dose.\n\n\nAbilify claims that two out of every three people who take antidepressants still suffer from depression symptoms so they recommend you add their drug to the antidepressant you are already taking.  Following are some of the warnings posted on their site.\n\n\nAbnormal or uncontrollable movements of face, tongue, or other parts of the body.  These may be signs of a serious condition called tardive dyskinedia (TD), which could become permanent.\n\nIf you have diabetes, or risk factors for diabeted (for example, obesity, family history of diabetes), or unexpected increases in thirst, urination, or hunger, your blood sugar should be monitored.  Increases in blood sugar levels (hyperglycemia).\nWeb Hosting", "pred_label": "__label__1", "pred_score_pos": 0.5401704907417297}
+{"content": "Tim Sylvia\n\nRoyce GracieTim ‘Maine-iac’ Sylvia\n\nTimothy Deane Sylvia (born March 5, 1976), also known as “The Maine-iac,” is an American mixed martial arts fighter. He is currently the Heavyweight Champion in the Ultimate Fighting Championship. He is also a member of the Miletich Fighting Systems.\nCareer Highlights\n\nOne of the most disturbing sports injuries ever captured on film occurred at UFC 48, when Sylvia fought Frank Mir for the vacant Heavyweight championship. Mir trapped Sylvia’s right arm in an armbar submission attempt. However, Sylvia’s arm was actually positioned sideways, so that between Sylvia’s strength and a lack of leverage, Mir couldn’t properly execute the move. Unable to free himself, Tim rose to his feet, most likely in an attempt to either gain enough leverage to pull his arm out or to use his superior strength to pick Mir off the mat and slam him. As Sylvia stood up, Frank was able to twist his arm and complete the armbar. Sylvia refused to tap out, and as Mir applied more pressure, Tim’s radius snapped about three inches below his elbow, resulting in a very sudden and noticeable bulge in the skin. Referee Herb Dean immediately stopped the fight and the ring doctor declared Sylvia unable to continue. Sylvia took exception to this decision and repeatedly claimed his arm wasn’t broken, even touching it and moving it around to demonstrate. He demanded the match be restarted, but the judges and UFC President Dana White, acting on the doctor’s opinion and in the interests of Sylvia’s health, officially ended the fight and Mir was given the title. White ordered Sylvia to be taken to a local hospital, where an x-ray revealed that his arm was in fact broken. Sylvia took several months off to recuperate, but this match raised his status even higher in many fans eyes.", "pred_label": "__label__1", "pred_score_pos": 0.8003763556480408}
+{"content": "Medical Independent\n\nTeam approach to polysubstance abuse\n\nCase Study | Miriam Finnegan, Clinical Director; Conor Kelly, Traditional Chinese Medicine Practitioner; Ann Buckmaster, Clinical Psychologist; Toranfield House, Coolakay Enniskerry Wicklow | 01 Dec 2011 | 0 Comment(s)\n\nPrint Friendly and PDF\n\nA multidisciplinary approach to addiction can provide better long-term outcomes for those in treatment\n\nCarl was in his late 40s at the time of referral to the residential programme. He was referred from a local out-patient addiction service which he had been attending for alcohol and drug misuse. Carl engaged well in the therapeutic programme from the first day and responded particularly well to group therapy.\n\nCarl was born the fourth of a large family; both of his parents were deceased. He portrayed a very difficult relationship with his mother and described his father as an alcoholic. Carl did not remember receiving any warmth/comfort from his parents and noted that crying was strongly discouraged. Carl has five children, two living with him and three living with their mother. He was engaged in legal proceedings to gain custody of his children. Carl reported that his children suffered from some trauma and neglect throughout their childhood due to their parents’ addiction to alcohol and other substances. Carl described himself as intelligent and was moved up a class in school several times as a child. He suffered from physical and sexual abuse during his school years. He described acting aggressively with his peers. When in treatment, Carl was facing charges for physical assault. His ex-wife, who he described as a drug-user, is the mother of his children. Carl expressed deep hurt in relation to the break-up of his marriage. He described himself as a ‘loner’ and noted that he now has few close friendships. He described a strong interest in animals, music, literature and film. He has a history of stomach abscess, septicaemia, pneumonia and hepatitis C.\n\n\nAn in-depth clinical interview was conducted and Carl was socialised to the TMCAT. Findings from the assessment were grouped into two areas – drug/alcohol misuse and emotion regulation.\n\nCarl reported a history of abusing alcohol, recreational and prescription drugs which began at nine years of age. He reported that he had been using heroin intermittently for 30 years. Carl had attempted to abstain from substance/alcohol use and has attended five other addiction services in the past, but he continually relapsed. He had successfully completed a detoxification programme 10 days prior to attending the service. He described high levels of motivation to abstain from drugs and alcohol permanently in order to support and care for his children.\n\nCarl described difficulties expressing and identifying emotions, particularly sadness. He described strong feelings of guilt in relation to his treatment of his children in the past which he found difficult to process. Carl described difficulties managing his anger and admitted to physically assaulting another man in the past. He described severe difficulty sleeping which he related to extremely unhelpful thoughts which were impacting his mood and ability to relax. Carl described symptoms of irritable bowel syndrome (IBS) which he related to family stress and his difficulty expressing emotions.\n\nMental health\n\nThe Toranfield model of care for addiction (TMCAT) was undertaken which involved developing a dynamic individualised care plan (DICP) to address Carl’s specific needs. CBT was undertaken to address some of Carl’s difficulties. CBT has a large evidence base for treating mental health difficulties and is key in the effective treatment of substance and alcohol addiction. Carl also engaged in client-centred counselling and psychotherapy. It has been identified that there are complex interactions between addictive behaviours, the provision of counselling and treatment outcomes. However, in spite of this complex process, research suggests that counselling is effective in reducing alcohol and other substance use when compared with a control group. In addition, a growing body of literature highlights the importance of counsellor characteristics on outcomes for clients. Carl and his family engaged in a family-based intervention. Recent studies suggest that family and network approach either match or improve client outcomes in comparison to individual interventions. Carl also had regular access to the neuromuscular therapist/traditional Chinese practitioner. Principles of Chinese medicine are effective in treating individuals with addiction difficulties. According to Ashton, Nodiyal, Green, Moore and Heather (2009), clients treated for alcohol addiction with acupuncture showed a significant decrease in alcohol consumption and distress.\n\nBased on the findings from the initial assessment, the following formulation of different factors was developed for understanding Carl’s difficulties.\n\nPredisposed: Carl was exposed to parent-child attachment problems in early life. He may have suffered from neglectful parenting with a large family, a father with alcohol addiction, social disadvantage, and a mother who was struggling to meet the family’s basic needs for survival. He suffered from physical abuse within the school environment and described a tendency for risk-taking and sensation-seeking.\n\nPrecipitating: Carl grew up in an environment where alcohol and drugs were readily available. He endured several changes of class during his school years which resulted in a loss of peer friendships. He was exposed to physical and sexual abuse and learned to resolve difficulties in peer relationships through aggression. He did not learn to regulate his emotions as a young child; hence he was likely to have used drugs and alcohol to regulate negative mood states.\n\nProtective: Carl had a good cognitive ability and was committed to addressing his difficulties. He loved riding horses. In addition, he engaged with a counsellor in the locality and had a good knowledge of theory relating to addiction.\n\nMaintaining: Carl was physiologically dependent on some of the substances he was abusing. His father reinforced his son’s addiction by abusing alcohol. He had a poor social support network, a lack of financial resources, and few employment opportunities. Carl had high levels of stress which he related to family interactions and legal/custody issues. Carl had developed unhelpful coping strategies for the associated negative mood states which resulted in maintaining his alcohol and other substance use.\n\nTreatment: Based on the initial assessment and formulation, Carl engaged in a therapeutic programme based on his DICP. Carl attended the psychiatrist, but no major mental health issues were identified. He engaged in CBT sessions. He had difficulty identifying emotions and tended to deal with strong emotions through avoidance and intellectualising. Carl was supported in identifying and processing strong emotions such as sadness, guilt, fear and anger. Predisposing factors and early warning signs of anger difficulties were identified and psycho-education was provided on managing unhelpful thoughts. Techniques for releasing anger were also discussed which utilised imagery, physical, and verbal expression. Assertive communication skills were covered using specific examples from Carl’s life (e.g. communicating with his children’s social worker). Sleep difficulties were also addressed and Carl was provided with information on sleep hygiene to help obtain sufficient sleep. Relapse prevention aided Carl in identifying high-risk situations and early warning signs of relapse.\n\nCarl participated in client-centred counselling/psychotherapy during his residential programme. These sessions offered him the opportunity to explore aspects of his addiction, uncovering underlying issues which predated his substance misuse. Incidences of early sexual abuse by a same sex peer were discussed which uncovered feelings of deep shame, guilt and anger which left Carl questioning his sexuality. This issue had complicated Carl’s sexual development. He had kept these events secret, never knowing his place in relationships and at times feeling sexually out of control. Such experiences played a role in Carl’s predisposition to risk-taking and sensation-seeking. This therapy supported Carl to further explore such events in a safe and therapeutic environment.\n\nCarl engaged in group therapy and psycho-education on a daily basis while attending TMCAT. This involved emotional processing, formulating on the aetiology of addiction, and addressing barriers to recovery. He also engaged in a mindfulness programme twice weekly.\n\nCarl’s older children, who reside with him, attended the family programme. These meetings occurred once-weekly and involved a facilitated discussion of issues concerning all three. The children shared some distressing experiences which were as a direct result of Carl’s substance misuse. Carl responded as a parent, validating their experiences and acknowledging responsibility for neglecting them on several occasions. In this context, his children also expressed appreciation of Carl’s ongoing support for them. Family therapy sessions were highly emotive and at times challenging for Carl. All three recognised the challenges Carl is likely to face during his application for access to his other children.\n\nThe overall traditional Chinese medicine treatment principle in addressing Carl’s difficulties was to calm the Shen (mind). The goals of this treatment were to facilitate Carl to relax in the evenings and to improve his sleep pattern. This treatment aimed to promote relaxation and to release suppressed feelings of anger. Local and distal acupoints followed by massage to the limbs/shoulders were used to improve circulation and mobility which had been restricted due to pain. Points addressed frustration, aggression, depression and cravings. Finally, Carl was taught simple breathing exercises while engaging in Tai Chi/Qiqong to quieten his mind and improve oxygen intake.\n\n\nUpon completion of the 28-day rehabilitation programme, Carl was determined to remain abstinent from alcohol and other substances. His cravings reduced considerably, aided by acupuncture, CBT and participation in individual/group therapy. Through engaging in relapse prevention, Carl had a clear written outline of situations which posed a high risk to relapse and strategies to deal with them. He committed to attending the aftercare programme, utilising community supports and engaging in extracurricular activities to promote self-efficacy.\n\nCarl reported that although he continued to struggle with expressing strong emotion, he had an improved ability to process emotion by utilising emotion regulation knowledge and skills. This was further facilitated through family therapy whereby Carl began to communicate and share his thoughts and emotions more effectively with his children. Carl planned on utilising assertive communication skills in his dealings with others in the future. Through processing of emotion, traditional Chinese practice and psycho-education on sleep hygiene, Carl’s sleep improved over the course of his treatment.\n\n  • Comments\n\n  • There are currently no comments.\n\nHave your say. Add a comment\n\nPost your comment\n\nMedical Independent Poll\n\nDoes the proposed abortion legislation provide adequate clarity for doctors?\n\nSubmit Poll\n  • Search our Archives\n\n  • Search", "pred_label": "__label__1", "pred_score_pos": 0.529726505279541}
+{"content": "Miejsce Los Angeles, California, Stany Zjednoczone\nProfession Groupfashion designer\nStrona internetowa\n\nAbout Androgynous\n\nAndrogynous, is our most current line, menswear for women. Somewhere out there in the world, there must be people like us who spend days thinking of how they can take their wardrobe and magically turn it into something like high end menswear. I’m someone who believes that a little weirdness, and a little “craziness” can cause big changes. And I believe that something as trivial as the clothes you choose to wear can change the way society thinks about what’s “normal”…especially what society thinks about what’s right or wrong. Many say that humans are irrational and emotional, and that we ought to become more logical and make decisions based on logical reasoning. I know there's value in logical reasoning but I believe that only through the irrational and emotional can we create art, music and find beauty. These things only exist on the emotional level. And it is on this level that we connect and bond. Logic doesn't understand art, music, beauty and love. Logic doesn't understand happiness. Thanks for visiting. Cheers, Vee\n\nHave you worked with this industry professional? If so we appreciate your professional comments. Give us feedback!\nIndustry professional", "pred_label": "__label__1", "pred_score_pos": 0.9909873008728027}
+{"content": "L-THEANINE POWDER - 150 Grams\n\n    0.70 pounds\n    You save $28.50 (48%) off retail price!\n    - OR -\n\n    • Description\n    • Suggested Use\n    • Supplement Facts\n    • Quality\n    • Label\n\n\n    Pharmaceutical grade ultra-pure for maximum bioavailability. Pure free form amino acid with no fillers or additives. HPLC verified.\n\n    L-Theanine is a natural phytochemical found in Japanese green tea. L-Theanine is a non-essential amino acid that is present in the brain and is a close relative of Glutamate. Studies indicate that L-Theanine interacts with the neurotransmitter, GABA (Gamma-Aminobutyric Acid). GABA, known for its importance in nervous system functioning, works with the mood centers of the brain. Studies in Japan show that L-Theanine helps support the body's ability to deal with PMS and occasional, everyday anxiety.\n\n    L-Theanine is a unique amino acid found almost exclusively in the green tea plant (Camellia sinensis) and is the primary ingredient contributing to the unusual taste of green tea. Animal studies have shown that L-Theanine crosses the blood brain barrier, increases dopamine and GABA levels in the brain, and inhibits the stimulatory properties of caffeine. Human studies have shown that taking L-Theanine results in the emission of brain waves associated with a state of relaxation.\n\n    L-Theanine exerts beneficial effects on brain metabolism and induces relaxation without causing drowsiness, as measured by increased generation of alpha-waves. L-Theanine may improve learning ability and sensations of pleasure by affecting dopamine and serotonin neurotransmitters in the brain. Also, L-Theanine exerts protective effects on the brain by antagonizing glutamate toxicity.\n\n    L-Theanine helps promote a restful, relaxed state while maintaining daytime alertness. L-Theanine is also scientifically shown to support healthy blood pressure levels that are already within normal range.\n\n    Take the edge of mounting stress, and relax naturally with L-Theanine.\n\n    Notice: This amino acid, L-Theanine is easily confused with the amino acid L-Threonine. They are spelled similarly but are two different amino acids. If you are looking for L-Threonine click here.\n\n    Suggested Use: As a dietary supplement, take 1 serving with your favorite beverage 1 to 2 times daily on an empty stomach, or as directed by your physician. We advise that an accurate milligram weight scale be used to measure out each serving as measuring by volume is not always accurate.\n\n    WARNING: NOT INTENDED FOR USE BY PERSONS UNDER THE AGE OF 18. KEEP OUT ;OF THE REACH OF CHILDREN. If you are pregnant or breast feeding, consult your health care professional before using this product. People with known medical conditions and/or taking drugs should consult with a licensed physician and/or pharmacist prior to taking any dietary supplements. If you are taking anti-depressant drugs such as MAOI's or SSRI's, consult your healthcare professional before taking this product.\n\n    Product Form: Powder\n\n    Product Size: 150 Grams\n\n    Servings Per Container: 750 (Approx. 0.20 Grams Per Serving)\n\n\n    This Product is...\n    OU KosherCertified Kosher by the Orthodox Union.\n    VegetarianDoes not contain meat or animal products.\n    HypoallergenicDesigned to lessen the chances of an allergic reaction.\n    Non-GMODoes not contain genetically modified organisms (GMOs).\n    Filler FreeAbsolutely NO fillers.\n    Excipient FreeAbsolutely NO excipients or chemical additives.\n", "pred_label": "__label__1", "pred_score_pos": 0.7937716245651245}
+{"content": "World of Wu-Yu\n\nBharata is the ancestor of Elves, and goddess of night, the moon, and the underworld. She is called Lady of the Underworld, Mistress of the Dance, Lady of Mystery, and Ancestor of Elf-kind. She was Regent of Wu-Yu during the Wu Yuga, but withdrew to the moon to learn the dance of reincarnation.\n\nThe Elven religion of Bharatan holds her as its primary deity.", "pred_label": "__label__1", "pred_score_pos": 0.6327879428863525}
+{"content": "Valtteri Bottas young driver test SilverstoneValtteri Bottas topped the times for Williams on the opening day of Formula 1's young driver test at Silverstone.\n\nEach driver set his quickest time on the soft compound in dry and sunny conditions at the British Grand Prix venue. Bottas did 50 laps, completing aerodynamic testing early on and lapping consistently in the 1m32s bracket before moving onto setup work. He eventually got down to a 1m31.436s lap and will be running a race simulation in the afternoon session.\n\nMax Chilton, driving the Marussia, completed seven installation laps before setting his first proper time of the day, a 1m38.596s. The British driver eventually worked his way down to a 1m36.558s lap but the air valve system sensor on the engine malfunctioned toward the end of the session, bringing out the red flags and causing the Marussia to be returned to the pitlane on the back of a transporter.\n\nRio Haryanto will take over in the afternoon and is not expected to lose any time due to the failure.\n\nMa Qing Hua did 55 laps for HRT having never driven the new Silverstone Arena circuit before. He finished with a 1m39.462s lap having worked his way down from lapping in the high 1m50s bracket early in the day. The Chinese driver will complete setup work in the afternoon after working with a base setup in the morning session.\n\nPos  Driver                 Team                    Time       Gap\n 1.  Valtteri Bottas        Williams-Renault        1m31.436s\n 2.  Max Chilton            Marussia-Cosworth       1m36.558s  + 5.122s\n 3.  Ma Qing Hua            HRT-Cosworth            1m39.462s  + 8.026s\n\nAll Timing Unofficial", "pred_label": "__label__1", "pred_score_pos": 0.6990730166435242}
+{"content": "How immigrants are redefining 'American' in Southern California\n\nAdopted parents, adopted children: How two mothers reconnected with their Korean roots\n\nPhoto by Chiceaux Lynch/Flickr (Creative Commons)\n\nNew American Media featured a moving story this weekend from Hyphen magazine, which covers the Asian American diaspora. It told the stories of two Korean adoptees who, when deciding to adopt children themselves, turned to the country of their birth.\n\nOne woman, Rebecca Eun Hee Viot, and her biological brother grew up in Minnesota with their adoptive white family, disconnected from their ethnic roots. When circumstances prompted Viot and her husband to adopt, they chose Ruby, a 9-month-old from South Korea. From the piece:\n\nSince then, Ruby has brought peace to Viot's life and tightened Viot's bonds to her birth country. “I never took a pride in being Korean,\" Viot said, though she wasn't necessarily ashamed. “I was often confused and sad because I knew I didn't fit in. I just didn't know who I was.”\n\nMotivated by her daughter, Viot has begun to explore Korean food (she can now cook kaktugi, bulgogi, japchae and kimchi jigae) and the Korean language (she has learned to read Hangul and aspires to speak it with her biological family). She is also interested in learning Korean drumming and dance through the Korean Heritage House, which recently opened in the Twin Cities; Ruby will be enrolled when she turns 4.\n\n“We're learning together,” said Viot, who has founded an Internet forum for parents undergoing the adoption process. I have to stop myself from thinking that just because [Ruby and I] look alike that is enough. I'm still learning about the traditions. I have to do my homework, just like my [friends who are] Caucasian adoptive parents.", "pred_label": "__label__1", "pred_score_pos": 0.5296516418457031}
+{"content": "Supreme Court ruling is critical step forward for affordable health insurance\n\nWe celebrate this morning’s Supreme Court ruling as a significant step forward in making health insurance accessible and affordable for more Minnesotans. Today’s decision upholding key provisions of the Affordable Care Act is important because, for hundreds of thousands of Minnesotans, their interest in health care reform is not about legal opinions or political battles – it’s about whether their families can afford to see a doctor.\n\nMuch was at risk in today’s ruling. The Affordable Care Act already allows children to stay on their parents’ insurance until age 26, prevents insurers from denying children coverage for pre-existing conditions, and requires preventive services to be covered without out-of-pocket costs. These benefits could have been lost.\n\nBut even more was at stake. The Affordable Care Act can remove many of the barriers that keep people from getting adequate and affordable health insurance coverage. We can now move forward with implementing these provisions, including:\n\n  • Improving access to health coverage by creating a health insurance exchange where individuals and small businesses can shop for private insurance;\n  • Making insurance more affordable by offering tax subsidies to lower the cost of premiums and out-of-pocket costs for many Minnesotans;\n  • Ensuring a basic level of coverage for everyone by creating a set of “essential benefits” that all health insurance plans in the state must cover;\n  • Setting up a system of trained navigators to help guide individuals and small businesses through the process of selecting and purchasing the health insurance products that fit their needs;\n  • Reducing health disparities by improving insurance rates in communities of color through more affordable coverage and better outreach.\n\nThere are still significant gaps in our current health care system - nearly half a million Minnesotans were without health insurance at last count.\n\nPeople go without health insurance for a variety of reasons: they can’t afford the premiums, pre-existing conditions make it difficult to qualify, they find it hard to shop for insurance, or they are crossing their fingers that they’ll stay healthy.\n\nBut going without insurance carries very high risks, both for the individual and the state’s economy. An individual who is uninsured (or underinsured) is more likely to avoid seeking medical care in a timely way, leading to worse health outcomes. People are also less likely to be able to afford their medical bills if a health care emergency strikes, leading to medical debt. And this inability to pay hurts the state’s economy because it leads to more uncompensated care, which eventually results in higher health care costs for everyone else.\n\nThe Supreme Court’s decision to uphold the Affordable Care Act gives us a chance to provide accessible, affordable and adequate insurance coverage for more Minnesotans. We can reduce the number of uninsured and create a health care system that works for everyone.\n\nThere is still lots of work to be done before the bulk of these reforms are implemented in 2014 – but you can count on the Minnesota Budget Project to keep you informed along the way.", "pred_label": "__label__1", "pred_score_pos": 0.9628521203994751}
+{"content": "Wednesday, June 19th, 2013 • 13:42:51\nDestinations Greek Cuisine Mythology Greece Abroad Culture History News About Us\n\nSkalkotas Nikos\n\nNikos Skalkotas is considered as one of the most influential Greek composers of the 20th century. His musical background was mainly rooted to the classical repertoire and the Greek traditional music. He was born on 21 March, 1904 in Chalkida (Evoia, Greece) and was a member of the Second Viennese School*. His musical ability was probably influenced by his family environment. His second grandfather, Alexandros Skalkotas, was a prominent singer, violinist, and composer of folk music. His father, Alekos Skalkotas, was a self-taught flautist and gave Nikos some introductory instruction on how to play the violin.\n\nNikos Skalkotas began his violin lessons under the direction of his uncle, Costas, and continued at the Athens Conservatory by graduating with high distinction in 1920. A year later he received a scholarship from the Averoff Foundation and went to Berlin. He stayed there for the following twelve years and took violin lessons at the Prussian Academy of Arts given by Willy Hess. In 1923 Nikos Skaltotas stopped playing the violin by deciding to become a composer. He was taught the art of composition by Robert Kahn,  Paul Juon,  Kurt Weill and Philipp Jarnach. In 1933 (when Hitler came to power) Skalkotas returned to Athens and survived by playing in various orchestras. Another reason why Skalkottas came back to Greece could be the end of his scholarship that was funded until then. In Athens Skalkottas tried to get another  funding through scholarship but he felt really disappointed by realizing the difficult state of musical affairs at that time in Athens.\n\n *The Second Viennese is the group of composers that comprised Arnold Schoenberg and his pupils and close associates in early 20th century Vienna, where he lived and taught, sporadically, between 1903 and 1925.\n\nNikos Skalkotas' early works, (most works written in Berlin but also in Athens), are lost. His remaining works (1922-1924) are the following;  piano compositions and orchestration of Cretan Feast by Dimitris Mitropoulos. Among the works written in Berlin are the sonata for solo violin, several works for piano, chamber music and some symphonic works. Although during the period 1931-1934 Skalkottas did not compose anything, he resumed composing in Athens and continued until his death. His output comprised symphonic works (36 Greek Dances, the symphonic overture The Return of Ulysses, the fairy drama Mayday Spell, the Second Symphonic Suite, the ballet The Maiden and Death, works for wind orchestra and several concertos), chamber, vocal and instrumental works including the huge cycle of 32 Piano Pieces.\n\nin 1949 Skalkotas died unexpectedly due to a hernia which had been neglected by him.  Thus, various symphonic orchestrations of him remained unfinished. Most of his compositions were presented after his death. Apart from his purely musical work, he also compiled an important theoretical work, consisting of musical articles, a treatise of orchestration, musical analysis, etc. Skalkottas managed to form his own style of music writing at a very short period. Each of his teachers’ influence was absorbed by him in a really creative way. That creativity resulted to an absolute personal and recognizable way of composition.\n\n\nMore Music\nPapathanasiou V.\n\nVangelis Papathanasiou, who is mostly known through just his first name, has made a remarkable career in music composition.\n\n\nMouschouri Nana (1934)\n\nNana Mouschouri's singing talent has been recognized internationally. </spaShe was born in Hania, Crete, and studied music at the National Conservatory of Greece.\n\nHatzidakis Manos (1925-1995)\n\nManos Hatzidakis was one of the most popular Greek composers. Born in the town of Xanthi, he was the composer of many musical pieces of popular nature among them the famous \"Piraeus' Children \"(Ta Pedia tou Pirea), sung by Melina Merkouri.\n\nKalomiris Manolis (1883-1962)\n\nKalomiris is one of the most famous Greek composers and most important representative of the Greek National School.\n\n\nTheodorakis Mikis (1925)\n\nTheodorakis was born in the island of Hios, visited many places Greece and got acquainted with both folk music and the music of Greek Orthodoxy.\n\nAll Music...\n\nSpecialty shops in Athens\n\nClothes and jewelery shopping guide.\n\nBest confectionary shops\n\nWho are those guys?\n\nSocrates retried and acquitted- but worries on human judgment persist\n\nThanassis Vengos- actor, martyr, saint\n\nEditor's Choice\n\nZagori: Villages hidden behind mountains\n\n\n\n\n\nCopyright © . All Rights Reserved.", "pred_label": "__label__1", "pred_score_pos": 0.6323857307434082}
+{"content": "\n\nAn international team has confirmed the presence of the five planets and have tantalising evidence of two more in the planetary system which is believed to be the largest ever detected beyond the sun.\n\n\n“We have found what is most likely the system with the most planets yet discovered. This remarkable discovery also highlights the fact that we are now entering a new era in exoplanet research: the study of complex planetary systems and not just of individual planets.\n\n“Studies of planetary motions in the new system reveal complex gravitational interactions between the planets and give us insights into the long-term evolution of the system,” Dr Christophe Lovis, who led the European Southern Observatory scientists, was quoted by ‘The Daily Telegraph’.\n\n\nFrom 190 individual HARPS measurements, they were able to detect tiny wobbles in the star’s motion caused by the gravitational tugs of its planets.\n\n\nDr Lovis added: “We also have good reasons to believe that two other planets are present. One would be a Saturn-like planet (with a minimum mass of 65 Earth masses) orbiting in 2,200 days. The other would be the least massive exoplanet ever discovered, with a mass of about 1.4 times that of Earth.\n\n“It is very close to its host star, at just 2 per cent of the Earth-sun distance. One ‘year’ on this planet would last only 1.18 Earth days.”\n\n\nSo far astronomers have found 15 systems containing at least three planets. The last record holder was 55 Cancri, which has a total of five planets including two gas giants.\n\n\nMore In: Science | Sci-Tech", "pred_label": "__label__1", "pred_score_pos": 0.9970032572746277}
+{"content": "Best Rhode Island Family Practice Physicians\n\nfind a local Family Practice Physician in your area\n\nConditions Treated by Family Practice Physicians\n\nWhooping Cough\nWhooping cough is a bacterial infection of the respiratory tract. The bacteria invade the lining of the respiratory tract and airways, causing inflammation and increasing the secretion of mucus. It is very contagious, and in some cases can be serious.\n\nInsect Allergy\n\nHives are small, itchy, red swellings on the skin. The swelling occurs singularly or in clusters. Hives tend to fade after a few hours, but new ones can appear. Most cases go away within a few days. But, some last a few weeks or longer.\n\nA fracture is a break in any bone in the body. Fractures are usually caused by trauma. This may be falls, twists, blows or collisions. There are different kinds of fracture:\n\nFood Allergy\nA food allergy is an adverse or abnormal reaction to a food or a food additive.\n\nCommon Cold\n\nSore Throat Due to Inflammation\n\n\nThe sinuses are hollow areas in the skull that are arranged in pairs. Sinusitis occurs when the tissue lining the sinuses in the skull around the nose (the paranasal sinuses) becomes inflamed and infected. Acute sinusitis usually lasts about 1-4 weeks, while chronic sinusitis is diagnosed when symptoms last three or more months. The third form, recurrent acute sinusitis, occurs more than three times a year.\n\nA contusion is said to have occurred when blood vessels are damaged or broken after an injury. The raised area of the contusion is the result of blood and fluid leaking from those injured blood vessels into the tissue. You usually see a discolored, purplish area that takes 2-3 weeks to go away.\n\nInsect Bites and Stings\nInsect bites and stings cause skin reactions. They can include itching, rashes, and sometimes swelling. Most bites and stings can be safely treated at home. Those that cause allergic reactions may require prompt medical attention. If you think that you are having a severe allergic reaction, seek medical help immediately.\n", "pred_label": "__label__1", "pred_score_pos": 0.8377067446708679}
+{"content": "50 million years of genomic stasis in endosymbiotic bacteria. Tamas I. Klasson L. Canbaeck B. Naeslund A.K. Eriksson A.-S. Wernegreen J.J. Sandstroem J.P. Moran N.A. Andersson S.G.E. doi:10.1126/science.1071278 2002 Comparison of two fully sequenced genomes of Buchnera aphidicola, the obligate endosymbionts of aphids, reveals the most extreme genome stability to date: no chromosome rearrangements or gene acquisitions have occurred in the past 50 to 70 million years, despite substantial sequence evolution and the inactivation and loss of individual genes. In contrast, the genomes of their closest free-living relatives, Escherichia coli and Salmonella spp., are more than 2000-fold more labile in content and gene order. The genomic stasis of B. aphidicola, likely attributable to the loss of phages, repeated sequences, and recA, indicates that B. aphidicola is no longer a source of ecological innovation for its hosts. Science 296 2376-2379", "pred_label": "__label__1", "pred_score_pos": 0.8028186559677124}
+{"content": "Graphic Design Program\n\nStrath Haven High School Graphic Design Program             Ms. Leslie Taylor - ltaylor@wssd.org\n\nThe overall goal of the Strath Haven High School's Graphic Design program is to develop the creative talents and skills of students using computer driven software programs. Graphic Designers shape our visual environment through the experimentation and use of image, form, and typography. Americans live in a society that is communicating more and more through visual images. They are bombarded on a daily basis by a constantly changing torrent of messages from billboards, magazines, architecture, newspapers, television, and films. New technology controlled by computers combine words, pictures, and sound to convey information at a breathtaking pace. Students in the Strath Haven Graphic Design program learn to decipher, create, and express themselves through visual images. Project-based learning includes advertising, editorial page design, posters, and package design. Students will learn color theory, advanced imaging techniques using digital cameras, scanners, and Adobe software (Photoshop and Illustrator)", "pred_label": "__label__1", "pred_score_pos": 0.9993398785591125}
+{"content": "Arctic bacteria help find life on Jupiter's Icy Moon\n\nArctic bacteria help find life on Jupiter`s Icy Moon Washington: It is not easy to search for life on one of Jupiter’s icy moons: Europa as just getting there can be a problem.\n\nThus, scientists would love to find a place on Earth that resembles the sulfur-laden surface of Europa. And now they have.\n\nIn a fjord in Canada scientists have found a landscape similar to Europa. It consists of a frozen and sulphurous environment, where sulphur associated with Arctic bacteria offer clues for the upcoming missions in the search for traces of life on Europa.\n\nIt is not easy to find a place on Earth where ice and sulphur come together, supposedly like on Europa, Jupiter's moon. Nonetheless, this place has been located at Borup Fjord Pass in the Canadian High Arctic. Here the sulphurous yellow emissions contrast with the whiteness of the environment, creating images similar to those captured at Jupiter's satellite.\n\nUS researchers have now verified that the sulphur involved in the life cycle of Arctic microorganisms has some characteristics that could help to detect biological remains on Europa.\n\nLarge space agencies like NASA and the European Space Agency are already in the process of preparing missions.\n\n“We have discovered that elemental sulphur (S) can contain morphological, mineralogical and organic ‘biosignatures’ linked to bacterial activity. If they are found on Europa, this would suggest the possible presence of microorganisms,” as explained to SINC by Damhnait Gleeson, lead author of the study and currently member of the Centro de Astrobiologia (INTA-CSIC, Spain).\n\nThe ''biosignatures'' are associated with needle and rhomboid sulphur shapes in which mineralised remains of microorganisms and extracellular material appears.\n\nThanks to electron microscopy and X-ray diffraction techniques, the formation of a rare type of sulphur has also been observed in association with organic components: the rosickyite.\n\nWhat is more is that small quantities (parts per million) of protein, fatty acids and other biomolecules have appeared in the sulphurous material.\n\n\"There is much evidence of bacterial activity,\" highlighted Gleeson, who wonder if in the Europa's icy crust, or the ocean or lakes supposedly beneath it, there could be a similar microbial community that uses sulphur as their source of energy.\n\nThe study has been published in the Astrobiology journal.", "pred_label": "__label__1", "pred_score_pos": 0.9333320260047913}
+{"content": "Friday, Oct. 2: Jaycee Dugard's kidnapping\n\nThe kidnapping and the rescue of Jaycee Dugard, 18 years after the crime, stunned the nation this past summer, leaving many to ask why wasn't the alleged kidnapper caught sooner and how could there have been so many missed opportunities. Now, Dateline investigates and brings viewers up to date on the latest developments on the case. NBC's Keith Morrison reports. See it Friday at 9 p.m. ET, 8 p.m. CT.\n", "pred_label": "__label__1", "pred_score_pos": 0.689960241317749}
+{"content": "Lenski’s new results; Behe’s red herring\n\nRichard Lenski is an evolutionary biologist who studies evolution by analyzing changes in bacterial populations.  Perhaps he is most famous for his long-term experiment where his group identified a population that evolved to use a nutrient (citrate) that E. coli normally can’t use.  This was a very important finding as it provided proof-of-concept that random mutations alone are sufficient to induce new functions.\n\nIn a recently published paper in Nature, Lenski takes the above experiment and analyzes the frequency of mutation throughout these populations.  The goal of this paper was not to show which specific mutations led to the ability of the bacteria to use the new nutrient source.  The goal was to look at the level of overall mutation rate during the experiment.  In the authors own words:\n\nThe relationship between rates of genomic evolution and organismal adaptation remains uncertain, despite considerable interest.\n\nThus, the coupling between genomic and adaptive evolution is complex and can be counterintuitive even in a constant environment. In particular, beneficial substitutions were surprisingly uniform over time, whereas neutral substitutions were highly variable.\n\nOf course the Discovery Institute and ID proponents are not going to keep quiet about any work coming from Lenski’s lab as their work provided such an important part of the evolutionary puzzle.  Michael Behe took up the challenge this time and wrote an entry at Evolution News and Views.  Lets address some of Behe’s points.\n\nBehe’s first compliant is that\n\n[Lenski's group] identified a couple score of mutations which they say are likely beneficial ones. That is almost certainly true, but what they don’t emphasize is that many of the beneficial mutations are degradative — that is, they eliminate a gene or its protein’s function.\n\nFirst, Behe is attacking the paper for something that is really irrelevant to the point of the paper.  It also doesn’t disprove the original result of that spontaneous mutations that led to a novel attribute.  It is a red herring designed to poke holes in Lenski’s work instead of directly arguing against it.  So why all the degradative mutations?  Well, these experiments were done in a lab under strict conditions (single temperature, no other organisms, defined nutrients) to eliminate other variables. Without these other stimuli, is it any wonder that most changes are degradative?\n\nBehe also criticizes the rise in what is called a mutator line in these experiments.  A mutator strain is one in which mutations arise more frequently than in a normal strain.  Again this doesn’t really address the ideas of the new paper or in the proof-of-concept of Lenski’s original data.\n\nAnyway, who cares that these strains became mutator strains. A mutator just increases the frequency by which mutations arise. Maybe it would have taken 3 times as long for the beneficial mutation to arise if the mutator strain hadn’t evolved. It doesn’t change the fact that the cells evolved into a state where they could use a nutrient that they couldn’t before.   Besides, it is a moot point as one of the original mutation had arose before the 20,000 generation, a time before the mutation that led to mutator strain had occurred.\n\nFinally, Behe closes with the expected tactics that we have grown to love from ID proponents.  The first tactic as illustrated above is to wrongfully criticize valid experiments in favor of evolution.  The second tactic is then to say how this data really proves intelligent design:\n\nLenski’s decades-long work lines up wonderfully with what an ID person would expect — in a huge number of tries, one sees minor changes, mostly degradative, and no new complex systems. So much for the power of random mutation and natural selection.\n\nFirst, an ID proponent would not expect the E. coli to ever use the new nutrient.  The “power of random mutation and natural selection” led the bacteria to a whole new attribute.  Don’t forget, this experiment lasted only decades, or 1/100,000,000 the time bacteria are believed to inhabit the earth.  Finally, like I stated above, these were very unnatural conditions that would never be experienced during normal life on earth.\n\nMichael Behe compares apples to oranges while waiting for two mutations\n\nPlasmodium malariae\n\nPlasmodium malariae\n\nA recent scientific article published in Genetics criticized Michael Behe and “exposed flaws” in his thinking.  The article in question, Waiting for Two Mutations: With Applications to Regulatory Sequence Evolution and the Limits of Darwinian Evolution, provides a mathematical model of the rate for two different mutations to occur in order.  They show that the time for prespecified mutations is within reason and support this by using two real world examples from humans and fruit flies.  Behe doesn’t believe it.\n\nBehe had previously calculated the mutation rate that makes the protozoan P. falciparum (causes malaria) resistant to the antibiotic chloroquine that arose from two prespecified mutations in one protein.  He argued that this would take 1,000,000,000,000,000 years to achieve a similar pair of mutation in humans based on human population numbers and age until reproduction.   He seems to think that this is evidence to support intelligent design.\n\nThere are several problems with Behe’s thinking.  The most obvious is that Behe is comparing completely different organisms.  The mutation rate between various organisms can be very different.  In writing this post, I quickly determined from following the links from Wikipedia that the error rate of other protozoan (not specifically P. falciparum) seems to be around 100 fold lower than humans.  Not exactly the best comparison is it?\n\nOther errors in Behe’s thinking include\n\n  • Behe calculated the requirement for prespecified mutations; Evolution is not prespecified\n  • These mutations could have arisen many times without our knowledge.  Unless Behe knows the sequence of every single P. faciparum, he can not really know how often these mutations occurred\n  • Behe’s calculations seem to make the common statistical error of treating two consecutive events as one event.  For example, the odds of a couple that already have two girls having another girl is still 1 in 2, not 1 in 8 like you would get if you asked what are the odds in the beginning of having 3 girls\n\nThe original authors had many other complaints against Behe’s assessment, but they are fairly technical and beyond the scope of this blog.  If your interested, follow the links below.  Even without these criticisms, it is clear that Behe’s mind is being clouded over by the motivation of having an intelligent designer.\n\nOne interesting thing to note is that the authors actually call out Michael Behe by name in the abstract. I actually think this is semi-unprofessional. At the same time however, I think it also shows a lot of gumption. They must have known that not only would Behe respond with sharp criticism.\n\nFurther reading:\n\nBehe’s blog\n\nBehe’s response to Rick Durrett and Deena Schmidt\n\nDurrett and Schmidt’s response to Behe’s response\n\nWaiting for Two Mutations\n\nBehe’s 2007 paper on the subject\n\nFlock of Dodos: The Intelligent Design – Evolution Circus\n\nRandy OlsenAfter waiting patiently for it to reach the top of my Netflix cue, I recently watched Randy Olsen’s “Flock of Dodos”.  Although I haven’t seen Expelled yet, I believe “Flock of Dodos” is its antithesis.  Randy Olsen, PhD is a trained marine biologist and former tenured professor, while Ben Stein was a political speech writer and professor of law.  Right from the start, you can see that one side is treating the evolution/intelligent design debate coming from the side of science and the other from the side of politics. Presumably, Stein would say that his film comes from an outsiders perspective so he is able to present an unbiased opinion. \n\n\nOlsen does a good job giving both sides of the debate their fair share of time.  He even interviews Michael Behe, one of the superstars of Intelligent Design, and lets him speak freely.  Of course the pro-evolution proponents are plentiful.  He even brings together a group of evolutionary biologists to play poker and discuss Intelligent Design.  He also covers much of the Kansas school board debacle and the Dover, PA trial. \n\n\nThe movie has a light and cheerful feel, which was obviously intentional yet appreciated. So many documentaries, even highly acclaimed ones, are outright boring. Olsen achieves this feeling by sprinkling in amusing cartoons, colorful anecdotes, and of course lightly mocking people.  He even introduces us to his mother, Muffy Moose, who appears that she needs a movie or two of her own.  The “dodos” Olsen is referring to are not just Intelligent Design proponents.  He makes a point to say that the scientists who do not combat attacks evolutionary theory are as much dodos as anyone.\n\n\nOne of the things that I really appreciated about the movie was the way that Olson made fun of the idea of Intelligent Design. In particular, he and his interviewees mockhow badly some things were designed. The worst example of intelligent design (or the best example of unintelligent design) was digestive system of rabbits. Apparently, rabbits have their fermentation organ (where the complex plant material is digested) at the very end of their digestive system. In order for the rabbits to fully digest a meal, it has to eat its own poop. Behold: Intelligent! Design!\n\n\nOlson makes the comment during the movie that when scientists try to share their side of the story, they are talking above the general audience. Not completely their fault as most have been working in their area of expertise most of their lives, and therefore they have a hard time bringing the conversation to a lower level. However, I think the problem is even worse than Olson believes. The target audience of the documentary was you average person, but one of the people who watched the documentary with me was a little lost. After all, she said she stopped learning about biology during “leaf collecting.” This leads me to believe that our educations system may be lacking, but that is a subject of another post.\n\n\nMy general feeling after finishing the movie, is that there is a war of ideas, where the two sides are playing by different rules.  The evolutionists are using facts and evidence, while Intelligent Design proponents are using catch phrases and religious appeal.  Intelligent design proponents are not evil or malicious (for the most part). In fact, most in the movie came across as being honest, caring, and kind-hearted. These attributes could be part of the problem because they are a little too nice, a little too naive, and a lot too trusting.\n\n\nSo for those of you interested in the Evolution / Intelligent Design debate, I recommend that you see this movie.\n\n\nThe evolutionary numbers game\n\nIn my last post, I brought up how Michael Behe used the fact that 40,000 generations of E. coli were necessary for Richard Lenski’s experiment to find an E.coli who could utilize citrate. In this post, I am going to run through some numbers to show how 40,000 generations is nothing to evolutionary time.  Of course my numbers are going to be rough estimates, but I think it will get the job done.\n\nFor the sake of argument, lets say the earth is 10,000 years old (yes, people do believe the earth is this young). If Behe’s math is correct, then E. coli have 2,000 generations a year or 20,000,000 generations over the time of the young earth. More realistically, the earth is 4.5 billion years old, or nearly 10 trillion generations of E. coli. Of course E. coli hasn’t been around the whole time the earth has, but it does put that 40,000 number into perspective.\n\nLet’s say that a beneficial mutation, such as the ability to use citrate, occurs once every 100,000 generations. Given the 10 trillion number above, that would give 100,000 beneficial mutations. Keeping in mind that E. coli only has ~5000 genes, each gene could have changed 20 times.\n\nThe last set of numbers we will be addressing is the nearly unfathomable number of bacteria on the planet.  For reference, our bodies alone are estimated to have 1,000 trillion or 10^15 of bacteria (not all E. coli of course) of bacteria (Yes, I know, it is kind of gross). There are over 6 billion people on earth bringing the total of bacteria inside humans to 6 X 10^24.\n\nNow that is a lot of bacteria, just inside people, but how about all over the planet?  Bacteria are everywhere: inside us, on practically every surface, throughout the ocean, and throughout the earth.  It has been estimated that there are 5 X 10^30 bacteria on earth.\n\n10^12 generations of bacteria and 10^30 bacteria.  Those are mind-boggling numbers!  I know the numbers don’t really mean too much by themselves, but just keep them in mind when an IDer tries to convince you that something like 40,000 generations is a big deal.\n\nBehe Doesn’t Believe in Evolution in a Tube\n\nMichael Behe writes on June 6th a post entitled: Multiple Mutations Needed for E. Coli. This post came from his amazon blog, where he is trying to push his book. Behe is writing of course about Richard Lenski’s (et al.) recent publication in PNAS (Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences). In the article, the authors describe an experiment that has been going on since 1988. Now that is persistence! Richard Lenski is the principal author and has kept the same 12 cultures of E. coli reproducing for the last 20 years. These cultures are grown in two food sources: glucose, which E. coli readily uses and citrate, which E. coli cannot use. After nearly 32,000 generations, one of the E. coli cultures developed, or evolved, the ability to use citrate.\n\nThis experiment provides an example of a living organism evolving a new trait in the tightly controlled setting. This type of result had not really been seen before (largely due to the long times necessary) and was something of a missing piece of evidence for evolution. Evolutionary type changes have been observed outside of the lab (isolated lizards, nylon eating bacteria), but not in a true experimental setup.\n\nThe changes in the isolated cultures of E. coli were not limited to the ability to utilize citrate. They also exhibited changes from the original cultures that include:\n\nhigher maximum growth rates on glucose, shorter lag phases upon transfer into fresh medium, reduced peak population densities, and larger average cell sizes relative to their ancestor.\n\n10 of the 12 E. coli cultures also “evolved increased DNA supercoiling.” When challenged with other carbon sources, such as maltose or lactose, their growth rates differed. These changes are indeed important to keep in mind as more evidence of evolutionary change, but the clear advantage of the gain-of-function change illustrated by the new ability to utilize citrate is monumental.\n\nPredictably, Behe does not seem to be too impressed by the experiment. He makes the point that E. coli divides rapidly and 20 years equates to 40,000 (even though the paper clearly states 31,500) generations and therefore is not that remarkable. This may seem like a lot of generations, but 20 years is not even a blink of the eye in evolutionary timescales. I will give an in depth analysis of the numbers in a later post. Besides, this experiment provides proof of concept that random mutations can lead to a gain-of-function change, one of evolution denier’s talking points, as Casey Luskin as said: “ID is far more interested in explaining the GAIN of biological function rather than loss of function.”\n\nLenski wanted to further explore how the E. coli were able to gain the ability to use citrate. Was it a single mutation event or was it a series of mutations? In order to determine which was true, he repeated the experiment with cultures that had gone through various numbers of generations, 12 in all. He found that when he took cultures after 20,000 generations, they more quickly were cit+. This led Lenski to conclude that there were multiple mutational events leading to cit+, one of which occurred before the 20,000 generation. An important finding, and one that shows that there can be silent, but beneficial, mutations. Behe disagrees:\n\n\nI am not sure how someone so educated and respected could say something so completely vacuous. In evolution, everything is carried over, whether it has an immediate benefit or not. Maybe one of the mutations that occurred allowed the mutant cell to grow slightly faster than the others. Maybe the mutation was silent and did not help or harm anything. Does Behe really believe that every mutation has to have a large phenotypic effect to be in accord with evolutionary theory?\n\n\nGet every new post delivered to your Inbox.", "pred_label": "__label__1", "pred_score_pos": 0.7368019223213196}
+{"content": "Energy makes the world go round.  It’s something that is palpable and drives us to move forward in our lives.  Every system needs energy.  Every organization needs energy.  I had an experience last night that made me think about how organizational energy translates to personal energy, and in turn health and healing.\n\nI attended a meeting of the art guild that I belong to, a textile arts guild.  The organization has about 275 members and has been in existence for twenty-four years.  Like many organizations there is an old guard, those who founded the organization or have been members for over twenty years.  These were the original leaders of the group and shaped the path of the organization.\n\nI had been the President of the organization for two years and during that time I was always conscious about not only the energy at the meeting, but how to keep the energy level high and people engaged between meetings.  My monthly President’s message in the newsletter were meant to get members thinking, not only about the organization, but their role in the organization, and where they fit in the great world of art.\n\nLast night I attended the meeting after a five-month hiatus (I’d been working in Tennessee).  The meeting was “fine”.  I don’t believe that “fine” is a compliment.  It’s just a comment on the meeting moving along.  Even the speaker was less than dynamic.  I was hoping to get re-energized after the five-month hiatus.  The only thing I was energized by were the moments when I reconnected with friends I hadn’t seen in a long time.\n\nSo how does that translate to your own health and healing?  What do you get excited about?  What keeps you engaged in your life and your healing journey?  How do you generate excitement for yourself to keep learning, continue experimenting, and design a life that will leave you with no regrets at the end of your life?\n\nEnergy is palpable.  It’s a force that is in you and around you.  Energy is what the body needs to heal.  Energy allows you to be tenacious in your healing journey.  It’s the momentum we need to tackle the challenges faced with any health challenge.\n\nHow do you experience energy in you and around you?  What happens when your energy level is less than optimal?  Are you sensitive to energy levels in others, even in groups and organizations?  How will you check your energy gauge and keep it above empty?\n\nYou’re going to think I’m a bit strange because the story I’m going to share is about my dog.  Believe it or not, my dog Tashi has had more medical problems than most of us will have in our own human lives.\n\nIt all started about five or six years ago when she acquired Methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus (MRSA).  I don’t know how she acquired this infection, but it has been recurring relentlessly over the years.  Unfortunately MRSA isn’t curable, it becomes a chronic, potentially life-threatening condition.\n\nThe incident this past week started last Wednesday when Tashi awoke limping.  Her back foot (location of the MRSA wound) was swollen.  She ate breakfast and took her place in the family room and didn’t move for seven hours.  We decided to take her to the emergency vet that evening because she wasn’t engaging in normal activities and she couldn’t get up off the floor on her own.\n\nThe vet we saw, a young vet, was quite personable and very good with Tashi.  He did a thorough exam and was respectful of her pain limits.  The thing that caught my attention was his personal shock at how swollen her foot and leg had become.  He was perplexed hoping that maybe she had an issue with a bone or joint.  Because of the MRSA he had to be very careful about any biopsy or culture because he didn’t want to spread the MRSA if in fact it was present.\n\nThe radiograph didn’t show any abnormalities, a huge relief.  He did perform a culture of the wound on her foot, non-invasive.  He also prescribed a very strong antibiotic and pain medication.  We took her home with the hope that  she would begin the healing process.\n\nUnfortunately as Thursday progressed, her leg became more swollen and this was worrisome.  The next step was to take her to her regular vet.  One more appointment and when he saw her foot he was also a bit perplexed and concerned.  She wasn’t putting pressure on her foot and the leg was swollen up to her hip.  He prescribed a second antibiotic and now we wait for the culture results.\n\nThe sad part is that animals can’t tell us other than behavior about their physical problems.  I feel fortunate to have medical professionals that are engaged in her well-being and take measures to create increased odds at healing the infection.  I didn’t know that the field of veterinary medicine doesn’t have a specialization in infectious disease.  The specialty seems to be on the horizon, but until that happens either a general practitioner, or in Tashi’s case her dermatologist/allergy doctor have to serve as our medical resource.\n\nHow does this translate into the experience of humans?  We don’t always have an answer for symptoms that arise from an illness.  It’s important to feel comfortable going to a specialist if you don’t feel that your illness/symptoms are getting better.  In addition, I felt it important for her regular physician to see her because he knows her history and her body.  He understands her response to past medications and infections.  He knows her temperament and tuned into her response when he exams her.  These are important because her history may have clues to heal the current medical dilemma.\n\nThings are still uncertain and the fact that she’s over twelve years old doesn’t soothe my anxiety.  I can see the desire in her eyes to get better (my personal projection) but I’m hoping we make it through this health crisis.  I hope you maintain that fire in your soul to get better or well.\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\nI have to admit that when it comes to television; I’m hooked on reality shows related to singing and dancing.  I’ve been watching NBC’s The Voice, and they are down to the final four.  These four are competing for a record contract, and of course, fame.  What I like about this show is that they don’t have an age limit, so it’s really about the talent, not the teenybopper vote.\n\nI’ve heard Anderson Cooper confess that he’s a reality television junkie.  I guess when you cover tragedy all over the globe; reality television is a break from reality.  So why do we need to escape from reality?\n\nThose of you who have been diagnosed with a chronic or life-threatening illness know how hard life can be since the diagnosis.  It makes you wonder how much more real can you get than living your life filled with doctors appointments, lab tests, and trips to the pharmacy.  Being in your body is as real as it gets, so why don’t you have your own reality television show?\n\nIt’s interesting how illness can be a storyline on a television show, but not the focus of the show.  Obviously there have been illness specific movies or theater productions focusing on illness such as WIT or The Diving Bell and the Butterfly, but no network or cable show focusing on the reality of real life illness.\n\nI’m grateful when actors such as Michael J. Fox are guests on talk shows because he discusses the reality of living with illness.  He gives an unfiltered account of his life with Parkinson’s disease, and how he prepares himself when he has to go to work.  That’s as real as it gets!\n\nEveryone in life has some type of struggle, but illness poses unique challenges.  It impacts not only you but also your family.  It can physically separate you from others, more out of fear and ignorance than from malicious intent.  You’re often misunderstood because throughout the day your life may revolve around other things than going to the grocery store and picking up the kids from soccer.  It’s multifaceted and often feels like a tightrope act.\n\nWhen you’re watching reality television, please give yourself credit for living a life that is more real and more important than any program on television.  Become the success you are striving for and that will prevent you from being voted off the island!\n\nLessons from Bella\n\nI have two dogs and both have had their fair share of medical issues.  I’ve talked much more about my black lab Tashi who has suffered with recurrent infections due to MRSA.  I’ve learned a lot about facing illness and creating a new normal from her.  This past weekend my other dog, Bella, visited the vet because of a cyst in her ear.\n\nAs it turns out, Bella has a hematoma in her ear.  It was drained and a cortisone injection to reduce the swelling was administered.\n\nDuring the examination the doctor noticed Bella required dental work with the probability that a tooth would need to be pulled.  If that weren’t enough, she has a cyst in the middle of her head that we decided is she’s going to be under anesthesia should probably be removed.\n\nBella was sent home with a bandage covering her ear.  Unfortunately, she kept trying to remove it so we had to get one of those big radar dishes for her head.  The poor thing was bumping into walls, tripping over things, and was generally a bit disoriented.\n\nThis morning I took Bella to the bet for her procedure.  She was very good in the exam room, probably because she was scared.  She began to shiver.  Her anxiety was evident and trying to console her did little good.  The vet was very good with her and he too tried to console her.  So why am I talking about a 10-1/2 year old dog?  Because dogs don’t understand their pain, the medical procedures they endure, or adjusting to medical devices for their own protection.\n\nOn the other hand, as humans we also don’t understand pain, medical procedures, or medical devices that become part of our every day lives.  Too many of us try and make sense of our illnesses, but is that even possible?\n\nWhen we enter the medical arena we often try and hide our fear and anxiety, but it still always comes through.  Because illness is so disorienting how do we try and alleviate the panic?  It’s important to have people in your life that will help you disperse the anxious energy.  Talking, engaging in creative activities, finding a spiritual director, illness coach, or psychotherapist helps with those anxious moments.\n\nWhat would happen if you really experienced the anxiety so you could disperse it into the universe?  We expend so much energy trying to hide it or suppress it that we are continually exhausted physically, emotionally, and spiritually.  I had a clinical supervisor who said, “You can’t get out of something if you’re never in it”.  It’s like dancing around the mouth of the volcano…sometimes you have to jump in so you can know what you’re getting out of, experientially.\n\nMy dogs are my examples for coping with illness.  They seem fearless, truly a projection.  They provide me with insights into the illness experience that I wouldn’t have made conscious any other way.  It is because of that, that I am eternally grateful and I make sure any way I can be of service to them I will.\n\n\nGet every new post delivered to your Inbox.", "pred_label": "__label__1", "pred_score_pos": 0.5494309663772583}
+{"content": "Search tips\nSearch criteria\n\nResults 1-25 (108)\n\nClipboard (0)\n\nSelect a Filter Below\n\nYear of Publication\nmore »\n1.  Orthologous Gene Clusters and Taxon Signature Genes for Viruses of Prokaryotes \nJournal of Bacteriology  2013;195(5):941-950.\nViruses are the most abundant biological entities on earth and encompass a vast amount of genetic diversity. The recent rapid increase in the number of sequenced viral genomes has created unprecedented opportunities for gaining new insight into the structure and evolution of the virosphere. Here, we present an update of the phage orthologous groups (POGs), a collection of 4,542 clusters of orthologous genes from bacteriophages that now also includes viruses infecting archaea and encompasses more than 1,000 distinct virus genomes. Analysis of this expanded data set shows that the number of POGs keeps growing without saturation and that a substantial majority of the POGs remain specific to viruses, lacking homologues in prokaryotic cells, outside known proviruses. Thus, the great majority of virus genes apparently remains to be discovered. A complementary observation is that numerous viral genomes remain poorly, if at all, covered by POGs. The genome coverage by POGs is expected to increase as more genomes are sequenced. Taxon-specific, single-copy signature genes that are not observed in prokaryotic genomes outside detected proviruses were identified for two-thirds of the 57 taxa (those with genomes available from at least 3 distinct viruses), with half of these present in all members of the respective taxon. These signatures can be used to specifically identify the presence and quantify the abundance of viruses from particular taxa in metagenomic samples and thus gain new insights into the ecology and evolution of viruses in relation to their hosts.\nPMCID: PMC3571318  PMID: 23222723\n2.  Consistent mutational paths predict eukaryotic thermostability \nProteomes of thermophilic prokaryotes have been instrumental in structural biology and successfully exploited in biotechnology, however many proteins required for eukaryotic cell function are absent from bacteria or archaea. With Chaetomium thermophilum, Thielavia terrestris and Thielavia heterothallica three genome sequences of thermophilic eukaryotes have been published.\nStudying the genomes and proteomes of these thermophilic fungi, we found common strategies of thermal adaptation across the different kingdoms of Life, including amino acid biases and a reduced genome size. A phylogenetics-guided comparison of thermophilic proteomes with those of other, mesophilic Sordariomycetes revealed consistent amino acid substitutions associated to thermophily that were also present in an independent lineage of thermophilic fungi. The most consistent pattern is the substitution of lysine by arginine, which we could find in almost all lineages but has not been extensively used in protein stability engineering. By exploiting mutational paths towards the thermophiles, we could predict particular amino acid residues in individual proteins that contribute to thermostability and validated some of them experimentally. By determining the three-dimensional structure of an exemplar protein from C. thermophilum (Arx1), we could also characterise the molecular consequences of some of these mutations.\nThe comparative analysis of these three genomes not only enhances our understanding of the evolution of thermophily, but also provides new ways to engineer protein stability.\nPMCID: PMC3546890  PMID: 23305080\nThermophily; Comparative genomics; Protein engineering; Eukaryotes; Fungi\n3.  STRING v9.1: protein-protein interaction networks, with increased coverage and integration \nNucleic Acids Research  2012;41(D1):D808-D815.\nComplete knowledge of all direct and indirect interactions between proteins in a given cell would represent an important milestone towards a comprehensive description of cellular mechanisms and functions. Although this goal is still elusive, considerable progress has been made—particularly for certain model organisms and functional systems. Currently, protein interactions and associations are annotated at various levels of detail in online resources, ranging from raw data repositories to highly formalized pathway databases. For many applications, a global view of all the available interaction data is desirable, including lower-quality data and/or computational predictions. The STRING database ( aims to provide such a global perspective for as many organisms as feasible. Known and predicted associations are scored and integrated, resulting in comprehensive protein networks covering >1100 organisms. Here, we describe the update to version 9.1 of STRING, introducing several improvements: (i) we extend the automated mining of scientific texts for interaction information, to now also include full-text articles; (ii) we entirely re-designed the algorithm for transferring interactions from one model organism to the other; and (iii) we provide users with statistical information on any functional enrichment observed in their networks.\nPMCID: PMC3531103  PMID: 23203871\n4.  PTMcode: a database of known and predicted functional associations between post-translational modifications in proteins \nNucleic Acids Research  2012;41(D1):D306-D311.\nPost-translational modifications (PTMs) are involved in the regulation and structural stabilization of eukaryotic proteins. The combination of individual PTM states is a key to modulate cellular functions as became evident in a few well-studied proteins. This combinatorial setting, dubbed the PTM code, has been proposed to be extended to whole proteomes in eukaryotes. Although we are still far from deciphering such a complex language, thousands of protein PTM sites are being mapped by high-throughput technologies, thus providing sufficient data for comparative analysis. PTMcode ( aims to compile known and predicted PTM associations to provide a framework that would enable hypothesis-driven experimental or computational analysis of various scales. In its first release, PTMcode provides PTM functional associations of 13 different PTM types within proteins in 8 eukaryotes. They are based on five evidence channels: a literature survey, residue co-evolution, structural proximity, PTMs at the same residue and location within PTM highly enriched protein regions (hotspots). PTMcode is presented as a protein-based searchable database with an interactive web interface providing the context of the co-regulation of nearly 75 000 residues in >10 000 proteins.\nPMCID: PMC3531129  PMID: 23193284\n5.  DvD: An R/Cytoscape pipeline for drug repurposing using public repositories of gene expression data \nBioinformatics  2012;29(1):132-134.\nSummary: Drug versus Disease (DvD) provides a pipeline, available through R or Cytoscape, for the comparison of drug and disease gene expression profiles from public microarray repositories. Negatively correlated profiles can be used to generate hypotheses of drug-repurposing, whereas positively correlated profiles may be used to infer side effects of drugs. DvD allows users to compare drug and disease signatures with dynamic access to databases Array Express, Gene Expression Omnibus and data from the Connectivity Map.\nAvailability and implementation: R package (submitted to Bioconductor) under GPL 3 and Cytoscape plug-in freely available for download at\nSupplementary information: Supplementary data are available at Bioinformatics online.\nPMCID: PMC3530913  PMID: 23129297\n6.  MOCAT: A Metagenomics Assembly and Gene Prediction Toolkit \nPLoS ONE  2012;7(10):e47656.\nMOCAT is a highly configurable, modular pipeline for fast, standardized processing of single or paired-end sequencing data generated by the Illumina platform. The pipeline uses state-of-the-art programs to quality control, map, and assemble reads from metagenomic samples sequenced at a depth of several billion base pairs, and predict protein-coding genes on assembled metagenomes. Mapping against reference databases allows for read extraction or removal, as well as abundance calculations. Relevant statistics for each processing step can be summarized into multi-sheet Excel documents and queryable SQL databases. MOCAT runs on UNIX machines and integrates seamlessly with the SGE and PBS queuing systems, commonly used to process large datasets. The open source code and modular architecture allow users to modify or exchange the programs that are utilized in the various processing steps. Individual processing steps and parameters were benchmarked and tested on artificial, real, and simulated metagenomes resulting in an improvement of selected quality metrics. MOCAT can be freely downloaded at\nPMCID: PMC3474746  PMID: 23082188\n7.  Deciphering a global network of functionally associated post-translational modifications \nThis study is the first large-scale comparative analysis of multiple types of post-translational modifications in different eukaryotic species. The resulting network of co-evolving and functionally associated modifications reveals the global landscape of post-translational regulation.\nIn all, 115 149 non-redundant post-translational modifications (PTMs) of 13 different types were collected from 8 eukaryotes.Comparison of evolution speed reveals that carboxylation is the most conserved while SUMOylation is the fastest evolving PTM type.Co-evolution of PTM pairs that co-occur within proteins reveals a vastly interconnected global network of functionally associated PTM types in eukaryotes.Central to the network of functionally associated PTM types appear phosphorylation, acetylation, ubiquitination and O-linked glycosylation that control both temporal events and processes that govern protein localization.\nVarious post-translational modifications (PTMs) fine-tune the functions of almost all eukaryotic proteins, and co-regulation of different types of PTMs has been shown within and between a number of proteins. Aiming at a more global view of the interplay between PTM types, we collected modifications for 13 frequent PTM types in 8 eukaryotes, compared their speed of evolution and developed a method for measuring PTM co-evolution within proteins based on the co-occurrence of sites across eukaryotes. As many sites are still to be discovered, this is a considerable underestimate, yet, assuming that most co-evolving PTMs are functionally associated, we found that PTM types are vastly interconnected, forming a global network that comprise in human alone >50 000 residues in about 6000 proteins. We predict substantial PTM type interplay in secreted and membrane-associated proteins and in the context of particular protein domains and short-linear motifs. The global network of co-evolving PTM types implies a complex and intertwined post-translational regulation landscape that is likely to regulate multiple functional states of many if not all eukaryotic proteins.\nPMCID: PMC3421446  PMID: 22806145\npost-translational modifications; protein regulation; proteomics; PTM code; PTM crosstalk\nYilmaz, Pelin | Kottmann, Renzo | Field, Dawn | Knight, Rob | Cole, James R | Amaral-Zettler, Linda | Gilbert, Jack A | Karsch-Mizrachi, Ilene | Johnston, Anjanette | Cochrane, Guy | Vaughan, Robert | Hunter, Christopher | Park, Joonhong | Morrison, Norman | Rocca-Serra, Philippe | Sterk, Peter | Arumugam, Manimozhiyan | Bailey, Mark | Baumgartner, Laura | Birren, Bruce W | Blaser, Martin J | Bonazzi, Vivien | Booth, Tim | Bork, Peer | Bushman, Frederic D | Buttigieg, Pier Luigi | Chain, Patrick S G | Charlson, Emily | Costello, Elizabeth K | Huot-Creasy, Heather | Dawyndt, Peter | DeSantis, Todd | Fierer, Noah | Fuhrman, Jed A | Gallery, Rachel E | Gevers, Dirk | Gibbs, Richard A | Gil, Inigo San | Gonzalez, Antonio | Gordon, Jeffrey I | Guralnick, Robert | Hankeln, Wolfgang | Highlander, Sarah | Hugenholtz, Philip | Jansson, Janet | Kau, Andrew L | Kelley, Scott T | Kennedy, Jerry | Knights, Dan | Koren, Omry | Kuczynski, Justin | Kyrpides, Nikos | Larsen, Robert | Lauber, Christian L | Legg, Teresa | Ley, Ruth E | Lozupone, Catherine A | Ludwig, Wolfgang | Lyons, Donna | Maguire, Eamonn | Methé, Barbara A | Meyer, Folker | Muegge, Brian | Nakielny, Sara | Nelson, Karen E | Nemergut, Diana | Neufeld, Josh D | Newbold, Lindsay K | Oliver, Anna E | Pace, Norman R | Palanisamy, Giriprakash | Peplies, Jörg | Petrosino, Joseph | Proctor, Lita | Pruesse, Elmar | Quast, Christian | Raes, Jeroen | Ratnasingham, Sujeevan | Ravel, Jacques | Relman, David A | Assunta-Sansone, Susanna | Schloss, Patrick D | Schriml, Lynn | Sinha, Rohini | Smith, Michelle I | Sodergren, Erica | Spor, Aymé | Stombaugh, Jesse | Tiedje, James M | Ward, Doyle V | Weinstock, George M | Wendel, Doug | White, Owen | Whiteley, Andrew | Wilke, Andreas | Wortman, Jennifer R | Yatsunenko, Tanya | Glöckner, Frank Oliver\nNature Biotechnology  2011;29(5):415-420.\nHere we present a standard developed by the Genomic Standards Consortium (GSC) for reporting marker gene sequences—the minimum information about a marker gene sequence (MIMARKS). We also introduce a system for describing the environment from which a biological sample originates. The ‘environmental packages’ apply to any genome sequence of known origin and can be used in combination with MIMARKS and other GSC checklists. Finally, to establish a unified standard for describing sequence data and to provide a single point of entry for the scientific community to access and learn about GSC checklists, we present the minimum information about any (x) sequence (MIxS). Adoption of MIxS will enhance our ability to analyze natural genetic diversity documented by massive DNA sequencing efforts from myriad ecosystems in our ever-changing biosphere.\nPMCID: PMC3367316  PMID: 21552244\n9.  Transcription start site associated RNAs in bacteria \nA new class of small RNA (~45 bases long) is identified in gram positive and negative bacteria. These tssRNAs are associated with RNA polymerase pausing some 45 bases downstream of the transcription start site and show global changes in expression during the growth cycle.\nA new class of bacterial small RNAs have been identified. They are related to eukaryotic tiRNAs in their localization (transcription start sites, TSS) but not in their biogenesis.tssRNAs are generated at the same positions as long transcripts, as well as at independent positions, but both seem to have promoter-like characteristics (Pribnow box).We provide compelling evidence that tssRNAs are not mRNA degradation products and neither abortive transcripts; rather, they are newly synthesized transcripts and require more factors than the basal transcription machinery (i.e., RNA polymerase subunits)tssRNAs show dynamic behavior dependent on the growth phase.We show that RNA polymerase is halted at tssRNAs positions, both in bona fide genes and in positions where no long transcript is produced. This indicates that tssRNAs could be generated by RNA polymerase pausing to ensure that no spurious long RNA is generated by random appearance of Pribnow sequences in the genome.\nHere, we report the genome-wide identification of small RNAs associated with transcription start sites (TSSs), termed tssRNAs, in Mycoplasma pneumoniae. tssRNAs were also found to be present in a different bacterial phyla, Escherichia coli. Similar to the recently identified promoter-associated tiny RNAs (tiRNAs) in eukaryotes, tssRNAs are associated with active promoters. Evidence suggests that these tssRNAs are distinct from previously described abortive transcription RNAs. ssRNAs have an average size of 45 bases and map exactly to the beginning of cognate full-length transcripts and to cryptic TSSs. Expression of bacterial tssRNAs requires factors other than the standard RNA polymerase holoenzyme. We have found that the RNA polymerase is halted at tssRNA positions in vivo, which may indicate that a pausing mechanism exists to prevent transcription in the absence of genes. These results suggest that small RNAs associated with TSSs could be a universal feature of bacterial transcription.\nPMCID: PMC3377991  PMID: 22617959\nnon-coding RNAs; small RNAs; transcription; transcriptomics\n11.  Prediction and identification of sequences coding for orphan enzymes using genomic and metagenomic neighbours \nMany characterized metabolic enzymes currently lack associated gene and protein sequences. Here, pathway and genomic neighbour data are used to assign genes to these ‘orphan enzymes,' and the predictions are validated with experimental assays and genome-scale metabolic modelling.\nA computational method is developed for assigning candidate sequences to orphan enzymes. The method uses metabolic pathway, genomic neighbourhood, genomic co-occurrence, and protein domain information to predict genes that are likely to perform a particular enzymatic function.Benchmarking of the scoring scheme based on the 4 features above revealed that some combinations of parameters yielded greater than 70% accuracy, and that high-confidence predictions could be generated for 131 orphan enzymes.Enzyme assay experiments confirmed the predicted enzymatic activity for two of the high-confidence candidate sequences.Predicted functions can improve the annotation of genomic and metagenomic data, and can reveal putative genes for enzymes with potential biotechnological applications.Incorporating the predicted enzymatic reactions into genome-scale metabolic models changed the flux connectivity and improved their ability to correctly predict gene essentiality, supporting the biological relevance of these predictions.\nDespite the current wealth of sequencing data, one-third of all biochemically characterized metabolic enzymes lack a corresponding gene or protein sequence, and as such can be considered orphan enzymes. They represent a major gap between our molecular and biochemical knowledge, and consequently are not amenable to modern systemic analyses. As 555 of these orphan enzymes have metabolic pathway neighbours, we developed a global framework that utilizes the pathway and (meta)genomic neighbour information to assign candidate sequences to orphan enzymes. For 131 orphan enzymes (37% of those for which (meta)genomic neighbours are available), we associate sequences to them using scoring parameters with an estimated accuracy of 70%, implying functional annotation of 16 345 gene sequences in numerous (meta)genomes. As a case in point, two of these candidate sequences were experimentally validated to encode the predicted activity. In addition, we augmented the currently available genome-scale metabolic models with these new sequence–function associations and were able to expand the models by on average 8%, with a considerable change in the flux connectivity patterns and improved essentiality prediction.\nPMCID: PMC3377989  PMID: 22569339\ngenomics; metabolic pathways; metagenomics; neighbourhood information; orphan enzymes\n12.  Annotation of the M. tuberculosis Hypothetical Orfeome: Adding Functional Information to More than Half of the Uncharacterized Proteins \nPLoS ONE  2012;7(4):e34302.\nThe genome of Mycobacterium tuberculosis (H37Rv) contains 4,019 protein coding genes, of which more than thousand have been categorized as ‘hypothetical’ implying that for these not even weak functional associations could be identified so far. We here predict reliable functional indications for half of this large hypothetical orfeome: 497 genes can be annotated based on orthology, and another 125 can be linked to interacting proteins via integrated genomic context analysis and literature mining. The assignments include newly identified clusters of interacting proteins, hypothetical genes that are associated to well known pathways and putative disease-relevant targets. All together, we have raised the fraction of the proteome with at least some functional annotation to 88% which should considerably enhance the interpretation of large-scale experiments targeting this medically important organism.\nPMCID: PMC3317503  PMID: 22485162\n13.  Cross-talk between phosphorylation and lysine acetylation in a genome-reduced bacterium \nThe effect of kinase, phosphatase and N-acetyltransferase deletions on proteome phosphorylation and acetylation was investigated in Mycoplasma pneumoniae. Bi-directional cross-talk between post-transcriptional modifications suggests an underlying regulatory molecular code in prokaryotes.\nPost-translational modifications (PTMs) change the chemical properties of proteins, conferring diversity beyond the amino-acid sequence. Proteins are often modified on multiple sites. A PTM code has been proposed, whereby modifications at specific positions influence further modifications. These regulatory circuits though have rarely been studied on a large-scale; conservation in prokaryotes remains elusive.Here, we studied two important PTMs– phosphorylation and lysine acetylation in the small bacterium Mycoplasma pneumoniae. We combined genetics and quantitative mass spectrometry to measure the effect of systematic kinase, phosphatase and N-acetyltransferase deletions on proteome abundance, phosphorylation and lysine acetylation.The data set represents a comprehensive analysis of both phosphorylation and lysine acetylation in a single prokaryote. It reveals (1) proteins often carry multiple modifications and multiple types of PTMs, reminiscent of the PTM code proposed in eukaryotes, (2) phosphorylation exerts pleiotropic effect on proteins abundances, phosphorylation, but also lysine acetylation, (3) the cross-talk between the two PTMs is bi-directional and (4) PTMs are frequently located at interaction interfaces and in multifunctional proteins, illustrating how PTMs could modulate protein functions affecting the way they interact.The study provides an unbiased and quantitative view on cross-talk between phosphorylation and lysine acetylation. It suggests that these regulatory circuits are a fundamental principle of regulation that might have evolved before the divergence of prokaryotes and eukaryotes.\nProtein post-translational modifications (PTMs) represent important regulatory states that when combined have been hypothesized to act as molecular codes and to generate a functional diversity beyond genome and transcriptome. We systematically investigate the interplay of protein phosphorylation with other post-transcriptional regulatory mechanisms in the genome-reduced bacterium Mycoplasma pneumoniae. Systematic perturbations by deletion of its only two protein kinases and its unique protein phosphatase identified not only the protein-specific effect on the phosphorylation network, but also a modulation of proteome abundance and lysine acetylation patterns, mostly in the absence of transcriptional changes. Reciprocally, deletion of the two putative N-acetyltransferases affects protein phosphorylation, confirming cross-talk between the two PTMs. The measured M. pneumoniae phosphoproteome and lysine acetylome revealed that both PTMs are very common, that (as in Eukaryotes) they often co-occur within the same protein and that they are frequently observed at interaction interfaces and in multifunctional proteins. The results imply previously unreported hidden layers of post-transcriptional regulation intertwining phosphorylation with lysine acetylation and other mechanisms that define the functional state of a cell.\nPMCID: PMC3293634  PMID: 22373819\nkinase; N-acetyltransferase; network; phosphatase; post-translational modification\n14.  Assessment of Metagenomic Assembly Using Simulated Next Generation Sequencing Data \nPLoS ONE  2012;7(2):e31386.\nDue to the complexity of the protocols and a limited knowledge of the nature of microbial communities, simulating metagenomic sequences plays an important role in testing the performance of existing tools and data analysis methods with metagenomic data. We developed metagenomic read simulators with platform-specific (Sanger, pyrosequencing, Illumina) base-error models, and simulated metagenomes of differing community complexities. We first evaluated the effect of rigorous quality control on Illumina data. Although quality filtering removed a large proportion of the data, it greatly improved the accuracy and contig lengths of resulting assemblies. We then compared the quality-trimmed Illumina assemblies to those from Sanger and pyrosequencing. For the simple community (10 genomes) all sequencing technologies assembled a similar amount and accurately represented the expected functional composition. For the more complex community (100 genomes) Illumina produced the best assemblies and more correctly resembled the expected functional composition. For the most complex community (400 genomes) there was very little assembly of reads from any sequencing technology. However, due to the longer read length the Sanger reads still represented the overall functional composition reasonably well. We further examined the effect of scaffolding of contigs using paired-end Illumina reads. It dramatically increased contig lengths of the simple community and yielded minor improvements to the more complex communities. Although the increase in contig length was accompanied by increased chimericity, it resulted in more complete genes and a better characterization of the functional repertoire. The metagenomic simulators developed for this research are freely available.\nPMCID: PMC3285633  PMID: 22384016\n15.  Younger Genes Are Less Likely to Be Essential than Older Genes, and Duplicates Are Less Likely to Be Essential than Singletons of the Same Age \nMolecular Biology and Evolution  2012;29(7):1703-1706.\nRecently duplicated genes are believed to often overlap in function and expression. A priori, they are thus less likely to be essential. Although this was indeed observed in yeast, mouse singletons and duplicates were reported to be equally often essential. This contradiction can only partly be explained by experimental biases. We herein show that older genes (i.e., genes with earlier phyletic origin) are more likely to be essential, regardless of their duplication status. At a given phyletic gene age, duplicates are always less likely to be essential compared with singletons. The “paradoxical” high essentiality among mouse gene duplicates is then caused by different age profiles of singletons and duplicates, with the latter tending to be derived from older genes.\nPMCID: PMC3375470  PMID: 22319151\ngene essentiality; yeast; mouse; phyletic age; linking genotype to phenotype\n16.  The Tenth Asia Pacific Bioinformatics Conference (APBC 2012) \nBMC Genomics  2012;13(Suppl 1):I1.\nPMCID: PMC3304854  PMID: 22369290\n17.  Prediction of Drug Combinations by Integrating Molecular and Pharmacological Data \nPLoS Computational Biology  2011;7(12):e1002323.\nCombinatorial therapy is a promising strategy for combating complex disorders due to improved efficacy and reduced side effects. However, screening new drug combinations exhaustively is impractical considering all possible combinations between drugs. Here, we present a novel computational approach to predict drug combinations by integrating molecular and pharmacological data. Specifically, drugs are represented by a set of their properties, such as their targets or indications. By integrating several of these features, we show that feature patterns enriched in approved drug combinations are not only predictive for new drug combinations but also provide insights into mechanisms underlying combinatorial therapy. Further analysis confirmed that among our top ranked predictions of effective combinations, 69% are supported by literature, while the others represent novel potential drug combinations. We believe that our proposed approach can help to limit the search space of drug combinations and provide a new way to effectively utilize existing drugs for new purposes.\nAuthor Summary\nThe combination of distinct drugs in combinatorial therapy can help to improve therapeutic efficacy by overcoming the redundancy and robustness of pathogenic processes, or by lowering the risk of side effects. However, identification of effective drug combinations is cumbersome, considering the possible search space with respect to the large number of drugs that could potentially be combined. In this work, we explore various molecular and pharmacological features of drugs, and show that by utilizing combinations of such features it is possible to predict new drug combinations. Benchmarking the approach using approved drug combinations demonstrates that these feature combinations are indeed predictive and can propose promising new drug combinations. In addition, the enriched feature patterns provide insights into the mechanisms underlying drug combinations. For example, they suggest that if two drugs share targets or therapeutic effects, they can be independently combined with a third common drug. The ability to efficiently predict drug combinations should facilitate the development of more efficient drug therapies for a broader range of indications including hard-to-treat complex diseases.\nPMCID: PMC3248384  PMID: 22219721\n18.  Identifying Single Copy Orthologs in Metazoa \nPLoS Computational Biology  2011;7(12):e1002269.\nThe identification of single copy (1-to-1) orthologs in any group of organisms is important for functional classification and phylogenetic studies. The Metazoa are no exception, but only recently has there been a wide-enough distribution of taxa with sufficiently high quality sequenced genomes to gain confidence in the wide-spread single copy status of a gene.\nHere, we present a phylogenetic approach for identifying overlooked single copy orthologs from multigene families and apply it to the Metazoa. Using 18 sequenced metazoan genomes of high quality we identified a robust set of 1,126 orthologous groups that have been retained in single copy since the last common ancestor of Metazoa. We found that the use of the phylogenetic procedure increased the number of single copy orthologs found by over a third more than standard taxon-count approaches. The orthologs represented a wide range of functional categories, expression profiles and levels of divergence.\nTo demonstrate the value of our set of single copy orthologs, we used them to assess the completeness of 24 currently published metazoan genomes and 62 EST datasets. We found that the annotated genes in published genomes vary in coverage from 79% (Ciona intestinalis) to 99.8% (human) with an average of 92%, suggesting a value for the underlying error rate in genome annotation, and a strategy for identifying single copy orthologs in larger datasets. In contrast, the vast majority of EST datasets with no corresponding genome sequence available are largely under-sampled and probably do not accurately represent the actual genomic complement of the organisms from which they are derived.\nAuthor Summary\nThe correct identification of single copy (1-to-1) orthologs is crucial for functional classification of genes and for phylogenetic studies of groups of organisms, including the Metazoa. Nevertheless, despite the recent increase in the number of genomes and short sequence read datasets (e.g. ESTs) from the Metazoa, we know little about their completeness and how useful they may be for phylogenetic studies. Here we describe a novel approach for the identification of single copy gene families at any hierarchical level and demonstrate its effectiveness by identifying a set of over one thousand gene families that have been in single copy since the last common ancestor of the Metazoa. By comparing our orthologs to those predicted by other datasets we show that our procedure identifies a significantly larger set of single copy orthologs in the Metazoa. We then use this dataset to assess 24 metazoan genomes and 61 metazoan EST datasets for their completeness. We thus identify the underlying error rate in genome annotation and suggest a mechanism for assessing the quality of genomes and EST datasets in terms of their suitability for phylogenetic studies.\nPMCID: PMC3228760  PMID: 22144877\n19.  InterPro in 2011: new developments in the family and domain prediction database \nNucleic Acids Research  2011;40(D1):D306-D312.\nPMCID: PMC3245097  PMID: 22096229\n20.  eggNOG v3.0: orthologous groups covering 1133 organisms at 41 different taxonomic ranges \nNucleic Acids Research  2011;40(D1):D284-D289.\nOrthologous relationships form the basis of most comparative genomic and metagenomic studies and are essential for proper phylogenetic and functional analyses. The third version of the eggNOG database ( contains non-supervised orthologous groups constructed from 1133 organisms, doubling the number of genes with orthology assignment compared to eggNOG v2. The new release is the result of a number of improvements and expansions: (i) the underlying homology searches are now based on the SIMAP database; (ii) the orthologous groups have been extended to 41 levels of selected taxonomic ranges enabling much more fine-grained orthology assignments; and (iii) the newly designed web page is considerably faster with more functionality. In total, eggNOG v3 contains 721 801 orthologous groups, encompassing a total of 4 396 591 genes. Additionally, we updated 4873 and 4850 original COGs and KOGs, respectively, to include all 1133 organisms. At the universal level, covering all three domains of life, 101 208 orthologous groups are available, while the others are applicable at 40 more limited taxonomic ranges. Each group is amended by multiple sequence alignments and maximum-likelihood trees and broad functional descriptions are provided for 450 904 orthologous groups (62.5%).\nPMCID: PMC3245133  PMID: 22096231\n21.  OGEE: an online gene essentiality database \nNucleic Acids Research  2011;40(D1):D901-D906.\nOGEE is an Online GEne Essentiality database. Its main purpose is to enhance our understanding of the essentiality of genes. This is achieved by collecting not only experimentally tested essential and non-essential genes, but also associated gene features such as expression profiles, duplication status, conservation across species, evolutionary origins and involvement in embryonic development. We focus on large-scale experiments and complement our data with text-mining results. Genes are organized into data sets according to their sources. Genes with variable essentiality status across data sets are tagged as conditionally essential, highlighting the complex interplay between gene functions and environments. Linked tools allow the user to compare gene essentiality among different gene groups, or compare features of essential genes to non-essential genes, and visualize the results. OGEE is freely available at\nPMCID: PMC3245054  PMID: 22075992\n22.  STITCH 3: zooming in on protein–chemical interactions \nNucleic Acids Research  2011;40(D1):D876-D880.\nPMCID: PMC3245073  PMID: 22075997\n23.  SMART 7: recent updates to the protein domain annotation resource \nNucleic Acids Research  2011;40(D1):D302-D305.\nPMCID: PMC3245027  PMID: 22053084\n24.  A Holistic Approach to Marine Eco-Systems Biology \nPLoS Biology  2011;9(10):e1001177.\nThe structure, robustness, and dynamics of ocean plankton ecosystems remain poorly understood due to sampling, analysis, and computational limitations. The Tara Oceans consortium organizes expeditions to help fill this gap at the global level.\nPMCID: PMC3196472  PMID: 22028628\n25.  Universally Distributed Single-Copy Genes Indicate a Constant Rate of Horizontal Transfer \nPLoS ONE  2011;6(8):e22099.\nSingle copy genes, universally distributed across the three domains of life and encoding mostly ancient parts of the translation machinery, are thought to be only rarely subjected to horizontal gene transfer (HGT). Indeed it has been proposed to have occurred in only a few genes and implies a rare, probably not advantageous event in which an ortholog displaces the original gene and has to function in a foreign context (orthologous gene displacement, OGD). Here, we have utilised an automatic method to identify HGT based on a conservative statistical approach capable of robustly assigning both donors and acceptors. Applied to 40 universally single copy genes we found that as many as 68 HGTs (implying OGDs) have occurred in these genes with a rate of 1.7 per family since the last universal common ancestor (LUCA). We examined a number of factors that have been claimed to be fundamental to HGT in general and tested their validity in the subset of universally distributed single copy genes. We found that differing functional constraints impact rates of OGD and the more evolutionarily distant the donor and acceptor, the less likely an OGD is to occur. Furthermore, species with larger genomes are more likely to be subjected to OGD. Most importantly, regardless of the trends above, the number of OGDs increases linearly with time, indicating a neutral, constant rate. This suggests that levels of HGT above this rate may be indicative of positively selected transfers that may allow niche adaptation or bestow other benefits to the recipient organism.\nPMCID: PMC3151239  PMID: 21850220\n\nResults 1-25 (108)", "pred_label": "__label__1", "pred_score_pos": 0.9640634655952454}
+{"content": "Ch 23 French Rev\n\nAbout this set\n\nCreated by:\n\nmwitt  on February 18, 2010\n\n\nGlobal Patterns of Civilizations II\n\n\nGeorgetown Visitation\n\nLog in to favorite or report as inappropriate.\nPop out\nNo Messages\n\nYou must log in to discuss this set.\n\nCh 23 French Rev\n\nFirst Estate and divisions\nclergy: Upper (also part of second estate,bishops, cardinals, abbots) and lower clergy (poorly-paid, parish, priests); privileged, 1% of pop, not taxed\n\n\nCards (new!)\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\nSpace Race\n\n\n\n\n\n\nOrder by\n\n\n\nUpper clergy views sought to preserve privileges of the Old Regime (conservative) --> favored limited monarchy, agreed and allied with nobility, felt threatened by bourgeoisie, view the peasants as workers and frustrated by their refusal to fulfill feudal obligations\nLower clergy views liberal-minded like the Third Estate, in favor of limited monarchy, resented but respect nobility, ally with bourgeoisie, could identify with peasants\nSecond Estate and divisions nobility: upper nobility (of the sword sword, old families) and lower nobility (of the robe, social climbers), highest positions in church, army, and bureaucracy from resurgence after death of Louis XIV; 2% of pop who owned 25% of the land, pay no taxes\nUpper Nobility views conservative, sought limited monarchy to preserve rights, support clergy, threatened by bourgeioisie frustrated by complaints of peasants; served the king at Versailles, had the name, power, and wealth\nLower nobility views \"liberal\", sought limited monarchy but depended on the king for their social status, support clergy, threatened by bourgeoisie taking power but they brought more people to their group, frustrated by the complaints of peasants; had the name but not the power\nThird estate and divisions everyone else: bourgeoisie, peasantry, and urban workers (sans-culottes), 25 million\nBourgeoisie views frustrated with monarchy because of limited privileges and sought limited monarchy, tension with clergy because they oppose the rcc, envious and resentful of nobility, wealthy but not privilege: merchants, manufacturers, bankers, doctors, lawyers, intellectuals, owned 20% of land\nPeasant views rebellious of monarchy because they were always hit with taxes, very loyal to the clergy, great resentment of nobility, 21 million\nurban workers resent monarchy, clergy, and nobility\nLouis XVI and Marie Antoniette weak leadership were a cause of the French Rev\nParlements 13 regional law courts, the most powerful of which is the one in Paris, used as an arm for nobilty for blocking king's decrees (no unified law)\nCauses of French Revolution social, political, intellectual, economc\nSocial causes of French Rev rigid social hierarchy --> 3 estates and tremendous grievances against the inequality of privileges\nPolitical causes of French Rev struggle between weak leadership of the monarchy and the Resurgent aristocracy\nIntellectual causes of French Rev enlightenment ideas: change is good, progress for humanity and american revolution: inspiration, proof that progress is possible and that common man can win (common man vs. tyranny)\nEconomic causes of French Rev wealth not distributed, huge gaps between rich and poor, debt, poor harvest --> rising bread prices --> tension\nCause of France's debt support of the American Rev and the Seven Years war\nNational Assembly June 17, 1789: created a new legislative body with the Third Estate and the lower clergy combined\nAttempt to allieviate French debt taxes on the nobility and clergy but the parlement claimed that only the Estates General should pay\nEstates General Louis XVI's advisory\nTennis Court Oath NA was locked out of their building so took an oath to stay on the tennis court until thy had given France a constitution. Although called to desist by the king, most of the clergy and nobles joined --> June 27 the king gave in and NA became National Constituent Assembly\nStorming of the BastilleWho: Parisian crowd and the royal troops\n• Parisian crowd marched to the Bastille looking for weapons of the militia\n• Royal troops killed 98 in the crowd\n• Crowd stormed the fortress and released several prisoners, killed several soldiers, and the governor\n• Did not find weapons\nWhen: July 14, 1789\nWhere: Paris, France; The Bastille (a great fortress that formerly held\npolitical prisoners)\nWhy: Showed that the political future would not only be controlled by\nthe NCA\nThe Great FearWho: French peasants and the French nobility\n• The actions of the peasants against the nobles in the French countryside\n• The peasants vent about injustices against them, reclaim rights and properties lost in aristocratic resurgence in the last 25 years, and refuse to pay feudal dues\n• Burned chateaux, destroyed documents\nWhen: July-August 1789\nWhere: French countryside\nResult of the Great Fear August 4, 1789 decree: members of First and Second Estate surrendered their special privileges so that France's laws applied equality for all\nDeclaration of the Rights of ManWho: created by NCA\nWhat: says:\n• all men were born free and equal with natural rights to liberty, property (sacred), and personal safety\n• gov't exists to protect those rights\n• all political leadership is in the nation and its representatives and all citizens are eligible for public office\n• all citizens equal before law and have right to due process, innocence until proven guilty\n• freedom of religion\n• heaviness of taxation based on capacity to pay\nWhen: August 27, 1789\nWomen's March on VersaillesBread shortages continued\nWho: several thousand Parisian women\n- women march to Versailles demanding bread\nWhen: October 5, 1789\nWhere: Paris to Versailles\n- One of many times that women play an important role in crowd revolt\n- October 6, 1789 (the next day), the king and his family follow the women back to Paris. Followed by the NCA\nLouis XVI's reaction to the Declaration of the Right of Man he stalled the ratification of the declaration and the ending of feudalism --> made people think he might resort to force\nCivil Constitution of the clergy1790: i. made French RCC a branch of secular state\nii. priests and bishops elected to serve w/ state salaries\niii. demanded all clergy take oath to the Constitution, the many who did were\ndeemed refractory and were removed from the Church\niv. Constitution and the Declaration condemned by the Pope (Feb 1791) and\ndivided French into those loyal to the Church and those loyal to the\nRevolution (including Louis who favored the Revolution)\nDeclaration of Pillnitza result of Fleeing of Louis XVI (summer 1791)\na. Was caught and forced back -->assembly now saw the king as a counterrevolutionary\nb. August 27, 1791 : Kings of Russia and Prussia promise to protect the French royal family\ni. the declaration required Britain's agreement and because they refused, it was\nii. Showed French revolutionaries they were surrounded by aristocratic and monarchial foes\nLegislative assembly led by the Girondists voted to declare war on Austria (who was allied w/ Prussia) --> Second Revolution to overthrow monarchy and establish republic (in the National Convention)\nConstitution of 1791 Established constitutional monarchy (The Legislative Assembly, one house)\nii. Monarch could only delay legislation\niii. only 50,000 men could be elected or serve\nDesires of the bourgeoisie in Stage One free-trade economy and limited monarchy\nDeclaration of the Rights of Women b. Olympe de Gouges' reaction\ni. Olympe, from butcher's daughter  radical\nii. composed THIS DOCUMENT (1793)\nA. asked for equal rights for women\nPolitical clubs formed in the early stages of the Revolution Jacobins and Girondists\nJacobins the best organized in France, the radical republican party (displaced Girondists), majority in new Legislative assembly\nGirondists group of Jacobins\nsan-culottesurban workers, antimonarchical, republican group of lower middle class and artisans of Paris (urban working class), . ignored by the policies of the Old Regime and left unprotected by the NCA's\npolicies of free-market economy  suspicious of gov't, advocated small property owners, and resented social inequality  hostile to aristocracy and original revolutionaries\nii. Wanted price controls for food\nRole of the King in Stage One to submit to the will of the refractory, was giving away his power\nNational Conventionled by the moderate bourgeoisie, during the second revolution,the Paris Commune called for Legislative Assembly to elect a new assembly (the Convention) and write a democratic constitution. Convention meet in 1792 and declared France a republic. the Mountain Jacobins (highly seated in the Convention) worked w/ san-culottes to pass revolutionary reforms and win the war Convention took control of French gov't\nSecond Revolutionled by the san-culottes and Mountain Jacobins\n5. January 21, 1793: Louis XVI was beheaded on the charge of conspiring against the state\na. The killing shocked Europe  France was isolated and at war with everyone, including civil war\nCommittee of Public Safetycreated by the Convention to safeguard the revolution from enemies from both within and outside Franceb. Became an almost dictatorial power and worked with Paris sans-culottes but they later invaded Convention, drove out the Girondists, and gave the Mountains complete control --> impose price controls\nlevee en masse a. 1793: Convention decree - draft of all males into the army and harnessed the economy\nfor war production\nRepublic of virtue dechristianization of France\ni. Notre Dame Temple of Reason\nii. A new, rationalized calendar was created, w/ twelve months named after\nseasons and climates (starting from the creation of the Republic)\niii. Churches were closed and Christians were persecuted\niv. the general reaction of the citizens was against\nMaximillian Robespierrea.\ni. Emerged as a chief figure of the Committee of Public Safety in 1794\nii. Jacobins were his power base and was supported by san-culottes\niii. Understood that dechristianization was a politically bad idea\niv. Robespierre created a law that allowed him to convict w/o evidence  thousands of executions\nv. Replaced the worship of reason with the Cult of the Supreme Being  coup  his execution  end of the Reign of Terror\nReign of Terror - the period between the summer of 1793 and the end of July 1794 when the French revolutionary state used 40,000 executive executions and violence to defend the Revolution and suppress internal enemies\na. Victims: mostly peasants an san-culottes\nFactors causing Reign of Terror a. Fear created by the internal and external wars\nb. Revolutionary aspirations of the Convention and san-culottes\nThermodorian Reaction (3rd phase) July 1794: establishment of new constitutional regime, reaction against radicalism of the French rev, excitement begins to settle\nDirectory executive branch of the Convention made of 5 people created by the thermodorian constitution of the year III\nWhy did the French Rev become more radical in stage two? because the king was out of the picture and they did not know how to lead without one\nwhat caused the rise of counterrevolutionaries? the counterrevolutionaries, the san-culottes, wanted price controls to protect themselves and received a chance when they were let into the convention\nDemands of the sans-culottes and the radical Jacobins in Stage Two price control\nCauses of the end of the Reign of Terror the execution of Robespierre\nFR Events in 1789 (8) June: Third Estate --> NA and Oath on the Tennis Court, July: Storming of the Bastille, the Great Fear (through August), August: National Assembly abolished feuday privileges, NA issues Declaration, October: Women march on versailles and force the roysl family to return to paris\nFR Events of 1790 (2) Civil Constitution of Clergy and Louis agrees to constitutional monarchy\nFR Events of 1791 (2) June: Arrest of the royal family as they attempt to flee, August: Declaration of Pillnitz\nFR Events of 1792 (3) April: France declares war on Austria, August: take Louis prisoner, NC declares France a republic and abolished monarchy\nFR Events of 1793 (5) January: execution of Louis, March: struggle in NC between Girondists and the Mountain, April-June: creation of Committee of Public Safety, Sept: Price controls\nFR Events of 1793-94 (3) Reign of Terror, spring (4): french armies victorious on all fronts, July (4): execution of robespierre --> thermodorian reaction\n\nFirst Time Here?\n\n\nSet Champions\n", "pred_label": "__label__1", "pred_score_pos": 0.9230033159255981}
+{"content": "Archive for May, 2012\n\nMay 28, 2012\n\nJapanese art and Yuzo Saeki: the “outsider” who died in a distant land in an insane asylum\n\n\nLee Jay Walker \n\nModern Tokyo Times\n\nThe artist Yuzo Saeki gave much to the Japanese art world despite dying at the age of 30. Yuzo Saeki was born in 1898 and passed away in 1928. However, despite his time on this earth being brief he did much and left an intriguing legacy which also applies to areas outside of art. This applies to the way he was “thrown to the wolves” while feeling entrapped by health problems, cultural factors, and being abandoned by a culture which did not love him back.\n\nIn many ways, Yuzo Saeki represents the “outsider” which resides in all nations throughout the world, and within nations where the marginalized are unloved. Also, he highlights the complexity of culture and how individuals may adore aspects of a new culture – but this “new culture” isn’t able to respond in kind. Therefore, the society that abandoned him was the French culture that he admired and desired to belong. However, he always remained to be the “outsider” in a country which inspired him and pulled away at his tormented soul.\n\nYuzo Saeki provides a genuine glimpse into the “real separation” of “a love affair” which refused to acknowledge his deep love of Paris and France. This applies to many art pieces whereby the distance from his vantage point is noticeable by the confused lettering of certain places he depicted. Also, the manic and confused lines within some of his art may denote all the inner-confusions and utter desperation that he felt at times. Despite this, and being in extremely poor health, he could not pull himself away from a culture which inspired him to create stunning pieces of art.\n\nYuzo Saeki was born in the vibrant city of Osaka and from a very early age he fell in love with art. The Buddhist faith ran through his veins when a child because his father was a Buddhist priest. On top of this was the changing nature of Japanese society which also swept away many traditions and depleted many rich trades. In this sense, modernization in both France and Japan was ripping many lives apart. Yet, on the other hand both societies were providing new opportunities.\n\nThe Meiji and Taisho periods in Japan were full of mass contradictions because on the one hand a new modern dynamic was part and parcel of the “new” Japan. Opposite to this, was a new nationalist period whereby Japan would join “the Western club” and “Islamic club” of colonialism. Amidst all these contradictions was a very talented artist called Yuzo Saeki who meant no negative things towards anyone. Instead, he just wanted to focus on the vocation that he adored. Sadly, life is never that simple for some individuals and ultimately his vocation also created great suffering for Yuzo Saeki.\n\nWestern art in Japan was provided with a small “window” in Nagasaki by the Dutch during the Edo period. However, in the period of Yuzo Saeki no other city was more vibrant than Paris when it came to new art movements. The old world of influence from China and Korea was on the wane for many artists and the same applies to the rich traditions of Japanese art. Therefore, the pull of Western art was extremely strong for Yuzo Saeki and in time Paris and France would become “a love affair” with “a poison chalice.”\n\nIt must be stated that many other Japanese artists didn’t suffer the same fate in France. Given this, it is clear that the deep passion within Yuzo Saeki was extremely unique but what tipped everything in the wrong direction near the end, applies to the tragic circumstances of his life. This notably applies to poor health; poverty; alienation in a country he adored; mental exhaustion because he could feel “the gates of death beckoning;” isolation; and trapped by his own “love affair” with a culture which was alien to him despite being familiar with France.\n\nIn an earlier article I state that all “…these negatives conspired together because at the age of 30 Yuzo Saeki died in destitution in a mental hospital in France. The culmination of tuberculosis, a nervous breakdown brought on by overwork, limited means to survive, still painting outside despite worsening health conditions and other factors; all led to a very sad ending of what should have been a bright future.”\n\nIt is easy to imagine Yuzo Saeki eating inadequately based on poverty while at the same time coughing up blood because of tuberculosis. Near the end he manically painted new pieces of art because he felt “the gates of death.” Therefore, even when the weather was negative he continued to paint while bringing up blood would have interrupted him from time to time.\n\nThis meant that the reality of different thought-patterns, diverse movements within the respective art scenes of both France and Japan, and other complex factors, could easily “swallow up” individuals who were beset by various issues. Given this, when Yuzo Saeki needed guidance and support he had nobody to help him in a distant land. His “moment in time” was very different to the norms of the art scene in Paris and different cultural factors meant that he was isolated internally.\n\nThe final year alone in France was a far cry from 1924 when he moved to this nation with his wife and young daughter. Then he at least had the home comforts to placate the other “love affair” which didn’t love him back.\n\n\nThe comments made by Michael Brenson are extremely illuminating because it paints a picture of an artist who is trapped by the cultural realities of both nations. At the same time, he appears to notice his isolation and withdraws from a distance whereby the signs are often illegible. However, it is not only the signs which sometimes become illegible because also the human form enters a dark and sinister world where the scars of life are all too real.\n\nYuzo Saeki also highlights the “outsider” who never can belong despite his love of the host nation. This shared experience can be felt by individuals throughout the world who often feel the same pressure and isolation. Often, it may not always be the host nation because much can depend on cultural differences and certain “norms” which clash strongly in some cultures.\n\nHowever, with the visible signs of tuberculosis, the mental strains of creating more art pieces because of the knowledge that death was getting nearer, and the grind of daily poverty pulling away at him; it is clear that nobody stepped in . Therefore, not one single individual in Paris cared enough to help Yuzo Saeki to the full. This culminated in the sad reality that his passionate “love affair” was one way because in his “time of need” he was abandoned to the ravages that befell him.\n\nIn the end Yuzo Saeki sacrificed his life and his family because he died based on the factors that entrapped him and took away his life. This applies to tuberculosis, poverty, and suffering from a mental breakdown. Michael Brenson also hints that he may have committed suicide in the end. However, the fact that this is debatable highlights the reality that Yuzo Saeki had been “thrown to the wolves.” Therefore, near the end he was just “another number” who was unloved and who died in an insane asylum in a distant land.–a228566/yuzo-saeki-posters.htm\n\nMay 24, 2012\n\n\n\nLee Jay Walker\n\nModern Tokyo Times\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\nMay 20, 2012\n\n\n\nSarah Deschamps, Michel Lebon and Lee Jay Walker\n\nModern Tokyo Times\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\nMay 12, 2012\n\nClaude Monet was smitten by Japanese art: Impressionism and ukiyo-e\n\n\nLee Jay Walker\n\nModern Tokyo Times \n\nClaude Monet was very important within French Impressionism and despite new artistic movements like Cubism and Fauvism altering the artistic landscape, he remained firmly committed to Impressionist art. Another major art theme which would shape Claude Monet was Japanese ukiyo-e because he was smitten by this art form when he witnessed it with his own eyes. Therefore, Claude Monet utilized these two powerful art movements and the upshot of this was stunning fresh art pieces which remain etched within the memory.\n\nThe Impressionist art movement altered the artistic world dramatically and created a new energy to art. However, for Claude Monet, and others, Impressionism was a philosophy which remained with him until parting from this world.\n\nHe was born in 1840 in Paris and died in 1926. Throughout his long life he created extremely stunning art which is internationally admired. From an early age Claude Monet adored art and in the early period he took lessons from Jacques-Francois Ochard. However, his early mentor who taught him about using oil paints was Eugene Boudin, a fellow artist, whom he met when still a teenager. Claude Monet and Eugene Boudin also benefitted from the influence of Johan Barthold Jongkind.\n\n\nClaude Monet in 1862 could once more fully concentrate on art but he wasn’t interested in following traditional art. He now became a student under Charles Gleyre in the dynamic city of Paris. In time he would meet powerful artists like Alfred Sisley, Pierre-Auguste Renoir and Frederic Bazille. These artists were focused on new approaches to art and in time the Impressionist movement would radically alter the artistic landscape. Therefore, because of these individuals and others who were dedicated to new artistic concepts, a rich flow of art would galvanize the art world which remains vibrant today.\n\nThe 1870s was a very dramatic period for Claude Monet because the Franco-Prussian war of 1870-1871 and the revolutionary fervor which gripped Paris, led to many upheavals. During the same period he was touched by Japanese print making called ukiyo-e. This love affair would stay with him for the rest of his life. However, the death of his wife from tuberculosis in 1879 after several years of illness shattered Claude Monet because he doted on Camille Doncieux.\n\n\n\n\n\n\nArt historians can either play up or play down the influence of ukiyo-e within the art of Claude Monet. However, he was clearly charmed by the ukiyo-e of individuals like Hokusai, Hiroshige, and Utamaro. This isn’t open to debate because not only did Claude Monet buy vast amount of ukiyo-e art prints but he also created a Japanese garden in his cherished home. He, and many other important Impressionists, was clearly inspired by many aspects of ukiyo-e.\n\n\nDon Morrison comments that Perhaps the greatest gift Japan gave Monet, and Impressionism, was an incandescent obsession with getting the play of light and shadow, the balance of colors and the curve of a line, just right — not the way it is in reality, but the way it looks in the artist’s imagination. “I have slowly learned about the pattern of the grass, the trees, the structure of birds and other animals like insects and fish, so that when I am 80, I hope to be better,” Hokusai wrote 16 years before his death at age 89. “At 90, I hope to have caught the very essence of things, so that at 100 I will have reached heavenly mysteries. At 110, every point and line will be living.” Monet spent the last decades of his life painting his water lilies, and then painting them again, until he lost his sight in quest of an elusive, transcendent perfection that might best be called Japanese.”\n\nThe love affair that Claude Monet found with Japan in his lifetime remains powerful in modern Japan. After all, without a shadow of a doubt Claude Monet is one of the most popular artists in this country. Therefore, the “love affair” worked both ways and this “spark” remains extremely bright today in Japan amongst art lovers.,9171,1573943,00.html#ixzz1uXJiJOmX\n\nMay 5, 2012\n\nFukushima fashion in Koriyama: stunning boutiques in this trendy part of Japan\n\n\nSarah Deschamps and Lee Jay Walker\n\nModern Tokyo Times\n\nKoriyama is a buzzing city in Fukushima where the fashion sector is extremely vibrant. Images of Fukushima are often portrayed negatively because of the nuclear crisis that followed the devastating tsunami on March 11, 2011. However, the vast majority of Fukushima is awash with stunning nature and is open for business. Indeed, the fashion angle to Koriyama is extremely stylish and elegant and clearly the younger generation is well served because you have so many stunning boutiques to visit.\n\nFashion in Koriyama caters for individuals of all ages and you will find many sophisticated boutiques selling luxury items. The choices available are extremely varied and this applies to high-end fashion, new trendy vibes, elegant styles which suit people of all age groups, alternative fashion, and famous international brands. Therefore, for tourists who plan to visit Fukushima because of the abundance of adorable nature, then clearly the fashion angle to Koriyama will take people by surprise.\n\nIf you close your eyes you could easily be in trendy Ikebukuro, Shinjuku, Shibuya, and other buzzing districts in Tokyo. However, this is the strong fashion vibes of Koriyama in Fukushima whereby the following images highlight the trendy nature of fashion in this highly developed city.\n\nIn the S-PAL Department Store you will notice how trendy and stylish the local ladies are because the dress styles are elegant. Throughout this store you have so many fabulous boutiques to visit and for young ladies it is a paradise for shopping. Adorable boutiques include Forest Heart, Index, The Emporium, VIS, E hyphen World Gallery, Earth Music & Ecology, Lowrys Farm, EMSEXCITE, Luccica, East Boy, and so many other stunning fashion companies. Therefore, for ladies who adore fashion a visit to S-PAL is highly recommended.\n\nThe S-PAL Department Store is located within the train station and within easy walking distance you have the exquisite Usui Department Store. This high-end department store would grace the most sophisticated parts of Tokyo, Paris, Milan, New York, Seattle, London, and other major fashion cities throughout the world. Therefore, for the people of Fukushima who desire luxury and extravagance then clearly the Usui Department Store provides this in abundance. In saying that, you will also find extremely stylish companies where the prices are very competitive and alluring for people who shop in this lovely department store.\n\nIn Usui Department Store you will find exquisite boutiques, jewelry companies, the crème de la crème of cosmetic companies, and so much more. A partial list includes Estee Lauder, Shiseido, Tiffany, Ralph Lauren, Peyton Place, Indivi, Itariya, Kanebo cosmetics, Pride and Unspeck, Swarovski, Lesouk Prix, Ined, ef-de, Coach, Reliant, Powder Palette, Franco Ferrer (b), and a host of other sublime companies. The Usui Department Store is a real gem of a company which highlights the elegance of fashion in Koriyama.\n\nAnother lovely fashion store catering for different styles is Molti Department Store which is extremely near to S-PAL. In Molti Department Store you will find many fashion companies catering for both sexes but clearly this store is extremely popular for young ladies. This is because of the stylish nature of the fashion on show and both department stores within the train station area enhance the fashion vibes of both companies.\n\nAdorable boutiques in Molti Department Store include Clef De Sol, Raugefeel, MIX-O, a.v.v., Faunny Luv, Amare MYLEPR, Aspri Classe, Mighty Circle, Love & Peace, Benetton, Amo’s Style, and many others. Also, the international flavor can be found in other areas and this applies to the Body Shop or relaxing over coffee at Starbucks. This store certainly attracts the fashion conscious and the ambience is really nice.\n\nIt is also worth checking out the streets near the train station because you also have independent boutiques catering for various tastes. Therefore, Koriyama is certainly a fantastic city to visit from the fashion point of view.\n\nOverall, it is clear that Fukushima needs internal tourists and international tourists to visit the many beautiful parts of this prefecture. The purpose of highlighting fashion in Koriyama is to show a different image to all the negative news about Fukushima. Therefore, by highlighting the fashion sector in this commercial city it shows that business and life is not only ticking but it is also vibrant.\n\nKoriyama is only 55km from the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear plant. However, the atmosphere is 2012 is vibrant, energetic, and the fashion scene is extremely elegant. The photos in this article show the “real Koriyama” which is being neglected in the international media. Therefore, the best way to support the recovery of the Tohoku region is by visiting when possible in order to help the local economy.\n\nThe Koriyama fashion scene is buzzing and from this modern city you can visit many beautiful parts of Fukushima. This applies to the stunning mountain ranges, the many beautiful ponds which dot the landscape of the Ura-Bandai area, Abukuma Cave, a stunning castle, sophisticated museums, and so much more. Fukushima provides the lot, from adorable fashion in the main commercial city of Koriyama to stunning nature – and because of the Shinkansen train system, it means that it takes only around 80 minutes from Tokyo.\n\n\n\nDepartment stores\n\nAll fashion images belong to Modern Tokyo Times but please feel free to use providing you mention our website.  Thanks!\n\nMay 5, 2012\n\nJapanese art and Asai Chu: the eclipse of ukiyo-e by western style art\n\n\nLee Jay Walker\n\nModern Tokyo Times\n\n\nThe Meiji Restoration of 1868 led to many social convulsions and like all revolutionary periods you had many winners and losers. This applies to individuals who could adapt to the rapid changes in society and the art world was no exception in Japan. Asai Chu (1856-1907) belonged to this changing world. However, in some ways he was lucky because he was young enough to understand these momentous events in Japanese history.\n\nThe old world of ukiyo-e would become eclipsed in the lifetime of Asai Chu despite some amazing Meiji ukiyo-e artists. Not surprisingly, Asai Chu became involved in the new wave of Japanese art which was heavily influenced by Western style artists. Of course, it wasn’t all one way because many Western artists like Van Gogh, Paul Gauguin, Claude Monet, Edgar Devas, James Abbott McNeill Whistler, Mary Cassatt, Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec, and many others, adored ukiyo-e and Japanese style paintings.\n\nHowever, the technological developments of photography and other areas meant that ukiyo-e could not compete on a level playing field based on modernization alone. Also, different cultural influences and Japanese artists living abroad meant that new dynamics were at work. This implies that while technological change speeded up the artistic transition, the old order would have been usurped anyway because of cultural interaction and changing thought patterns. Therefore, for individuals like Asai Chu these were exciting times.\n\nIronically, the Meiji period did witness many fantastic ukiyo-e artists and it is because of these individuals that it managed to cling on for so long. Notable Meiji ukiyo-e artists include Yoshitoshi, Chikanobu, Kobayashi Kiyochika, Ogata Gekko, Kawanabe Kyosai, Toyohara Kunichika, Utagawa Yoshifuji, Mizuno Toshikata, Ginko Adachi, and several others. However, they were swimming “against the tide” despite their collective skills blessing the art world and enriching Japanese art.\n\nTraces of the old world survived in modern Japan through new movements like shin-hanga but this area was limited when compared with the days of Hokusai, Hiroshige, Utamaro, and many other amazing artists, who belonged to the world of ukiyo-e. However, this isn’t to underestimate the shin-hanga movement because it produced many stunning artists like Ito Shinsui, Hiroshi Yoshida, and Kawase Hasui (to name just a few). Also, the bridge of the shin-hanga movement meant that “the shadow” of the old world was ticking but fused with new changes and thinking within this intriguing art form.\n\nAsai Chu blossomed under Kunisawa Shinkuro and he was lucky enough to study under Antonio Fontanesi. The reason why he had this opportunity was because of the Meiji elites who wanted to transport the best of the Western world and fuse this with the best of Japan. Therefore, in the area of science, the arts, law, industrialization, military thinking, commerce, political systems, and so forth, the power of the West became embodied within the psyche of the new Japan. Of course, while new thought patterns emerged, the power of Japanese culture and different thought patterns meant that you had a lot of fusions. Therefore, in certain areas “a new way” emerged based on Japanization.\n\nIn an earlier article I stated that “The Meiji government hired Antonio Fontanesi in order that he would introduce oil painting from Europe and clearly Asai Chu learnt much because his passion and sophistication grew. When Asai Chu was in his forties he resigned from being a professor in Tokyo and moved to France for two years. This decision was wise because by studying at an impressionist art school he managed to enhance his artistic skill and techniques.”\n\n“Also, the cultural aspect of studying in France meant that new styles of thinking and artistic creativity would further enrich his rich talents. This decision also shows that Asai Chu was still searching and despite the relative comfort of being a professor in Tokyo he was willing to take risks in order to pursue his love of art.”\n\nThe inquisitive nature of Asai Chu and his love of art meant that France would enhance him personally, and in turn he would influence many important Japanese artists when he returned home. This must have pleased the Meiji leaders who were involved in the arts because the younger generation of aspiring artists had an individual to look up. This is based on his stunning art and the rich knowledge that he had obtained in Japan and France.\n\nTherefore, artists like Yasui Sotaro, Suda Kunitaro, Umehara Ryuzaburo, and many others, learnt many things from Asai Chu. On returning to Japan he became a professor at Kyoto College of Arts and Crafts and because of his enthusiasm for art, he was involved in many clubs related to this field. Therefore, just like the dynamic Meiji period it is abundantly clear that Asai Chu was equally creative and vigorous.\n\nIn my earlier article about Asai Chu and the role of the Meiji political leadership, I comment that “Meiji political leaders impacted on art in this period and introduced new art forms from outside of Japan. However, at the same time political leaders were concerned about preserving the richness of Japanese art and culture. This minefield wasn’t easy and conservatives and liberals understood what was at stake but for individuals like Asai Chu the issue was “art” and not politics or cultural engineering.”\n\nUkiyo-e was clearly on “borrowed time” because of the prevailing conditions and artists like Asai Chu re-invigorated Japanese art. The shin-hanga movement meant that the power of ukiyo-e was kept alive for many decades throughout the twentieth century. It matters not that the thought patterns, concepts, and art, were very different because the link is evidently clear for all to see.\n\nHowever, the world of Asai Chu would impact greatly on Japanese art because so many other fellow nationals were inspired by Western art. However, in truth, each new movement will one day be eclipsed by new concepts, styles, and thinking. Therefore, the diversity of Japanese art is blessed by each special art movement irrespective if the roots began in Japan, China, France, Holland, or wherever.\n\nMay 5, 2012\n\n\n\nLee Jay Walker\n\nModern Tokyo Times\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\nArt image – MARC CHAGALL  - currently on show at The Morohashi Museum of Modern Art\n\nMay 5, 2012\n\nHenri de Toulouse-Lautrec and Japanese ukiyo-e\n\nHenri de Toulouse-Lautrec and Japanese ukiyo-e\n\nLee Jay Walker\n\nModern Tokyo Times\n\nHenri de Toulouse-Lautrec (1864-1901) adored Japanese ukiyo-e and many famous international artists also fell in love with this art form. Toulouse-Lautrec and his lifestyle would certainly have fit in well with the environment of Yoshiwara in Tokyo, which is famous for prostitution. Indeed, several ukiyo-e artists depicted scenes in this famous district including Hiroshige and Utamaro. Therefore, Toulouse-Lautrec would have felt like being “home from home” because Yoshiwara and Montmartre shared many common features in the past.\n\nRene Princeteau gave art lessons to Toulouse-Lautrec when he was young and the background of his family is one of wealth. Indeed, he was born into an aristocratic family but tragedy impinged on Toulouse-Lautrec when he was a teenager because he broke both legs. The severity of the accidents meant that his legs stopped growing and this created “many internal demons.” This is based on the fact that his body continued to develop like normal therefore throughout his short life he could never fully come to terms with this situation.\n\nThe artistic turning point for Toulouse-Lautrec came in 1882 because he went to Paris in order to study conventional art. He soon met important artists like Vincent Van Gogh and the art of Edgar Degas inspired him greatly in this period. Therefore, the lore of Impressionist art enticed him greatly and because of this he gave up his studies in conventional art.\n\nToulouse-Lautrec who was born in the south of France now found himself in Montmartre in Paris. The environment was completely different because this area had a buzzing nightlife across the whole spectrum. This applies to cabarets, restaurants, dancing clubs with sexual connotations, cafes, brothels, and other areas of life.\n\nThe trappings of this new environment enticed Toulouse-Lautrec because he soon joined the bohemian community. During the evening period he would drink and natter with friends. However, despite enjoying himself Toulouse-Lautrec would also draw sketches and then work on altering these by turning them into lithographs and paintings. This became most rewarding for Toulouse-Lautrec because the environment created passion, innovation, and ideas, which were then expressed through his artwork.\n\nDieter Wanczura, www.artelino.comcomments that “The lithographs of Lautrec show the famous personalities of the French Belle Epoque. Lautrec knew them all personally- singers and dancers like Yvette Guilbert, May Belfort, Jane Avril or the poet Aristide Bruant. Many of these lithographs were commissioned by these artists for posters or theater billboards or as illustrations for magazines.”\n\nDieter Wanczura further comments that “The impressionists saw Ukiyo-e art (Japanese woodblock prints) and were impressed. And like so many other artists of the late nineteenth century, Lautrec had started collecting Japanese art. At that time, everything Japanese was en vogue – very fashionable.”\n\n“Japanese printmaking had a very pervasive influence on his style. For Toulouse Lautrec movement and forms were important. His compositions, unusual perspectives and the use of large areas of flat color are undoubtedly inspired by Japanese woodblock prints.”\n\nWestern art impacted on Japanese art in the same period and likewise the Paris scene was awash with ukiyo-e prints. Therefore, new ideas were going in both directions but cultural differences meant that aspects of the cultural settings were very different. Also, individual artists, irrespective of nationality, had unique aspects which applied to their respective thought patterns and upbringings.\n\nArtists like Van Gogh, Claude Monet, Paul Gauguin, Toulouse-Lautrec, Edgar Degas, and many others, were influenced by Japonisme (Japonism). However, Japonisme was based on the eye and not the concept or rich traditions which had evolved in Japan. Also, ukiyo-e is extremely broad when it comes to subjects that were covered and individual artists had their own unique styles and ways. Yet despite this, Japonisme certainly inspired many artists and for Toulouse-Lautrec ukiyo-e was like Montmartre. This applies to opening-up a new world of art and thought patterns, which would enhance his creativity and style.\n\nIf you visit that Van Gogh ( Gallery website it is stated that “Japanese art, especially Japanese woodcuts, became a great influence on Van Gogh. When Van Gogh moved to Paris in 1886 he was introduced to impressionism and also explored Japonism. Van Gogh admired the bold designs, intense colors, and flat areas of pure color and he also appreciated the elegant and simple lines.”\n\nIt is abundantly clear that Toulouse-Lautrec would fully understand the words of Van Gogh because he was also transformed in Paris. In another article I wrote about Japanese art I comment that Ukiyo-e and western art went in both directions but the initial contact period will have been based on a mirror which can’t fully show the complexion of the individual because of all the steam. Irrespective of this, it is clear that both traditions led to new creativity.”\n\nSadly, for Toulouse-Lautrec, the lifestyle that altered his artistic path in Paris also became self destructive. Therefore, alcohol abuse and other negative areas all climaxed in his early death at the age of 36. In many ways Toulouse-Lautrec always had “two worlds which were pulling in opposite directions.” The first world applies to coming from a wealthy family but having poor health for the majority of his life. While the second world applies to being extremely creative because of the environment of Paris but the same environment led to his early death based on alcohol abuse and other factors.\n\nIrrespective of everything, Toulouse-Lautrec leaves a lasting legacy because of the richness of his art and he also opens up the world of Montmartre.\n\n\nGet every new post delivered to your Inbox.", "pred_label": "__label__1", "pred_score_pos": 0.8646531105041504}
+{"content": "Preschool Program\n\nA language-rich environment\n\nOur language-rich environment, where teachers use a wide vocabulary in frequent conversations with the children, is crucial to the development of both language, reading readiness and communication skills. In addition, daily storytelling introduces new words, and the children are always encouraged to verbalize their opinions and experiences.\n\n\nSmall group activities that help develop social skills\n\nIn addition to individual attention and activities, All Aboard engages the children in a variety of small group activities which encourage interaction and further enhance their social development. Our center based learning philosophy designed to promote kindergarten readiness skills, library and listening, computer, sensory, dramatic play, art and writing, table toys and discovery.\n\n\nCurriculum that encourages motivation to learn persistence, flexibility, inventiveness, tolerance to frustration and problem solving\n\nThese traits are absolutely critical, and form the foundation for many other positive character skills. During each activity, we use a positive redirection style of interaction and focus on providing warm, positive instruction and praise. By keeping the focus on the positive rather than the negative, we can build a child’s self-esteem and encourage them to try new things.\n\n\nActivities that encourage children to think, reason, question and problem solve\n\nActivities where preschoolers are encouraged to think about pretend worlds where anything is possible, foster reasoning about those possibilities and ultimately the solving of logic problems. Such pastimes promote the kind of thinking that will be crucial in the child’s future when he / she must imagine possible events and consider potential outcomes.\n\n\nConsistant CaregivingChoices for daily activities\n\nAt various times in the day, preschoolers are provided with the opportunity to choose for themselves what it is they would like to do. Not only does this empower them and build their confidence, but also allows further exploration of areas that are of particular interest.\n\n\nExperiences that nurture self-esteem\n\nPreschoolers are provided with a wide variety of activities in which they can excel. With each successful outcome, the child gains more self confidence and self esteem.\n\n\nPlay activitiesDramatic play activities that help children make sense of the world\n\n“Dress up” and “Pretend” play provides our preschoolers with the opportunity to act out and mimic the things that they see adults doing every. In this way they gain a better understanding of how things work. Additionally, this type of play empowers them and helps in differientiating fantasy from reality..\n\n\nStorytelling that fosters the love of reading\n\nSuccessfully instilling a love of reading in a child begins at an early age. Storytelling stimulates a child’s imagination, and reading aloud ultimately leads to a lifelong love affair with books. Our teachers further engage our preschoolers through interactivity and creative usage of voice and gesture.\n\n\nConsistant CaregivingPhysical activities that encourage gross motor development and movement\n\nFrom song & dance to martial arts to playground games, preschoolers participate in a wide variety of activities where they can jump, climb, balance, dance and skip. These gross motor activities stimulate muscle coordination, balance, rhythm and understanding of personal space.\n\n\nLow student/staff ratio\n\nA low ratio of preschoolers to teachers and teacher assistants is vital to young children. Not only do they receive more individual attention and benefit from a higher level of safety, but their overall development is enhanced when they experience a closer, positive and nurturing relationship with their teachers and teacher assistants.", "pred_label": "__label__1", "pred_score_pos": 0.999501645565033}
+{"content": "The Queen\n\nThe queens are bigger than the workers and the drones. The queens produce particular pheromones, (which are special secreted substances with special smells), that makes the whole colony work and keep together. Each colony has its distinct smell, and all the members of the same colony smell similar.\n\nThe other main function of a queen is to lay the fertilized eggs, millions of eggs. We could say that the queen is the mother of all the ants in the colony.\n\nShe can live up to 15 years and needs to mate only once. The mating takes place in the air shortly after the queen breaks free from her cocoon. After the mating takes place, she rips off her wings and looks for an appropriate place to start the new colony. She does not need the wings in her nest underground. She may pass many weeks, and even months, without food. She has to take care of the first batch of eggs and larvae. Once the first ants come out of their cocoons, they start gathering food and doing all the chores around the nest.  From there on, the queen is taken care of, and becomes a prisoner of her duty.\n\nAnthony AntAnthony Ant\n\n| Anthony Ant | Anthony's Story | Ants | Adults | Queens | Workers |\n| Drones | Eggs | Larvae | Pupae | Reproduction | Social Behavior | Curious facts |\n| Enemies | Wood Ants | Leaf-cutter Ants | Honey-pot Ants | Weaver Ants |\n\nCopyright © 1998 Bubblegum Productions", "pred_label": "__label__1", "pred_score_pos": 0.9525309205055237}
+{"content": "Web Customer Support - Spain+English Fluent (closed)\n\nLisbon, Portugal\nVery attractive package compensation\nRecruiter Comment: OPEN JOB: WEB CUSTOMER SUPPORT SPANISH + ENGLISH Fluent Based in PORTUGAL Send your CV to Jean@approachpeople.com\nJob Description\n\nResponsibilities include:\n•    Identify opportunities to make every customer successful. This involves recommending and explaining product and service features that are best suited to the customer’s needs.\n•    Successfully resolve complex customer e-mail and telephone inquiries through the use of multiple customer support tools (online self-help, FAQ’s, email, chat, telephone).\n•    Address and escalate technical concerns; recreate site and tool issues as necessary; file bug reports, monitor abuse and inappropriate utilization of our service.\n•    Work with engineering teams to identify, specify, develop, and deploy operational changes to improve the customer experience and/or prevent or resolve issues.\n•    Support customers with tasks related with billing and payments and work with the finance team to ensure a fast and accurate response to customers´ demands.\n•    Identify and develop opportunities to expand self-help in the application and on your mother language; review translations of website content in your mother language.\n•    Work on projects to enhance team operations and improve productivity.\n\n•    A very strong focus on customer satisfaction.\n•    Minimum 2-3 years experience in multi-channel support, preferably for an Internet or e-Commerce company.\n•    Ability to prioritize, analyze and plan actions in a fast-paced environment.\n•    Native level in Spanish\n•    Fluency in English required.\n•    Excellent verbal and written communication skills to effectively communicate both externally (with customers) and internally (with various departments and levels within the company).\n•    Outstanding problem-solving abilities and organizational skills.\n•    Excellent knowledge of Internet and software applications, including Microsoft Office products.\n•    Strong initiative and ability to aptly handle ambiguity, competing priorities, and multitasking.\n•    A university degree is required.\nAn EU passport or work permit is required for this position\n\nPlease send your CV to Jean de La Fournière at jean@approachpeople.com", "pred_label": "__label__1", "pred_score_pos": 0.6250929832458496}
+{"content": "Demonstration planned against Ontario separate schools\n\nHumanist Canada is supporting a Protest Rally on September 13th against Ontario's dual education system in which both Public Schools and Catholic religious schools are funded with Public School tax dollars.  The intention is to try and bring public attention to bear on what is an unfair and discriminatory practice on the part of the Province of Ontario.   The rally will take place on the first day of an Ontario Government Education Summit taking place at the Royal York Hotel, September 13th and 14th.\n\nThe rally is being held in cooperation with CFI, Secular Ontario, Civil Rights in Public Education and others. The key question is: Why should Public Tax Dollars, which should go to funding public education in Ontario, be split so as to fund two different education systems in Ontario, one Public, the other Catholic Separate?    A partial answer to this question is that it's in Canada's Constitution.  Yet, that fact did not stop Manitoba, Quebec and Newfoundland from opting out.  Three Canadian provinces have said no to separate schools.  Ontario can too!\n\nmcguinty-schoolsThe issue has general public support in Ontario but Dalton McGuinty and the Liberal Government seems to want to avoid the issue - probably because of fear of alienating the Catholic vote who mostly vote Liberal.  It was not too long ago that his rival, John Tory, got beaten in a vote because he wanted to allow funding to schools of other faiths.  The political lesson?  Don't touch the subject!\nIn a recent letter to Humanists in Canada, Humanist Canada treasurer Bill Broderick asks that as many as possible should participate in the rally.  He offers the following list of reasons as to why Ontario should opt out.\n\n  1. In Ontario, Roman Catholicism is the only religion that has access to funding from Public Education Taxes.  This is discriminatory.  No other religious schools can be funded from Public Education Taxes.\n  2. Canada has twice been criticized by the United Nations Human Rights Commission for allowing this blatant discrimination which favours only the Roman Catholic Church.\n  3. The present system is wasteful.  We're funding Public and Separate School Boards when all we really need are Public School Boards.  Our Public Schools are crying because of inadequate funding.  There are not enough Education Tax Dollars to adequately fund all schools in Ontario under the present divisive system.\n  4. Maintaining four different kinds of School Boards is expensive.  We have English Public, French Public, English Catholic, French Catholic.  It's estimated that by eliminating the Catholic Boards, we can save up to $500 million a year, maybe more.  That's money that could go into our schools and into education instead of into maintaining duplicate boards.\n  5. Funding religious schools is funding religious discrimination.  Catholic school boards hire only Catholic teachers.  Non-Catholic teachers are not accepted in the publicly- funded Catholic schools of Ontario.  But Catholic teachers can be and are hired everywhere in the education system.  That's rank discrimination on the basis of religion.\n  6. Students in Ontario are segregated into Public and Religious schools.  Religious schools pass along their religious biases and prejudices, homophobia and other forms of intolerance, to impressionable young minds!\n  7. A common misperception is that Catholics fund Catholic schools and non-Catholics fund Public schools.  This is not true.    All Education and other taxes go into a single pool out of which all the schools, public and religious, are funded\n  8. When John Tory proposed to extend funding to all faith-based schools in 2007, an Ipsos-Reid poll of Ontarians found that 62 percent of respondents opposed the idea that \"Government extend full funding to these faith-based schools and others of a similar nature.\"\n  9. Modern democracy rests upon the separation of church and state.  It is unethical that any religion should have access to government and government funding.  Canadian citizens embrace many religions and a growing number embrace none at all.  Today, those claiming no religion number 25 percent.\n  10. To read more about this event and also the HUMANIST PERSPECTIVES article \"Canada's Dirty Little Secret\" which outlines the problems of our current education system, please visit the following website:\n\nSee also this article in Humanist perspectives: Canada's dirty little secret.\n\nThe Cobourg Atheist strongly supports this initiative and has regularly featured articles on the subject.\nBelow are listed some of them.\n\nCatholic Schools in Ontario\n\nFaith based schools in U.K.\n\n\nUpdate Sept 15, 2010\n\nA particpant in the rally has sent this letter to several newspapers for publication:\n\nDear Editor:\nMany Quinte-area readers probably saw some of the television news coverage on Monday or read the Globe and Mail report on Tuesday about the protest rally in Toronto against the separate school system in Ontario held on Monday, September 13th. Two of us from Belleville and Bancroft participated in this rally which was held in conjunction with an Ontario government international education summit meeting being held in the Fairmont Royal York Hotel on Monday and Tuesday. Over 100 persons participated in the rally, some coming from as far away as Ottawa and Niagara.\n\nThe rally was organized by the One School System Network, a coalition of some fourteen different organizations both secular and religious, which are concerned about education quality and improving education in Ontario.\n\nWhy are we protesting the separate school system in Ontario?\n\nWe are protesting because the separate school system wastes hundreds of millions of education dollars at a time when many of our schools are underfunded, programs are being cut, schools are being closed, and because Canada has twice been censured by the United Nations Human Rights Commission for violating the equality rights of its own citizens by virtue of the publicly-sanctioned religious discrimination in the Ontario school system.\n\nCanada today is a far-different country than when it was founded in 1867. At our country's founding, only two religions were recognized: Protestant and Catholic. Today Canada is a cosmopolitan multi-cultural country with many religions. Also, fully one-quarter of Canadians have no religious beliefs at all. It is patently unfair that one religion should receive public education funding while others cannot.\n\nIt is our hope that religious discrimination in education can be eliminated in Ontario. Three provinces have said no to funding religious education: Manitoba, Quebec and Newfoundland.  Ontario can too.\n\nLet's have a publicly-funded school system in Ontario that discriminates against no one on the basis of religion.\n\nWilliam Broderick", "pred_label": "__label__1", "pred_score_pos": 0.510105311870575}
+{"content": "15 Most Incredible Plunge Waterfalls on Earth\n\nPlunge waterfalls are waterfalls that drop vertically while losing contact with the underlying cliff face, or bedrock, behind them. They often make for great spectacles as they plummet headlong over sheer drops in breathtaking torrents – and the views from the top are sometimes dizzying to say the least! We’ve found 15 from around the world, for your wonderment.\n\n15. Havasu Falls\n\nOne of the most visited falls in the Grand Canyon, Havasu Falls leaps spectacularly over a 120-foot (37 m) vertical cliff. The water is highly mineralized, and its erosive powers cause the occasional division of the falls into two chutes as well as having created the blue-green pools below.\n\n14. Waireinga Falls\n\nWaireinga Falls is the Maori name of Bridal Veil Falls, located along the Pakoka River in New Zealand. This magnificent plunge waterfall is 180 feet (55 meters) high and over time has caused a large pool to form at its base.\n\n13. Jog Falls\n\nJog Falls, India's second highest plunge waterfall, is made up of four distinct, segmented falls, and is fed by the Sharavathi River. The tallest plunges 830 ft (253 m) down into a deep chasm in a continuous column of water.\n\n12. Trou de Fer\n\nTrou de Fer (\"Iron Hole\") on Reunion Island is a canyon that is home to several waterfalls, including one, created by the Bras de Caverne River, that plummets from a height of around 700 feet (210 m).\n\n11. Cuquenan Falls\n\nIts waters falling in a continuous leap from a height of some 2000 feet (670 m) up in the air, Cuquenan Falls is the second highest waterfall in Venezuela. It’s topped only by Angel Falls, the highest waterfall in the world.\n\n10. La Fortuna Waterfall\n\nRunning through the rainforest in Costa Rica, the Tenorio River feeds this marvelous plunge waterfall. It is 230 to 246 feet (70 to 75 m) high and is found at the base of the Chato volcano.\n\n9. Nohkalikai Falls\n\nNohkalikai Falls in India is an absolutely stunning example of a plunge waterfall – and one that plummets from mighty height: 1100 feet (335 m). It almost looks as though the chute is emerging from the mist to create the small pool, with its gorgeous green color, at the bottom. Not a place to go white water rafting though!\n\n8. Shōmyō Falls\n\nThese twin plunge waterfalls have been designated one of Japan’s 100 Soundscapes – symbols to promote the rediscovery of everyday sounds. The waterfall on the left, Shōmyō-daki, is the highest in Japan, plunging 1,148 feet (350 m).\n\n7. Madhabkunda Waterfall\n\n8. Shōmyō Falls\n\nMadhabkunda is the largest waterfall in Bangladesh and a popular tourist spot. Massive amounts of water plunge from a height of 200 feet (61 m)\n\n6. Whangarei Falls\n\nThe Hatea River in New Zealand plunges 85 feet (26 m) at Whangarei Falls. It was considered such a special spot that in the 1920s the land was bought to prevent its being exploited, and in 1946 it was purchased on behalf of the local citizens.\n\n5. Hunlen Falls\n\nHunlen Falls is located on Canada's west coast, in British Columbia. At 1,316 ft (401 m), it is the highest waterfall in the country, plummeting as a single, unbroken stream. There is no road to the falls, so visitors often fly in on a floatplane and then hike there.\n\n4. Cachoeira da Fumaça\n\nThis spectacular waterfall – the name of which translates as “Smoke Falls” in English – is located in Brazil and is thought to be the country's second highest, after the recently-discovered Cachoeira do Araca in the Amazon. It was named because of the way the wind sprays the water as it plummets down, some 1,200 feet (380 m) to the bottom.\n\n3. Kjelfossen Falls\n\nLocated in Norway, this spectacular waterfall is 2,477 feet (755 meters) high in total, though some believe it is even taller. It is considered the 18th highest waterfall in the world and its longest single drop is 489 feet (149 m).\n\n2. Angel Falls\n\nFeeding into the Kerep River, Angel Falls in Venezuela is not only the highest plunge waterfall in the world but the highest waterfall of any kind. It is 3,212 feet (979 m) at its tallest point, while the longest drop itself plunges 2,648 ft (807 m). In the local Pemon language, the waterfall’s name means \"waterfall of the deepest place,\" or \"the fall from the highest point.\"\n\n1.Howick Falls\n\nKnown as the \"Place of the Tall One\" among the Zulu people of South Africa, Howick Falls drops from a height of 310 feet (95 m). It may not be the tallest plunge waterfall in the world but it is certainly one of the most beautiful. Legend says that the Inkanyamba, a mythical snake-like creature, lives in the pool below the falls.\n\nBonus: Sempervirens Falls\n\nAs a bonus, a stunning, if small, plunge waterfall located in Big Basin Redwoods State Park, California. Here, it looks as though it is tumbling from a fallen tree.\n", "pred_label": "__label__1", "pred_score_pos": 0.580660879611969}
+{"content": "Serves 4\n\nPreparation time: 20 minutes, plus 1-½ hours proving  \n\nCooking time: 25 minutes  \n\nYou’ll need:  \n\n250ml warm water  \n\n1 tsp dried yeast  \n\n1 tsp sugar  \n\n500g strong white bread flour  \n\n½ tsp salt   1 tsp dried sage (optional)  \n\n1 tbsp extra virgin olive oil  \n\n150g plain cooked (vacuum packed) beetroot, drained and pureed   \n\n5 rashers smoked streaky bacon / or 3 tbsp pumpkin seeds (for veg version)  \n\n80g mature cheddar, grated  \n\nWhat to do:  \n\n1. In a jug mix the water with the yeast and sugar. Set aside for a few minutes to allow the yeast to activate - after 5-10 minutes there should be a layer of foam on the surface.  \n\n2. In a food mixer or large bowl tip the flour, make a well in the centre and add the salt, dried sage and olive oil.  \n\n3. Pour in the water and yeast and the pureed beetroot and knead with a dough hook for 5 minutes or by hand for 10 minutes. Set aside in a non-draughty place to rise for around an hour or until it has doubled in size.  \n\n4. Whilst the bread is rising cook the bacon until crisp. Allow to cool and cut into small pieces and set aside.  \n\n5. Turn the dough onto a floured work surface and roll into a large rectangle. Sprinkle the bacon and cheese over the surface and roll up into a log shape, tucking the ends under.  \n\n6. Transfer to a baking sheet and set aside for 20 minutes to rise for a second time. Preheat the oven to 220°C/Gas Mark 7)  \n\n7. Once the bread has finished its second rise, cook in a hot oven for around 25 minutes. If it is done the bread should sound slightly hollow when tapped on the base. Serve whilst still warm cut into thick slices with plenty of butter.\n\nRecipe by", "pred_label": "__label__1", "pred_score_pos": 0.5411806106567383}
+{"content": "The Flexible Platform and the Circular Economy\n\nMany of us are familiar with the disturbing messages about the impact we as humans are having on the planet. The majority of our ecosystems are now in decline and in order to sustain human activity at our current rates, we will require the resources of three planets. When we look at our current economic system, we can see a similar, gloomy picture. Our economic system is increasingly failing to provide for current and future needs of people and the planet. \n\nIt is clear that a transformation of our current system towards a better economic system is necessary. We need an economy that is sustainable, a circular economy. In a circular economy there is an explicit focus on the investment in people, prosperity, and wellbeing as well as on the protection and restoration of our natural systems and biodiversity. This economy follows the laws of nature: it stimulates diversity and emphasizes the conversion of waste to food, therewith creating a circular system. \n\n CE picture\n\nHowever, some crucial ingredients for a smooth transition to a circular economy are still lacking. At the moment, our society is far from being a breeding ground for sustainable economic change. For a transition to take place, we first of all need broad-based knowledge and understanding about sustainable economic development and strategies for transformation. Secondly, we will also need to create a tightly knit network of actors from all layers of society that focuses on the joint formulation of strategic plans, cooperation, and information sharing related to developing a circular economy. These actors will need to have a strong common drive to instigate and pursue economic change. \n\nThe aforementioned characteristics are a prerequisite for the economy to become and remain sustainable. It is therefore essential for these to be developed in our society. Being a network organization that aims to create links between societal actors and initiatives and to serve as a knowledge platform, this is where we as The Flexible Platform have a sense of vocation and see a very important challenge.  We have chosen that we focus an important part of our energy on the creation of a fertile breeding ground for the transition to a circular economy. The coming weeks, months and years, we will develop initiatives in order to pursue this goal. These projects and initiatives will aim to raise awareness among key actors about the necessity of a transition to a sustainable economy and provide a platform for communication and joint learning about it. We will strive to build leadership capacity among the key actors, which can instigate a self-reinforcing process of transformation within Dutch society and beyond. The unifying Framework for Strategic Sustainable Development, which is at the core of all our work, provides the backbone and shared language around which we will explore, together with others, the pathways that emerge toward a circular economy.    \n\nWe are very excited to get started with this new challenge! \n\nSome first steps have already been taken during the National Sustainability Congress. During our interactive workshop there, 200 participants shared their ideas and thoughts on a transition to a sustainable economy. The report on this workshop, the ‘Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Circular Economy’ can be found here.\n\nNederlands the Natural Step", "pred_label": "__label__1", "pred_score_pos": 0.9992112517356873}
+{"content": "Teacher — Fotopedia\nno description yet\nWikipedia Article\nSee encyclopedia photos — \n\nA teacher or schoolteacher is a person who provides education for pupils (children) and students (adults). The role of teacher is often formal and ongoing, carried out at a school or other place of formal education. In many countries, a person who wishes to become a teacher must first obtain specified professional qualifications or credentials from a university or college. These professional qualifications may include the study of pedagogy, the science of teaching. Teachers, like other professionals, may have to continue their education after they qualify, a process known as continuing professional development. Teachers may use a lesson plan to facilitate student learning, providing a course of study which is called the curriculum.\n\nA teacher's role may vary among cultures. Teachers may provide instruction in literacy and numeracy, craftsmanship or vocational training, the arts, religion, civics, community roles, or life skills.\n\nA teacher who facilitates education for an individual may also be described as a personal tutor, or, largely historically, a governess.\n\nIcon_album_items Albums", "pred_label": "__label__1", "pred_score_pos": 0.9981119632720947}
+{"content": "Research Profile -- Graduate School. Spring 2003 . Vol. 25 No.2 UWM Home\n\nAdvancing academia and industry at the AAF. By Peter Hansen\n\nIt’s a hectic early spring day at the Advanced Analysis Facility on the UWM campus. Director Andrei Skliarov is to depart the next day for a trip to his native Russia, and he and researcher Steven Hardcastle are scrambling to identify trace components in a sample brought in by an industrial client. To solve the mystery, Skliarov dashes around a large room, between a scanning electron microscope, a Fourier Transform Infrared spectrometer, a light microscope, and several computer monitors, all the while discussing possibilities in his thick Russian accent, talking half to the client and half to himself.\n\nUnlike other facilities in Wisconsin, which focus on specific areas, the AAF houses a broad spectrum of analytical tools, providing the flexibility to answer a wide variety of questions in materials analysis, trace components analysis, and molecular structure analysis.\n\n  Deb Generotzky\n\nAAF researcher Steven Hardcastle prepares a sample at the ESCA (Electron Spectroscopy for Chemical Analysis) spectrometer. Hardcastle first came to UWM in 1991 as a postdoctoral fellow for former physics professor Brian Tonner.\nDue to confidentiality agreements with companies they work with, Skliarov and Hardcastle can’t discuss specific details about their industrial projects. One dealt with developing coatings to increase the durability of outdoor signage, which can be challenging.\n\n“It’s never one-layer polymer layers,” Skliarov says. “It’s very complex structure: sometimes two, three, five layers that have different properties—optical and electrical properties.”\n\nAnother example they mention is touchscreen technology, which is seen in industrial and financial applications, as well as video games. “Very tricky technology involved,” Skliarov says. “When you hear what they do, you get amazed.”\n\nProminent area businesses the AAF has worked for include label and signage manufacturer Brady Corporation, engine manufacturer Briggs & Stratton, automotive and facility management control designer Johnson Controls, SC Johnson, Miller Brewing, Aldridge Chemical, Benz Oil, Oshkosh Truck, and many others.\n\nSkliarov and Hardcastle generally work in the material sciences—physics, chemistry, materials—but have found themselves exploring other areas as well.\n\n“We do not limit ourselves,” Skliarov says. “We’re pushed by other people to use our knowledge in physics and chemistry, physical chemistry, and chemical physics.”\n\n“A lot of times,” Hardcastle chimes in, “we ourselves aren’t sure what technique is the best to get answers. So we look at different techniques until we find out specifically how to solve the customer’s problem.”\n\nThe AAF is also a critical resource for campus researchers. In the past, the facilities have offered internship opportunities for students, and current users include materials professors Carolyn Aita, Tery Barr, Lian Li, and Pradeep Rohatgi; Associate Professor Vladislav Yakovlev and Professor Prasenjit Guptasarma in physics; and professors Dennis Bennett and Wilfred Tysoe in chemistry.\n\nAAF materials analysis instruments\n\nX-Ray Diffraction\n\nDeb Generotzky\n\nHardcastle explains how samples are loaded into the X-ray diffraction spectrometer.\nMeasures the intensity of an X-ray beam diffracted from materials (mainly solids and films). This a non-destructive technique with minimum sample preparation needed. This technique yields information about the inter-planar atomic distances in the case of crystal materials and atom-atom distances for amorphous solids. The exact crystal phase of the solid can be identified from the measured diffraction peak positions. In addition, glancing angle diffraction scans can study the atomic structure of thin films less than 50 nanometers, and can measure the thickness of thin films. X-ray diffraction can be applied to many science and engineering fields including materials science, metallurgy, physics, chemistry, dentistry, geology, and biology.\n\nElectron Spectroscopy for Chemical Analysis (ESCA) or X-Ray Photoelectron Spectroscopy\n\nSample is irradiated with a mono-energetic X-ray beam, causing photoelectrons to be emitted from the sample. An energy analyzer determines the kinetic energy and thus binding energy of the emitted photoelectrons, from which the elemental identity, chemical state, and quantity of an element can be determined. Elemental and chemical information is collected from the top 0.5 to 1.0 nanometer of a surface. Information provided about surface layers or thin film structures is useful in different applications including: polymer modification, catalysis, corrosion, adhesion, semiconductors, electronics packaging, magnetic media, and thin film coatings.\n\nScanning Electron Microscopy (SEM)/Electron Probe (EP)\n\n  Peter Hansen\n\nAdvanced Analysis Facility Director Andrei Skliarov (below) was enlisted by former Graduate School Dean George Keulks to start the AAF in the early 1990s. Keulks envisioned the facility as a cost-effective way to acquire and maintain scientific instrumentation for university-wide use and as a way to promote partnerships with local industries. Many prominent companies enlist the AAF to answer challenging technological questions, and academic researchers from other countries have made use of the facilities.\nProvides a highly magnified surface image of a sample with good depth perception. Can be used to identify morphology of the samples, surface imperfections, and contaminants down to 10 nanometers or a magnification of 100,000. In addition, the electron probe attachment collects the electron-beam-induced X-rays from the sample. Thus, surface elements and contamination can be measured and identified (for carbon and higher atomic number elements). Elemental information is generally confined to the top 1 to 3 micrometers of the surface of the sample. SEM/EP can be used for such diverse fields as analysis of composite structures and failures, materials composition and uniformity, gun shot residuals, and the thickness of thin films.\n\nGas Chromatography/Mass Spectrometry (GC/MS)\n\nCombines the ability of gas chromatography (GC) to separate compounds from a complex mixture with the ability of mass spectroscopy (MS) to identify those compounds, and accurately determine the amounts present. Data is recorded by a computerized system that also analyzes the information obtained and controls the instruments. GC/MS is very sensitive, and can identify samples containing femtogram quantities of compounds. It can analyze a wide range of samples and can be used by entities such as environmental agencies, medical and forensic labs, and the control boards for athletics and horse racing.\n\nFourier Transform Infrared Spectroscopy/FTIR\n\nLeft: Electron microscopy images of aluminum composite material (grey area) strengthened with graphite fibers (black area) seen in crosssection. The fibers are coated with nickel (white rings around graphite) to increase the adhesiveness of the fibers with the aluminum matrix. From the lab of Professor Pradeep Rohatgi in the Materials Department. Right: The initial method to development new composition superconductors with ever higher transition temperatures is to grind and heat individual compounds until the single desired compound is formed. Here the desired bismuth, strontium, calcium, copper oxide superconductor has not been formed yet. There are obviously at least two distinct compounds present (smooth- and fluffy-looking areas). From the lab of Professor Prasenjit Guptasarma in Physics.\nInfrared radiation can be absorbed by the molecular vibrations of a sample. This measured absorption spectrum is used as a “fingerprint” and compared with literally thousands of organic library spectra to identify the compound(s) present. Various attachments have been developed to measure very thin films (down to a few atomic layers) and with microscopic spectroscopy samples and contaminates down to 10 micrometers can be studied. FTIR is primarily used for liquid and solid organic compound identification. It can also be used for gases and, to a limited extent, inorganic compounds.\n\nRaman Microscopic Spectroscopy\n\nRaman Spectroscopy also measures the molecular vibrations, but uses a different physical property than FTIR. Raman uses a laser (UV to Visible to IR wavelengths are possible) to excite a sample and then measures the shift in wavelengths (very small) as a result. Water does not give a Raman signal, wet samples and suspensions in water can be studied easily. In addition, inorganic samples can be studied with better results than FTIR. The lateral resolution in the case of Laser Raman Microscopy is mainly determined by the optical lenses used and can easily be less than 2 micrometers.\n\nResearch Profile HOME UWM Home", "pred_label": "__label__1", "pred_score_pos": 0.7585585713386536}
+{"content": "Strategy and Technology - Harvard Business School MBA Program\n\nStrategy and Technology\n\nCourse Number 1286\n\nAssociate Professor Andrei Hagiu\nFall; Q1Q2; 3 credits\n25 Sessions\nFinal exam or paper\n\nStrategy and Technology Course Snapshot\nFall 2013 and Technology Syllabus\n\n\nThis course explores the unique aspects of creating effective management and investment strategies for technology-intensive businesses. What are effective strategies for winning in markets with strong network effects? How should firms go about commercializing highly uncertain, science-based technologies? How can technology be leveraged to build (multi-sided) platforms? How can firms create and capture the value from intellectual property assets? How can they sustain value despite wide-spread imitation and convergence with substitute technologies?\n\nThe course provides a series of useful concepts and frameworks which students can directly apply to strategic and investment problems they may encounter post-graduation. Throughout the course, there will be a heavy emphasis on going from concepts and market analysis all the way to the formulation of concrete strategies.\n\nIndustries covered include: consumer electronics (smartphones, videogame consoles, PCs, tablets), software (operating systems, virtualization, cloud services), Internet-based businesses (e-commerce, online video, social networking, browsers, app stores), semi-conductors, intellectual property, mobile communications, biotechnology, electronic ink, and mobile payment systems.\n\nCareer Focus\n\nThe course will be particularly relevant to two types of students: 1) those who anticipate taking managing positions in businesses for which technology is likely to play an important role; 2) those who anticipate consulting or investing in technology industries and must analyze firm strategies. But it may also be valuable for students who do not necessarily plan to pursue a career related to technology. Indeed, the concepts and frameworks covered (e.g. network effects, judo strategy, multi-sided platforms) apply well beyond technology industries.\n\nContent and organization\n\nThe course is structured into several modules:\n\n\nCommercializing New Technologies: Early-stage technologies - particularly those that come out of basic science research - cannot prove their commercial viability without significant investments by venture capitalists (VCs) and/or operating companies. Conversely, VCs and operating companies are reluctant to invest if viability is too uncertain. How can start-ups overcome this problem and are there alternatives to the VC model for science-based companies?\n\nCo-opetition: Understanding the role of complementary assets is critical in technology-intensive businesses: it is virtually impossible today for one company to produce a technology product or service all by itself. This means that a key aspect of strategy is cooperating with providers of complementary products/services, while at the same time maximizing the value extracted for oneself.\n\nMulti-Sided Platforms: The most important competitive battles in technology are no longer between standalone products or services but between ecosystems. The most successful companies are those who build multi-sided platforms (MSPs), which spawn large ecosystems of users and suppliers of complementary products and services. Why and how are MSPs different from \"normal\" firms? What are the key strategies for creating successful MSPs?\n\n\n\nThe course relies on case discussions, interactive lectures, student presentations, independent reading, and a significant number of visitors. The readings are primarily drawn from the management and economics literature. The case studies provide extensive opportunities to integrate and apply these abstract tools in practical, competitive strategy contexts. The visitors provide unique opportunities to engage with leading practitioners from the companies and industries we discuss. Grades are determined by class participation (45%), participation in polls (10%), and a final paper or exam (45%). Students who choose to submit a project should do so in teams of 2-4 students. See \"Course Requirements and Expectations\" for details.", "pred_label": "__label__1", "pred_score_pos": 0.9128696322441101}
+{"content": "Call Us 770-923-4948\n\nTraffic Law Glossary\n\nAccusation Felony\nAdministrative License Suspension Field Sobriety Tests\nAlcohol and Drug Evaluation First Offender Plea\nAlco Sensor FTA\nAnti-Plea Bargaining Laws Georgia DNR\nBAC (Blood Alcohol Content) Graduated licensing program\nBill of Rights Habeas corpus\nBoating Under the Influence Implied Consent Warning\nBreathalyzer Ignition Interlock Device\nBUI Mandatory Suspendable Offenses\nDistracted Driving Misdemeanor\nDriving Record Nolo Contendere\nDUI Open Container Laws\nDUI Task Force Paraphernalia\nDUI School Post Conviction Relief\nDWI Previous Offense\nChemical Test Probation\nChild Endangerment Probation Revocation\nCitation Radar Gun\nControlled Substance Reckless Driving\nDifferent Breathalyzer Tests Refusal\nDram Shop Laws Retainer\nDrug Possession Risk Reduction\nDrug Scheduling Sobriety Checkpoint\nElimination Standard drink\nExpungment Super Speeder\nExtrapolation Work Release\nFake ID Zero Tolerance\n\nAccusation: A document containing several “counts”, or individual charges brought against a person.\n\nAdministrative License Suspension: The procedure by which a person can have his/her license suspended even before going to court on the DUI. Generally in most states, a person’s license can be administratively suspended if the person registers\nabove a certain BAC or refuses the State Chemical test.\n\nAlcohol and Drug Evaluation: A process in which a qualified alcohol evaluator determines whether a person has a possible abuse problem; the\nevaluation itself can take one to three hours. The results can indicate that the person needs a 17 week program. A&Ds are mandatory in Georgia on all 2nd and subsequent DUI convictions.\n\nAlco Sensor: A type of breathalyzer used as a preliminary breath test by officers in the field to determine Blood Alcohol Content (BAC).\n\nAnti-Plea Bargaining Laws: Laws that prevent pleas to lessen the defendant’s offense.\n\nBAC (Blood Alcohol Content): Also called Blood Alcohol Concentration. The amount of alcohol in your blood as shown by a chemical test.\n\nBoating Under the Influence: operating a watercraft under the influence of an amount of alcohol or other drugs outside the state’s legal limits.\n\nBreathalyzer: A machine that determines the blood alcohol content through the amount of alcohol in the lungs. “The Breath Test”.\n\nBUI: Boating under the influence of alcohol.\n\nDistracted Driving: A specific inattention by a driver that diverts their focus away from the road.\n\nDriving Record: Records that provide a history of violations, suspensions and other details about a person’s driving history including DUIs.\n\nDUI: Driving Under the Influence of alcohol or any other drugs while operating any vehicle (car, boat, etc.)\n\nDUI Task Force: A group of police officers with specialized training on DUI detection. These officers specifically focus on drunk drivers; many have videos in their patrol cars; many units receive money grants from State and Federal governments.\n\nDUI School: Also known as “Risk Reduction”, it is currently a 20 hour class that is required to obtain license reinstatement due to a DUI license suspension. For more info go to the DDS web site.\n\nDWI: Driving While Intoxicated or Driving While Impaired while under the Influence of alcohol or any other drugs while operating any vehicle (car, boat, etc.)\n\nChemical Test: A breath, blood, or urine test used to measure the amount of alcohol in a person’s blood in order to determine intoxication.\n\nChild Endangerment: Whether a child under 14 was in the vehicle during an arrest. May result in enhanced\nsanctions and penalties.\n\nCitation: A legal document issued to a person charged with an offense. Usually indicates a court date and the charge placed against the person.\n\nControlled Substance: A drug or chemical that is regulated by state and federal governments in the areas of production, custody, and usage.\n\nDifferent Breathalyzer Tests:\n\n  1. BAC Datamaster – uses infrared spectroscopy to estimate blood-alcohol level. These devices can make mistakes, especially if they are stored improperly\n    or calibrated poorly.\n  2. Breathalyzer – uses a breath sample to estimate blood-alcohol level. Now being phased out, the term “breathalyzer” is a common term for any\n    breath-testing device.\n  3. Intoxylizer – uses infrared spectroscopy to estimate blood-alcohol level.\n  4. Intoximeter – may use a combination of fuel cell and infrared spectroscopy technology to determine blood-alcohol content.\n\nDram Shop Laws: Placing responsibility on the business that served alcohol to someone already intoxicated; if an accident or serious injury results, liability may also be placed.\n\nDrug Possession: The crime of having illegal drugs or components of illegal drugs within your ownership for use, sale, or production of illegal substances.\n\nDrug Scheduling: A system of classification by which the state and federal governments determine drug possession charges based on the potential for addiction, medically approved uses, and effects on the user.\n\nElimination: The amount of time it takes for the body to reduce the amount of alcohol in the blood. Your body’s metabolism can generally remove one drink per hour.\n\nExpungment: A process whereby a person’s criminal arrest is deleted. In most States expungment is not available for a DUI arrest.\n\nExtrapolation: The estimation of one’s BAC from at a specific time, taking into account age, weight, amount consumed, time spent drinking, etc.\n\nFake ID: An identification showing that someone under aged is actually over 21. Penalties can include suspension of driver’s license; under some circumstances, can be considered a felony.\n\nFelony: A crime where the penalty is over a year in jail. DUIs are mostly misdemeanors, but in some States a DUI can be elevated to felony status in certain situations, like repeat or habitual offenses, or any DUI-related fatalities.\n\nField Sobriety Tests:\n\n  1. Standard Field Sobriety Test – 3 tests, consisting of a horizontal gaze test, walk-and-turn test, and the one-leg stand test.\n  2. Divided Attention Testing – A test where one must follow instructions and listen while performing basic physical movements; the walk-and-turn and\n    one-leg stand tests are examples.\n  3. Common Sobriety Tests – The following are simple tests generally used to find probable cause of a DUI: Counting, Finger-to-Nose, Reciting the Alphabet,\n    Standing on One Leg, Walking a Line, Walk-and-Turn, and the Horizontal Gaze Nystagmus.\n\nFirst Offender Plea: A plea whereby the Defendant “pleads” guilty, but the case is dismissed after the Defendant has completed certain conditions of his/her sentence. Most States do not allow first offender on DUI cases, but do allow first offender on drug\npossession cases.\n\nFTA: Failure to appear. If a person fails to appear on their scheduled court date, several things may happen. Any bond will be forfeited to the court system. The driver’s license could be suspended or revoked. A warrant may be issued.\n\nGeorgia DNR: Also known as the Georgia Department of Natural Resources, this department has the authority to stop boaters when suspicious of BUI.\n\nGraduated licensing program: State mandated laws requiring new drivers (typically teens) to acquire a certain number of practice driving hours before they receive their licenses as well as restrictions to the age and\nnumber of passengers they’re allowed to carry initially.\n\nHabeas corpus: action filed to challenge the legality of an individual’s incarceration.\n\nImplied Consent Warning: The only “rights” that must be read to a DUI suspect before the State can request a State chemical test of the suspect’s blood, breath, urine, or other bodily substance. The arresting officer must read the ICW (normally from an orange colored card) at the time of arrest.\n\nIgnition Interlock Device: A device the size of a cell phone, placed in a car; the driver must blow into the device, and if any measurable amount of alcohol is present, the car will not start. Mandatory for multiple DUI offenders in most States, and for even\nfirst time offenders in some states.\n\nMandatory Suspendable Offenses: Georgia Code 40-5-54 provides that a conviction of the following traffic violations results in a mandatory license suspension: Vehicular Homicide; Serious injury by vehicle; Felony\nwhile using a motor vehicle; Unlawful or fraudulent use of a license or ID; Driving on suspended, revoked or cancelled license; Racing; Hit and Run; Fleeing and Eluding; DUI.\n\nMisdemeanor: Crimes where the maximum punishment is one year in jail and a $1000 fine. DUIs are generally misdemeanors. Multiple DUI convictions can be considered a “high and aggravated” misdemeanor which can result in higher fines.\n\nNolo Contendere: A form of plea meaning “no contest” – a person will not defend the charges placed against them. Usually unavailable in DUI cases; if available, pleading “nolo” almost always counts as a DUI charge and with it, license suspension and mandatory\nminimum punishment.\n\nOpen Container Laws: This law prohibits the drinking of alcohol inside a vehicle or public area. As far as inside a vehicle is concerned, some states won’t allow anyone in the vehicle to have open containers, while others won’t allow the driver to\nhave an open container.\n\nParaphernalia: Any apparatus, invention, or object that is created or modified for manufacture, use, or disguise of illegal substances.\n\nPost conviction relief: The process of reversing a criminal plea or pursuing expungement of a criminal record.\n\nPrevious Offense: Conviction of drug possession or DUI before the current conviction, often causes harsher punishments.\n\nProbation: A judge can issue probation in lieu of some or all of a convicted offender’s jail time. The offender must not violate the law, must complete the sentence and must report to their probation officer as required.\n\nProbation Revocation: If a person on probation fails to comply with his/her sentence or violates any of the terms of probation, their probation can be “revoked” by the judge, and the probationer can be sentenced to jail.\n\nRadar Gun: Tool used by police officers to detect a driver’s speed.\n\nReckless Driving: Operating a motor vehicle without regard for the safety of others.\n\nRefusal: Refusing to take either a chemical or breath test. In most states, refusing these tests results in immediate license suspension.\n\nRetainer: This is, essentially a contract between the lawyer and the defendant, allowing the lawyer to act on the person’s behalf and represent them in legal matters. SR-22 Insurance: Insurance stating a driver has liability coverage and the insurance company will be notified if it is cancelled. This type of insurance is necessary in most states for those who have a DUI conviction.\n\nRisk Reduction: see DUI School.\n\nSobriety Checkpoint: Temporary checkpoints or road blocks that police set up to check drivers for alcohol consumption and intoxicated driving.\n\nStandard drink: Any drink that contains about 0.6 fluid ounces of pure alcohol.\n\nSuper Speeder: In Georgia, a person convicted of speeding 85 mile per hour on more on Interstates, and 75 miles per hour or more on two lane roads. The consequences: an additional fine of $200 from Driver’s Services; if the fine is not paid within 90 days of\nnotice from DDS, the license is suspended.\n\nWork Release: A form of incarceration whereby the defendant goes to work during the day, then returns to jail at night.\n\nZero Tolerance: Law allowing penalties for those under 21 with negligible amounts of alcohol in their system; Illegal to drive with any amount of alcohol in their system.\n\n\n\n", "pred_label": "__label__1", "pred_score_pos": 0.5517906546592712}
+{"content": "Text Size\n\nHubble Spies Edge-on Beauty\ncloseup of ngc 891 showing dark filaments escaping the galactic halo\nCredit: ESA/Hubble & NASA\n› Larger image\n\nVisible in the constellation of Andromeda, NGC 891 is located approximately 30 million light-years away from Earth. The NASA/ESA Hubble Space Telescope turned its powerful wide field Advanced Camera for Surveys towards this spiral galaxy and took this close-up of its northern half. The galaxy's central bulge is just out of the image on the bottom left.\n\nThe galaxy, spanning some 100,000 light-years, is seen exactly edge-on, and reveals its thick plane of dust and interstellar gas. While initially thought to look like our own Milky Way if seen from the side, more detailed surveys revealed the existence of filaments of dust and gas escaping the plane of the galaxy into the halo over hundreds of light-years. They can be clearly seen here against the bright background of the galaxy halo, expanding into space from the disk of the galaxy.\n\nAstronomers believe these filaments to be the result of the ejection of material due to supernovae or intense stellar formation activity. By lighting up when they are born, or exploding when they die, stars cause powerful winds that can blow dust and gas over hundreds of light-years in space.\n\nA few foreground stars from the Milky Way shine brightly in the image, while distant elliptical galaxies can be seen in the lower right of the image.\n\nNGC 891 is part of a small group of galaxies bound together by gravity.\n\nA version of this image was entered into the Hubble’s Hidden Treasures Image Processing Competition by contestant Nick Rose. Hidden Treasures is an initiative to invite astronomy enthusiasts to search the Hubble archive for stunning images that have never been seen by the general public.", "pred_label": "__label__1", "pred_score_pos": 0.9333739280700684}
+{"content": "Polysemy ( pron.: / p ə ˈ l ɪ s ɨ m i / or / ˈ p ɒ l ɨ s iː m i / ; [ 1 ] [ 2 ] from Greek : πολυ- , poly- , \"many\" and σῆμα , sêma , \"sign\") is the capacity for a sign (e.g., a word, phrase, etc.) or signs to have multiple related meanings ( sememes ), i.e., a large semantic field . It is usually regarded as distinct from homonymy , in which the multiple meanings of a word may be unconnected or unrelated. Charles Fillmore and Beryl Atkins’ definition stipulates three elements: (i) the various senses of a polysemous word have a central origin, (ii) the links between these senses form a network, and (iii) understanding the ‘inner’ one contributes to understanding of the ‘outer’ one. [ 3 ]\n\nA strange loop , technically called tangled hierarchy consciousness, arises when, by moving only upwards or downwards through a hierarchical system, one finds oneself back where one started. Strange loops may involve self-reference and paradox . The concept of a strange loop was proposed and extensively discussed by Douglas Hofstadter in Gödel, Escher, Bach , and is further elaborated in Hofstadter's book I Am a Strange Loop , published in 2007. A tangled hierarchy is a hierarchical consciousness system in which a strange loop appears.\n\nStrange loop\nThe quantum mind–body problem refers to the philosophical discussions of the mind–body problem in the context of quantum mechanics . Some interpretations of quantum mechanics posit a special role for consciousness in the process of quantum measurement . [ edit ] Background and history\n\nQuantum mind–body problem\n\nThe hard problem of consciousness is the problem of explaining how and why we have qualia or phenomenal experiences — how sensations acquire characteristics, such as colors and tastes. [ 1 ] David Chalmers , [ 2 ] who introduced the term \"hard problem\" of consciousness, contrasts this with the \"easy problems\" of explaining the ability to discriminate, integrate information, report mental states, focus attention, etc. Easy problems are easy because all that is required for their solution is to specify a mechanism that can perform the function. That is, their proposed solutions, regardless of how complex or poorly understood they may be, can be entirely consistent with the modern materialistic conception of natural phenomena. Chalmers claims that the problem of experience is distinct from this set, and he argues that the problem of experience will \"persist even when the performance of all the relevant functions is explained\". [ 3 ]\n\nHard problem of consciousness\n\nObserver effect (physics)\n\nIn science , the term observer effect refers to changes that the act of observation will make on a phenomenon being observed. This is often the result of instruments that, by necessity, alter the state of what they measure in some manner. A commonplace example is checking the pressure in an automobile tire; this is difficult to do without letting out some of the air, thus changing the pressure. This effect can be observed in many domains of physics. The Chinese room is a thought experiment presented by John Searle . It supposes that there is a program that gives a computer the ability to carry on an intelligent conversation in written Chinese. If the program is given to someone who speaks only English to execute the instructions of the program by hand, then in theory, the English speaker would also be able to carry on a conversation in written Chinese. However, the English speaker would not be able to understand the conversation. Similarly, Searle concludes, a computer executing the program would not understand the conversation either. The experiment is the centerpiece of Searle's Chinese room argument which holds that a program cannot give a computer a \" mind \", \" understanding \" or \" consciousness \", [ a ] regardless of how intelligently it may make it behave.\n\nChinese room\n\nAn intuition pump is a thought experiment structured to elicit intuitive answers about a problem. [ 1 ] The term was coined by Daniel Dennett . In Consciousness Explained , he uses the term pejoratively to describe John Searle 's Chinese room thought experiment, characterizing it as designed to elicit intuitive but incorrect answers by formulating the description in such a way that important implications of the experiment would be difficult to imagine and tend to be ignored. In the case of the Chinese Room argument, Dennett argues that the intuitive notion that a person manipulating symbols seems inadequate to constitute any form of consciousness ignores the requirements of memory , recall , emotion , world knowledge and rationality that the system would actually need to pass such a test. \"Searle does not deny that programs can have all this structure, of course,\" Dennett says. [ 2 ] \"He simply discourages us from attending to it.\n\nIntuition pump\n\nTwin Earth thought experiment\n\nThe Twin Earth thought experiment was a thought experiment presented by philosopher Hilary Putnam in his 1973 paper \"Meaning and Reference\" and subsequent 1975 paper \"The Meaning of 'Meaning'\", as an early argument for what has subsequently come to be known as semantic externalism . Since that time, philosophers have proposed a number of variations on the experiment. [ edit ] The thought experiment\n\n\nSwampman is the subject of a philosophical thought experiment introduced by Donald Davidson , in his 1987 paper \"Knowing One's Own Mind\". The experiment runs as follows: Suppose Davidson goes hiking in the swamp and is struck and killed by a lightning bolt. At the same time, nearby in the swamp another lightning bolt spontaneously rearranges a bunch of molecules such that, entirely by coincidence, they take on exactly the same form that Davidson's body had at the moment of his untimely death. This being, whom Davidson terms 'Swampman', has, of course, a brain which is structurally identical to that which Davidson had, and will thus, presumably, behave exactly as Davidson would have. He will walk out of the swamp, return to Davidson's office at Berkeley, and write the same essays he would have written; he will interact like an amicable person with all of Davidson's friends and family, and so forth.\nA phrenological mapping [ 1 ] of the brain . Phrenology was among the first attempts to correlate mental functions with specific parts of the brain. Philosophy of mind is a branch of philosophy that studies the nature of the mind , mental events , mental functions , mental properties , consciousness , and their relationship to the physical body, particularly the brain. The mind-body problem , i.e. the relationship of the mind to the body, is commonly seen as one key issue in philosophy of mind, although there are other issues concerning the nature of the mind that do not involve its relation to the physical body, such as how consciousness is possible and the nature of particular mental states. [ 2 ] [ 3 ] [ 4 ] Dualism and monism are the two major schools of thought that attempt to resolve the mind-body problem.\n\nPhilosophy of mind\nNeuroscience of free will refers to recent neuroscientific investigation of questions concerning free will . It is a topic of philosophy and science . One question is whether, and in what sense, rational agents exercise control over their actions or decisions. As it has become possible to study the living brain , researchers have begun to watch decision making processes at work. Findings could carry implications for moral responsibility in general. Moreover, some research shows that if findings seem to challenge people's belief in the idea of free will itself then this can affect their sense of agency (e.g. sense of control in their life). [ 1 ] [ 2 ]\n\nNeuroscience of free will\n\n", "pred_label": "__label__1", "pred_score_pos": 0.9990541338920593}
+{"content": "Hagerman Pass\n\nFor all their ruggedness, the Sawatch Mountains were far from impervious to man's endeavors during the nineteenth century. A good example of this is the old railroad grade that crosses the Continental Divide by way of the 2,161-foot-long Hagerman Tunnel. Representing the labor of hundreds of immigrant laborers, this tunnel was the highest railroad tunnel in the world at the time of its completion in 1887.  Begun in the early 1880s, the Colorado Midland Railroad was the first standard gauge railroad to traverse the Colorado Rockies. Old ties are strewn about, some still in place and others discarded to the side. A little over a mile from the start the grade reaches the first of two ravines that were once crossed by lengthy trestles. The Hagerman Trestle is no longer standing, but it is possible to visualize the 1,100-foot-long, 84-foot-high structures if it were still in place.", "pred_label": "__label__1", "pred_score_pos": 0.9654796123504639}
+{"content": "Select a School...\n\n\nMath Program\n\nThe objective of St. Perpetua's Math program is to ensurethat all students master the basic concepts, comprehend the material, applywhat they have learned and complete all steps necessary in solving mathematicalproblems. Students will work individually, with partners, and in groups. Therewill be a variety of activities and projects such as working with hands onmanipulatives, unraveling problem-solving challenges, writing math assignments,doing presentations and completing computer-math linked projects to meet thedifferent student learning styles. Grading is based on homework, formalassessments, binder organization, class participation and projects.\n\n\nThe goal of the St. Perpetua Math program is to provide allstudents with the standard math curriculum in preparation for the various highschool math levels. Rather than marching students through the curriculum inlockstep, instruction is modified to meet students' varying readiness levelsand learning preferences. The different placements emphasize the students'strengths and the smaller class sizes provide more individual teacher tostudent time. Each year the students are re-assessed for their math classplacement and each year St. Perpetua's Math department determines the number ofmath sections to offer depending on the needs of the student groups.\n\n\nWe are very excited about the opportunity to differentiate our junior high math program and we offer the following sections for the 2012-2013 school year:\n\n     6th Grade Standard Math - Standard 6th Grade Math and Math Skills\n\n     7th grade pre-algebra - Introduction to Pre-Algebra and Standard Pre-Algebra \n\n     8th Grade Algebra I - Introduction to Algebra and multiple sections of Algebra 1\n\n\nThe sixth grade math curriculum contains a review of thefundamental math skills that are necessary to succeed in future math classes.These include operations involving graphing, number concepts, basic geometry,fractions, percents, decimals, exponents, integers, proportions, andprobability. There is more focus on diagramming word problems and usingdifferent problem solving techniques.\n\n\nThe seventh grade math curriculum is a Pre-Algebra coursedesigned to prepare students for the different Algebra levels in the eighthgrade. Concepts include fractions, decimals, percents, integers, exponents,scientific notation, proportions, probability, in-depth study of geometry usingalgebra equations, introduction to graphing, and a peek at polynomials and thePythagorean theorem.\n\n\nThe eighth grade math curriculum comprises of differentlevels of Algebra 1 courses designed to follow the Diocesan State and NationalContent Standards. Concepts include expressions, equations, rational numbers,linear equations, graphing functions, linear inequalities, polynomials,factoring, quadratic equations, and rational expressions. Students areencouraged to apply these concepts through explorations, power-point projectsand group problem solving exercises.\n\nLast Modified on February 26, 2013", "pred_label": "__label__1", "pred_score_pos": 0.5082676410675049}
+{"content": "To contact someone directly for presentations, proposals, info and/or quotes, please contact:\n\nOur B2B department\n\nIf you’d like to send in a request for a quote (RFQ) for an employer branding related project, product or service, please send your request and contact information to We will review your request upon receipt and then contact you with a detailed quote, as well as recommendations that address your needs and challenges.\n\nIf you’re sending out a request for proposals (RFPs) to multiple employer branding consultancies and would like UNIVERSUM to participate, please send your request, instructions, deadline and contact information to We’ll reach out to you if we have any questions or need additional information.", "pred_label": "__label__1", "pred_score_pos": 0.9032058715820312}
+{"content": "Construction and the built environment\n\nPrincipal Learning in Construction and the Built Environment provides an introduction to the broad occupational areas in the sector, opportunities to acquire valuable skills and to learn about a wide range of different industries, such as architecture, structural steelwork, painting and decorating, glazing and surveying. The range of topics brings together these related industries and considers relevant issues such as sustainability and effects on the environment.\n\nIt includes\n\n  • Designing the built environment - exploring how the built environment is designed and constructed, how it impacts on people and communities; and how history, politics and economics affect it.\n  • Create the built environment - develops a range of skills and knowledge needed in different industries ñ for example, using tools,and understanding modern construction methods and materials.\n  • Valuing and using the built environment - analyses the need for good management and continuous maintenance and understanding the importance of good design, workmanship and teamwork.:\n\nMore information:\n\nTerms and Conditions", "pred_label": "__label__1", "pred_score_pos": 0.9707976579666138}
+{"content": "\n\n\nAmong other cellular responses, tumor necrosis factor (TNF) induces different forms of cell death and the activation of the p38 mitogen-activated protein kinase ( MAPK). The influence of p38 MAPK activation on TNF-induced apoptosis or necrosis is controversially discussed. Here, we demonstrate that pharmacological inhibition of p38 MAPK enhances TNF-induced cell death in murine fibroblast cell lines L929 and NIH3T3. Furthermore, overexpression of dominant-negative versions of p38 MAPK or its upstream kinase MKK6 led to increased cell death in L929 cells. While overexpression of the p38 isoforms alpha and beta did not protect L929 cells from TNF-induced toxicity, overexpression of constitutively active MKK6 decreased TNF-induced cell death. Although the used inhibitors of p38 MAPK decreased the phosphorylation of the survival kinase PKB/Akt, this effect could be ruled out as cause of the observed sensitization to TNF-induced cytotoxicity. Finally, we demonstrate that the nuclear factor kappaB (NF-kappaB)-dependent gene expression, shown as an example for the anti-apoptotic gene cellular inhibitor of apoptosis (c-IAP2), was reduced by p38 MAPK inhibition. In consequence, we found that inhibition of p38 MAPK led to the activation of the executioner caspase-3.[1]\n\n\nWikiGenes - Universities", "pred_label": "__label__1", "pred_score_pos": 0.7797747254371643}
+{"content": "Wednesday, June 19, 2013\n\n\n\n\nSoy un nuevo usuario\n\nOlvidé mi contraseña\n\nEntrada usuarios\n\nLógica Matemáticas Astronomía y Astrofísica Física Química Ciencias de la Vida\nCiencias Económicas Geografía Historia Ciencias Jurídicas y Derecho Lingüística Pedagogía\nCiencia Política Psicología Artes y Letras Sociología Ética Filosofía\n\nrss_1.0 Recursos de colección\n\nArchivo Digital UPM (35,155 recursos)\nThis is an institutional repository providing access to the research output of the institution. Primarily contains thesis.\n\nMateria = Electrónica\n\nMostrando recursos 301 - 320 de 472\n\n301. Computational intelligence in decision and control - Olivares Méndez, Miguel Ángel; Campoy Cervera, Pascual; Martínez Luna, Carol Viviana; Correa Caicedo, Juan Fernando; Mondragon Bernal, Ivan Fernando\nThis paper presents an improvement for the software implementation (MOFS) of a user adaptive fuzzy control system for autonomous navigation of mobile robots in unknown environments. This improvement consists of a priority areas definition where the environment is measured by a PLS laser sensor, in order to get a reduction in the number of fuzzy rules and also in the computational cost, and hence obtaining improvements in the trajectory. This system has been tested in a pioneer mobile robot and on a robotic wheelchair, odometry sensors are used to localize the robots and the goal positions. The system is able...\n\n302. Vision-Based Control of the Robotenis System - Ángel Silva, Luis; Traslosheros Michel, Alberto; Sebastian y Zuñiga, Jose Maria; Pari Pinto, Pablo Lizardo; Carelli, Ricardo; Roberti, Flavio\nIn this paper a visual servoing architecture based on a parallel robot for the tracking of faster moving objects with unknown trajectories is proposed. The control strategy is based on the prediction of the future position and velocity of the moving object. The synthesis of the predictive control law is based on the compensation of the delay introduced by the vision system. Demonstrating by experiments, the high-speed parallel robot system has good performance in the implementation of visual control strategies with high temporary requirements\n\n303. Sistema de despliegue de una red de sensores inalámbricos para monitorización de entornos no accesibles - Sanz Muñoz, David\nEl presente Proyecto Fin de Máster tiene por objetivo el despliegue y establecimiento de una red de sensores inalámbricos en un escenario no accesible (como puede ser un volcán, una zona devastada por una catástrofe natural o un cuerpo celeste). El trabajo desarrollado se compone de varias tareas que se integran finalmente en un conjunto funcional. Por un lado, se ha puesto en marcha una red de sensores, implementando una comunicación mesh entre ellos a través de un protocolo de routing que optimiza el tráfico de la red (véase el capítulo 3). Estos nodos sensores monitorizan el entorno circundante, adaptándose dinámicamente...\n\n304. Estudio y análisis de una nueva solución topológica para convertidores CC/CC en aplicaciones de baja potencia y bajo coste - Bakkali Tahiri, Ahmed\nEste trabajo de investigación esta centrado en el campo de la electrónica de potencia y más concretamente en el área de las fuentes de alimentación. En este trabajo se propone una solución topológica orientada a convertidores CC/CC de baja potencia (decenas de watios) y alta ganancia, es decir, la tensión eléctrica de entrada y de salida son muy diferentes (de relación 10:1 o superiores). La solución que se propone y analiza en esta tesis permite además abordar aplicaciones donde el coste sea un parámetro crítico. La solución topológica propuesta se deriva de la topología Flyback con enclavamiento activo. La principal diferencia radica...\n\n305. Neural Networks for optimal operation of a run-of-river adjustable speed hydro power plant with axial-flow propeller turbine - Pérez Díaz, Juan Ignacio; Fraile Ardanuy, José Jesús\nThis paper analyzes the regulating capabilities of both turbine speed and guide vanes position in an axial-flow propeller turbine. Two neural networks are implemented in order to simulate the turbine behavior and the turbine efficiency. A maximum-efficiency-tracking algorithm is developed to set the guide vanes position. An experimental power plant built in the Hydraulics Laboratory is described. In order to validate the proposed operation control, the dynamics of this run-of- river pilot plant has been simulated. Substantial increases in the turbine efficiency have been found.\n\n306. Unit commitment and generation dispatch of a hydropower plant in a competitive electricity market - Pérez Díaz, Juan Ignacio; Wilhelmi Ayza, José-Román; Arevalo Muñoz, Antonio\nThis paper presents a model to solve the short-term scheduling problem of a hydropower plant in a deregulated system, based on dynamic programming techniques. The objective of this model is to maximize the revenue obtained by selling energy in a competitive electricity market. The time horizon of the model is divided into hourly periods and ranges from one day to one week. The proposed model determines both the unit commitment and the power to be generated in each hour of the time horizon. The power is considered as a nonlinear function of the water discharge and the reservoir volume; the...\n\n307. Predicted photoreflectance signatures on QD selective contacts for hot carrier solar cells - Cánovas Díaz, Enrique; Martí Vega, Antonio; García-Linares Fontes, Pablo; Antolín Fernández, Elisa; Fuertes Marrón, David; Tablero Crespo, César; Luque López, Antonio\nThe CO2 emission of our present energy transformation processes, based mainly on burning fossil fuels, is possibly the main cause of global climatic change. The photovoltaic conversion of solar energy is a clean way of producing which for sustainability should (and most probably will) become a major source of electricity. The sun is a huge resource but relatively diluted and it is reasonable to expect that only high efficiency extraction can be cost effective for mass exploitation. New concepts are neccessary such as hot carrier solar cells.\n\n308. A Methodology for CFD Acceleration through Reconfigurable Hardware - Andrés, Esther; Carreras Vaquer, Carlos; Caffarena Fernández, Gabriel; Nieto-Taladriz García, Octavio; Palacios, Francisco\nThe long computation times required to simulate complete aircraft con¯gurations re- main as the main bottleneck in the design °ow of new structures for the aeronautics in- dustry. In this paper, the novel application of speci¯c hardware (FPGAs) in conjunction with conventional processors to accelerate CFD is explored in detail. First, some general facts about application-speci¯c hardware are presented, placing the focus on the feasibil- ity of the development of hardware modules (FPGAs based) for the acceleration of most time-consuming algorithms in aeronautics analysis. Then, a practical methodology for de- veloping an FPGA-based computing solution for the quasi 1D Euler...\n\n309. A Reconfigurable Array Based Prototype of a Specialised String Lookup Chip - Pejovic, Vukasin; Gomez, Rocio; Bojanic, Slobodan; Lalinde-Pulido, Juan Guillermo\nDifferent strategies for performing string lookups have been developed and deployed during the evolutionary scientific process. These are the results of both the development of technology and the need for improvement of previously existing solutions. Hence, the string lookup problem has been well studied and the respectful amount of good solutions is present. Due to nature of the problem, most of the solutions are software based. Nevertheless, in the modern computing environments, in which the amount of data to be searched trough is increasingly growing, the problem re-arises demanding for the different type of approaches that could target multi-gigabit throughput...\n\n310. Simulation of an Asynchronous Machine by using a Pseudo Bond Graph - Romero Rey, Gregorio; Félez Mindán, Jesús; Maroto Ibáñez, Joaquín; Martinez Muneta, M. Luisa\nFor engineers, computer simulation is a basic tool since it enables them to understand how systems work without actually needing to see them. They can learn how they work in different circumstances and optimize their design with considerably less cost in terms of time and money than if they had to carry out tests on a physical system. However, if computer simulation is to be reliable it is essential for the simulation model to be validated. There is a wide range of commercial brands on the market offering products for electrical domain simulation (SPICE, Lab VIEW PSCAD, Dymola, Simulink,, Simplorer,...)....\n\n311. Comunicaciones aplicadas a la teleoperación - García-Robledo, Pablo; García-Borras, Patricia; Aracil Santonja, Rafael; Ferre Perez, Manuel\nPresentación de la plataforma experimental de teleoperación basada en el sistema Grips de Kraft Telerobotics y presentación del hardware desarrollado para su adaptación a una plataforma abierta. Exposición de las diferentes formas de conexión obtenidas a través del hardware desarrollado para cerrar un bucle de control en un sistema bilateral de teleoperación. Estudio de diferentes protocolos de comunicación muy extendidos como USB y Ethernet, explicando sus fundamentos principales y el funcionamiento básico, y su aplicación en la robótica, en particular en sistemas Bilaterales de Teleoperación con exigencias de tiempo real. Presentación de resultados obtenidos y comparación entre protocolos en diversas...\n\n312. Patients Monitoring System based on a Wireless Sensor Network Adaptive Platform - Romero Perales, Elena; Araujo Pinto, Álvaro; Malagón Marzo, Pedro José; Vallejo López, Juan Carlos; Moya Fernández, José Manuel; Nieto-Taladriz García, Octavio\nGuaranteeing ubiquity and appropriateness of health services provision to the users constitutes a priority issue for the Public Health Authorities. This paper presents an innovative Wireless Personal Area Network architecture that takes advantage of some of the features provided by Intelligent Environments -large number of devices, heterogeneous networks and mobility enhancement- in order to adapt and personalise ambient conditions to the user profile.\n\n313. Brain Computer Interface. Comparison of Neural Networks Classifiers. - Martínez Pérez, Jose Luis; Barrientos Cruz, Antonio\nBrain Computer Interface is an emerging technology that allows new output paths to communicate the user’s intentions without use of normal output ways, such as muscles or nerves (Wolpaw, J. R.; et al., 2002).In order to obtain its objective BCI devices shall make use of classifier which translate the inputs provided by user’s brain signal to commands for external devices. The primary uses of this technology will benefit persons with some kind blocking disease as for example: ALS, brainstem stroke, severe cerebral palsy (Donchin et al., 2000).This report describes three different classifiers based on three different types of neural networks:...\n\n314. Instrumented splint for the diagnosis of bruxism - Lafont Morgado, Pilar; Diaz Lantada, Andres; Martínez Álvarez, Alexander; Barrientos Cruz, Antonio; Lorenzo Yustos, Héctor; Castedo Cepeda, Pedro Luis; Gonzalez Herranz, Roberto; Muñoz Garcia, Julio; Echávarri Otero, Javier\nBruxism is a health problem consisting in grinding or tightly clenching the upper and lower teeth. Both the grinding and sliding lead to wear of the teeth and produce a noise during the night that is sufficiently loud to disturb the sleep of anyone sharing the bedroom. The tension produced causes problems in the muscles, tissues and other structures surrounding the jaw, ear pain, headaches, lesions to the teeth and disorders in the jaw joints. For an early, rapid, effective and economical diagnosis of bruxism, we propose the use of instrumented splints to detect and record the intensity and duration of...\n\n315. Modelling and controller prototyping for unmanned vertical take off and landing (UVTOL)vehicles - Martínez Álvarez, Alexander; Gutiérrez Mier, Pedro; Rossi, Claudio; Barrientos Cruz, Antonio; Cerro Giner, Jaime del; San Martín Muñoz, Rodrigo\nThis paper describes a methodology to parameterize linear, time invariant (LTI) models which represent the dynamics of UVTOLs and that are appropriate for analytical development of controllers. The models validity was tested against real telemetry from two vehicles, a mini-helicopter and a quad-rotor. The experiments show that despite its inherent limitations the LTI models are suitable for modeling the complex dynamics of aerial vehicles. Different LTI models forthe mini-helicopter’s stationary, lateral and longitudinal flights were obtained. Similarly, given the geometrical and dynamic characteristics of the quad-rotor no distinction is made between stationary, lateral and longitudinal flights, and only one LTI...\n\nThis paper describes a methodology to parameterize linear, time invariant (LTI) models which represent the dynamics of UVTOLs and that are appropriate for analytical against real telemetry from two vehicles, a mini-helicopter and a quad rotor. The experiments show that despite their inherent limitations the LTI models are suitable for modeling the complex dynamics of aerial vehicles. Different LTI models for the mini-flights were obtained. Similarly, given the geometrical and dynamic characteristics of the quad rotor no distinction is made between stationary, lateral and longitudinal flights, and only one LTI model was obtained, which represents the overall dynamic behavior of...\n\n317. Development of a Semi-automatic Cost-Effective Façade Cleaning System - Gambao Galán, Ernesto; Hernando Gutiérrez, Miguel; Surdilovic, Dragoljub\nNowadays the number of buildings with large glass or flat façades is increasing all over the World. These façades must be periodically cleaned with manual procedures that supposed high cost and risk for the workers that have to develop their work under heavy conditions. Although the cleaning cost depends a lot on several factors as the façade characteristics, the cleaning periodicity or the total surface to be cleaned, the average cost is € 8-9 per square meter. A typical building of 12.000 m2 supposes a total façade cleaning cost of € 100.000 and this task is usually done every year....\n\n318. Modelling of Modular Robot Configurations Using Graph Theory - Baca Garcia, Jose Antonio; Yerpes, Ariadna; Ferre Perez, Manuel; Escalera Piña, Juan Antonio; Aracil Santonja, Rafael\nModular robots are systems that can change its geometry or configuration when connecting more modules or when rearranging them in a different manner to perform a variety of tasks. Graph theory can be used to describe modular robots configurations, hence the possibility to determine the flexibility of the robot to move from one point to another. When the robot’s configurations are represented in a mathematical way, forward kinematics can be obtained.\n\n319. Reliability evaluation of III-V concentrator solar cells - Nuñez Mendoza, Neftali; González, Jose R.; Vázquez López, Manuel; Algora del Valle, Carlos; Rey-Stolle Prado, Ignacio\nConcentrator solar cells have been proposed as an interesting way of reducing the cost of photovoltaic electricity. However, in order to compete with conventional solar modules it is necessary not only to reduce costs but also to evaluate and increase the present reliability. Concentrator solar cells work at higher temperature, solar radiation and current stress than conventional solar cells and a carefully reliability analysis is needed. In this paper a reliability analysis procedure, that is being developed, is presented.\n\n320. Efficient Transport Protocol for Networked Haptics Applications - Wirz, Raul; Ferre Perez, Manuel; Marin, Raul; Barrio Gragera, Jorge; Claver, Jose M.; Ortego, Javier\nThe performance of haptic application is highly sensitive to communication delays and losses of data. It implies several constraints in developing networked haptic applications. This paper describes a new internet protocol called Efficient Transport Protocol (ETP), which aims at developing distributed interactive applications. TCP and UDP are transport protocols commonly used in any kind of networked communication, but they are not focused on real time application. This new protocol is focused on reducing roundtrip time (RTT) and inter packet gap (IPG). ETP is, therefore, optimized for interactive applications which are based on processes that are continuously exchanging data.ETP protocol is...\n\n\nBusque un recurso", "pred_label": "__label__1", "pred_score_pos": 0.830909788608551}
+{"content": "National Academy of Sciences | 150 Year Anniversary\n\nQuestions? Call 800-624-6242\n\n| [0]\n\nThe National Academies Press\n\nadd to cart\n\nRights & Permissions\n\ntopleft topright\n\nMaking Money Matter: Financing America's Schools (1999)\nBoard on Behavioral, Cognitive, and Sensory Sciences (BBCSS)\n\nCitation Manager\n\n. \"3 Equity I—Spending on Schools.\" Making Money Matter: Financing America's Schools. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press, 1999.\n\nPlease select a format:\n\nBibTeX EndNote RefMan\n\nbottomleft bottomright\n\n\nMaking Money Matter: Financing America's Schools\n\nPart II\nFairness and Productivity in School Finance\n\nSchool finance policy was under intense scrutiny in the last third of the 20th century. Until comparatively recently, reformers concentrated on a strategy of reducing large disparities in available revenues and spending levels among school districts, which were the legacy of a school finance system originally built on local control. Using school finance policy to improve educational outcomes is a relatively new objective. Identifying policy options that will foster this objective hinges on having good information about how to use resources to improve the performance of schools and students. Researchers have increasingly focused their efforts on developing such knowledge. At present, however, the results are best viewed as tentative and contingent.\n\nThe recent history of efforts to understand and improve fairness and productivity, the subject of Part II, helps explain why existing finance policies took the shape they did and provides lessons that will be instructive in Part III in evaluating current proposals for reforming education finance.\n\n\n\n\nOCR for page 65\n\nOCR for page 66\nMaking Money Matter: Financing America's Schools This page in the original is blank.\n\nOCR for page 67\nMaking Money Matter: Financing America's Schools 3 Equity I—Spending on Schools The United States is a country built on a perception of itself as a \"land of opportunity\" with \"liberty and justice for all.\" Education has long been viewed as the major route to a good society and to improving the life chances of individual citizens. \"Faith in the power of education . . . has helped to persuade citizens to create the most comprehensive system of public schooling in the world'' (Tyack and Cuban, 1995:3). Paradoxically, however, throughout the nation's history, Americans have tolerated great disparities in access to this pathway to opportunity. Until the last half of the 20th century, these disparities were often unacknowledged, hidden behind an aggregate picture of progress. This apparent march of progress, though, left many people behind. At mid-century (Tyack and Cuban, 1995:22): \"A probe behind aggregated national statistics and the upbeat rhetoric of [school reformers] reveals major disparities in educational opportunities. These inequalities stemmed from differences in place of residence, family occupation and income, race, and gender, and from physical and mental handicaps. At mid-century American public education was not a seamless system of roughly similar common schools but instead a diverse and unequal set of institutions that reflected deeply embedded and social inequalities. Americans from all walks of life may have shared a common faith in individual and societal progress through education, but they hardly participated equally in its benefits.\" As Tyack and Cuban indicate, manifestations of inequality were everywhere. In 1940 huge differences existed between rural and urban schools, magnified by large regional differences in educational funding. Both educational spending on and the educational attainment of rural children lagged behind their urban coun-\n\nOCR for page 68\nMaking Money Matter: Financing America's Schools terparts. Two out of three blacks resided in rural areas, overwhelmingly in the South where regional poverty exacerbated racial discrimination. Among whites living in cities, whether or not students attended high school was strongly influenced by the income level of their families. Programs for children with disabilities and those with other special educational needs served fewer than 1 percent of all students in 1938. Compulsory attendance laws frequently excluded children with disabilities. Inattention to inequality in education was about to change. The catalyst was the U.S. Supreme Court's decision in Brown v. Board of Education , 347 U.S. 483 (1954), declaring racial segregation in public schools illegal. The justices' declaration that \"it is doubtful that any child may reasonably be expected to succeed in life if he is denied the opportunity of an education\" became the springboard for a broad assault on differences in educational opportunity related to the socioeconomic, racial, and physical characteristics of students and their families. Much of the history of school reform in the latter half of this century, especially in the 1960s and 1970s, had as a central concern reducing educational disparities. Many, though certainly not all, of these disparities related to money. Readily apparent and large differences in spending on education from district to district became one major target of change. Reformers sought new state and federal programs to provide additional funds for educating previously underserved or unserved groups. They also launched legal attacks on the underlying theory and structure of school finance. The existing system, which relied heavily on localities whose wealth and willingness to tax themselves varied greatly, appeared to make the quality of a child's education dependent on where he or she happened to live. Although, as we shall see, the relationship between spending on education and the quality of schooling has been the subject of much debate, reformers nevertheless argued that money provided the most \"convincingly quantifiable\" standard for judging the availability of education across districts. They further argued on grounds of fairness against postponing reform until the cost-quality debate could be settled. As Coons et al. (1970:30) put it: \"if money is inadequate to improve education, the residents of poor districts should at least have an equal opportunity to be disappointed by its failure.\" This chapter explores the pursuit of equity in school finance since mid-century, which until recently emphasized reducing spending disparities tied to the place of residence and increasing spending to meet special educational needs. The story is complicated to tell chronologically, because reforms aimed at revising the fundamental reliance of American schools on locally raised revenues (which have largely been pursued through the courts) have proceeded simultaneously with legislative and legal efforts to overcome specific education inequities through more piecemeal categorical-type programs. Examining the legal attack on traditional school finance mechanisms has the advantage of crystallizing a number of key finance and constitutional issues; so, after some comments on the meaning of equity, we take up that strategy first. We then describe a\n\nOCR for page 69\nMaking Money Matter: Financing America's Schools number of other developments in the past half-century related to the equity of educational spending. Finally, and most importantly for the subsequent policy discussion in Part III, we assess what all this has accomplished in terms of reducing educational inequities as defined by spending disparities and in terms of equity issues as they are being reconceptualized today. What we will see is that much has been accomplished in terms of extending educational opportunities to all students, but that great disparities in education spending still remain. The biggest disparities, those among states, remain largely untouched by reforms that have focused on individual state finance systems. Inequalities in finance have proven stubbornly persistent, in large part because reducing or eliminating them requires steps that fly in the face of other values Americans hold dear, such as local control of schools and the freedom of parents to provide for their children. Moreover, dissatisfaction has grown with school finance approaches that fail to address directly problems of growing public concern, notably the academic achievement levels of American students and the worsening conditions facing children who live in some central-city neighborhoods. The concept of equity motivating school finance reform today is shifting in emphasis from differences in the amount of money spent to the adequacy of the education that this money provides. The next chapter explores this newer approach to equity and the possibilities and challenges it poses for school finance. THE MEANING OF EQUITY Equity, a concept embodying notions of justice, impartiality, and fairness, is a widely shared value in American society. Yet equity lends itself to a variety of specific definitions reflecting the different goals that can be sought under the \"equity\" banner. Equity may, for example, involve equality (an equal distribution of something), but it need not (Monk, 1990; Putterman et al., 1998). An equitable distribution may actually involve substantial inequality, as for example when \"extra\" resources are provided to a group believed to have extraordinary needs. In this case, equity may be seen as providing unequal inputs in order to achieve equal outputs or outcomes. Different definitions of equity mix and weigh central distinctions in differing ways. Researchers, legislators, lawyers and judges, and the public have used various mixes as they debate equity-based reforms, resulting in conflicting views about what constitutes fairness. Therefore, it is essential to clarify the definitional issues and to indicate how different equity definitions influence school finance discussions. Understanding the various meanings and goals that are associated with different definitions of equity can illuminate the accomplishments and shortcomings of prior attempts to make school finance more equitable and why this objective has proven so difficult to accomplish.\n\nOCR for page 70\nMaking Money Matter: Financing America's Schools Berne and Stiefel (1984, 1999) have identified five key distinctions that can be drawn among equity definitions as they are applied to school finance systems: Who is the focus of concern: school-age children, taxpayers, or both? What is the unit of analysis: the nation, states, districts, schools, or students? Which stage in the \"production\" of education is emphasized: inputs (dollars and/or real resources), processes, outputs, or outcomes? Which groups are of special interest: students with low income, minority status, disabilities; low-income or low-wealth taxpayers? How is the equity of the school finance system being evaluated: ex ante (judged by the equity of statutory design elements) or ex post (judged by the actual outcomes that result from behavioral changes of school districts as they respond to the design elements of a school finance system)? The answers to these questions embodied in school finance systems have evolved as public debate has occurred over the nature of spending and outcome differences in education and as reformers attempted to find remedies for perceived inequities that could be successfully enacted through the political process. School finance equity is not a new concern. Efforts to link methods of school finance to the fairness of the educational system can be traced back to the beginning of the 20th century and the work of Ellwood P. Cubberley (Guthrie et al., 1988:3). But school finance inequities came into sharp focus in the late 1960s, as education reformers began to realize that the promise of educational opportunity offered by the Brown decision was being thwarted by unequal perpupil expenditures. Desegregation alone was insufficient to address the \"inequalities in education [that] continue to be visited upon Negro children, especially in large cities,\" because of spending disparities (Wise, 1968:3). Interestingly, urban problems rather than rural poverty now loomed large, reflecting the mass migration of blacks to the cities following World War II. School finance inequities linked to race were now a national, and not primarily a southern, issue. In the aftermath of Brown, reformers also became increasingly intolerant of the slow pace with which the executive and legislative branches of government moved to equalize opportunities. For the first time, courts became central players in school finance. In this area as in others, individuals and groups turned increasingly to the judicial system to obtain public benefits they were unable to gain in the political arena. Although legislative and executive branch officials generally determine how complex school finance issues are resolved, since about 1970 the framework for their policy making has increasingly been influenced by the rulings in court cases. Carr and Fuhrman (1999) explore the political reasons why school finance reformers have frequently found the courts more receptive to their arguments than the executive and legislative branches of government.\n\nOCR for page 71\nMaking Money Matter: Financing America's Schools Our examination of equity in educational finance begins by tracing the development of school finance litigation carried out in its name. School finance reform was strongly influenced by the success in the courts of an approach to equity called \"wealth neutrality,\" which concentrated attention on the spending disparities between school districts in a given state and in particular showed how they related to the variation in property tax bases (Minorini and Sugarman, 1999). It emphasized student equity, specifying that no relationship should exist between the education of children and the property wealth of the district in which they reside, while also embodying the concept that taxpayers should be taxed at equal rates to fund equal education (generally defined as equal spending) per child.1 The wealth-neutrality approach has focused heavily on inputs to the educational system; both ex ante and ex post measures of it were developed. PURSUING FINANCE EQUITY THROUGH THE COURTS Efforts to reform school finance through the courts have had two distinguishing features. First, until recently, they focused mainly on attacking geographically based disparities in school spending that result from dependence on local wealth-based property taxes. Second, school finance litigation has taken place primarily in state courts under state law, a surprising venue given that federal courts and federal law have played the central role in lawsuits concerning other aspects of public education, such as school desegregation and student rights to free expression. The reasons reformers focused on wealth-based disparities in education spending and pursued their ends in state courts lie in two major events of the late 1960s and early 1970s that had immense influence on how equity in education finance was defined and pursued in the ensuing decades. The first was the publication of Equality of Educational Opportunity (Coleman et al., 1966). The second was the California Supreme Court's decision ruling against the state and its method of funding education in Serrano v. Priest (Serrano I), 487 P.2d 1241 (Cal. 1971). Equality of Educational Opportunity set off an academic and public debate that continues today by calling into question the relationship between resource equality and equality of educational outcomes with its finding that students' 1    This concept of equity for taxpayers differs from the concept of taxpayer equity typically found in the public finance literature. From a public finance perspective, a system would be judged fair to taxpayers on the basis of either an ability to pay or a benefit principle, both of which are defined in Chapter 8. In general, neither the courts nor advocates nor researchers in school finance have focused on the public finance concepts of equity. If they had, the remedies proposed or legislated for taxpayers might well have been quite different, giving attention to patterns of public finance incidence, such as progressive, regressive, or proportional tax burden, that have not been much considered in the development of school finance formulas. See Chapter 8 for a further discussion of taxpayer equity issues from a public finance perspective.\n\nOCR for page 72\nMaking Money Matter: Financing America's Schools family and other background characteristics were more important than school resources in determining student achievement. While its findings about the role of schools were then and remain controversial (and are increasingly being questioned by scholars evaluating new evidence with new analytical tools), uncertainty over the link between resource and outcome inequalities encouraged challengers of school finance systems to focus on the basic fairness of spending disparities (and thus on school inputs) rather than attempting to link spending levels to specific educational outcomes. Serrano I was the first successful state court case related to state school finance equity. Based on wealth-neutrality arguments, state court judges in California overturned the state's existing system of school finance. Significantly, in the light of what would soon transpire in the U.S. Supreme Court, plaintiffs claimed that California's wealth-based system for raising educational revenues violated the equal protection clauses of both the U.S. Constitution and the California constitution. Dependence on local property taxes as a primary source of school funding, they argued, resulted in average per-pupil spending differences in the 1969–70 school year ranging from $407 to $2,586 in elementary school districts to $722 to $1,761 in high school districts (Franklin, 1987). San Antonio Independent School District v. Rodriguez, 411 U.S. 1 (1973), made some of the same arguments as did Serrano I on behalf of a class of children throughout the state of Texas living in districts with low per-pupil property valuations. It differed, however, in that the case was brought in federal court and relied on the U.S. Constitution alone. Plaintiffs were successful in a lower court, and it appeared for a short time that the U.S. Constitution would indeed play a central role in shaping America's school finance system. However, Rodriguez was rejected on appeal by the U.S. Supreme Court, in part on the grounds that education was not a \"fundamental interest\" under the U.S. Constitution that warranted breaching long-standing patterns of federalism and involving the federal courts in state school finance issues. While Rodriguez closed the door to school finance reform via the federal courts, Serrano I opened one in the state courts. Although the California Supreme Court emphasized the U.S. Constitution's Fourteenth Amendment in its ruling, a few additional words noted that the state constitution's equal protection clause also was applicable (Serrano I, 1971:1249, note 11). In its 1976 decision evaluating the sufficiency of the legislature's response to Serrano I, the state supreme court explicitly held that the federal equal protection analysis it had advanced in Serrano I was equally applicable to the California constitution's equal protection clause (see Serrano v. Priest (Serrano II), 557 P.2d 929, Cal. 1976). Serrano thus paved the way for widespread legal challenges to school finance systems on the basis of the wealth-neutrality principle, while Rodriguez ensured that school finance litigation would flourish in state rather than federal courts and that state-by-state rather than national solutions to finance equity concerns would be pursued.\n\nOCR for page 73\nMaking Money Matter: Financing America's Schools State constitutions provided grounds for school finance suits because most contain one or more provisions that either parallel the U.S. Constitution's equal protection clause or have been interpreted to afford similar protections (Williams, 1985). In addition, state constitutions, unlike their federal counterpart, contain a variety of so-called education clauses specifying education as a state function and requiring legislatures to provide a public school system that is described in various ways, often including \"thorough and efficient\" or \"ample.\" 2 Numerous lawsuits followed in Serrano's wake. By 1998, legal cases had been brought against school finance systems in 43 states (Minorini and Sugarman, 1999). In 19 states, supreme courts found school funding systems unconstitutional. Litigation or the threat of litigation sometimes spurred changes in state financing systems even when there was no formal court order present. In nine states (in 1998) where plaintiffs lost their initial cases, further complaints were filed. Plaintiffs who won in state supreme courts frequently found themselves back in court again and again, challenging the remedies crafted by state legislatures. Here, too, developments in California forecast what was in store in many states: repeated appeals to courts to overturn legislative responses to court orders. In Serrano II, the California court not only upheld its prior decision based exclusively on state rather than on federal constitutional grounds but also held that school finance legislation passed in response to Serrano I was insufficient. (It failed to meet the court's standard for equity, which required that differences in per-pupil spending, exclusive of categorical aids and programs for children with special educational needs, such as disabilities or limited proficiency in English, be no greater among most districts than $100 in 1971 dollars.) New Jersey, perhaps the most infamous example of repeated returns to court, went 25 years from the plaintiffs' first supreme court victory (Robinson v. Cahill (Robinson I), 303 A.2d 273, N.J. 1973), to what appears to be the final settlement in the successor case (Abbott v. Burke, 710 A.2d 450, N.J. 1998), while in West Virginia legal challenges begun in 1979 were still subject to litigation in 1998. Legal Theories in Support of Reform The wealth-neutrality principle successfully argued in Serrano I was not the first legal theory put forward by scholars and legal activists hoping to attack school finance inequity in the courts. All early reformers focused their attention on the U.S. Constitution's Fourteenth Amendment provision that states not deny to individuals \"equal protection of the law,\" but they developed differing notions 2    State education clauses are collected in an appendix to Hubsch (1992). Some scholars (McUsic, 1991; Thro, 1993) have attempted to categorize state education clauses based on their wording so as to be able to predict results in school finance cases, but there appears to be little correlation between the language per se and the likelihood of success in a given suit (Underwood, 1995).\n\nOCR for page 74\nMaking Money Matter: Financing America's Schools of what equal protection might require. In addition to wealth neutrality, proposals included ideas such as one scholar, one dollar; geographic uniformity; and unequal student need. Wise (1968:4) linked school finance to the work of Coleman and others on equal educational opportunity by asking \"whether the absence of equal educational opportunity within a state, as evidenced by unequal per-pupil expenditures, may constitute a denial by the state of the equal protection of its laws.\" His theoretical standard—that the quality of a child's education in the public schools of a state should not depend on where he or she happens to live—became a central argument in Serrano-type cases. Drawing on two important judicial developments in the 1960s (school desegregation and reapportionment cases), he argued that public education was a \"fundamental interest\" for equal protection purposes and that a standard of one scholar, one dollar (similar to the one man, one vote principle of the reapportionment cases) should apply to education spending. Looking at the same unequal spending patterns, Horowitz (1966; Horowitz and Neitring, 1968) turned to a different area of the law from which he developed a similar principle of geographic uniformity. Horowitz argued that, like a state's law governing murder, school spending should not vary within a state based on geography alone. Unlike the one scholar, one dollar principle, however, which seemed to imply uniform per-pupil spending statewide, Horowitz's principle would permit district-to-district spending differences that might result, for example, from a legislative decision to spend more on children with disabilities or at-risk children, who might not reside in equal proportions in all districts. Some legal aid lawyers who tackled the issue found both the Wise and Horowitz principles ill-suited to their purposes. They developed an alternative theory that focused primarily on unequal student need —and the resulting imperative, as they saw it, to spend more than average on the schooling of low-achieving children from low-income families, many of whom now lived in urban areas. The basic thrust of the legal aid lawyers' need-based constitutional claim was that rich and poor children have a right to have their educational needs \"equally\" met. This principle would not just allow but would in fact require unequal spending in the name of equity. This need-based constitutional claim was actually the first to be litigated, but courts found it insufficient to justify a ruling against school finance systems, in part because it was then seen as judicially unmanageable. Federal district courts in Illinois (McInnis v. Shapiro , 1968) and Virginia (Burrus v. Wilkerson, 1969) rejected the claimants' theory on the grounds that they could not discern judicially manageable standards to gauge what students' needs were and whether they were being met. On appeal, the U.S. Supreme Court affirmed both lower court rulings without comment.3 3    See McInnis v. Shapiro, 293 F. Supp. 327 (N.D. Il. 1968), aff'd sub nom., McInnis v. Ogilvie, 349 U.S. 322 (1969); Burrus v. Wilkerson, 310 F. Supp. 572 (W.D. Va. 1969), aff'd per curiam, 397 U.S. 44 (1970).\n\nOCR for page 75\nMaking Money Matter: Financing America's Schools At about the same time, Coons, Clune, and Sugarman (Coons et al., 1969, 1970) developed yet a fourth legal strategy for attacking school finance inequities, one which later came to be referred to as fiscal or wealth neutrality. They cast the key shortcoming of America's school finance system in a new way: the constitutional evil was that some school districts had little property wealth to tax in order to support their local schools, whereas other districts had lots of it. Although states offset some of the wealthier districts' advantage through a variety of state aid formulas designed to ensure all pupils some minimum level of spending, enormous wealth-based disparities in spending remained. Furthermore, less wealthy districts tended to impose on themselves higher tax rates per dollar of assessed value of property than did their wealthier counterparts. Yet despite the greater \"effort\" made through higher tax rates (and notwithstanding the state aid they received), property-poor districts had less money per pupil to spend. This wealth discrimination, argued the Coons team, was unconstitutional. They dubbed their core legal principle Proposition I: the quality of public education, measured most commonly by looking at dollar inputs, may not be a function of wealth other than the wealth of the state as a whole. Proposition I, or wealth neutrality, appeared to offer several legal and political advantages over the other theories that might undergird school finance challenges: it could be readily measured and would be relatively easy for the courts to apply, unlike the need-based theory of the legal aid advocates; it left room for the state to choose among several finance options; and it allowed geographic-based differences in spending. For example, if two districts were equally wealthy, it would not be unconstitutional for one to choose to spend more than the other by taxing itself more. This held out hope for reducing the political battles over school finance, which for a long time had pitted less wealthy districts against wealthier ones as they contested for state funds. To demonstrate how a new school finance scheme could meet their principle of fiscal neutrality and yet tolerate geographically different spending levels, the Coons team developed an ex ante measure of equity, which, they argued, would be achieved by state aid that was district power equalizing.4 Such aid promotes equity in the ex ante sense that districts levying the same tax rate would have the same amount to spend, regardless of their property tax wealth. Wealth neutrality was no panacea for all the school finance ills perceived by critics of the existing system. Some objected to district power equalizing, arguing that a child's education should not depend on the willingness of voters in the community to make a certain tax effort in support of education. Advocates for poor children living in big cities found wealth neutrality unattractive because, in their view, it did not sufficiently address the particular needs of urban residents. 4    The measure can be mathematically equivalent to a percentage equalizing funding system, which had existed before in impure forms in New York, for example, but it was seen as new in the 1970s.\n\nOCR for page 90\nMaking Money Matter: Financing America's Schools The economic downturn of the early 1980s and then the shifting of public attention from equity to quality concerns threw into question the extent to which even these early signs of progress were continued. Comparing data from 1985–86 to data from 1976–77, Schwartz and Moskowitz (1988) found that fiscal equity in terms of both horizontal equity (treating equally situated children equally) and fiscal neutrality had not changed significantly over that period. Somewhat later, Wyckoff (1992), comparing data from 1980 to 1987, found that while fiscal neutrality was stable, horizontal equity improved modestly. Recent research seeks to gauge the overall impact of three decades of school finance reform efforts. Because of data limitations (i.e., the lack of comparable measures of property wealth among districts across states), multistate assessments of the impact of finance reform focus on the reductions in spending disparities across districts rather than attempting to measure changes in the wealth neutrality of spending. The most comprehensive research on changes in spending disparities over time appears in a series of papers by Evans, Murray, and Schwab (Evans et al., 1997, 1999; Murray et al., 1998) investigating the impact of judicially mandated school finance reform. They examine the distribution of spending within states as well as the average level of spending across states, using data for the more than 10,000 unified elementary and secondary school districts at 5-year intervals over the 20-year period 1972–1992.7 They also use econometric modeling to explore the effects of court-ordered finance changes. Evans et al. (1999) found that disparities were reduced noticeably over that period in states in which courts mandated school finance reform. Using four different measures of inequality, they found that reform in the wake of a court decision reduces spending inequality within a state by 19 to 34 percent. Their findings are consistent with the results of case studies in individual states that have measured reductions in spending disparities after court-ordered reform (e.g., Joondeph, 1995, who examined Arkansas, California, Connecticut, Washington, and Wyoming and Adams, 1997, who examined Kentucky). Evans et al. (1999) further found that court-ordered reform reduces inequality by raising spending at the bottom of the distribution while leaving spending at the top unchanged. As a result of court-ordered reform, spending rose by 11 percent in the poorest school districts, rose by 7 percent in the median district, and remained roughly constant in the wealthiest districts. Court-ordered finance reform led states to increase spending for education and leave spending in other areas unchanged, and thus by implication states funded the additional spending 7    For comparability purposes, their study omitted districts that were not unified (i.e., districts that included only elementary or secondary grades), data from Montana and Vermont (which have few or no unified districts), and data from Hawaii (with its state-based system) and the District of Columbia (which is the sole system in its jurisdiction).\n\nOCR for page 91\nMaking Money Matter: Financing America's Schools on education through higher taxes. As a consequence, in states where courts ordered reform, the state's share of total spending rose. Evans et al. examined the impact of court-mandated reform on low-household-income districts to shed further light on progress toward one key objective of education finance reformers: to sever the link between the ability to pay for education (as measured in terms of wealth or income) and actual spending. For the most part, the literature has focused on the impact of court decisions on low-spending and high-spending districts. Because spending and income are only imperfectly correlated, more direct evidence of the effect of court action on districts in which household income is low is useful. Evans et al. found that, following court-mandated reform, total revenues rose significantly in the poorest districts, those in the lowest quartile of household income. All of the increased revenues came from state aid, and some of the state aid provided tax relief to poor districts (that is, these districts reduced their own spending somewhat, but by less than the amount of state aid they received). These results imply that court-mandated finance reform reduced the covariance between income and spending on education in a state. The method and findings are similar to the work of Card and Payne (1997), who also found that finance reform has weakened the link between income and spending.8 Evans et al. (1999) also looked at the impact of court-mandated reform on spending for black and white students. Because black students tend to live in low-household-income districts, court-ordered reform would be expected to redistribute resources toward black students. This is in fact what Evans et al. found for state aid; it increased by an estimated $664 per student (in 1992 dollars) following reform. However, since districts, especially low-household-income ones, substitute state aid for their own revenues to some extent, total pupil revenue for black students increased by $448 while per-pupil revenues for white students increased by $575.9 Court-mandated reform has therefore changed state school finance systems in the general direction that many reformers hoped for. Even without court orders, states have also sometimes moved in similar directions,10 as we described previously, for example, in Michigan. Although litigation and legislation have apparently generated more equitable state finance systems in some states, it is far from clear that the past three decades 8    Given the importance of the wealth-neutrality objective in school finance litigation, it would be desirable to examine changes in the relationship between property tax wealth and spending. Unfortunately, comparable measures of taxable wealth do not exist on a nationwide basis, so researchers generally use resident income as an imperfect proxy. 9    These estimates should be interpreted cautiously since the estimates of many parameters in the underlying equations were estimated imprecisely. 10    We do not attempt to examine here how courts and legislatures may work together in changing the education finance system, thus confounding the issue of causation (see Fischel, 1998).\n\nOCR for page 92\nMaking Money Matter: Financing America's Schools of reform efforts have reduced overall disparities in spending on elementary and secondary education in the nation as a whole. Again, the most comprehensive evidence comes from the Evans et al. studies, who found, as we shall see, that not much changed on average during the 1972–95 period. Before reporting these results, however, we should note that it is possible that analyses using more recent data may find more signs of improvement. In carrying out its own studies on funding gaps, the U.S. General Accounting Office (1997; 1998a; 1998b) also had to rely on the latest available data, which were from the 1991–92 school year. GAO contacted state officials to determine the extent to which states had changed their targeting efforts or state share of school funding between 1991–92 and 1995–96:24 states reported targeting changes (presumably in the direction of more targeting on low-wealth districts), and 6 of these also reported making increases of 10 percent or more in their state share of education funding. Between 1972 and 1992, however, Evans et al. (1999) found little improvement in most measures of spending equity, although overall spending per pupil grew significantly and the state shares of funding increased (Table 3-1). The first panel of Table 3-1 (which summarizes changes in expenditures adjusted for inflation by the national consumer price index but not for district-to-district differences in the cost of living or the population of students with special needs) shows the growth in real resources per student—an average rate of 2.1 percent per year during the 20-year period. Revenues from state sources rose very quickly during 1972–87 and, as a consequence, the states' share of total resources increased from 38.3 to 49.3 percent. Revenues from the states then grew slowly during 1987–92. Local funding increased throughout this period, including the last five years; in 1992, local governments contributed 47.0 percent of all of public education resources. The federal government played a small and shrinking role throughout 1972–92. The second panel in Table 3-1 gives several measures of inequality in district spending at the national level.11 All of the inequality measures in Table 3-1 follow a similar pattern. Spending at the 95th percentile was 2.72 times higher 11    Each of the measures in Table 3-1 rises when inequality rises. The ratio of the 95th percentile in per-pupil spending to the 5th percentile in spending is a simple ranking that treats transfers to the top or bottom of the distribution the same; changes in spending in the rest of the distribution change the 95th to 5th ratio. The coefficient of variation is the standard deviation divided by the mean. This measure focuses on the extent of variation around average spending—both above and below the mean. The Gini coefficient measures the degree to which each cumulative percentage of pupils (e.g., 40 percent) receives an equal percentage of expenditures (e.g., 40 percent). Changes throughout the distribution of spending contribute to the values of the coefficient of variation and the Gini coefficient. The Theil index is similar to the Gini coefficient; however, it gives more weight to changes in the tails of the distribution. The Theil index is attractive in part because it is relatively easy to decompose it into disparity in spending between and within states. For more detailed descriptions of these and other measures, see Berne and Stiefel (1984).\n\nOCR for page 93\nMaking Money Matter: Financing America's Schools TABLE 3-1 Summary of Current Education Expenditures, 1972–92   1972 1977 1982 1987 1992 Funding per student ($1992)           Local 1,923 1,881 1,799 2,163 2,621 State 1,394 1,708 1,903 2,451 2,587 Federal 325 346 297 315 368 Total 3,642 3,935 3,999 4,929 5,576 Measures of inequality           95/5 ratio 2.72 2.37 2.22 2.53 2.40 Coefficient of variation 30.8 28.1 25.6 29.6 29.9 Gini coefficient (x100) 16.3 15.0 13.8 15.8 15.5 Theil Index (x1000) 43.7 37.1 31.0 40.7 40.5 Theil index decomposition           Within states 13.7 14.4 14.0 12.6 13.4 Between states 30.0 22.8 17.0 28.2 27.1 National 43.7 37.2 31.0 40.7 40.5 Variance decomposition           Within states 32.2 41.5 47.5 32.8 35.3 Between states 67.8 58.5 52.5 67.2 64.7 National 100.0 100.0 100.0 100.0 100.0 NOTES: Funding per student from the U.S. Department of Education, 1994 Digest of Education Statistics. Education expenditure inequality measures are authors' calculations from the Bureau of the Census, Census of Government School System Finance File (F-33), various years. Calculations exclude school districts from Alaska, District of Columbia, Hawaii, Montana, and Vermont. SOURCE: Evans et al., 1999. than spending at the 5th percentile in 1972. This ratio then fell to 2.40 in 1992, suggesting a narrowing of the differences in spending across students. The Theil index fell during the 1970s and early 1980s, rose sharply between 1982 and 1987, and then remained roughly constant. Inequality according to all four measures was higher in 1992 than in 1982 and somewhat lower than in 1972. The next two panels of Table 3-1 break spending inequality into two components: inequality due to differences in spending within states and inequality due to differences across states. Here the critical point emerges that between-state inequality is much larger than within-state inequality, with between-state inequality accounting for about two-thirds of the total. Table 3-1 also shows that more than 90 percent of the reduction in the Theil index during 1972–92 was due to a reduction in inequality between states; there was little change in inequality within states. This suggests that school finance reform focused at the state level is limited in its ability to equalize the education resources available to students,\n\nOCR for page 94\nMaking Money Matter: Financing America's Schools although it appears to have been important in staving off growing inequality. Evans et al. (1999) found that when they modeled what would have happened to inequality in the absence of court-mandated reform, within-state inequality would have risen sharply (instead of staying largely unchanged) between 1972 and 1992. One interesting question is what difference it would make to the findings if spending levels were adjusted not simply by an overall inflation factor but for the differences in the costs of the resources across districts and over time. Evans et al. attempted to answer this question, although data limitations (i.e., cost indices that are not available before 1987) restricted their investigation of cost adjustments to the impact of adjustments on the level and the disparity in per-pupil resources at a point in time, 1992. They used three separate indices to adjust for differences in the cost of real education resources: the Barro (1992) index, Chambers' (1995) teachers' cost index, and McMahon and Chang's (1991) cost of living index.12 Table 3-2 shows unadjusted and adjusted estimates of revenue inequality and the decomposition of revenue inequality in a manner paralleling the treatment of expenditure inequality in Table 3-1. Adjusting for cost differences between metropolitan and nonmetropolitan school districts in 1992 results in a noticeable decline in inequality as measured in various ways. The amount of inequality due to differences in revenues between states continues to dominate inequality due to revenue differences within states, although the amount of variation accounted for by between-state inequality drops from 66 percent of total inequality to 53 to 60 percent. 12    All three develop separate cost indices for urban and nonurban districts in each state; in some states, separate indices for the largest urban areas are also available. The Barro measure is an index of average teacher salaries that adjusts for teachers' education level and experience. Because a given district can influence teachers' wages by hiring only candidates with graduate degrees, this measure would overstate the adjustment necessary for purchasing power parity among districts. The teachers' cost index measure adjusts for regional variations in the cost of living and amenities. This measure removes the impact of within-state differences by adjusting for district-level characteristics that, unlike average teacher's educational attainment or tenure, are not subject to district control. Finally, the McMahon and Chang index is a geographic index that controls only for the differences in housing values, income, and population growth across districts; the McMahon and Chang index yields the smallest price adjustment. While these cost indices were developed specifically for adjusting education costs, it is not clear that they successfully capture the full difference in the costs of education across districts. Ideally, a cost index would account for the difference in wages that a central-city school district would have to offer in order to attract teachers with the same qualifications, ability, and training that wealthy suburban districts attract. We suspect that these indices do not capture those differences and that it is therefore likely that their use overstates the resources available to central-city students. Also, none of these indices incorporate differences in the variation in student needs; see Duncombe et al. (1996) for an important discussion of this issue. More is said about the cost of education issue in subsequent chapters.\n\nOCR for page 95\nMaking Money Matter: Financing America's Schools TABLE 3-2 Summary of Resources Adjusted for Cost of Living Differences, 1992     Cost of Living Adjustment Summary Measure Unadjusted Barro Cost Index Chambers TCI McMahon-Chang COL Measures of Inequality         95 to 5 ratio 2.47 2.07 2.08 2.19 Theil index 37.90 26.40 29.20 32.40 Coefficient of variation 30.10 24.40 25.70 27.10 Theil Index Decomposition         Within states 12.90 12.20 12.20 12.90 Between states 25.00 14.20 17.00 19.50 National 37.90 26.40 29.20 32.40 TCI= Teachers' cost index; COL= cost-of-living index. SOURCE: Evans et al., 1999. In many ways, then, court-ordered school finance reform, where it was implemented, achieved its primary objective of fundamentally restructuring school finance and generating a more equitable distribution of resources than would have existed in the absence of such reform. The fact that virtually all states, whether under court order or not, have significantly altered their school finance formulas, usually in ways that make them more sensitive to district needs or relative wealth, is in no small measure due to the more active interest courts have taken in school finance in the last 30 years. Nevertheless, the fact that new court cases continue to be filed, even on traditional equity grounds, and that disparities in interdistrict spending levels have far from disappeared, indicate that there are limits to how far school finance reforms are likely to go in reducing spending disparities, even when courts intervene. Limitations on the Impact of Court-Ordered Reforms The main lesson from the past 30 years is how persistent spending inequalities are in American education. There are a number of reasons why the long period of active reform has yielded only modest change. First, Feldstein (1975) showed that the remedy that Coons et al. (1970) proposed to ensure wealth neutrality—district power equalizing or a guaranteed tax base—does not in theory sever the relationship between a community's ex-\n\nOCR for page 96\nMaking Money Matter: Financing America's Schools penditures per pupil and its wealth per pupil. School districts make decisions about spending per pupil based on their local tax price, income levels of residents, and other taste and socioeconomic factors. Feldstein demonstrated that district power equalizing does not correctly offset the effects of its tax price and other wealth-related factors, and therefore districts may not respond in ways that break the positive wealth-spending relationship. Research by Evans et al. (1997, 1999) and Card and Payne (1997) provides empirical support for Feldstein's analysis. Odden's (1999) cross-sectional analysis does not speak to whether low-spending districts have lowered their tax rates in response to state aid, but it does indicate that districts may have low spending levels in part because they choose to tax themselves less than high spending districts. Odden looked at spending patterns in 1994–95 in three unidentified states that enacted different versions of school finance reform (two of which were full or partial district power equalizing programs) over the 1975–95 time period. He ranks districts in these states in deciles on the basis of revenues per pupil and shows that in all three states local property tax rates rose steadily as district wealth rose. Revenues per pupil thus rise with district wealth as well, despite the equalizing intention of state aid.13 The U.S. General Accounting Office (1998b) studied four states that changed their finance systems between 1991–92 and 1995–96 and found that, in two of the four, state changes that moved in the direction of equalization were offset because poor districts reduced their local tax rates or wealthy districts raised theirs—or both. The fact that district spending levels are still related to district wealth and tax levels reflects one of the philosophical conundrums of school finance reform. The wealth-neutrality standard adopted in Serrano and many other court decisions explicitly does not call for equal spending among districts, only that all districts are able to realize the same revenues from the same tax effort. Those who believe that unequal spending is unfair are therefore unlikely to be satisfied with the spending levels that meet the ex-ante wealth-neutrality standard. Those who value continued reliance on local control and discretion in making decisions about how much to spend on education will be more willing to tolerate continuing disparities in spending when they appear to reflect differences in local preferences for schooling versus other public goods (or tax relief). Tensions over local control are part of the political context that frequently stymie or limit finance reform efforts, even when finance changes are mandated 13    There is emerging evidence in some states that interdistrict school finance spending disparities may have decreased in the bottom half of the distribution but increased in the top half, while leaving the overall coefficient of variation about the same. In a multiple state study, Verstegen (1996) found that the McLoone index, which measures disparities within the lower half of districts ranked by spending level, has declined. The Verstegen index, a new measure of disparity for the top half, had actually increased.\n\nOCR for page 97\nMaking Money Matter: Financing America's Schools by courts. Legislators and governors who must design and implement reforms find themselves contending with public opposition on a number of fronts (Carr and Fuhrman, 1999; Reed, 1997). Rather than equalize by reducing spending down to the level of low-spending districts, thereby forcing wealthier districts to reduce spending, policy makers may try to ''level up.\" This effort to raise spending in low-spending districts often requires higher state taxes or redistribution of locally raised revenues from wealthier to less-wealthy districts, both of which are highly unpopular among those whose tax burdens would rise or who would see their tax dollars go to educate children in another jurisdiction. Some of this opposition is individual and personal; some stems from more general antitax and antigovernment sentiments. Demographics also play a role. Racial cleavages sometimes come into play, as voters see minorities (especially those dwelling in cities) as primary beneficiaries of reform. Poterba (1997) found that increases in the fraction of elderly residents in a jurisdiction is associated with a significant reduction in per-child spending, a result with ominous overtones in a society whose average age is rapidly increasing as the baby boom generation approaches retirement age. The political climate affecting implementation of court-ordered school finance reforms at the state level manifests itself in different ways (Carr and Fuhrman, 1999). Sometimes, as in New Jersey and Texas, it results in a decades-long dance of litigation and legislation, with legislators and governors attempting a variety of remedies before finding ones acceptable to the court. Sometimes, as in Alabama, a strong antireform governor and strong antitax and antigovernment sentiments undercut efforts to build a consensus for educational reform, and virtually no change takes place. By contrast, Kentucky was able to marshal a strong coalition in favor of reform and revamped its educational system thoroughly and comparatively quickly after the 1989 court decision declaring the existing system unconstitutional. For those whose objective for school finance reform goes beyond wealth neutrality to equality of funding for students no matter where they live, there is one final limitation to the impact of court reform that is perhaps the most significant of all. As noted earlier, two-thirds of disparities in per-pupil funding differences are attributable to between-state differences in spending rather than within state differences. The proportion is still over half even when adjustments are made for the cost of education. Federal aid to education at existing levels is limited in its ability to remedy these gaps. Federal funds help somewhat, because they are more highly targeted to poor students than are either state or local funds; in 1991–92 the majority of poor students lived in states that had significant funding gaps between poor and wealthy districts (U.S. General Accounting Office, 1998a). Because federal allocations are relatively small compared with state and local shares, however, the equalizing effect of federal funds does relatively little to reduce the overall funding differentials between low-poverty and high-poverty districts. At current\n\nOCR for page 98\nMaking Money Matter: Financing America's Schools federal spending levels, this would continue to be true no matter how highly targeted federal funds were. Jencks et al. (1972:25-6) pointed out over 25 years ago that local disparities in funding (which are wealth and poverty related) could be diminished if state or federal spending increased dramatically, even if this spending were not targeted at all but merely allocated on an equal per-pupil basis. More recently, the U.S. General Accounting Office (1998a) in its study of education funding in 1991–92 showed that targeting of state and federal funds helped but didn't completely close the funding gap between high-poverty and low-poverty districts.14 The percentage of total funding from state and federal sources was more important, however, in reducing the gap than in how narrowly these funds were targeted on poor students. \"For example, both California and Virginia had about the same combined state and federal targeting rates per poor student and the same average per pupil funding levels. However, California's much larger combined state and federal share reduced its funding gap to one that was smaller than Virginia's\" (U.S. General Accounting Office, 1998a:5). EQUITY AT THE DAWN OF THE NEW CENTURY As the nation enters a new century, its success in addressing questions of fairness in its school finance systems is mixed. The nation awoke in the 1950s and 1960s to the problems of unequal educational opportunities and began to address them. Around 1970 it entered a notably vigorous era of debate and reform aimed specifically at breaking the link between the property wealth of school districts and the amount of resources they had available to spend on the education of schoolchildren. Many state finance systems were overhauled. Wealth neutrality almost certainly improved, although there is no good longitudinal measure to document this statement on a national basis. State and federal categorical programs directed resources to students with special education needs and to some extent compensated for funding inequities at the local level. Overall, however, since the early 1970s, disparities in spending among districts do not appear to have changed much, although judicial intervention has ensured that they are smaller than they might otherwise have been. There are still large differences in the educational dollars spent on students depending on where they happen to live, particularly for students whose families are at the top and bottom in terms of income. Reducing spending disparities has proven difficult and contentious. The constitutional support for reform is quite variable across the states. Many people continue to believe that basic fairness requires that educational 14    In this study the poverty level of a school district was calculated on the basis of the district's number of poor students, as determined by the percentage of children living in households below the poverty level in 1989.\n\nOCR for page 99\nMaking Money Matter: Financing America's Schools resources not be determined by where a student happens to live or that all students ought to receive the same amount of educational resources (with perhaps some adjustments for differing educational costs). Cases will continue to be litigated on these grounds, and legislation will continue to be offered in hopes of achieving these objectives. Increasingly, though, it seems that finance reforms of the past, with their emphasis on the fiscal capacity of school districts, insufficiently address pressing equity questions of today, which include how to use the finance system to foster higher levels of learning for all students, regardless of background, and what so do about the desperate social, economic, and educational problems that plague some central-city schools. A fundamental dissatisfaction with discussions about finance equity as they have been carried on over the past three decades has become apparent as the nation has become increasingly concerned about educational achievement levels. While equity as a concept can be applied to any stage in the education \"production\" process (inputs, processes, outputs, or outcomes), in practice finance reforms aimed at achieving wealth neutrality or equalizing spending have had a very strong input focus. Moreover, they have also been preoccupied with the distribution of inputs. This approach has seemed increasingly out of sync with educational reforms that are more and more concerned with the outputs and outcomes of the educational system and with setting and realizing absolute (rather than relative) standards of student achievement. The interdistrict equity preoccupation of much school finance discussion in the last third of the 20th century is, moreover, less and less compatible with educational reform efforts that increasingly focus on the school (rather than the district) as the basic unit in the educational production process. It also has ignored considerations of intradistrict spending disparities, which in large urban school districts may be more problematic than interdistrict disparities in equalizing educational opportunities for students with the greatest educational handicaps. Even the members of the legal profession who developed the strategy of wealth neutrality, which successfully made courts a central player in school finance reform, are finding themselves desirous of a new strategy for pursuing educational equity goals through the courts. Minorini and Sugarman (1999) suggest that the foregoing considerations partially explain this. In addition, they point to the changing landscape of school desegregation, which has reinforced the desirability of finding a new school finance legal theory. Since the Brown decision declared school segregation to be illegal in 1954, advocates for minority youth, frequently those in cities, have sought and received redress in federal courts for educational shortcomings that could be traced to de jure discrimination in the past. Courts ordered remedies that included busing and voluntary integration plans, but more and more involved improvements in the educational enter-\n\nOCR for page 100\nMaking Money Matter: Financing America's Schools prise itself: in teacher quality, curriculum, facilities, and so forth. In the 1990s, however, it appeared that the litigation era reaching back to Brown was drawing to a close and that federal desegregation cases might soon no longer serve as a primary tool for trying to improve educational opportunities for inner-city poor and minority youth. Advocates began to think that school finance litigation might be a promising substitute (Tatel, 1992). For needy children attending high-cost, urban schools, however, school finance litigation would be far more attractive if the definition of equity on which it was based was broader than the conventional approach of wealth discrimination. The new approach to equity that seeks to address many of these new equity concerns concentrates attention on the adequacy of education rather than on the distribution of education resources. The next chapter continues our investigation into educational equity by exploring the promises and pitfalls of expanding equity to encompass adequacy.\n\nRepresentative terms from entire chapter:\n\nschool districts", "pred_label": "__label__1", "pred_score_pos": 0.9286032319068909}
+{"content": "Paul Bloom and Tamar Gendler Discuss Alief\n\nMy former philosophy thesis advisor from Yale is on! She is interested on the interaction between the imagination and normal cognition, and she begins by describing her newly coined concept of “Alief” (Pron: uh-LEAF). Basically, an alief describes something that is similar to a belief insofar as it guides our behavior, but different from belief insofar as we know that it is really a product of our imagination.\n\nFor instance, we might refuse to eat a piece of fudge shaped like feces even though we know that it tastes like any other piece of chocolate. Here, we allow something that we don’t honestly believe (namely, that the brown object is disgusting) to guide our behavior. Aliefs are interesting to cognitive scientists because they have important implications for how we act in the world. Bloom and Gendler discuss these implications in the context of evolutionary psychology, racial prejudice, video games, etc.\n\n\nNobel Laureates Endorse Obama\n\nProf. Martin Chalfie recently won  the Nobel Prize in chemistry along with Profs. Osamu Shimomura and Roger Tsien for their work on fluorescent proteins. Only a few days later, Chalfie posted this video on Youtube:\n\nChalfie, Shimomura and Tsien join 63 other American Nobel Laureate scientists in an open letter that expresses their support for an Obama presidency. From the letter:\n\n\nFor more information about the cadidates’ specific positions, check out ScienceDebate2008.\n\nHuman Genomes, For Cheap\n\n\n\nWired explains how these developments could revolutionize biomedical genetics research:\n\n\n\n\nElyn Saks: Patient cum Professor\n\nI just finished reading The Center Cannot Hold, a new memior by Professor Elyn Saks of USC. Saks begins her first-person account of schizophrenia by chronicling her life as an undergraduate philosophy major, her time at Oxford as a Marshall Scholar, and her subsequent hospitalization at a British mental institution. Eventually Saks returned to the Unites States and began law school at Yale. There she had a second psychotic break that led to another hospitalization. Saks draws a stark contrast between the British hands-off approach to mental illness and the American system of restraints and punishment. This contrast inspired much of her scholarly work, which has focused on the legality of coercion in psychiatric treatment.\n\nSaks’ success is remarkable in light of the fact that only about 10% of schizophrenic individuals have steady jobs. Saks has not only remained employed, but she has also become a leader in her field and a role model to many who suffer from mental illness. In fact, she credits her career as an enormous source of strength during the most turbulent periods of her life. Saks goes into more detail, and reads several excerpts from her book, in this video:\n\nA New Toy for the Optical Crowd\n\nIncreasingly, neuroscientists are using optical techniques to study neurons in the laboratory. The latest installment in their love affair with light is the discovery of light-sensitive ion channels called channelrhodopsins. Scientists have genetically altered neurons to express a channelrhodopsin called ChR2, which was originally isolated from algae. Shining light on these neurons causes positive ions to enter the cell, which depolarizes the neurons and triggers action potentials. Targeting ChR2 to specific types of neurons has allowed researchers to control the behavior of animals with fiber-optics. The New York Times picked up on these developments and recently published a nice review of the field.\n\nStimulating a specific class of neurons with channelrhodopsins can reveal the role of those neurons in neural circuits. But what if researchers want to test how different types of neurons interact? This would require different types of channelrhodopsins that are sensitive to different wavelengths of light. A new finding from the laboratory of Dr. Karl Deisseroth suggests that researchers may eventually have a whole color palate of channelrhodopsins at their disposal.\n\nThe paper, published in the latest issue of Nature Neuroscience, reports the discovery of a novel channelrhodopsin (VChR1) that responds to longer wavelengths of light than ChR2. The researchers scanned a genomic database to find microbial genes that resembled those coding for known channelrhodopsins. They tested the channel’s properties in Xenopus oocytes and HEK293 cells and confirmed that it was indeed a light-gated ion channel with an excitation spectrum distinct from ChR2. Then, by driving the gene with a CAMKII promoter, the researchers were able to express the protein in neurons and show that they could trigger action potentials with light.\n\nAs I mentioned, the real goal here is to use two wavelengths of light to selectively excite two types of neurons in the same preparation. Unfortunately, there is enough overlap in the excitation spectrums of ChR2 and VChR1 to make selective stimulation difficult. However, molecular refinement may eventually yield versions of these proteins with sufficiently distinct excitation profiles. Furthermore, the paper serves as a proof-of-concept for using bioinformatic tools to discover new channelrhodopsins.\n\nMake Love, Not War\n\nYou’d think that a country renown for its Islamic zeal would have fairly conservative policies toward sex and reproduction. Not so with Iran. Even though Ahmadinejad denies the holocaust, he can’t deny the excessive population growth and burgeoning AIDS epidemic that currently confront his country. That’s one of the reasons why Iran is installing vending machines that dispense condoms and syringes.\n\nIranian scientists are hopping aboard the love train as well. Apparently some non-zero fraction of said scientists devote their time to sexual enhancement therapies instead of developing nuclear technology. A new paper in Neuropsychopharmacology tests the safety and efficacy of dapoxetine for treatment of premature ejaculation.  Dapoxetine is a selective serotonin reuptake inhibitor (SSRI) that I have written about previously.\n\nWhile Iran’s nuclear ambitions often take center stage in the media, the country is home to a rapidly growing and diverse community of scientists. The government has relatively liberal stem cell laws, and hopes to use such cutting edge research to enhance its international profile. Eventually, progress in the academic sphere may help temper the fundamentalist elements in Iranian politics.\n\nRehearsing Abstinence\n\nFirst there was methadone. Then came bupropion, naltrexone, acamprosate, varenicline and a host of other promising drugs. But the latest anti-addiction medication doesn’t come in a pill; it runs on your PC. ScienceDaily reports on two interesting studies that attempt to help addicts using computer software. Both rely on cognitive behavior therapy, the psychological technique that involves identifying and modifying dysfunctional thought processes that lead to unwanted behaviors.\n\nIn the first study, researchers created a virtual reality environment in which alcoholic patients could be exposed to the same cues and stimuli that normally elicit cravings.\n\n[The] VR environments, developed with a company called Virtually Better, feature different scenarios that an addict may find challenging: a bar with imbibing patrons, a house party with guests drinking and smoking, a convenient store with cigarettes and alcoholic beverages within reach, a designated smoking section outside of a building or a room with an arguing couple. The environments use actors in each scene as opposed to computer-generated characters. In addition, the study added another layer of realism. A device sprayed the air with scents the participant may encounter in the various scenarios–cigarette smoke, alcoholic beverages, pizza or aromas associated with the outdoors.\n\nIn the second study, researchers developed a computer program that places patients in hypothetical situations and coaches them on how to avoid relapse.\n\nThose assigned to computer-assisted training were exposed to six lessons, or modules, that they accessed from a computer located at the treatment program. Each module included a brief movie that presented a particular challenge to the subjects’ ability to resist substance use — such as the offer of drugs from a dealer. The narrator of the module then presented different skills and strategies to avoid drug use and also show videotapes of individuals employing those strategies.\n\nUnlike the first study, the second scored participants for successful abstinence. Researchers found that subjects who received computer training had fewer positive drug tests compared to traditional counseling alone.\n\nOne problem with pharmaceutical interventions like varenicline or naltrexone is the way in which they shift responsibility away from the patient (It’s not me, it’s my brain!). By conceptualizing addiction as purely biological, patients may lose faith in their own willpower. Emerging computer-based interventions are promising because they encourage addicts to take control of their own cravings. Some combination of these approaches may prove most useful in the long run.", "pred_label": "__label__1", "pred_score_pos": 0.8313385248184204}
+{"content": "Question | Discussion | References | CME Credit\n\nCase 4: Resistance to Nelfinavir\n\nYou answered:\n\nB The development of the D30N mutation with early virologic failure is unusual in a patient taking a nelfinavir-based regimen. The L90M mutation is usually the most common initial protease inhibitor mutation to occur in this setting.\n\nThis answer is incorrect. The D30N is the most common protease-inhibitor mutation to develop early among patients who have virologic failure on nelfinavir. Although the L90M mutation is also common with nelfinavir failure, it occurs less frequently than the D30N mutation. The L90M mutation is more likely than the D30N mutation to cause cross-resistance to other protease inhibitors.\n\nChoose another answer:\n\nA The D30N mutation will cause cross-resistance to atazanavir (Reyataz) and saquinavir (Invirase), but not to lopinavir-ritonavir (Kaletra).\nC Assuming that problems with adherence have been adequately addressed, this patient would have greater than 50% chance of achieving an HIV RNA value less than 50 copies/ml with a carefully designed subsequent regimen.\nD Because of the unique resistance profile of nelfinavir, the 2006 DHHS antiretroviral therapy guidelines have ranked it as the preferred protease inhibitor to use in combination antiretroviral therapy in patients who have a CD4 count between 200-350 cells/mm3.\n\n[Back to Case 4 Question | Go to Correct Answer]", "pred_label": "__label__1", "pred_score_pos": 0.9968434572219849}
+{"content": "Research publications by members of the University of Glasgow\nhome > services > Enlighten\n\nIntermittent control: A computational theory of human control\n\nGawthrop, P., Loram, I., Lakie, M., and Gollee, H. (2011) Intermittent control: A computational theory of human control. Biological Cybernetics, 104 (1-2). pp. 31-51. ISSN 0340-1200 (doi:10.1007/s00422-010-0416-4)\n\nFull text not currently available from Enlighten.\n\n\nThe paradigm of continuous control using internal models has advanced understanding of human motor control. However, this paradigm ignores some aspects of human control, including intermittent feedback, serial ballistic control, triggered responses and refractory periods. It is shown that event-driven intermittent control provides a framework to explain the behaviour of the human operator under a wider range of conditions than continuous control. Continuous control is included as a special case, but sampling, system matched hold, an intermittent predictor and an event trigger allow serial open-loop trajectories using intermittent feedback. The implementation here may be described as \"continuous observation, intermittent action\". Beyond explaining unimodal regulation distributions in common with continuous control, these features naturally explain refractoriness and bimodal stabilisation distributions observed in double stimulus tracking experiments and quiet standing, respectively. Moreover, given that human control systems contain significant time delays, a biological-cybernetic rationale favours intermittent over continuous control: intermittent predictive control is computationally less demanding than continuous predictive control. A standard continuous-time predictive control model of the human operator is used as the underlying design method for an event-driven intermittent controller. It is shown that when event thresholds are small and sampling is regular, the intermittent controller can masquerade as the underlying continuous-time controller and thus, under these conditions, the continuous-time and intermittent controller cannot be distinguished. This explains why the intermittent control hypothesis is consistent with the continuous control hypothesis for certain experimental conditions.\n\nItem Type:Article\nGlasgow Author(s):Gawthrop, Prof Peter and Gollee, Dr Henrik\nAuthors: Gawthrop, P., Loram, I., Lakie, M., and Gollee, H.\nJournal Name:Biological Cybernetics\nISSN (Online):1432-0770\n\n\nProject CodeAward NoProject NamePrincipal InvestigatorFunder's NameFunder RefLead Dept\n476761Intermittent predictive control of man and machineHenrik GolleeEngineering & Physical Sciences Research Council (EPSRC)EP/F069022/1Biomedical Engineering", "pred_label": "__label__1", "pred_score_pos": 0.9905638694763184}
+{"content": "• Type your email below\n\nThe Cambodian flag\n\n\nCambodia boasts a rich culture with its many ancient temples and impressive natural scenery. These include, empty beaches, mighty rivers and remote forests. Nevertheless, the temples of Angkor literally rise out of the jungle and are a magnet for visitors to Cambodia. Angkor Wat is the largest and most famous of the temples, visitors can quite easily spend a week exploring the hundreds of other exquisite structures. Phnom Penh is a bustling city, often overshadowed by glamorous Angkor. It is a city of contrasts with fine colonial architecture side by side with ramshackle streets.\n\n\nElsewhere, few visitors take the time to discover the hill tribes around Banlung (Ratanakiri province), the unspoiled countryside around sleepy Sen Monorom (Mondolkiri province) and the charming riverine town of Battambang with its faded colonial architecture. Those looking for relaxation make their way to Sihanoukville with its lovely sandy beaches and laid-back lifestyle. With the road network little by little improving, so much more of this delightful country is opening up to visitors who take the time to discover Cambodia beyond the temples.\n\nHistory of Cambodia\n\nThe history of Cambodia began in the first century A.D with the establishment of a State called Funan. It is still renowned as being the oldest Indianized State in the whole of Southeast Asia. Modern-day Khmer customs and language evolved from this period in time. The State of Funan was situated in southern Cambodia and southern Vietnam and lasted for a period of 600 years. This dynasty gave way to the powerful Angkor Empire that was eventually responsible for establishing the Khmer Kingdom, as we know it today.\n\n\nThe following generation of powerful kings that belonged to the Angkorian dynasty reigned for a period of 650 years. Their empire covered much of Southeast Asia. Their territory stretched from Burma, which lies east, to the South China Sea and further north, right up to southern China. Khmer kings, during this golden period of rule built the most ornate and extensive temples or prasats known to mankind. These spectacular constructions were built throughout the kingdom. Angkor Wat is, of course, the most famous. Besides building the most majestic prasats on earth, Khmer kings were also responsible for huge agricultural feats of engineering which included sophisticated irrigation systems, great water reservoirs, and countless canal systems that guaranteed food transport. Some of these systems are still in use today.\n\n\nAngkor became the capital of a great kingdom and the center for government, education, religion, and commerce. However, in 1431 a sudden shift of power took place. Angkor was invaded and eventually, completely ravaged. Mankind’s most predominant creation was plunged into total destruction. The entire population and wealth of a once proud civilization was abandoned and covered by tropical forest. Following the abandonment of Angkor, Cambodia's capital population migrated south to Long Vek, then further to Ou Dong, and eventually to Phnom Penh. The destruction of the mighty Angkorian capital also caused a decline, adaptation, and eventual replacement of Hinduism. Theravada Buddhism became the national religion.\n\n\nAs war started to escalate in Vietnam, Cambodia's borders increasingly became the targets of American and Vietnamese aggression. March 18, 1970, General Lon Nol, backed by the Americans, overthrew the Head of State. Consequently, Cambodia became deeply involved in the war, fighting mainly against the Khmer Rouge. Lon Nol's control over Cambodia's government lasted for a period of barely five years, until he was overthrown by the Khmer Rouge, headed by Pol Pot, on April 17, 1975. History repeated itself as soon as Pol Pot invaded. The entire population evacuated the city leaving a once vibrant capital in ruin and decay. The Khmer Rouge then proceeded to implement a “reign of terror” on Cambodia's entire population. People were brutally forced to work as slaves in the rice fields. These people had to endure long periods of hard, painful labor while effectively being starved at the same time.\n\n\nPol Pot's Kampuchean forced labor camps tortured, killed or starved to death an estimated two million people, including women and children. In 1979, The People's Republic of Kampuchea, supported by Vietnamese, liberated the capital. This presented the opportunity for the country to become re-established once again. Throughout the 1980s, Cambodia, with the assistance of the Vietnamese re-built its economy. In 1989, the Vietnamese withdrew from Cambodia and the country was re-named \"State of Cambodia.\" Today, the Kingdom of Cambodia is once again a peaceful place to visit, the authoritarian, extreme-left Cambodian People's Party remains in government.\n\n\nTime: GMT + 7\nArea: 181,035 sq km (69,900 sq miles)\nPopulation: 14.8 million (UN estimate 2005)\nPopulation Density: 81.7 per sq km. (31.5 per sq mi.)\nCapital: Phnom Penh. Population: 1.17 million (2005)\nGeography: Cambodia shares borders in the north with Laos and Thailand, in the east with Vietnam and in the southwest with the Gulf of Thailand. The landscape comprises tropical rainforest and fertile cultivated land traversed by many rivers. The capital is located at the confluence of the Mekong, Bassac and Tonle Sap rivers. The latter flows from a large inland lake, also called Tonle Sap, situated in the center of the country. There are numerous offshore islands along the southwest coast\nGovernment: Constitutional monarchy since 1993\nHead of State: King Norodom Sihamoni since 2004\nHead of Government: Prime Minister Hun Sen since 1998\nLanguage: Khmer is the official language and spoken by 95% of the population. Chinese and Vietnamese are also spoken. French was widely spoken until the arrival of the Pol Pot regime and is still taught in schools, but English is now a more popular language to learn among the younger generation.\nReligion: 95% Buddhist (Theravada), the remainder Muslim and Christian. Buddhism was reinstated as the national religion in 1989 after a ban on religious activity in 1975.\nElectricity: 220 volts AC, 50Hz. Two-pin plugs are in use. Power cuts are frequent.\nSocial Conventions: Sensitivity to politically related subjects in conversation is advisable. Avoid pointing your foot at a person or touching someone on the head. Women should keep their shoulders covered and not wear shorts when visiting pagodas.\nPhotography: Permitted, with certain restrictions, such as the photographing of military installations, airports and railway stations. It is polite to ask permission before photographing Cambodian people, especially monks.", "pred_label": "__label__1", "pred_score_pos": 0.9856340289115906}
+{"content": "Organizing Team Decision-making\n\nReaching consensus for better decisions\n\nConsensus is often essential.\n\n© iStockphoto\n\nWhile many of the decisions we make on a daily basis are quite simple, some are not. These decisions may involve assimilating a huge amount of information, exploring many different ideas, and drawing on many strands of experience. And the consequences of the right or wrong decision may be profound for the team and the organization.\n\nSo, should leaders be decisive, think the issues through on their own, and take firm action? In some cases, no.\n\nThere's a limit to how much information any one individual can process, and a limit on how many perspectives one person can see. Many decisions need full group participation to explore the situation, provide input, and make a final choice. As you've probably seen, groups can often make better decisions than any one person operating on his or her own. This is one of the main reasons that good companies have boards, to which important decisions are taken.\n\nWhat's more, many decisions need \"buy-in\" from the people affected by them if they're to be implemented successfully, and it's hard to get this buy-in if people haven't been involved in the decision-making process.\n\nThe problem is that when you bring other people into the decision-making process, you need to approach decisions differently. These approaches vary, depending on a number of different factors, including:\n\n  • The type of decision.\n  • The time and resources available.\n  • The nature of the task being worked on.\n  • The environment the group wants to create.\n  • The amount of buy-in needed.\n\nUnderstanding why and how best to organize decisions for your team is an important skill. We'll show you some key tools that you can use when you want to involve your whole team in the decision-making process.\n\nThe Challenge of Team Decisions\n\nUsing team input is challenging, and it takes preparation and time. As the saying goes, if you put three people together in a room, you'll often get four opinions. People can often see issues differently – and they all have different experiences, values, personalities, styles, and needs. Team decision-making strategies should therefore be used when you want to get participation and achieve consensus.\n\nWhen time is of the essence, a good decision is one that's made quickly. That doesn't usually happen with full team decision-making. And when one or two people have the necessary expertise to make the decision, it doesn't make sense to involve the whole team – the experts provide most of the input and make the final choice anyway.\n\nHowever, where the situation is complex, consequences are significant, commitment and buy-in are important, and where team members can work together maturely, team decision-making is often best.\n\nIf the right way forward isn't obvious, see our article on The Vroom-Yetton-Jago Decision Model. While it's quite complex, it gives you a well-thought-through decision tree that you can use to work out the approach to use.\n\nTeam Consensus Methods\n\nWhen your whole group needs to be involved in the process, you need to explore consensus decision-making models. With these, each team member has the opportunity to provide input and opinions. All members discuss alternatives until they agree on a solution.\n\nWith consensus, there's often compromise. Not everyone gets everything they want out of the final decision. However, because everyone has fair input, the decisions reached are often ones that all can live with.\n\nLet's look at a few team decision-making strategies.\n\nEnsuring Participation\n\n\n\n\nVoting for Consensus\n\nVoting is a popular method for making decisions, and it's a good approach to use where opinions are strongly divided between two or three options.\n\nUnfortunately, it becomes less useful where there are many options – imagine an election where people have only one vote to choose between eight candidates: its possible that a candidate could win with as little as 13% of the vote. This would leave 87% of people feeling very dissatisfied!\n\nMulti-voting can address this problem. Proceeding through a number of rounds of voting, individuals are given a certain number of votes in each ballot, which they can allocate to the various options any way they want. Essentially, they provide a \"weighting\" to their choices. They can give one vote to each of several different choices, all of their votes to once choice, or any combination in between. After all the votes are placed, the choices with the highest number of votes are carried through to the next round, until a winner emerges.\n\nThis method allows more people to have input in the final decision. There may still be people who give the final choice no votes, but that number tends to be significantly reduced. This method is popular when time is an issue and full buy-in isn't essential for success.\n\nEstablishing Group Priorities\n\nA similar situation is where you need to prioritize a set of options, where everyone has different views, and there's no objective framework that people can use for decisions. (The classic situation in which this occurs is where people are allocating resources between competing projects.)\n\nHere, Nominal Group Technique provides an effective framework for ranking priorities and choosing the option that best fits those priorities. First, the team discusses the problem, then team members narrow down the issues to the key choices they must evaluate. From there, participants each rank their top choices. The team totals the rankings for each alternative, and the options with the highest ranking emerge as the group's priorities.\n\nAnonymous Contributions\n\nSometimes, people with deep expertise that you need to draw on may dislike one-another so much that they have difficulties working together. In others, people may need to discuss issues which are real, but unpalatable or embarrassing. In still others, proposals may need to be developed and explored in tremendous detail, suiting individual scrutiny and analysis away from a meeting.\n\nFor these situations, managing the process in a way that allows anonymous and remote contributions can help you avoid destructive situations and reach a good, well-thought-through decision.\n\nWith the Delphi Method, a facilitator helps participants individually brainstorm solutions and submit their ideas \"anonymously\" – other team members don't know who submitted which ideas. The facilitator collects and organizes the input, submits it to others for development, critique and refinement, then goes back and forth to all participants until everyone agrees to a final set of choices – and, eventually, a final decision.\n\nConducting these discussions is very time-consuming, and you need an experienced facilitator who can help individuals come together to find a solution. But the result is usually a robust final decision that has been fully explored, and is supported by each team member.\n\nThe other advantage of the Delphi Method is its ability to eliminate groupthink.\n\nIn some situations, group cohesion and consensus can subconsciously become more important to people than reaching the right decision, with the result that the group may ignore anything that contradicts the newfound consensus. If groupthink isn't recognized and corrected, it can lead to very poor decision-making and severe negative consequences.\n\nKey Points\n\nTeam decision-making is often time-consuming, meaning that it makes sense to prepare for it properly. Before you organize full team participation, make sure that it's appropriate, and that you have the necessary time and resources for it.\n\nHowever, teams can often commit more enthusiastically to decisions reached through consensus. Using a variety of techniques, you can achieve this in such a way that everyone has a chance to contribute to the final result.\n\nJoin the Mind Tools Club\n\n\n\nFind out what you get\n\nWhere to go from here:\n\nNext article\n\nFree newsletter\n\nJoin Mind Tools\n\nFollow Mind_Tools on Twitter\n\nWant Ideas for Motivating Your Team?\n\n\nJoin for just US$1\n\nGet the Free\nMind Tools App\n\nMind Tools Apps\n\n\nGet the Mind Tools App\n\nRelated Resources\n\nWhat Bugs You?\n\n\nClick here\n\nSponsored Links", "pred_label": "__label__1", "pred_score_pos": 0.7239069938659668}
+{"content": "\"Title\",\"Author\",\"Summary\",\"Body\",\"Date posted\",\"Country\",\"Ongoing\",\"Start Date\",\"End Date\",\"\",\"Staff Type\",\"\",\"\",\"\",\"\",\"\",\"\",\"\",\"\",\"Facilitation?\" \"GAMBA patient and citizen panels\",\"ScienceDialogue.de\",\"Patient and Citizen Panels in three countries A key element of this project is the involvement of members of society into the research on innovative treatments of arthritis. We will set up a two-way dialogue at eye level between patients / citizens and leading European scientists in three European countries (Germany, Switzerland, Ireland). In the so-called patient and citizen panels (about 3 to 4 days) participants are first introduced to the field of innovative research on arthritis through expert presentations and a hearing with experts selected by the participants. In a second step, participants negotiate about this input and then compile patient-/ citizen-reports supported by independent facilitators. Therefore, the main objective of this work package is to discuss the chances, risks and ethical aspects of innovative arthritis treatments with lay people and to develop communication strategies to provide clinics, interested companies as well as the media and a broader public with balanced, professionally developed and scientifically sound information. Two main questions will be answered by the dialogue measures: 1) What do lay people (patients / citizens) want to know about GAMBA? What are their associations with GAMBA? What specific topics are they interested in from their special point of view as concerned patients / interested citizens? 2) What are lay people’s recommendations to the scientific world, to regulators, industry and media regarding the chances, risks, ethical/social aspects of GAMBA? \",\"Problems and Purpose History Originating Entities and Funding Participant Selection Deliberation, Decisions, and Public Interaction Influence, Outcomes, and Effects Analysis and Criticism Secondary Sources External Links Notes \",\"Tue, 07/03/2012 - 04:16\",\"Germany\",\"Yes\",\"\",\"\",\"\",\"\",\"Discussion, Dialogue, or Deliberation\",\"International Organization\",\"Consultation (i.e. to advise decision makers), Raise public awareness\",\"Open to all with targeted recruitment, Random Selection, Appointment\",\"Citizens' Jury\",\"International\",\"Academic Institution\",\"\",\"Yes\"", "pred_label": "__label__1", "pred_score_pos": 0.8119412660598755}
+{"content": "I like to talk about art, trashy TV shows on Bravo, social inequality, mental health, documentaries, makeup, intersectional feminism, and pop culture. I was born in the North, dealt with culture shock in the South, and then did the whole thing over again when I went off to graduate school. My identity and opinions reflect that experience more than anything else.\n\n\nwhere i’ve been\n\nMy other blogs:\n\nrococo&caffeine | naomi and katein cher horowitz we trust | i can’t do pilates", "pred_label": "__label__1", "pred_score_pos": 0.9835907816886902}
+{"content": "Veins In Legs\n\nBlood vessels have lean physiques within their fortifications to be capable to resist the stress of parts of the heart driving blood to the remote corners of the body. Vein does not have an important physique coating, and there is not anything pushing blood reverse toward the heart excluding physiology. Blood turns back towards the heart due to the large muscles of the body compress the vein as it indenture in its usual motion of stirring the body.\n\nThe usual actions of stirring the human body turn the blood reverse toward the heart. There have some veins which are located at legs that do the similar works as the other veins of the body. These veins in legs are the most important part of human body as these controls the overall functions.\n\nDiversity of veins in legs\n\nDeep veins and superficial veins are the main diversification of veins of human being. These veins are the integral part of the body. The veins that exist just under the skin and that can easily be seen is known as superficial veins in legs. The deep veins are situated in the deep part of the muscles of the legs which is clear from its mane. Normally these veins are not visible.\n\nFrom the superficial vein organism to the deep vein organism blood flows with a little perforator veins. That means a little perforator vein helps to flow the blood from superficial to deep venous organisms. The perforator and superficial veins have valves that are one direction that means it passes only one side of veins not in the both sides. The direction of the flow of blood of these veins is to the heart.\n\nSpider and Varicose Veins\n\nThese have a lot of spider veins and varicose veins in the body of men and women. There have many explanations for the visibility of these veins on legs. The compel of solemnity, force of body load and the function of bearing blood from the underneath of the human body to the heart etc. are the chief reasons for their existing in the legs.\n\nThe veins of the legs are the chief factor for the bearing of blood or keep the flow of blood balanced. The veins of the other parts of the human body are not as powerful as the veins in legs. These veins can endure the most strains of the body where other veins fail to endure the strain. There have different issues that are the chief causes of the existence of spider veins and varicose veins.\n\nIncreasing of age of man and woman, born with weak veins that is genetically problem with birth, hormonal change for pregnancy, puberty & menopause, at the time of pregnancy raising the amount of blood, increasing the weight due to raise the fats in the body of man & woman, standing in the same place for long period of time that not have of movement, and remaining under the sun for a long period of time are the main cause of spider veins and varicose veins.", "pred_label": "__label__1", "pred_score_pos": 0.972003698348999}
+{"content": "Washington Coast\n\nThe Washington Coast\n\nThe area known as the North Beach of Washington gets its name due to the fact that the primary coastal population is centered around Grays Harbor. The area south of the harbor is the South Beach, and the area north of the harbor is the North Beach. The primary city on the North Beach is Ocean Shores, Washington.\n\nThe most popular destination on the Washington Coast\n\nThe Ocean Shores area is the most popular destination on the Washington Coast. This is due to extensive marketing and traditional popularity. The name itself was also well chosen to attract tourism. As a result, the area has several interesting and fun activities year round, and is heavily geared toward providing services for tourists.\n\n\nOcean shores has several things to offer, but its primary focus is the beach. The town itself is very spread out with no real central location. The North Jetty is a popular place to visit, especially in the summer when there is a significant amount of boat traffic going by headed for Westport.\n\nOcean Shores has a golf course, shopping, casino, moped rentals, bumper cars and bumper boats, go-karts, horseback riding, and many other tourist related activities.\n\nThe area around duck lake has navigable waterways for paddled boats as well as fresh water fishing. There are three community parks including Chinook, North Bay, and Emerson. There are extensive wetland areas for bird watching.\n\n\nThe 2000 census lists the population of Ocean Shores as 3,863 people. The city has a total area of 12 square miles. The median household income is $34,643.", "pred_label": "__label__1", "pred_score_pos": 0.811114490032196}
+{"content": "Home      Discussion      Topics      Dictionary      Almanac\nSignup       Login\n\n\nAsk a question about 'Llyr'\nStart a new discussion about 'Llyr'\nAnswer questions from other users\nFull Discussion Forum\nLlŷr is a figure in Welsh mythology\nWelsh mythology\nWelsh mythology, the remnants of the mythology of the pre-Christian Britons, has come down to us in much altered form in medieval Welsh manuscripts such as the Red Book of Hergest, the White Book of Rhydderch, the Book of Aneirin and the Book of Taliesin....\n\n, the father of Brân\nBran the Blessed\nBrân the Blessed is a giant and king of Britain in Welsh mythology. He appears in several of the Welsh Triads, but his most significant role is in the Second Branch of the Mabinogi, Branwen ferch Llŷr. He is a son of Llŷr and Penarddun, and the brother of Brânwen, Manawydan, Nisien and Efnysien...\n\n, Brânwen\nBranwen, Daughter of Llŷr is a major character in the Second Branch of the Mabinogi, which is sometimes called the Mabinogi of Branwen after her. Branwen is a daughter of Llŷr and Penarddun...\n\n and Manawydan\n\n by Penarddun\nPenarddun is a figure in Welsh mythology, the wife of Llŷr. The Second Branch of the Mabinogi names Bran, Branwen, and Manawydan as her children by Llŷr, and ascribes to her two additional sons by Euroswydd: Nisien, a good man, and Efnysien, a conniving troublemaker...\n\n. The Welsh Triads\nWelsh Triads\n\n mention he was imprisoned by Euroswydd; the Second Branch of the Mabinogi\nThe Mabinogion is the title given to a collection of eleven prose stories collated from medieval Welsh manuscripts. The tales draw on pre-Christian Celtic mythology, international folktale motifs, and early medieval historical traditions...\n\nnames Euroswydd as the father of Penarddun's younger two sons, Nisien\nNisien is a figure in Welsh mythology, the son of Penarddun and Euroswydd and twin brother of Efnisien. He appears in the Second Branch of the Mabinogi, which names Bran the Blessed, Branwen, and Manawydan as his half-siblings. Nisien, also Nissyen, was the opposite of his brother Efnisien in...\n\n and Efnisien\nEfnysien fab Euroswydd is a sadistic anti-hero in Welsh mythology, appearing prominently in the tale of Branwen ferch Llŷr, the second branch of the Mabinogi...\n\n. Llŷr corresponds to Lir\n\n in Irish mythology\nIrish mythology\nThe mythology of pre-Christian Ireland did not entirely survive the conversion to Christianity, but much of it was preserved, shorn of its religious meanings, in medieval Irish literature, which represents the most extensive and best preserved of all the branch and the Historical Cycle. There are...\n\n, and, like the latter, he is identified as a god of the sea. Leir of Britain\nLeir of Britain\nLeir is a legendary ancient king of the Britons, as recounted by Geoffrey of Monmouth. His story is told in a modified form by William Shakespeare in the play King Lear. In the drama, some names are identical to those of the legend Leir is a legendary ancient king of the Britons, as recounted by...\n\n, a mythical British king most famous as the subject of William Shakespeare\nWilliam Shakespeare\n\n's King Lear\nKing Lear\n\n, may be derived from Llŷr.\n\nThe House of Llŷr", "pred_label": "__label__1", "pred_score_pos": 0.9932059049606323}
+{"content": "American Institute of Physics\nhome contact us sitemap\nPhysics News Update\nNumber 356 (Story #2), January 27, 1998 by Phillip F. Schewe and Ben Stein\n\nQUANTUM EVAPORATION occurs in a new experiment when a beam of phonons (little pulses of sound issuing from a warm filament) inside a pool of superfluid helium-4 is aimed at the liquid surface from below. In analogy with the photoelectric effect (in which light ejects electrons from a surface), the phonons pop helium atoms up out of the liquid. By measuring the momenta of the phonons and the evaporated atoms, one can determine that the atoms originally had zero momentum parallel to the surface, demonstrating directly (for the first time) that the He-4 atoms had been part of a Bose-Einstein condensate (BEC), in which the atoms fall into a single quantum state. Theories of superfluid He-4 had supposed that the atoms reside in a BEC state, but this had not been experimentally verified until now. The researcher, Adrian Wyatt of the University of Exeter, believes this method can be used to generate beams of coherent helium atoms (an \"atom laser\" effect). (Nature, 1 January 1998.)", "pred_label": "__label__1", "pred_score_pos": 0.8222483396530151}
+{"content": "How To Clear Group Discussion And Personal Interview For Bank Jobs\n\nGroup discussion and personal interview is the final 2 steps for the selection procedure in banks and other entrance exams. Most of the bank now accept IBPS score which is the written test score. Those who are selected in IBPS are called by the bank for the group discussion and personal interview.\n\nGenerally, in the group discussion, candidates are divided in groups and a topic is then given. Each group is given some time to discuss the topic among themselves. Then, each candidate has to speak on the topic for 2-3 minutes.\n\nBelow are some rules which each candidates should follow in group discussion and personal interview. These rules will surely help you a lot.\n\n1. Whatever time is given for discussion, utilize it carefully. Proper discussion, analysis is important and then thoroughly arrive at conclusions. Always stick to the point for which you can give objectives. Irrelevant points and facts should be avoided.\n\n2. If you want to say something or ask something to another candidate, always raise hands first. But be sure, you donot deviate from topic.\n\n3. Maintain etiquettes in the discussion room. Never do personal attack on anyone. Rather try to oppose to the points given by others by relevant examples.\n\n4. It is always advisable to put a valid point infront of others. This can lead to gaining of more points. Don’t try to mislead others by saying wrong facts.\n\n5. Negative impression should be avoided at all cost. Try to show your leadership quality by putting your views in a diligent and striking manner. Always listen to others carefully.\n\n6. Be polite always. Be calm but not quite.\n\n7. Your thoughts should be clear enough. Be logical while answering something or while questioning others.\n\n8. Never ever use slang or abusive language. It will put a very negative impression of yours.\n\n9. Avoid negative body languages like shaking legs, yawning, swinging pens etc. Always try to be alert and active.\n\nLast Minute Strategy For Bank PO Exam\n\nBank PO exam is the most competitive exam these days. It is given by large number of candidates each year. Exam for Probationary officer is divided into 2 parts- objective and descriptive. The objective test is of 2 hours and consists of 4 sections viz English language, General awareness, Data analysis & interpretation and reasoning. Each section is of 50 marks. The Descriptive test is of 1 hour and is of 50 marks.\n\nIn order to crack the bank PO exam, you have to prepare well and thoroughly. Keep in mind, each and every topic and section is important. Don’t miss anything. Inspite of full preparation through out the day, last minute preparation is equally important. Make some strategy of your own so that you clear the exam with flying colors.\n\nFollowing points should be kept in mind while preparing for the exam-\n\n1. Each candidate should make a plan and try to follow with it. You should decide before hand only that which section is to be attempted first and which to be attempted at last and how much time will be given to each section. It means if you have decided that you will give 40 minutes to reasoning section then, stick to it. If in the exam, after completion of 40 minutes, if your reasoning section is still left then leave it for a moment and if time permits, you can again try left over questions in the last.\n\n2. Attempt the questions in 2 rounds. In each section, first attempt all the easy questions and leave the hard tough questions. This way you will be able to solve all the easy questions and score can be increased.\n\n3. Start with the easy section. First go through the entire question paper. And the section which seems to be most easy to you, start with that. This will help you to gain confidence. Difficult part should be attempted at last.\n\n4. Don’t stuck with any questions. Suppose while solving any particular question, you are not able to find answer even after 2-3 minutes, then leave it for that time. Try to solve other questions and if time is still left, you can again go back to that question and try again. This will save a lot of time.\n\n5. Fill the OMR sheet along with solving questions. Many a times it is seen that candidates solve the questions first and then fill the OMR sheet at the end. And sometimes there is no time left to fill it. Its so frustrating that you solve the questions but could not clear the exam because you have not filled the sheet.\n\n6. Take proper sleep the night before the exam. Also take light breakfast in the morning.\n\nHow To Minimise Negative Marking In Bank Recruitment Exam\n\nWhenever you are taking any bank exam, try to avoid giving wrong answers. As each wrong answer will be awarded negative marking which is often 0.25 – 0.50 marks. This is the main concern of a candidate while giving a bank exam.\n\nHowever, you can avoid such negative marks by paying attention to the points given below. I hope this would help you a lot.\n\n1. Practice as much as you can before the main exam. Make sure you do lot of mock test papers. This will increase your speed and accuracy so there will be no hurry in the exam, which is the main reason of wrong answer in any exam. Also regular practice gives you a lot of confidence.\n\n2. Avoid guessing at any cost. Often when we don’t know the answer in a multiple choice question, we take a guess and mark any of the 4 choices by mere guess. But this can turn out to be fatal. Don’t make a guess unless you are somewhat sure. This can make your score down.\n\n3. In a bank exam, answers has to be marked on a OMR sheet. So be very sure before marking on the sheet as answers once marked can not be erased or changed. Also avoid over writing. This will make the answer wrong.\n\n4. Never stuck with one question. This will reduce the time for solving other questions and so the chances of making a mistake becomes more. So if you are not sure about a question, switch over to another one and if you have time left at the end, try to solve those questions again.\n\n5. Make a habit of reading questions thoroughly. Often you read the question partially and so give wrong answer. So try to avoid this habit.\n\n6. Make your own strategy of solving the question paper. While solving the mock papers, try to make a strategy like solve English paper first, then quantitative or vice versa. This will help in the main exam for sure.\n\n7. Always try to attempt the easy questions first. This will save a lot of questions and will also give you an idea about how many more questions need to be solved to clear the exam.\n\n8. It is very important to avoid solving questions at the last minute. There is high risk of giving wrong answers in such cases.", "pred_label": "__label__1", "pred_score_pos": 0.9377428889274597}
+{"content": "Views of Rome: Drawings and Watercolors from the Collection of the Biblioteca Apostolica Vaticana\n\nTour Rome as it was experienced by artists between the 16th and 19th centuries. This exhibition of drawings, watercolors, and illustrated books, by both prominent and lesser-known artists, captures the changing landscape of the city and its environs. Artists, draftsmen, and architects represented in the exhibition include Ferdinand Becker, Richard Wilson, Lady Elizabeth Susan Percy. Etienne Duperac, and Cornelis van Poelenburgh.\nThomas Ashby, Rome, drawings, watercolors, Vatican, National Design Library, traveling exhibitions", "pred_label": "__label__1", "pred_score_pos": 0.9985746741294861}
+{"content": "ODNR Division of Wildlife - A to Z Species Guide - Fish - Longnose Gar\n\n Longnose Gar\n\nGars can often be seen lying almost motionless, basking near the water's surface. An interesting fact about gars is that their eggs are poisonous.\n\nLongnose Gar\nLepisosteus osseus\n\n\n• Family: Lepisosteidae (Gars)\n\n• Other Names: Needlenose gar\n\n• Ohio Status: Sport fish\n\n• Adult Size: Typically 24-36 inches long, can reach over 50 inches. Usually weighs 2-7 pounds, can reach 25 pounds.\n\n• Typical Foods: Feed on small fish, primarily minnows or gizzard shad.\nThe longnose gar has a very long and narrow snout containing many needle like teeth. Their body is long and cylindrical, covered with diamond-shaped, hard non-overlapping scales. They are olive or brownish colored on their back with a white belly. When they are caught from clear waters they often have numerous dark spots on their sides, fins, and tail. Longnose gar have a much longer snout than any other species of gar and are by far more common in Ohio. Additionally they have fewer spots than the spotted gar but typically more than the shortnose gar.\n\nHabitat and Habits\nLongnose gar are by far the most common species of gar found in Ohio. They can be found in both the Lake Erie and Ohio River drainages. They are found in medium to large rivers and prefer areas of little or no flow with clear water. They are also found in the harbors, bays, and other backwaters of Lake Erie. All species of gar have a specialized air bladder that gives them the ability to breathe air. They can often be seen poking their beak out of the waters surface briefly as they take in a gulp of air. Even though they can breathe air they are not obligated to do so, they also have fully functional gills like other fish.\n\nReproduction and Care of the Young\nSpawning takes place in the late May or early June often in shallow riffles. The longnose gar migrates into smaller streams to spawn. The larger females are often chased by two or more smaller males during courtship. The rather large eggs are sticky and adhere to the substrate or aquatic plants. One female produces about 30,000 eggs in a year which hatch about a week after being laid. Newly hatched gar of all species have an adhesive disc on the top of their head which they use to anchor them selves to objects until their yolk sac is absorbed and they begin feeding. Longnose gar attain a length of 12-15 inches in their first year. Males mature at 2-3 years of age and a length of about 24 inches. Females mature at 3-4 years of age and a length of 28 or more inches.", "pred_label": "__label__1", "pred_score_pos": 0.5149344205856323}
+{"content": "\"All men are not BORN equal. They are CREATED equal, about nine months before they are born. This is self-evident, or, to put it in the modern vernacular, AS PLAIN AS THE NOSE ON YOUR FACE.\"\n\n-- Tom Hoefling\n\nOne of the primary planks of the Republican Platform is the party's commitment to recognizing the Fourteenth Amendment protection of unborn children. In this video clip, Mitt Romney states his opposition to that commitment.  Mitt Romney is not a prolife candidate.  Vote for life in 2012.  Vote for Tom Hoefling.  tomhoefling.com\n\"The success of America has been a direct result of our foundation on and adherence to the laws and principles of our Creator. It is our duty to ensure there are consequences for breaking the oath to defend and maintain the rights of the People, the foremost of which is the right to life for all, from the first moment of their existence. Politicians and public employees who reject this resolution reveal themselves unfit for office.\"\n\n-- Christine Szczap, Illinois", "pred_label": "__label__1", "pred_score_pos": 0.6125107407569885}
+{"content": "\nMollyGoodson 8 Months\n\nWe've had some commissioner drama in our league, and think it might just be easier to set up an auto/robot commish or external at this point for the rest of the season. Is that possible?\n\nrangerdave 8 Months\n\nThere is no \"robot\" Commish option, but you do have the option of a Commish without a team.", "pred_label": "__label__1", "pred_score_pos": 0.9999310374259949}
+{"content": "Register New Player - Log In\nFun Trivia : Sound Of Music, The . Encyclopedia FunTrivia\n\n\nfun facts,factoids,info\n\nInteresting Questions, Facts and Information\n\n  • There are a total of 190 general entries. We are selecting 30 for display.\n\nSpecial Topics\n\nInteresting Questions, Facts, and Information\n\n    Sound Of Music, The .\n\n    What is The Baroness' plan?The Sound Of Music\n\n      To send the children to boarding school.\n\n    While the children are onstage the afternoon before the festival, what is the orchestra playing?The Sound Of Music\n\n      The song Maria and the Captain danced to at the party. Once again, suspiciously similar to 'The Lonely Goatherd'!\n\n    Who tells their father that the children ate all their berries?The Sound Of Music\n\n      Brigitta. Friedrich initially tells Captain von Trapp(before we join the scene) that they were berrypicking, Marta 'confirms' it a few minutes later, and then Brigitta explains why they don't have the berries anymore. Finally, we see Friedrich's lame cover-up on the whole blueberry vs strawberry thing.\n\n    What does Marta want for her birthday?The Sound Of Music\n\n      A pink parasol. Pink is Maria's favourite colour, too!\n\n    How many times does the lady who wins a prize at the festival bow?The Sound Of Music\n\n\n    Who sang these words: 'I leave, and heave a sigh and say goodbye.'?The Sound Of Music\n\n      Kurt. He leaves with a little help from Maria!\n\n    What is the dance that Maria and the Captain perform called?The Sound Of Music\n\n      The Laendler. Remember, it's an old Austrian folkdance, yet it sounds strangely similar to 'The Lonely Goatherd' in some places.\n\n    Who told Maria that the von Trapp family dances?The Sound Of Music\n\n      Kurt. They were afraid to tell Maria because they thought she would make them all dance together!\n\n    Of the children, who plays guitar?The Sound Of Music\n\n\n    Who is the housekeeper of the von Trapp family?The Sound Of Music\n\n      Frau Schmidt. The role was played by Norma Varden, who began appearing in movies in the 'thirties, appearing in films such as 'National Velvet', 'Strangers on a Train' and 'Witness for the Prosecution'.\n\n    What is Uncle Max's last name?The Sound Of Music\n\n      Detweiler. Uncle Max is played by Richard Haydn. Schraeder is the surname of the Baroness, and Herr Zeller is a Nazi.\n\n    Did one of the Von Trapp children say that he was impossible?The Sound Of Music\n\n      yes. Fraulein Josephine told Friedrich that - four governesses ago! Kurt describes himself as 'incorrigible', and then asks Maria what the word means.\n\n    Who always makes Maria kiss the floor after a disagreement?The Sound Of Music\n\n      Sister Berthe. But lately, Maria's taken to kissing the floor when she sees her coming, just to save time!\n\n    Where does the first dialogue in the movie take place?The Sound Of Music\n\n      In a corridor in the Abbey. 'I simply cannot find her, Reverend Mother.' 'Maria.' 'She's missing from the abbey again.'\n\n    What are the names of the von Trapp children in order of age, from youngest to oldest?'Sound of Music'\n\n      Gretl, Marta, Brigitta, Kurt, Louisa, Fredrich, Liesl.\n\n    Where do they hide when they are being chased by the Germans?'Sound of Music'\n\n      the cemetery in the abbey.\n\n    Maria can play what instrument?'Sound of Music'\n\n\n    What is Captain von Trapp's first name?'Sound of Music'\n\n      Georg. Georg is pronounced Gayorg.\n\n    Who said, '...and I don't need a governness.'?'Sound of Music'\n\n      Liesl. Later on she changes her mind.\n\n    What city do the kids run around in, in their play clothes?'Sound of Music'\n\n\n    Which child's name did she forget when she was praying her bedtime prayer?'Sound of Music'\n\n      Kurt. She remembers his name when he runs into her bedroom during the thunderstorm, along with the other children.\n\n    What present do the children leave Maria in her pocket?'Sound of Music'\n\n\n    What were the children's play clothes made from?'Sound of Music'\n\n      old drapes. Maria makes them herself, from the old drapes in her room.\n\n    Who plays the character Maria?'Sound of Music'\n\n      Julie Andrews. She also plays Mary Poppins!\n\n    What color is the Austrian flag hanging in the hall at the party?The Sound Of Music\n\n      red and white lines. I think you only see it once.\n\n    At the party, Liesl is wearing a white dress with a bow on it. What color is the bow?The Sound Of Music\n\n      yellow. You can clearly see it if you look.\n\n    How old is Briggita?The Sound Of Music\n\n      10. It's clearly heard, as she says it to Maria.\n\n    At the start of the movie Briggita comes in reading a book. What color is the book?The Sound Of Music\n\n      brown. Her father whacks her with it because she is late.\n\n    Liesl climbs through Maria's window after she's been to see Rolf in the gardens. Maria asks her how she climbed up there. Liesl replies: 'How we always got into this room to play tricks on a Governess. Louisa can make it with a whole jar of ________ in her hand!' What is in her hand?The Sound Of Music\n\n      spiders. Maria is really shocked when she hears that!\n\n    Finish the quote: BARONESS TO MAX: 'Why didn't you tell me?' MAX: 'What?' BARONESS: 'To bring along _________ _________?'The Sound Of Music\n\n      my harmonica. This is said just before the captain sings.\n\n    Before the party, the children put on a puppet show. There is a woman, the girl's mother, as one of the puppets. What color is that puppet's hat?The Sound Of Music\n\n      purple. She is only in a small part of the puppet show!\n\n\n  • See our conditions of use for details.", "pred_label": "__label__1", "pred_score_pos": 0.979159414768219}
+{"content": "\"It's for School! I Swear!\"\n\n\"It's for School! I Swear!\"\n\nElizabeth Heyman is a senior at Watchung Hills Regional High School in Warren, New Jersey.\n\n“It’s for school! I swear!” I admit to using the excuse more than necessary in order to justify my occasional $50 hauls from the comic book store to my mother. However, it’s not as irrelevant as she may think it to be. During my time in high school I’ve used my background as an amateur comic geek as a platform for my development into an esteemed fan of all literature.\n\nSince first taking graphic novels as a serious course my sophomore year, it has proven to be possibly the most exhausting yet rewarding academic endeavor I’ve taken. My evolution as an avid reader has tested my abilities to understand stated and unstated meanings of texts to my highest limits and pushed those skills even further. Being able to grasp what’s implied in the gutters between Alan Moore’s panels can be as daunting a task as reading works by T.S. Eliot without footnotes. The graphic medium has its own challenges that come through the enormous variety of options an author has when telling a story and the work's message is portrayed through the composition of all the different stylistic choices.\n\nThe unique aspect of graphic literature, the characteristic that makes the form so different and so vital to have in high school English courses, is the large collection of components arranged to express a message. The details, styles, and composition of text and imagery create dozens of chances to state something that hasn’t already been said. Every choice an artist makes, from the width of the lines used to the method of coloring, has a specific purpose that relates to better portraying the major theme.\nAs a graphic literature student, it was my task to first identify all of the presented elements and then to identify the author’s intent. It wasn’t until our class was reading Understanding Comics that I realized exactly how much of an amateur I was at that point. It was a shock at first, almost a sensory overload. Whoever said that a comic book is a quick read has never actually read a comic before, not properly at least. I was able to spend days looking over Alex Maleev’s Civil War: The Confession before I had truly grasped the meaning of the work. The way the detail in Tony Stark’s face contrasted with the solid, simplistic Iron Man suit; the dramatic shadowing over characters during dramatic monologues; his minimalist yet large paneling; his sequence of events and dialogue; where he placed Stark in the room; even the suspense that came midway through flipping the last two pages, all of it I’ve had to spend painstaking hours finding, hours spent just staring at two pages.\nHaving realized the potential held in just a few pictures and word boxes, I starting being able to see graphic literature as more than just capes and tights. There’s a certain aspect about the combination of text and imagery that gives a better opportunity for modern story-telling. Literally putting images into the reader’s mind gives better direction for thoughts and makes an experience more relatable, especially when a purely verbal description might breeze over the audience’s heads. As many times as I’ve been taught about the Holocaust, it has always been a challenge to read first-hand accounts from the Nazis’ death camps without becoming focused on the gruesome details. Art Spiegelman’s cartoonish style played with the idea of cats and mice as a way to explain the actual feelings of fear and his Holocaust survivor father experienced. One could say that only after reading his novel Maus did I gain a true understanding of life during that time, rather than seeing it just as history.\nWhat was it about Persepolis’s black-and-white sketching-like artwork that allowed me to discover the Iranian revolution for the first time? Why was this method of storytelling so much more effective than what I had always been given in school? The question continued to fascinate me. The truth was that not every theme can be stated in just words; some sentiments need to be seen to be understood, and although it could take countless hours just to grab the scent of a hidden message, one was always present.\n\nNot for nothing, but I did gain a huge advantage in my other classes after performing all this. As it turns out, if you can analyze a good comic, you can analyze anything; novels, poems, political speeches. In each case, the important ability to have is to be able to identify the details while still looking at the whole. Once I achieved that skill and had grown as a student, I only became more enthralled by the medium and its meanings. Working with my teacher, I developed a curriculum for my senior year centered around classic American comic books as a narrative for national identity throughout the 20th century. Just by drafting the idea, I was able to apply my analytical skills and form my own new, unique theories. In my Independent Study, I spent my time annotating historical texts and comparing them to fictional events from the comic universe.\nBecause these writers are given the ability and the task to define a hero, they're asked to personify morality. In some cases they may create characters who are the opposite of that, implying that a perfectly moral person doesn’t exist, as Alan Moore would put it, “Who watches the Watchmen?” Both situations reflect society's standards and beliefs. If a character is asked to defend justice, doesn't that mean that the author has to first define injustice in the modern world? Every graphic hero is a product and indicator of the social environment they were born to. While studying the appeal of heroes in American culture, I gained a tremendously larger understanding of sociology, psychology, and politics.\nComics are this century's modern epic and certainly say enough to deserve to stand alongside other current texts. Only after familiarizing myself with this modern mythology was I able to gain a true understanding of the way the world views itself, and then to decide where I placed myself within the moral landscape. Perhaps the next generation of mothers will understand this and be less critical of their child bringing home that new issue of X-Men.\n\nIt's always so wonderful to hear from the students how much they learn from reading comics.\nWell-done,Elizabeth---a finely written article for a REAL audience!\n\nMaureen Bakis (not verified) at Tue, 03/27/2012 - 11:21\nCommenting closes after a story has been up for 2 months.\n\niPhone 5 Jailbreak", "pred_label": "__label__1", "pred_score_pos": 0.5203835964202881}
+{"content": "\n| NewsLetter DailyWeekly\n\n\n[Spoiler] Added episodes 27 and 28 captures for the Korean drama 'God of War'\n\nAdded episodes 27 and 28 captures for the Korean drama \"God of War\" (2012)\n\nDirected by Kim Jin-min-I\n\nWritten by Lee Hwan-kyung\n\nNetwork : MBC\n\n\n50 episodes - Sat, Sun 20:40\nAll ambitious men pursue power and the women they love. After accomplishing these pursuits, all that remains is their legacy after death... 500 years before the Shogunate ruled feudal Japan, Goryeo also had a strong military establishment that ruled country for 100 years instead of a king. Especially, the Choe clan ruled Goryeo for 60 years in place of Goryeo kings. It was Kim Jun, a slave and family retainer to the Choe clan, who ended the Choe clan's power to become the most powerful man in the kingdom. There were few cases in history where a slave was able to rise to a position of power and authority. However, as described above, Kim Jun stole his master's love and reached the highest position in the Goryeo royal court to rule the entire kingdom. This drama is inspired by historical facts recorded in the Annals of the Goryeo Dynasty and tells a story about courageous men.\n\nBroadcast starting date in Korea : 2012/02/11\n\n\n\n\n\nNewer : [Spoiler] Added final episodes 31 and 32 captures for the Korean drama 'Feast of the Gods'\n\nOlder : [Spoiler] Added final episodes 19 and 20 captures for the Korean drama 'Dummy Mommy'\n\n Older news\n\n\n\nMovie of the week\n\n(글러브 - 2011)\n$5 Off with this code KVLU5J13 on Korean Dramas DVDs\n$5 Off with this code KVLU5J13\nKorean cosmetics brand MISSHA Sale\nCineasie - Where West Meets East\n", "pred_label": "__label__1", "pred_score_pos": 0.6862634420394897}
+{"content": "Our studio, The Cactus Tree Motel, is filled with many of the same toys as the other eleventy billion studios in Los Angeles; keyboards, outboard gear, microphones, monitors, computers, high-tech audio stuff that we act like we know how to use, oh… and instruments that we actually play… live, in front of you. \n\nWhile it does serve as the main creative space for Chris Horvath and whatever he happens to be working on at the moment, it also serves as something bigger; a hub for all the music we make and the talent we work with.  It’s a hub because that’s how music is often made these days… each composer/producer has a space they have created and use for their own specific needs.  So that’s where we want them to work; where they do their best work.\n\nToday’s studio is as personal as yesterday’s guitar rig, horn, piano, or drum kit.  We know and respect this. \n\nWe use our network of talent because they are the best musicians we’ve found, not because they live next door and can be here in ten minutes.  So we look at The Cactus Tree Motel as our “mission control” as much as our studio.\n\n\nSometimes we do the sessions here, sometimes at big fancy Hollywood studios, and sometimes one piece of music will be created by a few people hundreds or thousands of miles apart.  Whatever will get us what we know is right, or what you want to hear, is how we’ll do it.\n\nBut since you clicked in, here’s a few shots of The Cactus Tree Motel.", "pred_label": "__label__1", "pred_score_pos": 0.9545938968658447}
+{"content": "Add a Little Romance\n\n There is nothing more relaxing then sitting by the water on a sunny day stuffing your face with a delicious picnic of assorted goodies.\n\nTo add some romance to your picnic I suggest to hang out near English Bay where Mike and I were able to sit side by side lovingly on the grass and watch as an obviously intoxicated man was tackled by police about 20 feet away from us. He was then held down for 20 minutes and handcuffed while he screamed profanities and then was eventually arrested.\n\nThese are the stories we will tell our grandchildren one day.", "pred_label": "__label__1", "pred_score_pos": 0.7213516235351562}
+{"content": "URL: http://www.polity.org.za\nPublished: 09 Feb 2009\nSA: Dlamini-Zuma: Address by the Minister of Foreign Affairs at the State of the Nation debate in Parliament (09/02/2009)\nDate: 09/02/2009\n\nSource: Department of Foreign Affairs\n\n\nMadame Speaker\nHonourable President and Deputy President\nHonourable Members\n\nAddressing the Organisation of African Unity in 1994 former President Nelson Mandela said, \"If freedom was the crown which fighters of liberation sought to place on the head of mother Africa, let the upliftment, the happiness, prosperity and comfort of her children be the jewel of the crown. There can be no dispute among us that we must bend every effort to rebuild the African economies.\"\n\nMadame Speaker\n\nI am honoured to address this august chamber on the question of \"A better Africa.\" All of us gathered here today are unequivocally desirous of a peaceful and stable Africa, where in every city, town and village - in every community - people live in peace and harmony with all the basic necessities of life - an Africa in which all our people have access to shelter, education and healthcare, decent employment and equal opportunity to advance and improve their lives lifting themselves out of the abject poverty we must unwaveringly strive for this dream - a dream we should champion, advocate and eventually achieve.\n\nMadam Speaker\nHonourable Members\n\nCentral to the vision of a better Africa is the greater regional and continental political and economic integration as indicated by our fore bearers in their call for unity. In this era of regional integration which has moved the world towards economic blocs and stronger multilateral diplomacy, most economies on the continent remain small and fragile. It is imperative that we also consolidate and deepen our political cohesion and economic integration as we move towards a united continent.\n\nThe financial crisis and economic depression serves to emphasise that economic regional and continental integration is not optional but a must.\n\nIf we seek to build a better Africa through continental integration as we must the development of shared values becomes critical. It would be difficult to envision this continental economic, social and political integration if we did not agree on a set of common shared values. South Africa must and shall therefore continue to promote the importance of democracy, good governance, the rule of law, the protection of human rights, non racialism and gender equality. Particular attention should also be given to building the capacity of sustainable democratic institutions as well as deepening of the culture of democracy among our people in Africa.\n\nThe African Peer Review Mechanism and the Pan African Parliament should play a critical role in nurturing these common values.\n\nAs stated in the Manifesto of the African National Congress (ANC) government will continue to work together with people of our continent and its Diaspora for cohesion, unity, democracy and prosperity of the Southern African Development Community (SADC) and African Union (AU) and strengthening our capabilities to respond to the challenges we face.\n\nGuided by the Freedom Charter of the ANC South Africa shall strive to maintain world peace and the settlement of all international disputes by negotiations-not war.\n\nAs we continue to work towards the realisation of an African Union government, which must necessarily, amongst others, contribute to the reduction of some of the destructive conflicts that we have been experiencing. A united Africa speaking with a single voice would also be more influential in global affairs. Furthermore the benefits of political and economic integration are evident when we look at the experience of other regions of the world. The history of the continent itself shows that we have indeed continued to build incrementally towards the goals of continental unity. The Abuja treaty, the formation of the African Union, and its institutions and the adoption and implementation of New Partnership for Africa's Development (NEPAD) have all been important stages in this regard.\n\nThere can be no doubt that a better Africa requires that we accelerate investments in some critical sectors like energy, infrastructure such as roads, ports and telecommunications, facilitating easier intra and inter-regional trade, especially because Africa has most of the landlocked countries.\n\nAcceleration of the free movement of people and goods\n\nIf we are to achieve a better Africa like the warrior of light in Paulo Coehlo's book. We should not be paralysed by the fact that other countries have more opportunities than we do. \"A warrior tries to make most of his virtues.\"\n\n\"He knows that the gazelle's power lies in its legs. The power of the seagull lies in the accuracy with which it can spear a fish. He has learnt that the reason the tiger does not fear the hyena is because he is aware of his own strength. We have to define for ourselves what we can truly rely on.\"\n\n* We should rely on our human resources. The regions and the countries that show sustainable growth and human development have all paid special attention to education, skills development and health. We must prioritise these in the continent as we do nationally.\n\n* We should rely on our fertile African land - develop our agriculture.\n\n* We should rely on our abundant natural resources. How we manage these will determine how quickly we reach the African dream.\n\n* We should preserve the environment as part of a global effort so as to bequeath future generations with a liveable planet.\n\nAs this generation we like Paulo Coehlo should ask ourselves how will our actions 'affect the fifth generation of my descendants? Because everything a person does, has enduring consequences and he needs to understand what kind of world he is leaving behind for the fifth generation.'\n\nA better Africa will also have to assume its share of global responsibilities. In this context South Africa was honoured to serve in the United Nations Security Council (UNSC) in 2007 and 2008. In this role we did our part in advancing the goals of a better Africa. We promoted the importance of the co-operation between the UN and the African Union. Indeed as we seek to build a better Africa I believe that we have a duty to look forward to a day when African conflict situations will no longer be the predominant agenda of the UNSC. We owe this to future generations.\n\nYou mentioned, Mr President, that our country stands ready to walk the next steps with the people of Zimbabwe as they embark on the difficult path of economic recovery. Accordingly, we appeal to the goodwill of the international community which has to be matched by the political will of the people of Zimbabwe to take up the challenges of the reconstruction and development of the country.\n\nWe have just come from Addis Ababa where it was decided that the African Union Commission should be transformed into the African Union Authority in an effort to strengthen it. The details are still to be worked out.\n\nAs part of creating a better Africa, we have ourselves contributed our own sons and daughters of our country to various positions both in continental structures as well as international organisations. In this regard we have taken the decision to advance the candidature of Ambassador Abdul Minty for the position of Director-General of the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA). We believe he has the capacity to truly contribute to humanity's balanced approach, characterised by a burning desire for a peaceful world. We shall continue to identify other suitable qualified South Africans for deployment to such international organisations in pursuit of a better Africa and a better world.\n\nI thank you.", "pred_label": "__label__1", "pred_score_pos": 0.9015146493911743}
+{"content": "\nFor personal use. Only reproduce with permission from The Lancet.\nIntestinal infection with\nVibrio cholerae\nresults in the loss of large volumes of watery stool, leading to severe andrapidly progressing dehydration and shock. Without adequate and appropriate rehydration therapy, severe cholera killsabout half of affected individuals. Cholera toxin, a potent stimulator of adenylate cyclase, causes the intestine tosecrete watery fluid rich in sodium, bicarbonate, and potassium, in volumes far exceeding the intestinal absorptivecapacity. Cholera has spread from the Indian subcontinent where it is endemic to involve nearly the whole world seventimes during the past 185 years.\nV cholerae\nserogroup O1, biotype El Tor, has moved from Asia to cause pandemicdisease in Africa and South America during the past 35 years. A new serogroup, O139, appeared in south Asia in1992, has become endemic there, and threatens to start the next pandemic. Research on case management of cholera led to the development of rehydration therapy for dehydrating diarrhoea in general, including the proper use of intravenous and oral rehydration solutions. Appropriate case management has reduced deaths from diarrhoeal diseaseby an estimated 3 million per year compared with 20 years ago. Vaccination was thought to have no role for cholera,but new oral vaccines are showing great promise.\nDetailed accounts of the history of cholera are available soonly a brief summary is provided here.\n“Asiatic cholera”,as it was sometimes called, has been endemic in southAsia, especially the Ganges delta region, from the time of recorded history. It was always much feared because itregularly occurred in epidemics with high mortality rates.In Kolkata, a cholera temple, Ola Beebe (“our lady of theflux”), was built for protection against the disease. In1817, the first cholera pandemic began with spread of thedisease outside the Indian subcontinent along trade routesto the west as far as southern Russia. A second pandemicstarted in 1826 and reached the major European cities bythe early 1830s. In 1831, the pandemic reached the UK and the response was important in that it led to theestablishment of local Boards of Health and a “CholeraGazette”, which served as a clearing house for tracking theepidemic.\nAt that time cholera was thought to be spread by the“miasma” (like a fog) coming from the river, but theclassic epidemiological study of John Snow in 1854 inLondon showed the association of the disease withcontaminated drinking water even before any bacteriawere known to exist.\nThree more pandemics, continuingup to 1925, involved Africa, Australia, Europe, and all theAmericas. The causative agent,\nVibrio cholerae,\nwas notidentified until 1884 in Kolkata during the fifthpandemic.\nWhy the earlier pandemics began and howthey ended is not known. However, cholera did not persistin any of the new geographical areas that it had invadedbut continued as an endemic disease in the Ganges delta.Because of the large numbers of cases and deathsduring these pandemics, the disease was viewed as amajorpublic-health disaster requiring governmentalintervention. The New York cholera epidemic led to thefirst Board of Health in the USA in 1866,\nand cholerabecame the first reportable disease.The current (seventh) pandemic now has involvedalmost the whole world. This pandemic began inIndonesia,\nrather than the Ganges delta, and thecausative agent was a biotype of \nV cholerae\nserogroup O1called El Tor. It was first isolated in 1905 fromIndonesian pilgrims travelling to Mecca at a quarantinestation in the village of El Tor, Egypt.\nIt was found againin 1937 in Sulawesi, Indonesia.\nThen in 1960, forunknown reasons, this strain began to spread around theworld. It invaded India in 1964, Africa in 1970,\nsouthern Europe in 1970,\nand South America in1991.\nThe disease has now become endemic in manyof these places, particularly south Asia and Africa. Since1973, a focus of El Tor\nsimilar but not identicalto the pandemic strain has persisted in the Gulf of Mexicoof the USA causing sporadic cases of summertime,seafood-associated cholera.\nIn 1992, a newly described, non-O1 serogroup of \ndesignated O139 Bengal, caused unusualcholera outbreaks in India and Bangladesh.\nBefore thediscovery of \nV cholerae\nO139 (the 139th serotype in thetyping scheme for\nV cholerae)\n, only serogroup O1 wasknown to cause epidemic cholera, so the O139 serotypewas essentially a “new” cause of cholera.\nSerogroupsO139 Bengal and O1 now coexist and continue to causelarge outbreaks of cholera in India and Bangladesh. TheO139 serogroup is likely to be the cause of the next\nDavid A Sack, R Bradley Sack, G Balakrish Nair, AKSiddique\n• Vol 363 • January 17, 2004 •\nInternational Centre for Diarrhoeal Disease Research, Bangladesh,Centre for Health and Population Research, Dhaka, Bangladesh\n(Prof D A Sack\n, G B Nair\n, A K Siddique\n; and Departmentof International Health, Johns Hopkins University Bloomberg Schoolof Public Health, Baltimore, MD, USA\n(D A Sack, Prof R B Sack\nCorrespondence to:\nDr David A Sack, ICDDR,B, GPO Box 128,Dhaka, Bangladesh(e-mail:\nSearch strategy\nWe carried out a PubMed search with the terms \"cholera\"and \"Vibrio cholerae\" from 1966 onwards and selectedreferences that were pertinent to this review. These articleswere supplemented by additional references from the WHOand historical articles in our personal collections.\nFor personal use. Only reproduce with permission from The Lancet.\n(eighth) pandemic of cholera. In spring 2002, serotypeO139 caused an estimated 30000 cases in Dhaka,Bangladesh, exceeding the number of cases associatedwith El Tor during a short period.\nCholera is often described as the classic water-bornedisease because it is commonly associated with water.This description oversimplifies the transmission of \nbecause the bacterium can be transmitted bycontaminated food also; contaminated water is frequentlymixed with food, allowing either to act as a vehicle. Formore developed countries, contaminated food (especiallyundercooked seafood) is the usual vehicle fortransmission, and contaminated water is more common inless developed countries.\nCholera has pronounced seasonality. In Bangladesh,where the disease is endemic, two peaks occur each yearcorresponding to the warm seasons before and after themonsoon rains.\nIn Peru, epidemics are strictly confinedto the warm season.\nThe seasonality seems to be relatedto the ability of vibrios to grow rapidly in warmenvironmental temperatures. Other than shellfish andplankton, there are no animal reservoirs. In endemicareas, annual rates of disease vary widely, probably as aresult of environmental and climate changes. Betterunderstanding of the relation to climate would allowbetter planning for epidemics by public-health officials.\nAlthough the typical clinical picture is severe diarrhoea,in fact, most individuals infected with\nV cholerae\nhave nosymptoms or only mild diarrhoea, indistinguishable fromother mild diarrhoeal diseases. The ratio of cases toinfections ranges from one in three to one in 100.\nTheseverity of the infection depends on many factors,especially including local intestinal immunity (fromprevious natural exposure or vaccination), the size of theinoculum ingested, the adequacy of the gastric-acidbarrier, and the patient’s blood group. For unknownreasons, people of blood group O are at much higher riskof severe cholera from El Tor vibrios than are those of other blood groups.\nThis susceptibility to cholera maybe the reason for the lower than normal proportion of people with this blood group in the Ganges delta area.\nA high infectious dose (10\nbacteria) is needed to causesevere cholera in healthy volunteers, but a much lowerdose (10\n) is sufficient if given with antacids to neutralisestomach acid.\nUnder natural field circumstances, theinoculum size to cause cholera may be even lower,because attack rates are lower than in volunteer studies,and many of the patients do have low gastric-acidproduction.\nIn cholera-endemic areas, the highest attack rates are inchildren aged 2–4 years;\nin newly invaded areas, bycontrast, the attack rates are similar for all ages. However,the illness is generally first seen in adult men on accountof exposure to contaminated food and water.\nWater-usepatterns in different areas affect spread of the disease. Insome cities in Peru, cholera vibrios were spread throughthe municipal water system,\nwhich resulted in very highrates of infection in the urban population. In rural areas,where rivers or open wells are used for drinking water,cases tend to cluster among people living close to anddrinking from contaminated water. Secondary casessometimes occur during funeral feasts as a result of traditional but unhygienic funeral practices in some partsof the world.\nIn contrast to\nSalmonella typhi \n, long-term carriers of \nare extremely rare and are not important in thetransmission of disease.\nSince cholera outbreaks can become massive epidemics,they must be reported to national health authorities. If possible, cases of suspected cholera should be confirmedby bacteriology. Even without laboratory confirmation,cases should be reported if they meet the WHO definition:a cholera outbreak should be suspected if a patient olderthan 5 years develops severe dehydration or dies fromacute watery diarrhoea, or if there is a sudden increase inthe daily number of patients with acute watery diarrhoea,especially patients who pass “rice water” stools typical of cholera.\nClinical features\nAfter an incubation period of between about 18 h and5days, symptoms are generally abrupt and include waterydiarrhoea and vomiting. The most distinctive feature of cholera is the painless purging of voluminous stoolsresembling rice-water (figure 1). The stools are sometimesdescribed as having a fishy odour. The vomitus isgenerally a clear, watery, alkaline fluid. In adults withsevere cholera, the rate of diarrhoea may quickly reach500–1000 mL/h, leading to severe dehydration. Signs of severe dehydration include absent or low-volumeperipheral pulse, undetectable blood pressure, poor skinturgor, sunken eyes, and wrinkled hands and feet (as afterlong immersion in water). At first, patients are restless andextremely thirsty, but as shock progresses, they becomeapathetic and may lose consciousness. Many patients alsoshow respiratory signs of metabolic acidosis withKussmaul, gasping breathing. Most patients have no urineoutput until the dehydration is corrected. The fluid lossmay be so rapid that the patient is at risk of death within afew hours of onset, and most deaths occur during the firstday. However, if rehydration fluids are provided ininsufficient quantities, the patient may survivetemporarily, only to die a few days later.\n• Vol 363 • January 17, 2004 •\nFigure 1:\nBucket with typical rice-water stool from a patientwith cholera\nFor personal use. Only reproduce with permission from The Lancet.\nSeveral complications can occur with cholera, but theseare generally from improper treatment. They includeacute renal failure from protracted hypotension if insufficient fluids are given. Most cholera patients havelow blood glucose concentrations, and a few have severehypoglycaemia.\nElectrolyte imbalance, especiallyhypokalaemia, can occur if the intravenous fluids are notappropriate.\nMiscarriage or premature delivery can occurin pregnant women as a complication of shock and poorperfusion of the placenta.\nWith good hydration, theseobstetric emergencies are becoming less frequent, butcholera treatment centres must be prepared for them.Severe muscle cramps of arms and legs are common.They are probably due to the electrolyte imbalance,although the exact explanation is not known. Theysubside within a few hours of treatment.\nWithout treatment the case-fatality rate for severe cholerais about 50%. However, treatment is very effective andsimple and is based on the concept of replacing fluids asfast as they are being lost (panel). Replacement fluidsshould have a similar electrolyte composition to the fluidsbeing lost. Initially, the fluids must be given sufficientlyrapidly to make up for the volume that has already beenlost to restore circulating blood volume. Additionalmaintenance fluids must then be given to continue toreplace continuing losses as they occur. If fluids are givenpromptly, nearly all deaths are avoided. However,effective treatment is not always available in remote areaswhere cholera occurs, and thus, cholera deaths are stillcommon.To facilitate clinical assessment and management of patients, dehydration is classified into three categories onthe basis of clinical signs and symptoms: none, some(moderate), and severe (table 1). Signs of dehydration arenot clinically apparent until the patient has already lostabout 5% of his or her bodyweight. The degree of dehydration guides the therapy of the patient. A patientwith severe dehydration requires emergency intravenouspolyelectrolyte solution for rehydration followed by oralrehydration solution (ORS) for maintenance hydration.For milder cases, ORS is used for both rehydration andfor maintenance. The principles of rehydration therapyare: rapid replacement of fluid deficits; correction of themetabolic acidosis; correction of potassium deficiency;and replacement of continuing fluid losses. These aimsare all accomplished with appropriate rehydration fluids.Because of the acidosis, the serum potassiumconcentration may be normal or even high, so thepotassium deficiency may not be apparent. As the acidosisis corrected, the serum potassium concentration will fallto dangerously low values unless additional potassium isprovided.Patients who are severely dehydrated are assumed tohave lost 10% of their bodyweight, and this is the volumethat needs to be replaced. For example, a 50 kg patientwith severe dehydration will need immediate replacementof 5 L of intravenous fluids. Patients who have no pulse orblood pressure should receive the fluid as rapidly aspossible and more than one intravenous line may beneeded to infuse the fluid rapidly enough to restore thepulse. The entire amount should be given in 2–4 h. Themost common error in the treatment of cholera is to givethe intravenous fluid too slowly, allowing patients toremain in shock for a long period. If peripheral veinscannot be found, infusion via the femoral vein may benecessary.For patients with lesser degrees of dehydration (themajority), ORS provides effective rehydration. Thevolume should also be calculated to replace the fluiddeficit to ensure that sufficient volumes are given. Forindividuals with some dehydration, at least 5·0–7·5% of the bodyweight in ORS should be given, just to make upthe deficit, and additional ORS should be given tocompensate for the continuing losses.\n• Vol 363 • January 17, 2004 •\nFeatureNo dehydrationSome dehydration Severe dehydration(two or more of (two or more of thesethese signs signs including oneincluding one indicated by\n)indicated by\nGeneral Well, alertRestless, Lethargic orappearanceirritableunconscious; floppyEyesNormalSunken*Very sunken and dry*TearsPresentAbsent*Absent*Mouth and MoistDry*Very dry*tongueThirstDrinks normally,Thirsty, drinks Drinks poorly or notnot thirstyeagerlyable to drinkSkin pinchGoes back Goes back Goes backquicklyslowlyvery slowly\nIn adults and children older than 5 years, other signs of severe dehydration areabsent radial pulse and low blood pressure. The skin pinch is less useful inpatients with marasmus (severe wasting) or kwashiorkor (severe malnutritionwith oedema), or obese patients. Tears are a relevant sign only for infants andyoung children.\nTable 1:\nAssessment of patients with diarrhoea fordehydration\nManagement of patients with suspected cholera\nAssess for dehydration.Rapidly rehydrate the patient with intravenous Ringer’ssolution for severely dehydrated patients or ORS for thosewith less severe dehydration; use rice-based ORS if possible.Severely dehydrated patients require replacement of 10% of their bodyweight within 2–4 h.Use cholera cot (if possible) to monitor stool output; monitorstatus of hydration and monitor severity of purging frequently.Maintain hydration by replacing continuing fluid losses untildiarrhoea stops.Give an oral antibiotic (eg, doxycycline) to dehydrated patientsas soon as vomiting stops.Provide food as soon as patient is able to eat (within a fewhours).Figure 2:\nA child, lying on a cholera cot, showing typical signsof severe dehydration from cholera\nThe patient has sunken eyes, lethargic appearance, and poor skin turgor,but within 2 h was sitting up, alert, and eating normally.\nSearch History:\nResult 00 of 00\n00 results for result for\n  • p.\n  • Notes\n    Load more", "pred_label": "__label__1", "pred_score_pos": 0.5712918639183044}
+{"content": "Discoveries > 2009 > Key enzymes for embryonic development, tolloid proteinases, are controlled by dimerisation\n\nsample text\n\nBerry R, Jowitt TA, Ferrand J, Roessle M, Grossmann JG, Canty-Laird EG, Kammerer RA, Kadler KK, Baldock C. 2009. Role of dimerization and substrate exclusion in the regulation of bone morphogenetic protein-1 and mammalian tolloid. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America 106:8561-8566.pubmed\n\nOne of the most fundamental processes in biology is the development of the embryo. A part of this process is the formation of the embryo’s back and belly surfaces. This is called dorso-ventral patterning.\n\nThe bone morphogenetic protein (BMP)-1/tolloid metalloproteinases are evolutionarily conserved enzymes that are fundamental to dorsal-ventral patterning. They are also involved in the formation of new tissues, otherwise called tissue morphogenesis. However, a detailed understanding of tissue assembly and embryonic patterning still requires considerably more research. In this paper, work from the Baldock lab has shed new light on developmental patterning by showing how this class of proteinases recognize and cleave their substrates.\n\nA best-fit bead model of the structure of Tolloid. The model was generated from data obtained by small angle X-ray scattering.\n\nAlthough BMP-1 and mammalian tolloid are very closely related because they are splice variants, it was puzzling why BMP-1, which lacks 3 of the 7 non-catalytic domains present in all other family members, is the most effective proteinase within this family of enzymes. Using a combination of techniques to determine the shapes and biophysical properties of these proteins in solution, this study demonstrated that tolloid, but not BMP-1, forms a calcium-ion-dependent dimer under physiological conditions. Moreover the EGF2 domain, which is absent in BMP-1, is critical to the formation of the dimer. Based on a combination of structural and functional data, tolloid activity was shown to be regulated by a substrate exclusion mechanism.\n\nThere are several different ways that the dimers might be configured: Here is just one model of the dimer.\n\nThe study reveals how alternative splicing of the Bmp1 gene produces two proteinases with differing biological activities. It therefore has broad implications for understanding how this class of proteinases are involved in signalling, tissue assembly, and embryonic development.", "pred_label": "__label__1", "pred_score_pos": 0.85833340883255}
+{"content": "Tatiana Bilbao\n\nBotanical Garden . Culiacán\n\nTatiana Bilbao . world-architects . +  Iwan Baan\n\nThe Botanical Garden in Culiacán possesses one of the largest collections of plants in the world.\n\nConstruction of the garden began twenty years ago with funding from the state government and the private sector. The design has been spontaneous, creating an unplanned arrangement of buildings and walkways.\nThe renovation project began when the chairman of the board of trustees decided to invite curator Patrick Charpenel to develop a design, calling on prestigious artists to execute works specifically for the site.\nIt was decided in the process that an architect would design new buildings for the programs and interventions. The exuberant natural growth of the garden is its most remarkable quality, and constitutes at the same time the greatest problem in terms of planning. The master plan sought to reconcile nature and art while integrating the buildings called for by the program.\nAfter various geometric patterns were tried out, a model inspired by one of the trees in the garden was chosen. The outline of its branches inspired the principle of the master plan, whose resulting abstraction was grafted onto the existing layout of the botanical garden. The paths were arranged in a \"layered\" hierarchy of different sizes and materials, and the branches cut or moved to make them coincide with the existing paths.\nIn the new layout, the buildings seem to emerge as if they had been there forever. Two small buildings form the main entrance (offices, ticket window, gift shop, and restrooms); two others form the southern entrance (gift shop, cafeteria, restrooms); and a group of three makes up the cultural zone (exhibition area, pottery workshop, library).\nThree more buildings form the educational area (classrooms, auditorium, restrooms) and contain the greenhouse for rare species. A series of pools helps to mitigate the high temperatures. Each body of water was designed in accordance with its particular use and situation: some emanate tranquility, others are home to fishes or aquatic plants.\n\nArchitect: Tatiana Bilbao S.C.\nDesign Team: Tatiana Bilbao, David Vaner, Catia Bilbao (master plan), Israel Alvarez, Mariana Tello, Eliza Figueroa, Lina Rúelas, Sebastián Córdova, Carlos Leguizamo, Paola Toriz, Ana Yumbe, Julieta Sobral de Elía, Roberto Rosales (design)\nModels: Mauricio Rodriguez, Roberto Rodriguez, Isais Corona, Omar Diaz, Ana Castellá, Essiak Fernandez, Thorsten Englert, Adriana Carvalho\n\n0 comentarios :\n\nPublicar un comentario en la entrada", "pred_label": "__label__1", "pred_score_pos": 0.552958607673645}
+{"content": "National Academy of Sciences | 150 Year Anniversary\n\nQuestions? Call 800-624-6242\n\n| [0]\n\nThe National Academies Press\n\nadd to cart\n\nRights & Permissions\n\ntopleft topright\n\nInstitute for Laboratory Animal Research (ILAR)\n\nCitation Manager\n\n. \"4 Survival Studies.\" Guidelines for the Care and Use of Mammals in Neuroscience and Behavioral Research. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press, 2003.\n\nPlease select a format:\n\nBibTeX EndNote RefMan\n\nbottomleft bottomright\n\n\n\nDevelopments in imaging technologies have led to groundbreaking advances in our understanding of neural and physiologic functions in normal and diseased humans and animals by offering a view of the living brain at work (Hoehn et al., 2001). The technologies are generally less invasive than other investigative scientific methods and offer an opportunity to address questions of structure and function without significant consequences for the research subjects (Balaban and Hampshire, 2001).\n\nImaging Techniques\n\nSeveral imaging techniques are used in animals. They include positron-emission tomography (PET), single-photon emission computed tomography (SPECT), magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) and functional MRI (fMRI), nuclear magnetic resonance imaging or spectroscopy (NMR), near-infrared spectroscopy, ultrasonography, computed tomography (CT) and optical imaging (Balaban and Hampshire, 2001; Hoehn et al., 2001; Rolfe, 2000). Some of the techniques, such as PET and SPECT, enable measurement of blood flow, oxygen and glucose metabolism, receptor density, or drug concentrations in regions of the living brain (Mathias, 1996). Others, such as MRI and NMR, provide imaging of superficial and deep brain structures with a high degree of anatomic detail. High-field MRI, SPECT, and PET techniques can also be used to provide in vivo longitudinal evaluation of receptor binding and gene expression following gene therapy (Auricchio et al., 2003; Kasper et al., 2002).\n\nEach of those techniques allows researchers to test hypotheses about the functions of different regions of the brain on the basis of functional composition or physiologic activity. The hypotheses can often be explored further with human subjects performing specific tasks during PET, SPECT, or fMRI. However, many of the technologies provide even better resolution when used in small mammals, providing more information about physiologic function than can be obtained with human subjects (Balaban and Hampshire, 2001). Animal models enable variables associated with specific diseases to be manipulated and controlled to a degree that is not possible with human patients. Furthermore, individual animals can be evaluated repeatedly during the course of a disease or can serve as their own control instead of sacrificing large groups of animals at different time points, and thereby reducing the number of animals used (Hoehn et al., 2001).\n\nAnimal Preparation and Maintenance During Imaging Studies\n\nImaging generally requires anesthesia so that the animal remains motionless throughout the duration of image collection. The exception is ultrasonographic images, which can be collected from a restrained nonanesthetized animal, pro-", "pred_label": "__label__1", "pred_score_pos": 0.5384609699249268}
+{"content": "The Twelve Groups of Animals\n\nEugen Kolisko, M.D.\n\n“The primary division of the animal kingdom is into phyla. Each phylum is sharply characterised by the possession of a plan of structure in the adult which is peculiar to it, differing from that proper to every other phylum in such ways that it is, in general, incapable of derivation from any other.” (From an article on Zoology in the 14th Edition of the Encyclopaedia Britannica.) If we compare all the different systems of the animal kingdom we find that the distinction between the Vertebrates and the Invertebrates (animals with and without backbones) always occurs. In all the systems too, the Vertebrates are divided into five classes, the whole group being treated as one phylum.\n\nIn the Invertebrates there are divisions into phyla, and both Haeckel and Huxley described this group as consisting of seven phyla. These two zoologists differed in their descriptions of any one phylum, but were agreed on the sevenfold division\n\nIt appears that we need something in the nature of a key in order to be able to approach the door of understanding of the animal kingdom. The key turns out to be the arrangement of the animals in twelve main divisions or phyla. Seven of them embrace the totality of the Invertebrate Sub-Kingdom. These animals have a soft body and no real skeleton. They are the left-overs of a stage of World- evolution in which the endoskeleton had not been reached. The five phyla of the Vertebrates show the five ways in which the true skeleton can be manifested.\n\nThus the best way is to describe the characteristic qualities of the twelve phyla or groups in order that the reader may be aware of the archetypal forms of the animal kingdom.\n\n1. The PROTOZOA (animals consisting of a single cell) are the primitive form of organic life, but nevertheless they embrace, in a microscopic appearance, nearly every macroscopic being in all the Kingdoms of Nature. Plants and animals consist in their bodies of cells, and even in the Mineral Kingdom the crystals can be compared with a mineralised cellular structure. Because plants and animals are composed of cells, in the Protozoan group there is no sharp dividing line between the plant and animal kingdom. The great difference between Protozoa (animals consisting of one cell) and Metazoa (all the organisms consisting of many cells) arises from the opposite tendencies of division and cohesion.\n\nIn no living organism is it possible to think of the body or soma as being merely the sum total of all the cells—rather has the life of the cell an antagonistic tendency to the metazoic life. This is shown in all infectious diseases caused by Bacteria and Protozoa, because they have in themselves the power of disintegration of the life of the higher organisms. In cancer and other tumours, and especially the malignant tumours, this tendency of the single cell to grow and increase takes place at the expense of the higher organ. In cancer it is not separate and individual cells which cause the disease, but the too-great multiplication of the cells of a tissue. A normal cellular activity becomes malignant in the human being. For this reason no bacterium can be found in cancer.\n\nThere is no possibility for further evolution for the Protozoa. They are left-overs in the march of evolution. This class of animals can be thought of as having created all the forms of organic life, by remaining in cellular form in the tissues. But if they appear without the power of further development, they bear in themselves the powers of destruc­tion of all higher life.\n\n2. The COELENTERATA—hydra polyps and medusae (animals such as sea anemones and those which build coral) and all the sponges (which were included in this group in all the older classifications) are characterised by the polarity between the inside and the outside of the organism. These animals are composed of two layers of tissue, the endoderm and the ectoderm (literally, the inner skin and the outer skin). The basic plan of these animals is a cup, the outer layer of which is formed by the ectoderm and the inner by the endoderm. The different species show variations of this plan, as for instance, the beautiful fringe of tentacles around the rim of the cup of the sea anemone. In this group we find for the first time the formation of inner organs. The differentiation begins between the digestive and the nervous system, the latter forming the outer layer.\n\nHaeckel applied his knowledge of embryology (the study of development of living organisms from their earliest rudiments) to his study of the phylum, and by this means he realised that that stage in embryonic evolution in which the embryo loses its spherical shape in order to form something like a cup, and is called a gastrula, can be compared with an adult hydra. These animals are free-living beings corres­ponding to the gastrula stage of embryonic life.\n\nAt this point in evolution, the difference between the animal and vegetable kingdoms becomes evident. Those animals which are fixed to the substratum can, however, be thought of as being similar to plants. In this group there may be seen a characteristic dualism which leads to the double generative forms of polyps and medusae. In some species these two forms alternate. In one class of the Coelenterata, the sponges, sea anemones and corals, the polypus-form only is developed, and it leads to a fixed mode of life and then to a plant-like, vegetative growth and solidification. A great part of the solid earth is formed by the deposits of such organisms as rocks (coral rocks, lime­stone, etc.).\n\nThe other path of evolution leads to mobility, to soft and pliable tissues, to sexual differentiation and a more animal-like condition. The summit of this is reached in the floating colonies of medusae (soft beings rather like jellyfish in form, and stacked up on one another rather like a stack of plates) colonies where the polypus generation is under the direction of a highly developed medusa. Such a medusa is transformed into an air-bladder and causes the whole colony to float. It is interesting to compare these organisms with the plant. The corals, which become permeated with mineral substance, correspond to the root organisation. The floating colony is more like a blossom, and the intermediate forms of hydra are more like leaves. So we find the dualism appearing in the anatomical structure, in the endoderm and ectoderm, in the digestive and nervous systems (in the functions of digestion and perception) and in the polarity of polyps and medusae, and also in the division of the species into a coral type, in fixed and floating colonies.\n\nThis entry was posted in Anthroposophy, Cosmos and tagged , , , , . Bookmark the permalink.\n\nComments are closed.", "pred_label": "__label__1", "pred_score_pos": 0.8787317872047424}
+{"content": "Da Vinci Schools logo\n\n\n\nWhat is a Charter School?\n\nCharter schools are publicly funded, independent public schools that are operated in terms of a multi-year performance contract or \"charter.\" They must meet state testing requirements and laws for health, safety and civil rights. Charter schools are new, innovative public schools that are accountable for student results. They are designed to deliver programs tailored to educational excellence and the needs of the communities they serve. Like other district public schools, they are funded according to enrollment (also called average daily attendance, or ADA), and receive funding from the district and the state according to the number of students attending.\n\nWhat is project-based learning?\n\nProject-based learning (PBL) is learn-by-doing curriculum that integrates core subjects with real-life problems to be solved. Teachers work in teams with one another to identify key California state standards and skills that need to be addressed at the grade-level. Then, teachers work backwards to plan their curriculum, striving to create a project that centers on a big idea and a real world connection. Students work in teams to create a final product that demonstrates mastery of content standards and a demonstration of key skills. One of the most important aspects of project-based learning is a public presentation of the work created, as assessment is based on students’ ability to articulate and demonstrate the content and skills learned. For a recent Engineering project, students learned about mechanics and motion, then constructed a Medieval-style Trebuchet to calculate the trajectory of a ball’s travel from its starting point to its ending point represented by a quadratic equation.\n\nAre Da Vinci Schools accredited?\n\nYes!  Da Vinci Schools are fully accredited by the Western Association of Schools & Colleges (WASC), certified by the California Charter Schools Association, and are a member of the Coalition of Essential Schools.\n\nWho are the students and where are they coming from?\n\nDa Vinci students come from all over Los Angeles. During the 2012-2013 school year, our students come from 80 different zip codes.\n\nWhat is the enrollment process?\n\nEnrollment in Da Vinci Schools shall be open to any resident of the state of California. Parents/or legal guardians must attend an Information Meeting as a required part of the application process. Student applicants are encouraged to attend but it is not required. Attending the Information Meeting will allow you to learn about our project-based learning curriculum and other programs, tour our campus, and meet our faculty and staff, students and families.\n\nWhat is the lottery and how does it work?\n\nAs prescribed by state law, charter schools conduct an admissions lottery—a public random drawing—for available enrollment spaces as a way to ensure equal opportunity of access for all students. (At most charter schools, there are more applications than enrollment spaces available.) During the lottery, students are assigned enrollment spaces according to the order in which their lottery tickets are drawn. For example, the first ticket drawn places that student first on the enrollment list. Once all enrollment spaces have been filled, subsequent students are placed on a numbered waiting list to fill any vacancies that may arise.\n\nDo some applicants receive a preference in admission?\n\nAs described in our charters, a lottery for both schools will be conducted with admissions preferences\nas follows:\n\n1. Students currently attending the school;\n2. Students residing within the territorial jurisdiction of Wiseburn;\n3. Children of founders and teachers—this preference will be applied to no more than 10% of student\nspaces. A founder is defined as any parent involved in the founding of the school that volunteered at\nleast 75 hours toward the creation of the school;\n4. Siblings of students already attending or admitted to the school;\n5. All others.\n\nWhat happens to late applications?\n\nLate applications go to the bottom of our wait list in the order they are received.\n\nHow will colleges view graduates from Da Vinci Schools?\n\nThe Da Vinci student is a holistic student who has met or surpassed the minimum core academic requirements necessary to make them competitive in the college review process. All students have the opportunity to take honors or early college classes. In addition to core academics, our students will have mastered the Habits of Mind: Perseverance, Collaboration, Evidence, and Perspective. During the junior year, students will have participated in an internship and by their senior year they will have spearheaded a senior project from conception to completion. 87% of the Class of 2012 was accepted into 4-year universities - a testament of our academic excellence.\n\nWhy choose Da Vinci Schools?\nWe offer a college preparatory education, an engaging hands-on curriculum, community partnerships with many local corporations, an Early College program, internships, a community where every student is known, seen and valued, and much more.   Please come to one of our Information Meetings or schedule a visit to learn more.  We look forward to meeting you!\n\nFollow Da Vinci Schools on Facebook\nYou Tube", "pred_label": "__label__1", "pred_score_pos": 0.7838948965072632}
+{"content": "Sergio Garval.Naufragos.\n\nSergio Garval‘s work depicts collective scenes or happenings, plentiful of anonymous characters, subtleties and ambiguities nested in the rim of Life and Theatre . He links image to transience through rather spontaneous, dislocated forms that could be defined and compared to a composition signed by Goya. His is a reckoning of human condition as well as a negative vision of living experience; it is solitude, fragility and sarcasm that provide a tragic sense to the existential representation of mankind. (via Evoke Contemporary) (by Honey)", "pred_label": "__label__1", "pred_score_pos": 0.9804534316062927}
+{"content": "Can you see the isotopy between the Perko pair? My favourite pair. Find the writhe and linking number of this celtic earring. The reef knot decomposed into two trefoils - join ends and find the isotopy. Pictures of knots with 10 crossings taken from the tables of Tate and Little. The Perko pair is 5II and 6VI. Here 6VI is omitted.\nHere is an unknotting of a `Gordian knot'.\nNext lecture", "pred_label": "__label__1", "pred_score_pos": 0.9939672350883484}
+{"content": "The Thing About Awards\n\nI’m not an awards-type person, but like having the chance to recommend addictive blogs.\n\nThese awards on WordPress seem strange because how can you win an award just because one person says so?\n\nStill, this “Addictive Blog Award” is appealing.  I suppose if someone is addicted to your writing, it means that you’ve tapped into something good that resonates with and is recognized by someone who finds himself or herself wanting more.  This is a great compliment, I can’t deny it.\n\nCoincidentally (or not if you believe there are no accidents), two bloggers sent me this specific award in back-to-back comments on my Iconicallyrare “About” page…\n\n…And, it felt like the stars were somehow aligning, and I needed to respond, so here goes.\n\n“Heaven’s Path” in Ireland…where the stars appear to line up with the path (courtesy Gagbay, Heaven of gagbay addicts)\n\n\n“Thanks” for the award goes to GNOSTIC BENT who has been Freshly-Pressed early on in his blogging experience and continues to write features that will grab your attention immediately after the first sentence.\n\nAnd another thank you for the award goes to  Dear Ms. Migraine who writes with abandon about the challenges she faces when her body’s refuses to cooperate with her own desire to be healthy and happy.\n\nWhy do I write here? The reason is a bit intense, but I’ll tell you why:\n\nI write or I die.  It sounds dramatic but the thing is that writing is my voice…if I stifle my voice I can feel myself fade and wither and become part of some distant group of atoms that are absorbing into a world outside of myself, and becoming lost like bubbles popping and blending into a distant atmosphere.\n\nWhen I write I become distinct, my fuse contacts its source, my charge is amped up to full capacity, my cerebral self feeds the core of my soul…and I feel like I more than exist, I more than survive–now I am alive.\n\nAnd now for the most important part…recommending writing that is stellar and iconic, and yes, addictive.\n\nThe Addictive Blog Award goes to:\n\n1. Higher Thinking Primate - Hands down the most diverse blogger I’ve read here.  I’ve never received a return like or a comment from Higher Thinking Primate and sometimes wonder if he or she is a man/woman/ or machine… but with quality like this, who cares?\n\n2. Unbound Boxes Limping Gods - Cheryl Moore is pure genius.  I visit her stories and illustrations, and find it difficult to leave.  Once you open the door and view her creations, you will understand.\n\n3. Making a Movable Feast - Some people write so clearly and use pictures so well that you feel like you lived their words.  Emily does this for me…An ode to Hemingway, and thank you, Emily.\n\n4. The Monsieur - Classic information on men’s style with visuals that have a timeless sharp edge.\n\n5. Parisian Gentleman - Kind enough to feature me as a guest blogger, this monumental online men’s magazine has had almost 4 million hits and is a (if not the) key reference on how to be a gentleman.  Motto: First learn the rules, then break them.\n\n6. Through Healing Lens - Robyn Lee will bend your mind with her story of being a gorgeous woman with a bountiful life and the moment that everything turned on a dime, but didn’t change her indomitable spirit.  She tells how she persevered  through insurmountable challenges and is finally finding a place of peace.\n\n7.Alexandra Nour - This person is hilarious and sometimes I need to laugh.\n\nhttp://iconicallyrare.comgoogle-site-verification: google59bc993c55136ba0.html", "pred_label": "__label__1", "pred_score_pos": 0.9071944355964661}
+{"content": "Another way I doubled my productivity\n\nI’ve written before about improving productivity by optimizing tasks for maximum leverage. Once the high-leverage tasks are identified, I do one more thing: group tasks by creative energy level required.\n\nHigh energy tasks require higher-level thinking, analysis, and creativity. Writing (code and words), working on distribution strategies, negotiating with potential partners, are examples of high energy tasks.\n\nLow energy tasks don’t tax the brain and are generally less creative and more mundane, such as doing errands, cleaning out spam emails, reading industry news, and so on.\n\nThe high energy and low energy categories correspond roughly to the act of producing and the act of consuming, respectively.\n\nI alternate high energy and low energy tasks depending on the time of day. Early morning, when I still have a lot of creativity and a clear head is for high energy tasks. Right after lunch,late in the evening, or the middle of my commute are good times for low energy tasks.\n\nI’ve found that this method, optionally matched with splitting up tasks into Pomodoro units, lets me work almost nonstop for fairly long periods of time.\n\nThe real reason we check the news or read blogs to take a break from work is to turn off our brain and switch from producing to consuming. It seems that taking a break by doing an important, but still low-energy task, is just as effective.", "pred_label": "__label__1", "pred_score_pos": 0.516004204750061}
+{"content": "Main Content\n\nB.S. Forensic Science\n\n\nStudents are engaged in an intensive, interdisciplinary program combining courses in Justice Studies, Biology and Chemistry departments that are all required for national education standards in the area of undergraduate forensic science.  The program strives to provide a foundation of core scientific knowledge and to promote an understanding of key criminal and legal issues along with respect for racial, ethnic, cultural, and gender diversity.   This multidisciplinary approach provides three important benefits for the student.   First, it encourages the development of knowledge of the connections among the endeavors of crime prevention, law enforcement, adjudication, and punishment.  Secondly, effective analytical and problem-solving skills are developed that will equip professionals with the intellectual capacity necessary for a variety of positions in criminal justice.  Thirdly, students have opportunities to conduct internships for elective credit that will provide them practical experience in the field.\n\nWhat is Forensic Science?\n\nForensic science is defined as the application of the sciences as it pertains to legal matters or problems.  Forensic science includes anthropology, botany, criminalistics, entomology, engineering, genetics, information technology, medicine/pathology, molecular biology, odontology, serology, toxicology and many other disciplines. All of these are specialized sections in forensic science.\n\nWhat is Criminalistics and What do Criminalists do?\n\nCriminalistics is one of many divisions in the field of forensic science.  Criminalistics is “the profession and scientific discipline directed toward the recognition, identification, individualization and evaluation of physical evidence by application of the natural sciences to law-science matters.”    Criminalists draw from a wide spectrum of knowledge learned in chemistry, biology, genetics, molecular biology, geology, physics, statistics, a working knowledge of civil and criminal law and other disciplines to investigate and solve crimes.\n\nCriminalists may also be required to investigate and process crime scenes.  Crime scene investigation involves the recognition, documentation, collection, preservation and interpretation of physical evidence.  Criminalists bring evidence back to the laboratory where analysis may be conducted.  Interpretations are made about the relevance of items from crime scenes by associating evidence to specific sources and reconstructing the crime scene.   A criminalist will associate and identify evidence, interpret results, reconstruct the crime scene and write a report summarizing the findings.  Finally, criminalists testify in a court of law, teaching the judge and jury about the conclusions reached in the laboratory.\n\n\nB.S. Forensic Science, Concentration in Biology\n\nSee the SJSU catalog for current degree requirements\nEmphasis in Biology Major Form to apply for graduation\n4-year Biology roadmap for incoming majors\n\nB.S. Forensic Science, Concentration in Chemistry\n\nSee the SJSU catalog for current degree requirements\nEmphasis in Chemistry major form to apply for graduation\n4-year Chemistry roadmap for incoming majors\n\n\nIf you are interested in becoming a Forensic Science Major, please see the section on declaring our major.  Also, if you have any questions, feel free to contact the Forensic Science Director, Dr. Steven Lee.\n\nFor  more about our major, department and potential career options, download the FS Fact Sheet 2012, and the JS Fact Sheet 2012 (pdf).", "pred_label": "__label__1", "pred_score_pos": 0.8710450530052185}
+{"content": "Accounting & Financial Glossary – R\n\nReturn on equity: Financial factor which indicates the profit which the company has realized with the capital of the shareholders. This index can be calculated with the following formula: net profit/ average own capital. It is presented in percentages.\n\nRecovery: A phase in the economic cycle, which is characterized by a weak and relatively slow increase in the GNP after the depression.\n\nReal exchange rate: The price of a certain currency, presented in the price of another currency, but with regard to the inflation index. When the nominal currency rate is corrected with the inflation pace, then its real value can be estimated.\n\nReal interest rate: The nominal (market) interest rate, corrected with the inflation pace.\n\nReinvestment: Investing the profit of the shareholder(s), the dividends, into the business, for example buying new equipment, machinery, or technology, etc.\n\nRestrictive fiscal policy: Increasing the income taxes and reduction of the budget costs with the purpose of reaching financial stability of the economy. Usually it applies when the economy is embraced by inflation.\n\nRevenue: Total income before expenses.\n\nRestructuring: Planned and controlled by the company’s management program which considerably modifies the range of the company’s scope of activity and the means by which the company’s activity is being accomplished.\n\nRetrospective application: Application of new accounting policy regarding the operations and other events and conditions as there has been always only the new policy applicable.\n\nRetrospective recalculation: Correction of the confirmation, evaluation and announcement of the parts of the financial statements as there has been no mistakes for past periods.\n\n\nResidual value: Approximate amount which the company would currently receive by the release of a certain asset after the deduction of the approximate expenses related to the release.\n\nRemissible loans: Loans for which the creditor has agreed not to request payment if certain conditions are met.\n\nRelated person: One person is related when:\n- Directly or indirectly controls or is controlled by the company;\n- Has shares in the company which gives him the opportunity to considerably influence the company;\n- Exercises general control over the company;\n- Is associated company;\n\nRestructuring: A program which is planned and controlled by the management of the company and which is going to lead to considerable changes in the scope of activity of the company or the way that the activity is handled. For example, selling or terminating a part of the activities, closing the production in a country or region or redirecting of the business from one country to another; changes in the management body structure; other fundamental re-organisations which have extensive effect over the character and the focus of the company’s activity.\n\nReturn on the assets: An assessment indicator of the assets which represents a relation between the profit after taxation and all of the assets.\n\nReturn on the general capital: An indicator which assesses the capital invested by the shareholders and which is measured as a relation between the profit after taxation and the amount of the general capital.\n\nResident: One who resides in a particular place permanently or for an extended period and who is a treated as a local person by the tax authorities and legislation.\n\nRisk capital: Financial long-term assets, which are being invested in companies exposed to a considerable risk, as well as invested in little new risky undertakings.\n\nReversal: An accounting procedure for removing encountered mistakes in the accounting recordings.\n\nResistance level: A price level which has been tested by the price and which cannot by passed. The resistance levels are usually met when having ascending movement – these are the levels at which a lot of sellers can appear.\n\nReference income: The income on which base the social securities are paid.\n\nRisk: The possibility the return on investments to be different than the expected one. This includes a possibility for partial or full loss of the invested resources.\n\nRisk capital: The amount which a certain investor distributes in investments in highly risky tools.\n\nReturn on investments (ROI): It represents the relation between the net profit and the investments made. It demonstrates to what extend the investments generate profit. It is calculated with the following formula: ROI = Net profit/Investments\n\nReturn on sales (ROS): It represents the relation between the operational profit and the income from sales. It indicates the operational profit which responds to one monetary unit of sales and it is calculated with the following formula: ROS = Operational profit/Income from sales.\n\nReturn on equity (ROE): Coefficient which demonstrates the relation between the net profit and the own capital. It measures the return on the capital of the shareholders. The own capital is the difference between the total value of the assets and the liabilities of the company.\n\nReal asset: An asset which is tangible: buildings, land, machinery, equipment, materials, etc.\n\nRegressive tax: A tax system in which the higher income is being taxed with lower tax rates.\n\nRegulated market: The market activity is being controlled and regulated by the country through a certain institution pointed out by it.\n\nRecession: A period of decrease in the total production. Usually this period is for more than 6 months.\n\nReimbursable costs: Also called Out of Pocket expenses. Cash payments that an individual or company incurs on behalf of the company, and that will be refunded sometime in the future. While some of these costs may have personally benefited the employees, companies are willing to repay employees for incurring these expenses, because they come about as a result of performing their job.", "pred_label": "__label__1", "pred_score_pos": 0.9643887281417847}
+{"content": "Truman National Security Project\n\nActivists, congressmen, and a Second Lieutenant: Day 1-2 at the DNC\n\nBy Truman Project Staff | 9.5.12\n\nEditor’s note: This post is by Josh Altman, a friend of the Truman Project and a Georgia State Delegate to the Democratic National Convention. \n\nWhat does a Washington state labor activist, a living legend who marched with Dr. King, and a young Army lieutenant from Georgia have in common? As those three individuals and thousands of others have gathered for the first two days of the Democratic National Convention, that has emerged as perhaps the most revealing of questions for a young delegate to answer.\n\nIt is a question whose answer strikes deep at what is means to be a Democrat today. It is a question whose answer highlights the true diversity of the Democratic Party—a diversity rooted in something far deeper than skin color. It is a diversity of experience. It is the experience of Congressman John Lewis, who marched alongside Martin Luther King for human dignity. It is the experience of the farm and labor activist from Washington, who has knocked on doors on reservations and in the Rio Grande Valley, helping others overcome the strains of poverty and inequality. It is the experience of the Army Lieutenant, fresh out of OCS,  who believes so strongly in the future of our country that he could not just ask others to defend it.\n\nI don’t know where else such different people find themselves together, people from walks of life with virtually nothing in common. Yet, these different people have found that though their experience differ, they share the values that make all of us here in Charlotte believe so passionately in President Obama and his vision for our country. Their stories form single strands of the collective Democratic story, and the collective American story, a story whose next chapter will be written by this election.\n\nSo what does a labor activist from Washington state, a living legend who marched with Dr. King, a young Army lieutenant, AND this young Georgia delegate have in common? It’s not that we showed up in Charlotte, it is why we showed up. It is a common belief that we can always be better, that we can always reach higher, that the diverse experiences make us strong, and that the next step towards perfecting our union is the reelection of President Barack Obama.", "pred_label": "__label__1", "pred_score_pos": 0.830673336982727}
+{"content": "Why Ag-Gag Laws Are Dangerous\n\nPig Ag-gag laws pose a threat to a wide spectrum of values and issues Americans care about. Because of this, many highly respected national organizations representing a range of public interests, including the ASPCA, have signed a statement in opposition to ag-gag bills. Read the statement of opposition to proposed ag-gag legislation.\n\nSocial issues potentially impacted by ag-gag laws include, but are not limited to:\n\nAnimal Welfare. Ag-gag laws are a direct threat to animal welfare. We know that animals are often cruelly treated in factory farms and slaughterhouses. Documentation of this treatment not only helps educate the public about farm animal abuse, but also influences industry and government entities to make real changes for farm animals.\n\nFood Safety. Ag-gag laws threaten our food supply: Various exposés of factory farms and slaughterhouses have revealed the extent to which our meat, eggs and milk are mishandled. Mishandling animal products, including mishandling farm animals while they are alive, invites health risks including salmonella, mad cow disease and other potentially fatal illnesses that may be transmitted to consumers.\n\nControl over Food Choices. Ag-gag laws are a direct threat to marketplace transparency. At a time when Americans are increasingly invested in knowing more about where their food comes from and how it is made, these laws threaten our ability to control what we bring into our homes and the food we put in our bodies. All Americans should have the right to know the basic conditions under which their food is produced.\n\nWorkers' Rights. This legislation often seeks to criminalize the recording of sounds or images in animal facilities, no matter the content. Factory farms, slaughterhouses and meatpacking facilities are physically and emotionally difficult places to work. Farm investigations have the potential to expose serious worker abuse and other illegal or unethical conduct on the part of employees or supervisors.\n\nFree Speech. Some ag-gag bills seek not just to criminalize recording, but even the possession and distribution of images recorded on animal facilities—and some seek to criminalize misrepresenting oneself on job applications (which, while possibly an act warranting termination of employment, should generally not be a crime). These provisions pose serious First Amendment threats.\n\nEnvironmental Damage. In the United States, 99 percent of food animals are raised in factory farms, where large numbers of animals are housed together, generally in close confinement. Huge amounts of waste are generated, the improper storage and disposal of which threatens our soil and water. While state and federal laws require large farms to minimize their environmental damage, farms have been found flagrantly violating these requirements. Undercover investigations offer an effective way to expose such violations.\n\nAg-gag laws are also troublesome because they do not reflect the public's will. Polls consistently show that the majority of Americans favor humane treatment of farm animals. A 2012 poll conducted for ASPCA by Lake Research revealed that 94 percent of the general American public agrees that \"from every step of their lives on a farm—from birth to slaughter—farm animals should be treated in a way that inflicts the least amount of pain and suffering possible.\" The same poll also revealed that 71 percent of American adults support undercover investigative efforts to expose farm animal abuse on industrial farms, and that 64 percent oppose making such investigations illegal.\n\nShare ThisShare This", "pred_label": "__label__1", "pred_score_pos": 0.9833351969718933}
+{"content": "\n\nDel Rubio triplets The Del Rubio Triplets were a variety/musical act who rose to notoriety in the 1980s due mostly to their campy style of dress and their goofy interpretations of standards and songs of the era. Their biggest \"hit\" was an acoustic-guitar cover version of the song \"Whip It\" by Devo.\nDel Shannon Del Shannon (December 30, 1934 – February 8, 1990) (born Charles Weedon Westover in Coopersville, Michigan) was an American rock and roller who launched into fame with the No. 1 hit \"Runaway\" (1961).\nDel Shofner Delbert Martin Shofner (born December 11, 1934) is a former American Football wide receiver who played for eleven seasons with the Los Angeles Rams and the New York Giants from 1957 to 1967 in the National Football League. Shofner was a five time Pro Bowler in 1958, 1959, and from 1961 to 1963.\nDel Sol Quartet The Del Sol Quartet is a string quartet based in San Francisco, California. Del Sol is known for actively working with living composers from a wide range of cultural perspectives, and recording and performing exclusively 20th and 21st century music.\nDel Unser Delbert Bernard Unser (born December 9, 1944 in Decatur, Illinois) is a former starting center fielder and later a utility player with a 15-year major league baseball career from 1968 to 1982. His father was MLB catcher Al Unser.\nDel Webb Delbert E. Webb (May 17 1899 - July 4 1974) was an American construction magnate, real estate developer and sports-team owner who is significant for founding and developing the retirement community of Sun City, Arizona.\nDel West Del West is the leading high-performance valvetrain supplier in the world. Their most well known product is the Titanium Valve but they produce many other parts in the engine including the air spring for Formula 1 and MotoGP as well as finger followers and tappets.\nDel's Lemonade Del's Lemonade is a refreshment company located in Cranston, Rhode Island. Its most famous product is frozen lemonade, but it also produces and sells blueberry, cherry,watermelon and formerly mocha flavored iced beverages.\nDel-Heads The Del-Heads are bluegrass musician Del McCoury's fan base, one of the most enthusiastic in the genre. The name is derived from the Dead Heads, fans of the Grateful DeadBluegrass Reign interview with Del McCoury, accessed February 11, 2006, because there is a large cross-over; Del-Heads are known to be \"tie-dyed clad\".\nDelage The Delage Automobile company was established in 1905 in Levallois, a northwesterly suburb of Paris, France. It was founded by Louis Delâge (1874-1947), an ambitious young engineer who had been working for the Peugeot car company.\nDelakota Delakota were an English indie dance band from the late 1990s. The band mixed elements of Baggy, retro rock music, indie pop and modern dance music to produce an interesting sound which was often compared to Primal Scream.\nDelalande's Coua Delalande's Coua (Coua delalandei), also known as Snail-eating Coua, is an extinct species of non-parasitic cuckoo. It only was known to science as an extant bird for a very short time in the early 19th century.\nDelamain Delamain is an independent producer of Cognac based in Jarnac, France. Delamain was founded by James Delamain who was born in Dublin Ireland and has been married to Marie Ranson of the French Roullet family since 1763.\nDelamar, Nevada Delamar Ghost Town, nicknamed The Widowmaker, is a small abandoned city in a very remote central eastern corner of Nevada, USA. It was once a thriving gold operation, but was ruined by its own dry-mining process which killed its residents and caused the mine to close forever.\nDelamater-Bevin Mansion The Delamater-Bevin Mansion, also known as The Bevin House, is a historic 22-room Victorian mansion located on the north shore of Long Island, at 77 Bevin Road, Asharoken, New York. The home was built by Cornelius H.\nDelambre (crater) Delambre is a lunar impact crater that lies to the southwest of Mare Tranquillitatis, in the central highland region. To the west are the crater pair of Theon Junior and Theon Senior, the later being more distant and located to the northwest.\nDelamere railway station Delamere railway station serves both the town of Delamere and Delamere Forest in Cheshire. The station is a request stop and thus the train will only stop here is flagged down on the platform or a passenger informs the guard beforehand.\nDelamere Vineyard Delamere Vineyard is one of the longest established vineyards of Tasmania being first planted in 1982. Richard and Dallas Richardson identified the suitability of land in Pipers Brook and chose the grape varieties pinot noir and chardonnay to plant.\nDelancey Street–Essex Street (New York City Subway) Delancey-Essex Streets is a New York City Subway station complex shared by the BMT Nassau Street Line and the IND Sixth Avenue Line. Located at Essex and Delancey Streets on the Lower East Side of Manhattan, it is served by\nDelaney, Bonnie & Friends Delaney and Bonnie & Friends was a group started by Delaney and Bonnie Bramlett, which featured the elite session artists of the day, such as Carl Radle, Jim Price, Bobby Keys, Rita Coolidge, Bobby Whitlock, Jim Gordon, Leon Russell, Dave Mason and revolving guest lead guitarists which would include Eric Clapton, George Harrison, Duane Allman and even some appearances with Jimi Hendrix.\nDelano Ames Delano Ames (1906-1987) was an American writer of detective stories. Born in Ohio, he was the author of some 20 books, many of them featuring a husband and wife detective team of amateurs named 'Dagobert and Jane Brown'.\nDelano Township, Pennsylvania Delano Township is a township in Schuylkill County, Pennsylvania, United States. Formed in 1882 from part of Rush Township, it is named for Warren Delano II, maternal grandfather of Franklin Delano Roosevelt, 32nd President of the United States, 1933-1945.\nDelasĂłnica DelasĂłnica is a latin rock group from Colima, Mexico. The group consists of five men who are according to themselves, \"influenced by contemporary music, the pop culture, graphic design, the city, the beach, with a little brain damage from the damn injustice of life, unrequited love and the excessive volume of their guitars.\nDelaunay triangulation In mathematics, and computational geometry, the Delaunay triangulation or Delone triangularization for a set P of points in the plane is the triangulation DT(P) of P such that no point in P is inside the circumcircle of any triangle in DT(P). Delaunay triangulations maximize the minimum angle of all the angles of the triangles in the triangulation; they tend to avoid \"sliver\" triangles.\nDelavirdine Delavirdine (DLV) (brand name Rescriptor®) is a non-nucleoside reverse transcriptase inhibitor (NNRTI) marketed by Pfizer. It is used as part of highly active antiretroviral therapy (HAART) for the treatment of human immunodeficiency virus (HIV) type 1.\nDelawanna (NJT station) Delawanna Station is a New Jersey Transit train station located on the rail service's Main Line. The station is located in the Delawanna section of Clifton, New Jersey at the intersection of Delawanna Avenue and Oak Street.\nDelaware and Hudson Gravity Railroad The Delaware and Hudson Canal Company Gravity Railroad (D&H Gravity Railroad) was a gravity railroad which carried coal from Carbondale over the Moosic Mountains to the D&H Canal in Honesdale. This railroad used separate loaded and light tracks.\nDelaware and Northern Railroad The Delaware and Northern Railroad Company was a small railroad in Delaware County that was founded in 1905, and was planned to go from East Branch, where it would make a connection with the New York, Ontario and Western Railway, to Arkville, where it would connect with the Ulster and Delaware. This line followed close to the banks of the East Branch of the Delaware River, and had plans of expansion, but never made it far, only getting to Arkville.\nDelaware Academy Delaware Academy is a K-12 school in Delhi, New York, the county seat of Delaware County, situated 160 miles northwest of New York City. Founded in 1819, the school is of historical significance, and plays a major educational role in the Catskill region.\nDelaware Art Museum Founded in 1912, the Delaware Art Museum holds a world-renowned collection of more than 12,000 works focusing on American art and illustration from the 19th to the 21st century as well as the English Pre-Raphaelite movement of the mid-19th century.\nDelaware Bank The Delaware Bank is an area of shallow water 20 miles off Galera Point on the east coast of Trinidad to the south of Tobago. The seafloor comes to within six fathoms (11 meters) of the surface, making the bank a hazard for shipping.\nDelaware Basin The Delaware Basin in West Texas and southern New Mexico is famous for holding large oil fields and for exposing a fossilized reef. Guadalupe Mountains National Park and Carlsbad Caverns National Park protect part of the basin.\nDelaware Bay Delaware Bay is a large esturarial inlet of the Atlantic Ocean at the mouth of the Delaware River along the coast of the United States. It is bordered by the state of New Jersey on the north, and the state of Delaware in the south.\nDelaware class battleship The Delaware-class battleships of the United States Navy were its first true \"Dreadnoughts\", carrying a battery of ten 12-inch guns in five turrets, and capable of exceeding 20 knots. The two ships of the class were launched in 1908 and 1909:\nDelaware Canal State Park Delaware Canal State Park is a Pennsylvania state park in Bucks and Northampton Counties in Pennsylvania in the United States. The main attraction of the park is the 60 mile (97 km) Delaware Canal, the only canal remaining continuously intact from the towpath canal-building days of the nineteenth century.\nDelaware Center for Horticulture The Delaware Center for Horticulture is a non-profit horticultural organization dedicated to promoting knowledge and appreciation of gardening, horticulture and conservation. It is located at 1810 North Dupont Street in Wilmington, Delaware, USA.\nDelaware Compensation Commission The Delaware Compensation Commission submits recommendations regarding the base salaries of judges, lawmakers and other top government officials to the Delaware General Assembly every four years. The General Assembly subsequently accepts or rejects these recommendations.\nDelaware Constitution of 1831 The Delaware Constitution of 1831 was the third governing document for Delaware state government and was in effect from its adoption in December 2, 1831 until replaced on June 4, 1897 by the present state Constitution.\nDelaware County Community College Delaware County Community College, also known as DCCC or Delco, is a 2-year community college in the Philadelphia area. While it is based in Delaware County, Pennsylvania, it has two campuses, three centers, and several locations throughout Delaware and Chester County, Pennsylvania.\nDelaware County Courthouse and Park Police Department The Delaware County Courthouse & Park Police Department (Commonly known as “The Delaware County Park Police”) is a county-wide police department, responsible for providing security and protection for all parks, physical property, and government buildings of Delaware County, Pennsylvania. This is the only police department in Delaware County that has county-wide jurisdiction, as every municipality has either its own police department or is patrolled by the Pennsylvania State Police.\nDelaware County Daily and Sunday Times The Delaware County Daily and Sunday Times is a daily newspaper, published in Primos, Pennsylvania in the United States. It is one of the only major newspapers in the state to be branded with a county name rather than a city.\nDelaware County Christian School The Delaware County Christian School is a private, principally Protestant K-12 school residing in Newtown Square, Pennsylvania. Having been established in the year of our Lord 1950, it has since grown into the institution it is today, harboring almost 950 students of various sizes, shapes, and colors.\nDelaware Department of Natural Resources and Environmental Control The Department of Natural Resources and Environmental Control (DNREC) of the state of Delaware is the primary body concerned with the governance of public land, natural resources, and environmental regulations for the state. DNREC is composed of several Divisions that have correlates in other U.\nDelaware Dynasty Delaware Dynasty are an American soccer team, founded in 2006. The team is a member of the United Soccer Leagues Premier Development League (PDL), the fourth tier of the American Soccer Pyramid, and plays in the Mid-Atlantic Division of the Eastern Conference against teams from Charleston, Fredericksburg, Ocean City, Reading, Richmond, Virginia Beach, Williamsburg and Woodbridge.\nDelaware gubernatorial election, 2004 The 2004 election for Governor of Delaware was held on November 2, coinciding with the Presidential election. Incumbent Governor Ruth Ann Minner faced a serious challenge from retired Superior Court Judge Bill Lee, but managed a 5-point victory on Election Day.\nDelaware Christian School Delaware Christian School is a K-12 parochial school located in Delaware, Ohio. It was founded in 1973 and has been a member of the Association of Christian Schools International since 1985 and in 1995 was recognized by the Ohio Department of Education.\nDelaware Interscholastic Athletic Association The Delaware Interscholastic Athletic Association (DIAA) oversees and regulates interscholastic athletics in the US State of Delaware. Membership is voluntary and as of spring 2006 includes 50 high schools and 23 middle schools.\nDelaware Military Academy The Delaware Military Academy is a publicly funded charter high school in Wilmington, Delaware, USA. It is considered a Military High School because all students, or cadets as they are called, are required to participate in the Navy Junior Reserve Officer Training Corps —the first such school in the United States.\nDelaware North Companies Delaware North Companies is one of the largest privately held companies in the world, operating in the food service, retail and hospitality industries in the United States, Canada, Australia, and New Zealand. It currently has over 40,000 employees worldwide.\nDelaware Otsego Corporation The Delaware Otsego Corporation is an American railway holding company which owns the subsidiary New York, Susquehanna and Western Railway as well as other, smaller branch line railroads, collectively known as the DO System. It is headquartered in Cooperstown, New York.\nDelaware River Joint Toll Bridge Commission The Delaware River Joint Toll Bridge Commission (DRJTBC) was created in 1934 to build and operate toll bridges across the Delaware River, which is the boundary between New Jersey and Pennsylvania, from Trenton, New Jersey north to the New York border. The Commission is a private agency and currently operates seven toll bridges and 13 free toll-supported bridges (2 of which are pedestrian-only).\nDelaware River Region The Delaware River Region refers to an area in Western New Jersey along the Delaware River border with Pennsylvania. The area encompasses Mercer County (Mercer County is the only Delaware River Region county in the New York Metropolitan Area), Burlington County, Camden County, Gloucester County, and Salem County.\nDelaware River Viaduct The Delaware River Viaduct is the sister bridge of the Paulinskill Viaduct on the Lackawanna Cut-Off rail line in northwestern New Jersey. Built in 1908-11, this reinforced concrete bridge crosses the Delaware River about two miles south of the Delaware Water Gap.\nDelaware River-Turnpike Toll Bridge The Delaware River-Turnpike Toll Bridge is a four-lane steel arch bridge that connects the Pennsylvania Turnpike's East-West Mainline with the main trunk of the New Jersey Turnpike, via its \"Pearl Harbor Memorial Extension\" (formerly known as the Pennsylvania Turnpike Connector). The bridge crosses the Delaware River, connecting Bristol Township, Pennsylvania and Burlington Township, New Jersey.\nDelaware Route 1 Delaware Route 1 is a 177 km (110-mile) long, four-to-six lane highway going from the Maryland-Delaware State line on the eastern Atlantic shoreline to the Delaware Turnpike (Interstate 95) just outside of Wilmington.\nDelaware Route 2 Delaware Route 2 is a 16 mile long east-west 4 to 6 lane highway located in northern New Castle County, Delaware. It begins at the junction of Delaware Route 52 in Wilmington, and terminates at the Maryland state line near Elkton, Maryland.\nDelaware Route 404 Delaware Route 404 is a major state highway in Delaware that spans the width of the state. DE 404's eastern terminus is in Five Points near Rehoboth Beach, and in the west it enters Maryland as Maryland Route 404.\nDelaware Route 9 Delaware Route 9 is a 65-mile state highway that connects with Delaware Route 1 at the Dover Air Force Base (only just less than a mile south of the southern terminus of the Korean War Veterans Memorial Highway to Interstate 95 in the City of Wilmington. Much like their U.\nDelaware State Police The Delaware State Police (DSP) is a division of the Delaware Department of Public Safety and Homeland Security and is responsible for traffic regulation and law enforcement across the state of Delaware, especially in areas underserved by local police departments. The DSP is headquartered in the capital Dover, Delaware.\nDelaware Superior Court The Delaware Superior Court is the trial court of general jurisdiction in the state of Delaware. It has original jurisdiction over most criminal and civil cases (except for suits at equity, which are handled by the Delaware Court of Chancery).\nDelaware Technical & Community College Delaware Technical & Community College (DTCC or Delaware Tech) is the community college system in the state of Delaware with locations in four cities. It was created by the Delaware General Assembly in 1966 by House Bill 529.\nDelaware Township School District The Delaware Township School District is a community public school district that serves students in grades kindergarten through grade eight from Delaware Township, in Hunterdon County, New Jersey, United States.\nDelaware Township, Camden County, New Jersey Delaware Township was the name of present-day Cherry Hill Township in Camden County, New Jersey from 1844 to 1961. At its territorial peak, Delaware Township was composed of modern-day North Camden, Cherry Hill, Merchantville, and Pennsauken (including Petty's Island in the Delaware River).\nDelaware Township, Philadelphia County, Pennsylvania Delaware Township is a defunct township that was located in Philadelphia County, Pennsylvania. The borough ceased to exist and was incorporated into the City of Philadelphia following the passage of the Act of Consolidation, 1854.\nDelaware Valley Regional High School Delaware Valley Regional High School is a regional, four-year public high school and school district, that serves nearly 1,000 students in western Hunterdon County. The high school is located in Alexandria Township.\nDelaware Water Gap National Recreation Area Delaware Water Gap National Recreation Area, administered by the National Park Service, preserves almost 70,000 acres (283 km²) of land along the Delaware River's New Jersey and Pennsylvania shores. Middle Delaware National Scenic River is a designated 40 mile (64 km) section of the river entirely within the recreation area.\nDelaware Water Gap Toll Bridge The Delaware Water Gap Toll Bridge (also known as the Interstate 80 Toll Bridge) is a toll bridge that carries Interstate 80 across the Delaware River at the Delaware Water Gap, connecting Hardwick Township, New Jersey and Delaware Water Gap Pennsylvania. The bridge was built by the Delaware River Joint Toll Bridge Commission.\nDelaware's 2nd congressional district The Delaware 2nd at-large district of the United States House of Representatives was a Congressional district that included the entire state of Delaware. This district has been obsolete since the reapportionment after the 1820 census.\nDelaware-Lackawanna Railroad The Delaware-Lackawanna Railroad began service August, 1993, as designated operator of over 85 miles of Lackawanna County trackage north, east and south from the Scranton, Pennsylvania, terminus in Northeastern Pennsylvania as a part of the Genesee Valley Transportation Company, Inc.\nDelaware-Maryland Synod The Delaware-Maryland Synod of the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America is the geographical synod consisting of the entire state of Delaware and most of the state of Maryland, with the exception of the counties surrounding Washington, D.C.\nDelaware, Lackawanna and Western 1151 class The Delaware, Lackawanna and Western Railroad's 1151 class comprised five 4-6-4 steam locomotives built by the American Locomotive Company (ALCO) in 1937. They were the last steam locomotives ordered by the railroad.\nDelaware, Lackawanna and Western Railroad The Delaware, Lackawanna and Western Railroad Company (DL&W or Lackawanna) was a railroad connecting Pennsylvania's Lackawanna Valley, rich in anthracite coal, to New York City, Buffalo and Oswego, New York. It merged with the Erie Railroad in 1960, forming the Erie Lackawanna Railroad, and was absorbed into Conrail in 1976.\nDelaware, Michigan The town of Delaware, Michigan, was established in 1846 as a copper mining town. It is located in Michigan’s Keweenaw Peninsula ten miles south of Copper Harbor and around twenty five miles north of Calumet.\nDelaware, Ohio The City of Delaware is located near the center of the state of Ohio, about 20 miles north of Columbus, Ohio. Delaware was founded in 1808, incorporated in 1816, and is the county seat of Delaware County, Ohio.\nDelay 1968 Delay 1968, or just Delay (as the SACD version is titled), is a compilation album of early outtakes of Can's work with singer Malcolm Mooney, including some of the band's earliest material. It contains the song \"Thief\", which was later covered live by Radiohead.\nDelay box Delay box is a device used in drag racing, allowing a racer to launch the vehicle with the same reaction time on every pass. This device requires a transbrake in order to function, and sometimes a two-step rev limiter is also used.\nDelay calculation Delay calculation is the term used in integrated circuit design for the calculation of the gate delay of a single logic gate and the wires attached to it. By contrast, static timing analysis computes the delays of entire paths, using delay calculation to determine the delay of each gate and wire.\nDelay differential equation In mathematics, delay differential equations (DDEs) are a type of differential equation, in which the derivative of the unknown function at a certain time is given in terms of the values of the function at previous times.\nDelay encoding In telecommunications, delay encoding is the encoding of binary data to form a two-level signal such that (a) a \"0\" causes no change of signal level unless it is followed by another \"0\" in which case a transition to the other level takes place at the end of the first bit period; and (b) a \"1\" causes a transition from one level to the other in the middle of the bit period.\nDelay insensitive circuit A delay insensitive circuit is a type of asynchronous circuit which performs a logic operation often within a computing processor chip. Instead of using clock signals or other global control signals, the sequencing of computation in delay insensitive circuit is determined by the data flow.\nDelay reduction hypothesis In classical conditioning (learning), the Delay-Reduction Hypothesis states that certain discriminative stimuli (DS) are more effective as conditioned reinforcers (CR) if they signal a decrease in time to a positive reinforcer or an increase in time to an aversive stimulus or punishment. This is often applied in chain link schedules, with the final link being the aversive stimulus or positive (unconditioned) reinforcer.\nDelay Tolerant Networking Delay Tolerant Networking (DTN) is an approach to computer network architecture that seeks to address the technical issues in mobile or extreme environments that lack continuous network connectivity. In a DTN, asynchronous variable-length messages (called bundles) are routed in a store and forward manner between participating nodes over varied network transport technologies (including both IP and non-IP based transports).\nDelay-action bomb A delay-action bomb is an aerial bomb designed to explode some time after impact with the ground, with the bomb's fuses set to delay the explosion for times ranging from a few seconds to several weeks. Such bombs were used widely by British aviators during World War II.\nDelay-locked loop In electronics, a delay-locked loop (DLL) is a digital circuit similar to a phase-locked loop (PLL), with the main difference being the absence of an internal oscillator. A DLL can be used to change the phase of a clock signal (a signal with a periodic waveform), usually to enhance the clock rise-to-data output valid timing characteristics of integrated circuits (such as DRAM devices).\nDelayed binding Also called \"TCP splicing\" it is the postponement of the connection between the client and the server in order to obtain sufficient information to make a routing decision. Some application switches and routers delay binding the client session to the server until the proper handshakes are complete so as to prevent Denial of Service attacks.\nDelayed differentiation Delayed differentiation or Postponement is a concept in supply chain management where the manufacturing process starts by making a generic or family product that is later differentiated into a specific end-product. This is a widely used method, especially in industries with high demand uncertainty, and can be effectively used to address the final demand even if forecasts cannot be improved.\nDelayed ejaculation Delayed ejaculation also known as retarded ejaculation and ejaculation incompetence means complete inability to ejaculate or persistent difficulty in achieving orgasm despite the presence of normal sexual desire and sexual stimulation. Normally a man achieves orgasm within 2-8 minutes after the beginning of sexual intercourse, whereas a man with delayed ejaculation either does not orgasm at all or orgasms after prolonged intercourse which might last 30-45 minutes or more.\nDelayed Entry Program The Delayed Entry Program, also called the Delayed Enlistment Program, is a program where individuals going into active duty enlist first into DEP before they ship out to Basic Combat Training (BCT). In actuality, this is an enlistment into the inactive reserves, with an agreement to report for active duty (to ship out to BCT) at a specific time in the future.\nDelayed onset muscle soreness Delayed Onset Muscle Soreness (DOMS) is the pain or discomfort often felt 24 to 72 hours after exercising and subsides generally within 2 to 3 days. Once thought to be caused by lactic acid buildup, a more recent theory is that it is caused by tiny tears in the muscle fibres caused by eccentric contraction, or unaccustomed training levels.\nDelayed open access journal Delayed open accessjournals are journals in which the free availability of the content is available, but only after several months, with the immediate availability being limited to subscribers. By its nature, it applies only to electronic versions of journals.\nDelayering Delayering is a process for principles-based corporate restructuring and cost cutting trademarked by the Boston Consulting Group. It is a cascading organization redesign that proceeds from the CEO (Layer 1) to the CEO's direct reports (Layer 2), and so on through all employees.\nDelbáeth In Irish mythology Delbáeth (or Dealbhaeth) was the son of either Aengus or Ogma of the Tuatha DĂ© Danann, and Ethniu of the Fomorians. He succeeded his grandfather Eochaid Ollathair, aka the Dagda, as High King of Ireland.\nDelbert Cowsette Delbert Ray Cowsette (born September 3, 1977 in Cleveland, Ohio) is a free agent American football defensive tackle in the NFL. He was originally selected in the seventh round of the 2000 NFL Draft out of the University of Maryland, College Park by the Washington Redskins.\nDelbert Fowler Delbert \"Treetop\" Fowler (May 4, 1958—) is a former American football player for the Winnipeg Blue Bombers of the Canadian Football League. Fowler was born in Cleveland, Ohio where he played high school football for Glenville High School in East Cleveland, Ohio.\nDelbert Grady Delbert Grady is a fictional character in the 1977 novel The Shining by Stephen King and in the 1980 film of the same name directed by Stanley Kubrick. In the film, Delbert Grady was portrayed by British actor Philip Stone (1924-2003).\nDelbert Lee Scott Delbert Lee Scott (born September 9, 1949) is a businessman and politician from Missouri. He has served as a city councilman for Lowry City, Missouri, as a Republican member of the Missouri House of Representatives, and as a member of the Missouri State Senate.\nDelbert McClinton Delbert McClinton is a blues musician born 4 November, 1940, in Lubbock, Texas. He honed his craft working in a bar band, The Straitjackets, backing visiting blues giants such as Sonny Boy Williamson II, Howlin' Wolf, Lightnin' Hopkins, and Jimmy Reed.\nDelbhna Tir Dha Locha Dealbhne ThĂ­re Dhá Loch(a) (\"The Dealbhne of the Two Lochs\") was a tuath (a tribal kingdom) of medieval Ireland, located in Iar Connacht in the west of Co. Galway in the province of Connacht, Ireland.\n\nEncyklopedie (cz) Encyklopédia (sk) Enzyklopädie (de)", "pred_label": "__label__1", "pred_score_pos": 0.6734354496002197}
+{"content": "best tourism in the USA tag - Best Tourism best destinations\n\n\n\n3 Miami Miami\n\n3 Disneyland in Orlando Disneyland in Orlando\n\n1 Bush Gardens Bush Gardens\n\nImagine that you were in Africa and you have seen birds and animals of indescribable beauty. You will be able to go on safari in this magnificent tropical park and ride the thrilling roller coaster, watch inspiring theater presentation in the park. The park is located in Tampa Bay. Busch Gardens - this park is owned by the brewer Anheuser-Busch. It combines African Safari, a roller coaster and the reproduction of architectural monuments of Egypt and North Africa. The Park is represented by the African fau...", "pred_label": "__label__1", "pred_score_pos": 0.9368207454681396}
+{"content": "Consulting Services\n\nBPM's consulting division works with businesses to help them get more clarity and control over their decision making processes, often as a part of their regular business planning cycle.\n\nIn most cases, the ultimate outcome of what we do is a set of dynamic historical and forecast financial statements which show how a business has performed historically, and will perform in the future based on a set of assumptions. These assumptions can then be changed in order to understand how the business will perform under different scenarios.\n\nThe competitive advantage of BPM's consulting division lies in the strict application of the Best Practice Spreadsheet Modelling Standards combined with the use of best practice modelling software to ensure that the services we provide are the highest quality, lowest risk and best value in the market.\n\nOur example models and case studies showcase why BPM has become one of the top spreadsheet modelling companies in the world.\n\nExample Business Planning Dashboard (Click to Enlarge)", "pred_label": "__label__1", "pred_score_pos": 0.9991217851638794}
+{"content": "Licensing Requirements for K-12 Education: Considerations\n\nThinking about becoming a teacher? Then think about the specific career path you plan to take, and carefully research the requirements you’ll need to complete in order to be qualified to teach in your state.\n\nWhat Degree Will You Need?\n\nGenerally to begin teaching, a qualified, licensed teacher needs a 4 year degree.  For teachers considering special education or k-5 teaching exclusively, a degree in education may be their best bet. For secondary schools, or for special subjects, potential educators may instead to choose to major in their topic of interest.  If so, additional research should be undertaken to see if there are specific credit requirements teachers must fulfill in order to teach.  Even if one’s major is in the topic one plans to teach, there may be requirements for recent classes in computer technology, for example, to ensure that all new teachers are up to date.\n\nBeyond the Degree\n\nTeaching certification isn’t completed with a 4 year degree.  Many states require competency testing.  This testing is similar to the testing required for college admission, for example.  Basic skills will be assessed, such as mathematics and reading comprehension; there may be a writing portion as well. \n\nOn-The-Job Training\n\nOnce you’ve completed your degree and passed your certification tests, you may be required to complete an on-the-job training.  This may consist of an unpaid training program, like an internship, or a paid position, like a teaching assistant.\n\nWhile the process to become a teacher requires commitment, and may pose challenges, many people feel fulfilled once they have completed their certifications.", "pred_label": "__label__1", "pred_score_pos": 0.9580309987068176}
+{"content": "freely falling bodies\n\nA golfer imparts a speed of 34.9 m/sto a ball, and it travels the maximum possible distance beforelanding on the green. The tee and the green are at the sameelevation.\nWhat is the longest \"hole in one\" that the golfer can make, if theball does not roll when it hits the green?\n\nAnswers (1)\n\n     range of projectile\n                                    r = v^2 sin(2θ) / g\n     θ = angle of projection\n      r = range of projectile\n     v =velocity of projection\n     g = accleration due to gravity .\n                    from the above relation it is clear that the maximum range ispossible for a fixed velocity is when\n                                sin(2θ) = 1\n                θ = 45.\n       taking  θ = 45 degrees as the angle ofporjection\n          the time of projectile\n                                      t = 2v sinθ / g .\nGet homework help", "pred_label": "__label__1", "pred_score_pos": 0.9680256843566895}
+{"content": "Background Sommerbutikken\n\nExperience Norway\n\nNorway is a wild and beautiful country with magnificent fjords, majestic mountains and dramatic landscapes.\n\n\nIt's a country where the summer days are long and the experiences you’ll have will warm your soul.\n\nThrough our co-operation with The Norwegian Tourist Board, Color Line is proud to give you highlights from\n\nYou can search for any detail regarding thousands of unique travel destinations and tourist attractions on All this in a simple, user-friendly, and exciting way.", "pred_label": "__label__1", "pred_score_pos": 0.9948422908782959}
+{"content": "\"Bestest. Ramadan. Ever.\" by Medeia Sharif and published by Flux is a tale about a teenage girl named Almira trying to figure out the complexities of adolescence. As if this weren't difficult enough, Almira also has to find balance in her life between the strict culture of her Islamic family and the exciting lifestyle as an American teenager.\n\nAlmira chooses to participate in Ramadan, the Islamic celebration that involves fasting from sunrise to sunset for a month.\n\n\nLike many young teens in America, Almira is insecure about her appearance and often compares herself to her peers. I found her insecurity somewhat tedious, but younger girls might find it reassuring. Prior to this book, I had very little knowledge of the Islamic religion. Although Almira does obtain a better outlook on her religion, she often drones on about how difficult her religion is and what a hindrance it is for her. While these are issues Islamic teenagers might face, it consequently gives the reader a negative outlook on the religion.\n\nAlmira is a relatable teen because like many adolescents, her actions are constantly under the scrutiny of her family. Yet she still manages to work her way through the typical trials of adolescence. The story is somewhat predictable, but one can appreciate how Almira matures as the novel progresses. She discovers how to celebrate her heritage while enjoying all that American life has to offer. Almira successfully moves forward while keeping her religion a priority in her life, which seems to be the overall theme for which Sharif was aiming.", "pred_label": "__label__1", "pred_score_pos": 0.984330415725708}
+{"content": "Bombed-out Sirte is a humanitarian disaster zone\n\nThousands of civilians are fleeing the Libyan city of Sirte en masse, as fighting between Gaddafi loyalists and the former rebel forces reaches a climax.\n\nThe two-week siege has given rise to an serious humanitarian situation in the city of 100,000 people. The number of casualties and wounded among the civilians is unknown, but those who have escaped the city report of thousands of deaths.\n\nMedecins Sans Frontieres (MSF - Doctors Without Borders) reported this week that they have been in touch with medical personnel in Sirte and they say hospitals in the city are overflowing with the wounded. They also confirmed that medical supplies are scarce.\n\nReports say most of the refugees are heading for the comparative safety of the desert, leaving behind their belongings and livelihoods. Hundreds of families are streaming out of the city through its western entrance.\n\nAs they pass through, NTC troops are cross-checking them at block-posts in an attempt to eliminate all possible Gaddafi supporters.\n\nAccording to NATO's own figures, the bombing of Sirte resulted in 427 \"key hits\" from August 25 to September 29, so it can be said that at least that number of buildings have been destroyed within the city.\n\nOn top of that, anti-Gaddafi forces are shelling the city with everything they have at their disposal - tanks, artillery and Grad rockets - causing more death and destruction.\n\nThere are reports on Twitter that yesterday alone, more than 20 civilians - men, women and children - died in NATO bombings in Sirte and its defenders say they have video footage to prove it.\n\nThe refugees say Sirte is critically short of water, food and medicine, and there is now a very real threat of a new humanitarian disaster emerging.\n\nAid workers are rushing to the area, but continued fighting is preventing access.\n\n\"The information we get from people getting out of Sirte is the food supply is very low, there is no water and no electricity and access to healthcare is very difficult,\" said Dibeh Sakhr, a spokesperson for the International Committee of the Red Cross, which is close to the area.\n\nSakhr confirmed that Red Cross personnel have been trying to get to Sirte since last week. The organization does have all the humanitarian assistance that might be needed but so far they do not have the necessary security guarantees.\n\nIn the meantime, NTC commanders claim Gaddafi's spokesman, Moussa Ibrahim, has been captured in Sirte. It is not clear how this was achieved since NTC forces have failed to capture the city. Despite repeated attempts, they have so far only managed to secure control of Sirte's airport and have suffered large casualties from sniper fire.\n\n[Source: RT Novosti, Moscow, 30Sep11]\n\nDonaciones Donaciones Radio Nizkor\n\nLibya War", "pred_label": "__label__1", "pred_score_pos": 0.8846146464347839}
+{"content": "In this section, the concepts of a streamline, streakline and pathline will be introduced.\n\n    Streamline, Streakline and Pathline\n\nClick to view movie (21k)\n\n\nIn the study of fluid mechanics, streamlines are often drawn to visualize the flow field. At every point in the flow field, a streamline is tangent to the velocity vector. That is, for 2D flow in Cartesian coordinates,\n\n\nThe above equation can be integrated to give the equation of a streamline once the velocity field (i.e., u and v) is known. For every streamline, there is a stream function (Ψ) associated with it. The definition of the stream function will be covered in differential Conservation of Mass section.\n\n\nClick to view movie (9k)\n\nA streakline consists of all fluid particles that have previously passed through a specified point. This is essentially the same as injecting dye or smoke continuosly at a given location and observing how the dye or smoke moves along with the fluid motion. This is a technique that is often used in experiments to visualize the flow field.\n\nOn the other hand, the actual path that a single fluid particle takes is referred to as the pathline, i.e., it is the trajectory of a particular fluid particle. This is referred to as the Lagrangian viewpoint of the flow field. Experimentally, it can be achieved by tagging a fluid particle and tracing its motion throughout the flow field.\n\nIn general, a streamline, streakline and pathline are not the same; however, they coincide when the flow is steady.", "pred_label": "__label__1", "pred_score_pos": 0.9992491602897644}
+{"content": "Farmhouse Cheese Trolley\n\n\n\nHard Cheese\nIsle of Mull Cheddar\nis considered by many as the daddy of Scottish cheddars. Strong, fruity and brooding, made from unpasteurised cow’s milk on Sgriob-ruadh (pronounced ‘Ski-brooah’) farm on the tranquil Isle of Mull in the Inner Hebrides.\n\nMahon is produced on the island of Menorca, Spain using unpasteurised cow’s milk. Salty, tangy and grassy - a flavour that evokes the Mediterranean hillsides and salty, sea-kissed air.\n\nComte is an ancient cheese produced since the time of Charlemagne. Produced in Jura France, Comte has an ivory-coloured paste scattered with holes the size of a hazelnut with a complex, nutty and caramelised flavour. Made from unpasteurised cow’s milk.\n\nSoft Cheese\nwas first made by monks in the Abbaye de Citeaux in the heart of Burgundy, France. It is one of the last cheeses involving milk coagulation (cows, unpasteurised) in France. It has a powerful rich flavour, salty and creamy with a pungent smell.\n\nSmoked Lochaber is a full-fat oak smoked cheese, coated in oatmeal and is truly a unique soft smoked cheese, winner of the coveted award for “Best International Cheese In France”. Produced by the Macdonald’s Smoked Produce in Glenuig (West Coast of Scotland) and made from pasteurised cow’s milk.\n\nLangres is a cheese made in the high plains of Champagne, France and can be traced back to the 18th century. Coming from the same family as Espoisse and Munster, Langres has a strong smell, the firm pate melts in the mouth and a complex taste unfolds. Made from unpasteurised cow’s milk.\n\nGoat's Cheese\nGolden Cross\nis a log-shaped goats cheese made in Lewes, East Sussex. It has a white mould rind over an ash coating and has a dense, silky but firm texture. The ash adds a slight crunch to the texture and the rind, giving the cheese another dimension to its sweet, pleasant and subtle taste. Made from unpasteurised goat’s milk.\n\nChabichou du Poitou is made in a very limited geographic area above the chalky soils of the threshold of Poitou, south of the Loire Valley. It has a rich goaty flavour, dense and smooth with a distinct layer next to the rind. Although sweet and delicate, the taste is slightly acidic and salty at the finish.  Made from unpasteurised goat’s milk.\n\nAilsa Craig is attractively shaped and named after the landmark island in the Firth of Clyde, this is an individual, fresh, fragile goat’s cheese with a bloomy rind and a light and fluffy texture. Made by Ann Dorward in Dunlop, it’s one of the very few goat’s cheeses made in Scotland, and still only made in limited quantities.\n\nBlue Cheese\nLanark Blue has been produced in Ogcastle (Scotland) near the village of Carnwath by Humphrey Errington since 1985. It is a rich blue-veined artisan cheese made from the cheese maker’s own flock’s produce (ewe). Using Penicillium Roqueforti to create the veining, it has a strong flavour that varies according to the time of year that it is produced. \n\nBlue Stilton is produced in Colston Bassett in Nottinghamshire and can be traced back to the early 18th century. Made using traditional rennet, Stilton has a delightful spicy blue tang which is nutty and rich with a slightly open and creamy texture. Made from pasteurised cow’s milk. \n\nRoquefort is made in the Aveyron region in the south of France. The cheese is white, tangy, crumbly and slightly moist, with distinctive veins of green mould. It has characteristic odour and flavour with a notable taste of butyric acid. The overall flavour sensation begins slightly mild, then waxes sweet, then smoky, and fades to a salty finish. Made from unpasteurised ewe’s milk.\n\nPlan Your Stay\n\nArrival Date\n\nDeparture Date (Min 2 nights)\n\nGuests          Rooms", "pred_label": "__label__1", "pred_score_pos": 0.8625016212463379}
+{"content": "A Natural life style; I have a dream (Video)\n\nWhat exactly do we mean by a natural life style? Natural is a term that has come to mean so many things as well as becoming a term abused and bastardized by mainstream media and marketing. Big corporate marketing uses the term so loosely to sell products that are so far from the meaning of natural that only the simplest of minds can believe them. So, we are going to take a leap back in time, to a period that may stir some fond memories for some of us and may also cause some of us to remorse over what they have given away to compromise over the years.\n\nTo dream the impossible dream\n\nOnce upon a time there was a generation that sought out a new expression for human kind. The elders (the establishment) at the time believed them to be deluded dreamers, and “unreal”, but this generation had a dream, they had an ideology and affinity for nature and a more natural lifestyle. This generation wanted world peace, they wanted freedom and love, and they became known as and referred to as the “Love generation”, “Hippies”, “Flower people” and other such names. Communes sprang up where many could “return to nature” in an experiment of life. At the time they had a dream for humanity, a dream for themselves, alas time changed them and coming out of that change we have the world we see today.\n\nSome have held onto the ideals and dreams that started back in the late 1960’s to mid 1970’s and have built their lives around these high aspirations. The majority grew up and conformed to the social pressures and norms, while some expanded on the very ideals and ideas that they were so against in their youth. The outcome is the world we see today and a loss from the ideas of a more natural world order that was once dreamed.\n\nAs many of us age and look around us at what we allowed to happen, hints of the once dreamed world begin to nip at our heels and pop into our minds and we find ourselves once again daring to dream. To dream of a more natural world order once again. To bring back nature into our world, not the corporate or media forms of nature but true, down to earth nature, one based on a respect for the natural world and the planet earth. This also does not mean a retreat from technology or the amazing advances we have made, it does mean a disposal of the corruption and abuse that we have heaped upon ourselves and the planet. In small steps, and in small but growing numbers, our once bright and enthusiastic eyes have begun to open and sparkle once more.\n\nNew World Order\n\nWe are currently being inundated with an image of this supposed new world order painted on a canvass of doom and gloom. There is no doubt that a “new world order” is in the minds of powerful people such as the last few presidents of the USA, but is it a doom and gloom scenario? No hope is given under the image many hold of the “New World Order”, with so many believing that there is no hope, they hold that we are certainly doomed by our past and especially current actions. What eventually plays out in our lives and those of our children will certainly be the result of what we have allowed to take place. Forgotten by many of these people, are four words that were once projected out into the world with such force and belief behind them that the world was changed.\n\nThese four words have become immortalized in not only a generation but in history itself, “I have a dream” and from that society changed, laws changed, the world was changed for the better. Was the world made perfect, no, but did it get a little bit better, yes, change took place. Once again we have the opportunity to awaken a dream that started long ago.\n\nA new Dream\n\nYou may wonder what this new dream is, what it involves, will it come about and a score of additional questions and wonders. The truth be told, the dream has just begun to reawaken and form, it will be a dream of our making, it will be a dream of our choosing. Article two on this subject will look at “A new dream”.\n\n\n, Toronto Holistic Health Examiner\n\nClayton Caverley is a consummate writer and has been involved in Holistic Health practices for almost 40 years. Clayton has gained expertise in; Herbalism, QiGong, Tai Chi, various Martial Arts, various forms of Meditation, and bio-energy therapies. Clayton is/was a qualified teacher of...\n\nToday's top buzz...", "pred_label": "__label__1", "pred_score_pos": 0.8620041608810425}
+{"content": "Choosing a System for Managing your Image Collection\n\nIt can be a daunting task choosing a system for managing an image collection - especially if you intend to use it to share your collection with colleagues or the wider world via the Web. As the companion paper to this indicates, there are a very wide variety of options (see Systems for Managing Digital Media Collections). You will probably find it useful to read that paper before you read this one.\n\n\n  1. Introduction\n  2. Common functionality\n  3. Questions to ask when choosing a system\n  4. Conclusion\n\n\nYour choice of a system must be driven by your requirements and shaped by your own particular circumstances and constraints. While the perfect system may not exist, some will be much more suitable than others, so it's important that you choose well and that any compromises are made knowingly rather than through ignorance.\n\nIt can be difficult to know what to look for unless you've seen a few systems in action and understand what might be possible. Section 2 (below) describes functionality that is commonly (but by no means universally) provided by systems for managing images. As you read through this section, think about whether the functionality being described is essential, desirable, or not required for your particular collection. This might form the beginning of a checklist you could use when evaluating systems, or a more formal list of requirements in an Invitation To Tender (ITT). Section 3 of this paper raises several questions to think about when you're choosing a system.\n\nJISC Digital Media has surveyed a range of image management software developers to gather specific information about their systems. Those who have responded so far are listed on our Image Management Software page.\n\n2. Common functionality\n\nThis section describes some of the features you might look for in a system for managing images. This is grouped into features relating to: images (2.1); metadata (2.2); and delivery to users (2.3).\n\n2.1. Handling of images\n\nBasic image orientation\n\nAs we said in Systems for Managing Digital Media Collections, it can be useful to distinguish between systems that are image-centric (where a metadata record is attached to each and every image) or object-centric (where one or more images can be attached to an object record). Ideally you should choose a system whose orientation fits well with your purpose, although it can sometimes be useful or necessary to choose a different kind of system.\n\nTo give an example - although your images might be of pages from atlases, and so suit an object-centric approach, you might choose a system designed for handling separate images because it offers good zoom functionality, digital rights management technology, or perhaps e-commerce features. Or, to take another example, you might choose to use an image-centric system to help you manage some aspects of a digitisation project (e.g. digital capture and extraction of technical metadata) and then transfer the data into a collection management system which has object-related metadata and is more suited for delivery.\n\nImage acquisition\n\nThere are several different ways in which systems 'acquire' or 'ingest' digital images. Some systems - especially those distributed with digital cameras - will enable you to import images directly from a camera. A few systems take this a step further, enabling you to actually capture images from a scanner or a tethered camera from within the system itself.\n\nMore commonly, however, systems will assume you already have the digital images in folders on your computer, server or memory device. These can then be either copied into the system's preferred image folder or (much better) you can tell the system where to look and it will catalogue the images where they are. Sometimes systems don't even require you to actively point to files or folders - they will automatically scan specified folders and catalogue anything new they find there.\n\nOf course, the approaches described above will only be relevant when the image management system takes the form of a program sitting on your computer. If you're using a system that is Web-based and hosted elsewhere, then you'll almost certainly have to actively up-load new images to the collection - and often individually rather than in batches.\n\nFile format support\n\nSystems differ in their support for file formats, so if you're using anything beyond the common Web formats, GIF and JPEG, you'll need to make sure that the system you choose supports it.\n\nTIFF is often used as a master image format because it does not compromise the data in the way the JPEG's compression does. However, as this comes at the expense of a much larger filesize, the TIFF is not always supported by systems - especially those systems that are Web-based. You might expect systems designed for the photographic market to have good support for TIFF, camera formats (RAW and DNG) and the Photoshop format (PSD), but other kinds of systems may not support these consistently.\n\nYou need to be aware that even if the system says it supports a particular format, some aspects of that format might not be well supported, such as higher bit-depth (i.e. more than 8-bits per channel), ICC colour profiles, or embedded metadata. If you are making use of any of these, you should check that the system supports them.\n\nSupport can be a particular issue for some of the newer file formats, such as PNG or JPEG2000. Although these formats have a lot to commend them, they are not always completely or consistently implemented. So if a system does support them (many will not), this support might not extend to all of their features (e.g. PNG transparency or JPEG2000 zooming).\n\nImage management\n\nSome systems provide much more image management functionality than simply recording a location, generating a thumbnail and storing some associated metadata. They might enable you to move, copy, or delete original files from within the system itself. They may provide the option of creating virtual folders for organising the images and then enable you to convert these into 'real' folders on your server or a disc. Or they might provide tools for automatically renaming your images. For some people these kind of features will be unnecessary or even confusing; for others they will offer useful support for an image workflow.\n\nImage editing\n\nMany systems designed for managing images include image editing features (e.g. cropping, rotating, resizing, colour correction). Whether these are useful to you will depend on the nature and purpose of your collection and other software you have to hand. If you need to do sophisticated image correction, it will probably be preferable to use a dedicated programme like Photoshop or Gimp (indeed some systems enable you to automatically open an image within a separate editing program). But if you only need to make simple and occasional adjustments you may find that the editing tools provided by an image management system are more than sufficient.\n\nOne thing to check out is how any editing is applied to the image. Some systems will apply edits directly to the image as you make them - which makes it impossible to recover an earlier version if you change your mind. Some systems will create a copy, providing you with a level of version control. Other systems store details of the edits you make and only actually apply them to the image when it is exported or saved into a different size or format. These last two approaches (versioning or storing edits) can be very useful where the master is a JPEG image, since each time you resave a JPEG you are re-compressing (and further compromising) the image.\n\nIf you're using a system to manage your workflow, then versioning and auditing features (e.g. who edited the image) are worth looking out for. These can support your quality assurance (QA) processes, helping you to pick out where any errors may be being introduced.\n\n2.2 Handling of metadata\n\nData entry/cataloguing\n\nOne of the main reasons for using software to manage your images is to enable you to associate some metadata (catalogue information) to assist you and other users in the tasks of finding, understanding, managing, and using your images.\n\nThis is most commonly achieved through some sort of database. The database might take a relatively simple and 'flat' form (e.g. a single record per image). Or it could be much more complex, using, for example, a number of different tables of information which are related to form a kind of 'virtual' record for each image or object. There are also some other, less common, alternatives, such as storing the metadata in an XML encoding (similar to HTML Web encoding) or embedding the metadata within the image file itself. Although we cannot go into detail here about the various different database structures, this may be something to investigate or to talk with your IT support staff about.\n\nApart from the basic underlying database, you might also want to consider whether you need the cataloguing interface to be client-based (i.e. a separate program on your computer) or Web-browser-based. A client-based system typically offers more functionality and more control over the interface, but it must be loaded onto every machine and you will probably have to pay a fee for each copy installed. A browser-based cataloguing interface is typically not as efficient or flexible, but might enable you to add images to the collection from any location in the world.\n\nWhatever 'system architecture' you settle for, you will need to think about how well it supports your data entry needs. Does it, for example, enable you to add, delete, hide, re-order, or rename catalogue fields? Can you create drop-down lists (or separate tables) to manage your keywords and other controlled vocabularies? Does it offer features that will speed-up the time-consuming task of adding metadata, such as templates, batch-editing, or global 'find and replace' options? Does it provide features that will support your workflow and quality assurance, such as auditing, a moderation process, spell-checking or data validation? Such features are often worth paying extra for.\n\nSupport for relevant metadata standards\n\nIf you intend your collection to 'interoperate' with other collections then you'll need to pay some attention to how well it supports appropriate metadata standards. Some systems will come out of their box with such support (especially collection management systems); others will often require a lot of customisation. For more information on metadata standards, see Metadata and Digital Images.\n\nGetting your metadata in and out again\n\nIt's vital to pay special attention to the ease with which you can get your metadata in and out of the system. You may already have some metadata that you want to import, perhaps some records held in an earlier database or some metadata embedded within the image file itself. If this is the case, you'll need to investigate how easy it will be to bring this data into your new system (e.g. by importing comma-separated data or extracting metadata from the image files). Ideally your new system should support any imports or metadata extractions directly, but it is sometimes necessary to make use of additional software as an intermediary - especially where you are extracting metadata from the images themselves.\n\nOnce there is data in your system, you also need some means of exporting it. You will almost certainly need to move the images and metadata into another system within a few years time. But you may have cause to export your metadata well before then: perhaps to share it with other collections, or to embed it within your images for security or identification purposes. Many systems are now moving towards XML as a format for exchanging (importing and exporting) metadata. This is not yet standard, but it may be something to look out for when you're choosing a system.\n\nClosely related to the ability to export metadata is the ability to generate useful reports and statistics. Do the systems you're looking at enable you to construct new reports easily yourself, or are you limited to standard forms and templates that come with the system?\n\n2.3 Delivery to users\n\nNature of the user interface\n\nWe mentioned the data-entry/cataloguing interface above, but systems for managing and sharing images will often provide a separate interface for the \"end-user\". As with the cataloguing interface, this might take the form of a client-based program installed on the user's machine or a Web-browser-based interface accessed via an intranet or the Internet. It is not uncommon for systems to use a client interface for data entry and a browser interface for delivery to end users. Such an arrangement can offer the best of both worlds - a higher level of functionality and efficiency for the cataloguing and easier, more familiar access for the end user.\n\nWhatever the configuration or technology is chosen, the user interface must effectively meet your users' requirements. It should offer flexibility and customisability, and conform to good usability and accessibility practices. For more information on interface design, usability and accessibility, please see: Graphical User Interface Design: Developing Usable and Accessible Collections.\n\nSearch and retrieval\n\nYou will need to pay particular attention to the search and retrieval features offered by the systems you're looking at. Can you search on all or most of the fields in your database? Is advanced searching possible (e.g. Boolean logic, \"wildcards\", \"sounds-like\" fuzzy searching or date range searching)? Are there any special search features offered, such as content based retrieval (based on colour and shape, etc). Can you browse the collection as well as search?\n\nSometimes the search functionality differs considerably between the cataloguing interface and the end-user interface - especially where a system uses client software for cataloguing and provides end-user delivery via a Web browser. It may be that the cataloguing interface enables you to conduct sophisticated searches, while the user interface simply presents Web galleries that can be browsed but not searched. You will need to make sure that both interfaces are going to meet your needs.\n\nDisplay of images and metadata\n\nIt will also be important to consider how well the images and metadata are displayed. Ideally you should able to customise the look and feel of the interface, choose the sizes of the images, and decide which metadata is displayed to cataloguers and users. Some systems will provide further functionality, enabling individual cataloguers or end users to personalise the way they view the data and enabling them to interact with it in certain ways (e.g. bookmark or annotate images). This level of interactivity is not common, but some readers may wish to look for it or include it in their brief to a system developer.\n\nIf you want to provide user access to larger images or master files, you will need to check how this is dealt with by the systems you're investigating. There may be a zoom facility, or an option to download the original image. If you're providing access to large images or files you may also need to think about the security implications and whether there are any network issues in delivering large amounts of data.\n\n\nSecurity is often a concern for those who are building image collections and sharing them with others. Ideally, the system you choose should enable you to provide different levels of access and different views of the data according to particular user roles or profiles. It is common to have at least three roles (administrator, editor/moderator, user). Some systems are more sophisticated, enabling you to set different permissions at the level of an individual user or image, or connecting with institutional authentication systems.\n\nIf you are concerned about people misusing larger images you may also want to look out for digital rights management (DRM) technology, such as watermarking or the delivery of images via a protected interface. These technologies cannot guarantee that no one will take your images, but they can provide a deterrent and will minimise your risk.\n\nInteroperability with other systems\n\nFinally, if you want to share your data with other systems, you'll need to see how easily this can be done. It can be a real challenge to join up different systems in a seamless way, but some will enable their databases to be searched by other applications.\n\nAnother way to share data is to take advantage of a system's export facilities (as discussed above) or publishing options. Many systems will enable you to easily create CD-ROMs, slide shows, or Web galleries, or to dispatch images to an email address.\n\n3. Questions to ask when choosing a system\n\nThe remainder of this paper poses some questions to think about when you are choosing a system for managing an image collection.\n\n3.1 Some questions to ask yourself\n\nBefore you get too far in your search for a system, you will need to have answers to some of these questions:\n\n  • Do I actually need to choose a system?\n    For most of us the answer will be an unequivocal \"Yes!\" While there are alternatives (careful file and folder naming, folder viewing options provided by operating systems, or embedded metadata), there are many advantages to employing a specialist system - as the features described in section 2 above indicate. However, in some cases the answer might be \"No\" or at least \"Not yet\". It may also be that someone else within your department or institution already has a suitable system or is about to buy one. Make some enquiries - you might save yourself a task and some money. You might also find there are some opportunities to share images as well as software.\n  • What do I require from a system?\n    It is vital that you determine your requirements and always keep them in mind when you evaluate systems or talk to developers. The features in section 2 above and the different systems described in Systems for Managing Digital Media Collections should give you some idea of what to look for. But you will undoubtedly need to see a few systems before you finalise your list. In drawing up your list of requirements, try to avoid the extremes of overstating your needs (and so failing to find anything suitable), or understating them (and ending up with a system that just isn't up to the task). One useful way to do this is to divide the items on your list into features that you \"absolutely must have\" (essentials) and those that would be \"nice to have but could be lived without\" (desirables). Try to be as realistic as you can, but be prepared to shuffle the items between these categories when you get down to looking.\n  • What are others in similar situations using?\n    Although everyone's situation is different, others will have made similar choices to yours. Try to identify these people - ask colleagues; post requests on relevant email lists. When you find them, phone, email, or better still visit them. Find out what system they're using and what features they like or dislike about the system. If they've had their system for some time they may also be aware of other products that could now do a better job. It's worth doing this sort of research for any sized system, but it's particularly important if you're looking for a large system requiring a lot of investment.\n  • Who do I need to involve in this choice?\n    Unless you're buying or downloading a system to manage a personal collection of images there will usually be others who have a stake in your choice, such as users, cataloguers, funders, or IT support staff. Even with a personal system it might be wise to check out the security or systems implications with those who support your IT. Once you've identified any key stakeholders, it's important that you involve them in your research and decision-making. Consult with them over your list of requirements; invite them to system demos; give them evaluation copies to look at. If you're going to need them to contribute to your collection or you want to ensure they use it once it's in place, then it's crucial they feel a sense of ownership of the system.\n  • What resources do I have?\n    Stakeholders are not just people you bring onside for political reasons - they may have considerable expertise that will help you in making your choice. Or there may be others within your institution or networks that can provide you with some help. JISC Digital Media can provide further help via its Helpdesk and Training programme. Other important resources you will obviously need to find are time and money - both of these are likely to be limited and so will constrain or direct your choice of a system.\n  • How formal does the process need to be?\n    If you're looking for a large system - or you want to commission someone to develop one - you will probably need to prepare a formal 'Invitation To Tender' (ITT) or 'Request For Proposals' (RFP). You may also need to undertake European tendering if the system is going to be very large and expensive. JISC InfoNet has produced a useful InfoKit on procuring larger systems. However, even if it's a small system you're choosing for yourself or a small team it is important to formalise the process in some way. At the very least, jot down your key requirements and keep a record of the systems you've looked at and the functionality they offer - once you've seen several systems it can be surprisingly difficult to remember exactly which system offered which features.\n\n3.2 Some questions to ask about specific systems\n\nHaving established your needs and specific requirements, identified your stakeholders and resources, and considered your methodology, you are now ready to bring in those systems vendors or download those evaluation copies. Here are some questions you should ask about each of the systems you look at:\n\n  • Does this system meet my requirements?\n    One of the first things to determine is how well the system fits with the requirements you've identified (essentials and desirables). Document your findings, but don't be too quick to dismiss anything that doesn't come up to scratch. You may discover that: (a) no system can meet your exact specification and you'll need to reconsider the essentials; (b) it might actually be fairly easy to customise a system to meet your requirements; (c) you might be able to complement the system with another system to address a particular need; or (d) the requirements you want might be on the list for the next upgrade - or you might be able to get them put onto that list!\n  • How flexible is this system?\n    Your needs from a system are likely to change over time, so it's worth looking for a system that can accommodate some change. Can the system expand from a standalone version to a workgroup version if you decide later on to share the task of collection-building with others? Can you introduce security settings if you find you need tighter control over your resources or how people are accessing them? Can the system handle hundreds of users searching it at once if it becomes a runaway success? While it's impossible to anticipate all of your future needs, it's useful to have a system that will provide you with some flexibility and growth. Try not to limit yourself at the outset.\n  • How future-proof is this system?\n    You will not only need to think about how your needs might change, but how the system you're looking at might change. This is difficult to predict without the aid of a crystal ball, but past performance may be some guide. Has the software company been around for some time and is it still growing? Is there a strong community contributing to the development of an open source system you're looking at? Is there a history of regular upgrades? Does the system seem to be keeping up with new standards as they come along? Is there a strong user group (composed of people like you) who are influencing the development of the system? It might be worth choosing a product with slightly less functionality than a competitor if it seems likely to have a more promising future.\n  • How much will this system cost me?\n    As we've said above (in section 3.1) cost will be an important factor in your decision. However it's important that you don't just base this on the initial price tag. Many of the larger commercial systems come with support and upgrade packages, and it's often worthwhile taking these up. You may also need to take into account the costs of importing any existing data into the system and of training. All of these costs are reasonably easy to determine or estimate but are sometimes overlooked.\n  • How much will this system really cost me?\n    However, there are also some less tangible costs you may want to consider. One of these might be delay. For example, if you need something quickly, you will probably not be able to afford a twelve-month delay while waiting for a bespoke system to be developed. Another important cost is the impact on workflow. If a cheap (or free) system requires you to spend a minute or two longer per record than another system, you may find it actually proves to be much more expensive over the longer term! An open source system might be free to download, but prove expensive to install and customise. An expensive bespoke system may prove even more costly when you need to employ someone to rewrite parts of it in five years time (as you probably will) or to move your data out of it in the future - as you almost certainly will for any system you currently choose!\n  • Does this system compromise my data in any way?\n    You will be making a significant investment in creating digital images and metadata to accompany them. Over time this investment is likely to be worth much more than the system you've bought to deliver the data (in a very short time for some systems). You can reasonably expect to have to move to another delivery system within 5-10 years, but you're unlikely to want to re-create your images or metadata within this timeframe - you will want them to last much longer. So it's important that the system you choose doesn't force you to make too many compromises in terms of the quality of your images or your metadata. It's also vital that the system enables you to pull out your data again when you're ready to move on to the next system!\n\n4. Conclusion\n\nYour choice of a system for managing and delivering your collection is very important, so you need to take the time to carefully determine your needs and evaluate the options.\n\nBear in mind, though, that even with the best of care you will probably not find the \"perfect\" fit for your needs. You will need to make some informed compromises. However, if you make your choice without paying any attention, you run a real risk of being locked into something that is not only less than perfect, but will actually compromise your data and will fail your users.\n\n\nOur helpdesk service\n\n\nIf you have any questions about this topic and work in higher or further education then why not take advantage of our helpdesk service.\n\n\nOur infokits are resources grouped by theme that cover a topic in detail.\n\nRead our infokits\n\nFeatured items", "pred_label": "__label__1", "pred_score_pos": 0.5273094177246094}
+{"content": "Heat hanging around\n\nSUMMER is officially over, but it's not time to pack away the sunscreen just yet.\n\nThe Weather Bureau is predicting up to 10 days of temperatures over 30 degrees, starting from last Sunday.\n\n\"Even thought we go by the calendar, the weather doesn't and so this week we've got probably the longest stretch of days over 30 that we've had all summer,\" Mount Gambier Weather Station manager Craig Marsh said.\n\nSkies are mostly clear over SA due to stable east to north-easterly winds. A change is expected next Tuesday.\n\nAcross the State it was a hot and dry summer, with rainfall widely below average. \n\nIn fact it was the driest summer since 1985-86, and it came on the back of the third driest spring on record for SA. \n\nJust 20.2mm of rain fell in Naracoorte over summer. \n\nCoonawarra recorded 26.2mm; the lowest summer rainfall in the 27 years it's been recorded, and just 31 per cent of the wine region's 85.4mm summer average. \n\nNaracoorte's average maximum temperature over summer was 29.2 degrees and minimum average 11.3 - the coldest nights on average in the State.\n\nThe town's coldest night was 2.1 degrees on December 10, while the highest temperature was 44.6 on January 4.\n\nThe average maximum for Coonawarrra was 28.2 degrees, and minimum 11.4. \n\nJanuary saw some extreme temperatures across the State, but the cooler days brought the average down to 29.6 for Naracoorte.\n\nFebruary was the hottest summer month, with consistent warmer days leading to an average of 30.3 degrees.\n\nTablet - Narrow\nTablet - Wide", "pred_label": "__label__1", "pred_score_pos": 0.5071889162063599}
+{"content": "RTP versus Reality Theory\nResponsible Thinking Process (RTP) ®\n\nUpcoming RTP\nTraining Conferences\n\nThree different training sessions\nSee details\n\nA Short Introduction\nto RTP and Ed Ford\nAbout RTP\nUsing RTP\nAbout RTC\n\n\nResponsible Thinking\nProcess ®, Inc.\n10209 North 56th St.\nScottsdale, AZ 85253\n(480) 991-4860\n\nEmail: Ed Ford\n\n\nThis website created and managed by Milburn Net.Works.\n\nWebmastering and website programming services.\n\nMilburn website\nEmail: Bob Milburn\n\n\nRTP versus Reality Theory\n\nBy W. Thomas Bourbon, Ph.D. Perceptual Control Theorist Rochelle, Texas\nWith extensive help from Caroline Bourbon Young and assistance from Tim Carey\n\nThe relationship of RTP and PCT to William Glasser's ideas have been misconstrued by some educators over a period of several years. I am pleased that this chapter sets the record straight with abundant documentary evidence. -Ed Ford\n\nIn his Responsible Thinking Process (RTP) for schools, Ed Ford tries to apply principles from a unique science of behavior, perceptual control theory (PCT), developed by William T. Powers. When they first hear about RTP, many people think that it is the same as one of the various school programs developed by William Glasser, and they think PCT is identical to some ideas that Glasser used to call Control Theory (CT). I believe that those people are wrong: RTP is unlike anything Glasser allows to occur in schools, and PCT is a formal science, whereas Glasser's ideas about his Control Theory are unscientific personal speculations.\n\nWhy are so many people confused about the relationships between Ford, Powers, and Glasser? Why do so many people think programs and ideas that are different from one another are identical? In this chapter, I explain similarities and differences between RTP and Glasser's various programs, and I briefly describe the history of interactions between Powers, Glasser, and Ford. After you read this chapter, you can decide for yourself whether Ford's RTP and Glasser's programs are the same, and whether the science of PCT is identical to Glasser's speculations.\n\nSome Initial Comparisons\n\nFord's RTP and Powers's PCT: In RTP, Ed Ford says that teachers are responsible for teaching their subjects, and for using simple questions and making referrals to the responsible thinking classroom (RTC) whenever students disrupt. Ford also says that students are responsible for not disturbing others unnecessarily, whether they are teachers engaged in instruction or other students engaged in studying and learning. A student who continues to disrupt is referred to the RTC to develop a plan for how he will avoid disrupting in situations like the one where he disrupted before. Adults and students are responsible for the consequences of their own actions, and not for the actions of any other person.\n\nWhen Ford designed RTP, he had in mind a specific mathematical theory of behavior: perceptual control theory, as developed by Powers and his colleagues beginning in the 1950s. Since 1981, Ford has worked to better understand PCT and to modify his clinical practices, bringing them into closer agreement with principles from the science. (Ford's RTP is not PCT; rather, RTP is his attempt to apply principles from PCT.) In PCT, Powers says a person decides that some of his own perceptions should be a certain way, and then he acts to make them be the way that he intends. The person's actions are understood to be the uncontrolled, or variable, means to a specific end: controlled perceptions. PCT scientists recognize that people do not always try to control the same perceptions-sometimes people control remarkably different perceptions. Furthermore, a person is often unaware of the details of her own actions that control her own perceptions, and she is often unaware that her actions disturb other people.\n\nFord's RTP is designed to help students and teachers control their own perceptions, in school, without unnecessarily disturbing other people. When one person does disturb someone else, perhaps unavoidably or unknowingly, RTP provides a way to deal with the disturbance in a way that minimizes conflict. In schools where RTP is used well, teachers and students are equally likely to say that their lives have changed for the better. The procedures in RTP, and some of the basic principles of PCT, are described in more detail throughout this book and in Discipline for Home and School, Book One.\n\nCause-effect theories of behavior: In nearly every theory of behavior other than PCT, a person's behavior is said to be the end result (effect) of previous events (causes). In cause-effect (C-E) theories, the prior causes of a person's actions are said to reside in places like the environment; or the person's family history and social history; or the person's mind; or brain chemistry; or genes. The list of possible locations for the alleged \"causes\" is almost endless. Most often, people who use C-E theories to design clinical or disciplinary interventions say that a person is not responsible for his actions or for their consequences. Instead, responsibility resides in the place that is alleged to cause the actions: in the environment; in the person's family history; in the person's brain chemistry; in the person's genes; in inherited \"drives\" or \"needs\"; and so on. Not surprisingly, applications of C-E principles in clinics and schools usually hold one person or group of people responsible for another person's actions and their consequences. For ex-ample, if a student, Sally, disrupts a school classroom, a teacher, Mr. Amos, is held accountable for Sally's disruption, under the idea that Mr. Amos had created an environment that caused Sally to disrupt. Had Mr. Amos created the proper environment, it would have caused Sally to be- have without disruption to others.\n\nIf the explanation of behavior in PCT science is correct, then all C-E theories of behavior are wrong. Behavior is not an end result or effect, caused by forces that operate elsewhere. Behavior is the variable means by which a person controls some of her own perceptions.\n\nGlasser's ideas about cause-effect: From the 1960s until now, William Glasser has created a series of programs for schools incorporating features from his Reality Therapy (RT). Glasser designed RT, and all of his school programs, around a traditional cause-effect theory that he used to call Control Theory but now calls Choice Theory (still CT). He says that a person chooses all of her behavior to satisfy a fixed number of inherited \"needs\" that all people have in common. The number of the alleged \"needs\" identified by Glasser has varied from two in 1965 to four or five (or maybe five or six) as I write this chapter in early 1999. But that is of little importance; no scientific evidence supports a claim that all people share any number of needs.\nGlasser's C-E theory of behavior leads to a natural conclusion that, if a student disrupts in school, the environment of the school was the cause. Had the adults in the school created an environment that met all of the student's needs, then she would not have disrupted. In other words, had Mr. Amos met all of Sally's needs, then she would not have disrupted his class. Glasser says that disruptions cease when a teacher \"does Choice Theory\" in the classroom. (Glasser often writes about \"doing\" Choice Theory. Whenever he does that, he fails to distinguish between his theory, which is supposed to be an explanation of facts, and its application, in the form of whatever is his current discipline program for schools.)\n\nI do not think Glasser intends for CT to include ideas of traditional cause-effect. In all of his writings, he says that his ideas are different from stimulus-response (S-R) theory, which is the most widely recognized version of C-E theory. But in spite of what Glasser says about S-R theory, in CT, his explanations of behavior clearly depend on principles of cause-effect that are identical to the ones used in S-R psychology. All Glasser has done is to move the alleged causes from the environment to somewhere inside the person, where a majority of contemporary psychologists and brain scientists have also moved them. Glasser says that behavior is internally motivated, but he also says that environmental conditions are responsible for behavior. Perhaps I am wrong, but it is my impression that Glasser's message to educators is that Sally's behavior is \"driven\" by her inborn \"needs,\" but when he fails to meet Sally's needs, Mr. Amos is responsible for her misbehavior, while Sally always controls her own \"total behavior.\" (Later in this chapter, I cite examples of the many places where Glasser says these contradictory things.) While Glasser says that Sally controls her own behavior, he also rejects the idea that she uses her behavior to control her own perceptions.\n\nYou tell me: I see significant differences between the ideas of Powers and Ford, on the one hand, and those of Glasser, on the other. Unlike me, many people think that there is no difference at all between Ed Ford's Responsible Thinking Process and William Glasser's Reality Therapy and Quality Schools. Many of the same people think that Bill Powers's perceptual control theory is identical to something that Glasser used to call Control Theory. In the rest of this chapter, I describe some of the differences between Powers's ideas and Glasser's, and between Ford's RTP and Glasser's programs. I also describe some of the ways in which Powers, Ford, and Glasser have interacted. After you read my accounts, you tell me whether Glasser's ideas are identical to Powers's and Ford's.\n\nA Simple Mental Exercise\n\nToo hot, too cold, just right: For a few minutes, forget about all of the things I discussed in the above paragraphs. Imagine that you are alone in a large room equipped with a thermostat and an air-conditioning system. If you think that the temperature of the room feels \"too hot\" or \"too cold,\" you will adjust the thermostat until the air conditioner changes the temperature, and the room feels \"just right\" to you. By the way, that is what PCT is all about: the ways that you use your actions to make your perceptions of something (in this case \"degree of coolness or warmth\") be just right for you.\n\nNow suppose that one other person joins you in the room. Will that person necessarily agree that the temperature feels \"just right?\" Not necessarily. What will happen if the two of you disagree? Keep that question in mind while you continue to read. We will return to it later.\n\nMission impossible: Now imagine that 100 people join you in the room. The thermostat is set to the temperature that felt \"just right\" to you when you were alone. How likely is it that the room will feel \"just right\" to all 100 people, simultaneously? Could you ever change the temperature of the room to make it feel \"just right\" to 100 people, simultaneously? Of course not. When the room feels \"just right\" to some people, it will simultaneously feel \"too hot\" or \"too cold\" to some other people. \"Too hot,\" \"too cold,\" and \"just right\" are not objective physical conditions of the room, on which we can all agree; they are perceptions in the minds of people in the room, and different people have different perceptions of the same physical condition.\n\nIn this example, we are considering a simple perception directly related to a physiological state that each of us controls. Each of us feels \"too hot,\" \"too cold,\" or \"just right,\" depending on the temperature of our skin, relative to the core temperature of our body. In humans, core temperature is controlled by a neural system in the brainstem, and the temperature of the air around us affects the temperature of our skin. Left to ourselves, each of us would create a different temperature of the room and declare that the condition that satisfies us individually is \"just right.\" There is no physical temperature that can satisfy all of us at the same time.\n\nNow imagine that you are told by a person who evaluates your performance that you must keep the 100 people in the room comfortable-all of them at the same time. If even one of the 100 people thinks the room is \"too hot\" or \"too cold,\" the evaluator says that you have failed as a professional person, and you will be penalized. Is that fair? If there are only 50 people in the room, is it fair? Does it matter if there are only 20 or 30 people?\n\nIs it possible for one person to alter the environment so as to make the perceptions of temperature be \"just right\" for all other people, simultaneously? Is it possible for one person to adjust any aspect of the environment so that it satisfies all other people, simultaneously? Is it reasonable to expect Mr. Amos to accomplish such an impossible task? Is it fair to tell him that he has \"failed\" and, as a consequence of his failure, he is responsible for the subsequent behavior of all of the other people, including Sally? You tell me.\n\nThe remainder of this chapter has four parts: first, a brief history of Powers's perceptual control theory, Glasser's Reality Therapy, and the relationship between them; second, a comparison of Powers's PCT and Glasser's Control Theory; third, a chronology of PCT, Ed Ford's work, and Glasser's Reality Therapy and Control Theory; and fourth, a comparison of RTP and Glasser's Quality Schools and Choice Theory.\n\n\nA Brief History of PCT and RT/CT\n\nPowers and PCT: Historically, William T. Powers and PCT come before both William Glasser and his ideas, and Ed Ford and his RTP. In the early 1950s, Powers made the brilliant observation that people act to control many, but not all, of their own perceptions. A person who controls her perceptions must act to affect parts of the world. From our vantage point outside the person, we see events and relationships and processes in her world that would otherwise vary, but that she controls, which is to say that she keeps them at some predetermined states or conditions. Many factors affect the temperature of the air in a room and cause it to vary. However, a person uses the thermostat to affect the air-conditioner, which keeps the air in the room at a temperature that feels \"just right\" to her, no matter what else, including other people, might cause the temperature of the air to change.\n\nA car hurtling along the road at high speed would soon end up in a ditch, or against a tree, or crashing into another car, except for the driver's actions. The driver keeps the car moving toward the destination he selects, along the route he selects, at the speed he selects, in the lane he selects, at his selected distance behind a car ahead. Think about all of the perceptions a driver controls while driving from one destination to another, and think about how different the events that we observers see in the world would be if the driver were not controlling those perceptions.\n\nTo explain how people control their perceptions, Powers developed control system theory (CST), which was the early name for what is now called perceptual control theory. The current name was adopted early in the 1990s to distinguish Powers's theory from many incorrect ideas that some people had begun to call \"control theory.\" Glasser's Control Theory (now called Choice Theory) is of those in-correct versions.\n\nIn a nutshell, Powers says that people do not plan or control their actions, which most behavioral scientists call their behavior. Instead, they act, in any way necessary, to eliminate, or prevent, differences between actual and in-tended perceptions. As observers, we see the person's actions, but we are often unaware of what the person is really doing; we are unaware of the perceptions that the person is controlling by way of the actions we see. (Much of Powers's earlier writing is available in two collections: Living Control Systems I (previously published papers), 1989; and Living Control Systems II (previously unpublished papers), 1992. Both books are available from Benchmark Publications, New Canaan, Connecticut.)\n\nIn 1973, more than 20 years after he began his work on PCT, Powers published a book, Behavior: The Control of Perception (BCP), and a companion article, \"Feedback: Be-yond Behaviorism,\" in the journal Science. (BCP was published by Aldine, in Chicago; it is currently available from Benchmark Publications.) In 1973, I read those two publications. Immediately, I saw that Powers had resolved many of the terrible fallacies I knew existed in traditional psychology. I became part of a small group of behavioral scientists working to develop PCT through behavioral research and computer modeling.\n\nPCT is a mathematical theory of behavior, and it is radically different from any major traditional theory in the behavioral, social, or cognitive sciences, or in the brain sciences and life sciences. At the core of PCT is a testable model of behavior, not just a system of ideas that Powers believes. When we do PCT science the way we should, any time we think that there is a way to change the theory to make it better, we test the change to see if it produces the expected results. If it does not, then we must reject the change, no matter how much we like it. We accept proposed changes to the basic PCT model only if they improve the way the model works.\n\nGlasser and RT/CT: William Glasser is a psychiatrist, an M.D. In 1965, he published a book in which he described his Reality Therapy. For many years, I taught about RT as one of many kinds of psychiatric therapy. I always thought that RT was more sensible and humane than many of the other therapies. It belongs in the group of therapies that are present-centered, rather than centered on events in the client's past. Present-centered therapists treat a client as an active agent, capable of changing the course of her own life.\n\nWilliam Glasser is a psychiatrist, not a research scientist, even though as a very young man he did study chemical engineering. Those are facts, not criticism. In the 1960s, Glasser had no scientific explanation for RT. Eventually, he discovered Powers's 1973 publications about CST. He asked Powers to explain CST to him, and he decided that CST explained RT. In 1981, Glasser published his book Stations of the Mind. It included a Foreword by Powers. In the book, Glasser introduced his own version of what he called Control Theory. It bore only slight resemblance to Powers's theory. In 1984, Glasser published a book called Control Theory. From then until 1996, Control Theory was prominent in most of his writings and in the name of his institute. During that time, Glasser claimed he had developed CT and improved it far beyond what Powers had done. Glasser's claim is not justified for scientific control theory. Glasser's misappropriation and misuse of Powers's name has led to decades of confusion in which many people innocently believed, because the names of Glasser's speculations and Powers's scientific theory were similar, that the sets of ideas were the same. That conclusion is absolutely incorrect.\n\nI think Glasser never realized that his Control Theory was merely a non-functional verbal statement of his own beliefs about behavior. Glasser's CT was not, in any way, a formal, testable, scientific theory of behavior. It was never intended to be such a theory. In fact, when we organize a formal model of behavior according to the principles that Glasser describes, the model cannot function in anything like the way Glasser believes it does. To the degree that Reality Therapy works in psychiatry and the Quality School program works in schools, they cannot work solely for the reasons that Glasser stated in his Control Theory. For example, as an aid to understanding how his CT explains therapy, Glasser, like PCT scientists, uses the example of a person driving a car. PCT scientists model the successful driver as a person who has learned which perceptions to control, by means of any actions that are necessary, but I believe Glasser would say that the driver is successful because she learned to select and control her behavior, so that she makes the \"real world\" match a \"picture in her mind.\" Which of the two explanations, Powers's PCT, or Glasser's CT, can tell us how a person successfully drives her car on a long trip, in spite of countless unexpected events that occur along the way? You tell me.\n\n\nA Comparison of PCT and CT/RT\n\nAbove, I summarized the history of PCT, and I described how William Glasser began to use a nonfunctional version of PCT to explain his popular and effective Reality Therapy. I also made a brief comparison between PCT and Glasser's ideas. Now I make a more detailed comparison between the ideas. Later I will show some implications of those differences, as they play out in Ford's and Glasser's approaches to working with students.\n\nThere have always been many issues to address when comparing Powers's and Glasser's ideas, but the task was made even more difficult in 1996, when Glasser decreed that, in all of his earlier writings where he had used the term Control Theory, readers were to substitute the term Choice Theory. In the present comparison, I quote from Glasser's Introduction to \"Programs, Policies & Procedures of the William Glasser Institute,\" distributed in September 1996. In doing so, I have honored Glasser's request and substituted Choice Theory for Control Theory. I apologize for any confusion caused by this, but it is as Glasser wants. Following quotes from Glasser, I contrast what he says with ideas in PCT.\n\n\nDefinitions of \"Behavior\"\n\nGlasser: \"Choice Theory attempts to explain both the psychological and physiological behavior of all living creatures. In Choice Theory, these two aspects of behavior are combined and called, Total Behavior.\"\n\"This theory maintains that all we do from birth to death is behave, and all of our behavior is Total Behavior. Total Behavior is made up of four components, acting, thinking, feeling and the physiology, which always accompanies the other three components.\"\n\nBourbon: There is nothing new to the idea that, in humans, processes like those Glasser identifies as thinking, acting, feeling, and physiology occur together. Even many die-hard radical behaviorists would agree with that idea. B. F. Skinner certainly said similar things. The familiar idea that many things are going on at the same time is not unique to Glasser's thinking.\n\nRemember, Glasser said that his CT is supposed to ex-plain the behavior of all living creatures. I cannot imagine what kind of evidence he might use to support the idea that slugs, bacteria, and amoebae always act, think, and feel, along with their physiology. This is not a trivial matter: either the terms that Glasser invokes are part of a scientific theory that explains the behavior of all living things, or they are not. Which is the case?\n\nPCT theorists intend for PCT to explain the behavior of all living things. In PCT, what most scientists call behavior is identified as the observed actions of a living thing. The actions are the means by which the living system controls its perceptions, however simple they might be, of the states of certain variables in the world. In PCT, we do not assume that every action is accompanied by subjective states of thinking and feeling. In the formal mathematical model for PCT, there are only \"signals\" that can vary in magnitude and \"functions\" that receive input signals and compute output signals. In the formal model, there is no necessity to assume that all perceptions reach \"conscious\" subjective awareness, although it is obvious that many human perceptions reach that level. In a bacterium like Escherichia coli, there are internal chemical \"signals\" proportional to the concentrations of various substances in the environment. It looks like E. coli acts to control the magnitudes of those signals, making some increase and others decrease. In PCT, we treat those chemical signals like perceptions, and we use the same basic model to explain how E. coli controls those simple perceptions as well as to explain how a person controls her subjective experiences of the loudness of a radio or the size of her bank account.\n\n\"Choice\" of Behavior\n\nGlasser: \"Choice Theory explains that all Total Behavior is chosen and all the choices are an ongoing attempt to change the real world so that it coincides with a small, simulated world that we build into our memory called the Quality World.\"\n\nBourbon: First, in PCT we recognize that living things do not choose their behavioral actions. Rather, they choose which perceptions should occur, then their actions vary in any ways necessary to create the selected perceptions, and to defend them against changes that might otherwise be produced by independent disturbances from the environment. We have demonstrated that a system that selects its actions in advance cannot possibly select and control any intended consequences of its actions. Consider a person driving a car. Can the driver select, before the fact of driving over a particular stretch of road, the specific movements of his hands and feet that will be needed to manipulate the steering wheel, the gas pedal, and other devices in the car? Of course not. It is impossible to drive that way, unless, of course, one is deliberately courting disaster. Instead, the driver decides in advance on which perceptions will occur -perceptions of the route, speed, acceptable proximity to other cars, and other aspects of the trip-and then acts as needed to create and defend those intended perceptions.\n\nSecond, an organism does not directly perceive \"the real world.\" All that an organism experiences directly are its own perceptions. PCT uses models that portray living systems as acting to control some of their own perceptions, often by acting on the external world. But an organism \"knows\" the world only as perceptions, not as something that is independent of perceptions and more real than they are. Among perceptual control theorists, a favorite saying used to summarize our ideas about behavior is \"It's all perception.\"\n\nThis brings us to a summary of some clear differences between Glasser's ideas and those in PCT. Glasser says that Alfredo selects his behaviors so as to make the real world match Alfredo's \"picture\" of what the real world should be. In PCT, we say that Alfredo acts, any way necessary as demanded by immediate circumstances, to make his perceptions of the world match the perceptions he intends. If Alfredo is to control his perceptions, he cannot select his actions; they must be free to vary. In the document from which I quoted, Glasser would require, first, that Alfredo know the world just as it is, and second, that Alfredo select in advance the actions that will make the real world match his pictures of an ideal world. PCT requires, first, that Alfredo decide which perceptions he will have of some part of the world, and then, if there is a discrepancy between what he intends to perceive and what he does perceive, he acts, in any way that is sufficient to eliminate the discrepancy. PCT does not require that Alfredo directly perceive the \"real world.\" Which assumption do you think is the most reasonable, Glasser's or Powers's?\n\n\n\nGlasser: The \"Quality World\" is built \"starting shortly after birth, from all we have perceived that feels very good. What feels very good is anything we do that satisfies, or in the case of addictions, seems to satisfy, one or more of five basic needs built into our genetic structure: survival, love, belonging, power, freedom and fun.\"\n\nBourbon: The subject of \"needs\" provides one of the clearest differences between scientific PCT and Glasser's personal opinions about behavior. The idea that organisms are born with a fixed set of \"needs,\" serving to motivate or energize their behavior, has a long, troublesome history in philosophy and psychology. Theorists have often claimed that needs are products of our nature, genes, anatomy, and physiology, or some other internal predisposing factor. They have claimed that we have needs numbering between one and many dozens. When they say there is one, it is usually called a \"need for survival.\" When there are dozens . . . I won't bother you with that. When there are five, they might be, or might not be, assigned the same names that Glasser uses. When it comes to \"needs,\" any guess is as good as any other. There is no scientific reason to choose one list of needs over any other list, or to rely on the idea of needs at all.\nFrom the beginnings of RT, Glasser has insisted that all people share the same needs, and that those needs motivate our behavior. Even many professional people who have broken away from Glasser over fundamental issues still cling fiercely to his idea of needs.\n\nIn contrast to Glasser and his followers, perceptual control theorists see no evidence for the presence or importance of a fixed set of needs. How do we resolve this disagreement? I know only one way out. One of my areas of specialization as a student and professor was the history of science, in particular, the history of psychology. Let me tell you just a little about the many different ways the idea of needs has been used in behavioral science. After you see what I say, you tell me if there is any scientific reason to accept any person's list of alleged \"needs.\"\n\nA short history of \"needs\" in behavioral science: The idea that people behave to satisfy certain needs became part of modern science largely through the work of Charles Darwin in the 19th century. Darwin used the ancient idea of \"instinct\" to explain animal behavior. He said behavior is one of the features by which \"natural selection\" determines which individuals live and which die. Darwin called instincts the internal driving and steering forces in animal behavior; he said that instincts motivate or energize behavior, and that they guide behavior in particular directions. Following Darwin's publications on evolution, the idea that instincts motivate and direct behavior became popular among psychologists. In 1892, the great American psychologist William James used instincts as part of his explanation of human behavior.\n\nIn 1908, William McDougall described 12 \"instincts\" that motivate and direct behavior. By 1932, he changed the list to between 14 and 18 \"propensities.\" (As you will see, the names and numbers of these alleged \"internal motivators\" change with the wind!) In 1915, Sigmund Freud wrote that internal instincts or \"drives\" are the main motivators of behavior. At first, Freud said that there are two groups of motivators, one for self-preservation and the other for sexual matters. Later, Freud said that there is only one internal influence, the libido; later still, he again said that there are two, the life instinct and the death instinct. (More of those easy changes.)\n\nIn 1922, Kurt Lewin said that behavior is internally motivated by a set of \"determining tendencies,\" but by 1928, they had become a set of \"needs,\" divided into \"biological needs\" and \"quasi [psychological?] needs.\" In 1932, P. T. Young wrote about 17 \"primary drives.\" In 1938, Henry A. Murray defined needs this way: \"A need is a construct (a convenient fiction or hypothetical concept) which stands for a force (the physico-chemical nature of which is unknown) in the brain region, a force which organizes perception, apperception, intellection, conation, and action in such a way as to transform in a certain direction an existing unsatisfactory situation. . . . each need is characteristically accompanied by a particular feeling or emotion . . .\" Murray listed approximately 40 needs: 13 he called \"viscerogenic\" (physiological?), and the remainder were called \"psychogenic.\" By 1951, Murray changed the term \"need\" to \"thematic disposition.\"\n\nAre you confused by now? I am. You see, once a scientist says that all behavior is energized and guided by a set of common internal causes shared by all people, there is no limit (upper or lower) on the number of causes the scientist can imagine, or on the names the scientist gives to them. It is all a matter of aesthetics, preferences, and personal biases. It is not a matter of science. By the time we reach Murray in our tour of history, there are shelves filled with research articles, graduate theses, and books on subjects like Freud's instincts (two, one, or a different two), Young's 17 primary drives, and Murray's 40 needs (and his later similar number of thematic dispositions). There is no scientific way to decide which of these alternatives is correct. Young was right when he said that none of these \"things\" exist, except as convenient fictions. Let's look quickly at a few more fictions.\n\nIn 1959, R. B. Cattell wrote about 16 \"ergs\" that energize and guide behavior. (Yes, there were research theses and dissertations on \"ergs.\") By 1953, David McClelland was doing extensive work with Murray's \"Thematic Apperception Test,\" which became a tool in research and clinical practice. McClelland first wrote about \"needs,\" then later called them \"expectations.\" The early version of the list included things like the needs for hunger, sex, aggression, fear, affiliation, power, achievement, deference, and on and on and on. The clinical and research literature on those \"needs\" is immense. They are all convenient fictions.\n\nIn the 1950s and 1960s, Abraham Maslow developed his immensely popular idea of \"self-actualization.\" Scientists and the general public loved it, even though, by Maslow's definition, Adolph Hitler and Joseph Stalin were highly self-actualized persons. As part of his thinking about self-actualization, Maslow created an arbitrary \"hierarchy of needs\": physiological needs, safety needs, esteem needs, and the self-actualization need. Practically everyone loved Maslow's fictions, and scientists and clinicians created another huge body of literature. Today, much of that literature sits neglected on library shelves, just like the literatures for all of the fictitious needs that came before. In 1959, K. B. Madsen wrote about 12 \"primary motives.\" You already know the rest of that story.\n\nIn 1965, William Glasser wrote Reality Therapy. In it, he described two \"needs\" that all people share. Later, he expanded his list of needs to five. In 1999, he seems to imply that there might be six needs; he calls \"love and belonging\" a single need, but he says that a person can be high on need for love and low on need for belonging, or the reverse. To me, it looks like he is describing two needs, not one, and that would make a total of six.\n\nTo see some recent examples of people who talk about needs, or similar alleged internal motivators, especially as those ideas are applied in schools, look at J. M. Jenkins, Transforming High Schools: A Constructivist Agenda (Technomic Publications, Lancaster, Pennsylvania, 1996). The discipline program in that book relies on \"control theory,\" but it is Glasser's Control Theory, which he now calls Choice Theory. On page 111, you will see the following: \"The behaviors that people choose are related to the satisfaction of one or more of the five basic needs. The behaviors they continue to choose are behaviors that in each person's mind reduces the disparity between what they want and what they have. The behaviors and their accompanying perceptions are specific and individual. In this context behavior actually controls perception (Glasser, 1981). Consequently, the key to controlling student behavior in school is to get them to behave differently so that their perception of school as a need-satisfying place changes.\" This source says that there are five needs. The author talks about \"the key to controlling student behavior in school.\" Does that sound \"just like RTP\" or \"exactly like PCT\"?\n\nAnother recent source on the importance of needs in the classroom is V. F. Jones and L. S. Jones, Comprehensive Classroom Management: Creating Positive Learning Environments for All Students, fourth edition (Allyn & Bacon, Needham Heights, Massachusetts, 1995). It includes material about Rudolf Dreikurs, Stanley Coopersmith, William Glasser, David Elkind, and Joan Lipsitz. The authors also advance their own set of needs that children allegedly bring to the classroom. Of course, the numbers and names of the needs described by all of those people are different. Such is the nature of convenient fictions.\n\nMy visits to schools began in 1995. I have encountered several discipline programs whose creators argue that there are more, or fewer, needs than Glasser claims, and the names of the needs are not always the same. The multiplicity of numbers and names for alleged needs reflects the individual preferences of the authors, rather than some-thing we all share because it is built into each of us by our common genetic heritage.\n\nThere is absolutely no scientific evidence to support William Glasser's claim that there are five (or is it six?) needs like the ones he proposes. His variable list of needs is a creation of his imagination. Please do not misunderstand me. It is not necessarily a bad thing in itself if Glasser imagines that several needs are important in human behavior, but it is bad that many people believe the list is scientifically validated, and that, consequently, it should govern their actions in their private lives or in schools. People who want to act on their own beliefs that Glasser's list of needs is important should do that, but they should not tell anyone else that the \"reality\" of the needs on the list is \"proven\" by scientific research.\n\nWilliam Glasser's needs are abstract words. I doubt that any project designed to identify the entire set of genes in a species, like the human genome project or the E. coli genome project, will locate a single gene, or a set of genes, for anything like a \"need for survival,\" much less for alleged needs like power, or freedom, or fun and belonging. This is one of several reasons that Glasser's \"theory\" cannot apply to all living things.\n\nIn PCT, we work with the idea of physiological \"needs,\" or physiological requirements, that are generally recognized in biological science, like the required concentrations of certain nutrients and gases in the blood, or the required temperature at the core of the brain. We treat those required physiological levels as reference perceptions, specified in systems that control the magnitudes of perceptual signals related to actual physiological conditions. In other words, we construct our model of \"physiological regulation\" (which biologists call \"homeostasis\") as an example of perceptual control. We also construct our models of more \"abstract\" or \"higher-level\" perceptions, like \"belonging\" or \"love,\" as examples of perceptual control, with people behaving to make the perceptions be the way they want them. The phenomenon of \"survival\" is probably something that simply happens as an unintended side effect, whenever an organism successfully controls all of the physiologically specified conditions. There is no convincing evidence that survival depends on an independent \"need,\" or \"instinct,\" or \"drive.\"\n\n\nInternal Motivation\n\nGlasser: \"Therefore, all behavior is internally motivated. This means that Choice Theory is diametrically opposed to the traditional, externally motivated, common sense psychology of the world, Stimulus-Response (S-R) Theory. Since our motivation is completely intrinsic, the only behavior we can control is our own.\"\nBourbon: The idea that behavior is internally motivated runs as one of two uninterrupted and competing themes through the entire history of philosophy, from ancient to modern. The other theme asserts that the environment controls behavior.\n\nThe concept of internal motivation is central to nearly all cognitive theories, neurological theories, and neuro-cognitive theories. That concept, alone, is inadequate to explain behavior, for reasons I explained earlier. People do not control their actions. They control their perceptions. To do that, they allow their actions to vary, in any ways that are necessary, given the varying conditions of the world.\n\nIn all of his writings, William Glasser contrasts his ideas with \"S-R theory.\" The issue is much bigger than that. All theories that explain behavior as the end product in a chain of causality are properly called cause-effect (C-E) theories. In all C-E theories, some antecedent cause, whether in the environment or inside the individual, causes behavior, as the end of the causal chain. No C-E theory can explain how a person controls perceptions by affecting events in the world. Only a properly designed circular-causal model, like the model in PCT, can explain the phenomenon of perceptual control.\n\nI Believe That Glasser Either Misunderstood or Did Not Appreciate What Powers Taught Him\n\nGlasser: \"For many years, I used the term Control Theory for what I am now calling Choice Theory. Even though I had always believed that we are intrinsically motivated, I learned from an exponent, William Powers, a theoretician, that there is an actual theory of this motivation called Control Theory. In order for Control Theory to work for me as a practicing psychiatrist, psychotherapist and educator, I made many changes in what Powers taught me.\" Glasser's changes include the development of his five needs; the ideas of Total Behavior and The Quality World; deletion of Powers's idea that there are multiple levels of perception (replaced by Glasser with \"the much more usable perceptual filters-the Total Knowledge Filter and the Valuing Filter\"); and so on. \"Finally, I replaced the concept of reorganization with creativity, because reorganization implies changing around what is already there. Creativity often means changing what is there to something totally new and more effective; for example, that the earth is round, not flat.\"\n\nBourbon: In this passage, I believe Glasser reveals that he did not understand when Powers explained control theory to him. What is more, I believe Glasser reveals his approach to building a \"theory\" of behavior as making changes that he likes aesthetically-he changed control theory to match his preferences for the way it sounded. Apparently, he did not care, or perhaps did not understand, that perceptual control theory is a formal theory that makes specific quantitative predictions about what will happen in certain circumstances. When we do our work the right way, those of us who recognize PCT as a scientific theory make changes only if they improve the predictive power of the theory, never simply because they make PCT sound nicer. Changes like those Glasser made render the theory useless for scientific work. I have no idea what Glasser means in his passage about how he improved on the idea of \"reorganization,\" which is a process that we hypothesize in PCT to explain many kinds of learning.\n\nI believe that Glasser misunderstood, or did not appreciate, what Powers taught him. I believe the evidence for this claim has been clear for many years. In May 1987, six years after he published Stations of the Mind, Glasser said in an interview published in Phi Delta Kappan: \"In the course of my research, I came across a book, Behavior: The Control of Perception, written by William T. Powers and published by Aldine Press in 1973. I found the book obscure and difficult to understand, but Powers was one of the first to give the concepts of control theory (which, at that time, were engineering concepts) a biological application. Working a little bit with Powers and a great deal on my own, I refined those ideas and applied them to human behavior\" (page 658).\n\nI accept Glasser's remark that he personally found BCP difficult to understand; evidence to support that claim is abundant in his writings. However, Glasser's characterization of the subject of Powers's book is patently false. From his earliest papers in the 1950s, through BCP in 1973, to the present, there is no doubt whatsoever that Powers wrote about human behavior. The day in 1973 when I read Powers's article in Science, I knew immediately that he had invented an original psychology to explain the behavior and actions of all living things, which obviously includes people. Glasser's claim that Powers only applied control theory to biology, and that he, Glasser, applied it to humans, at the very least reflects Glasser's failure to understand what he read and heard from Powers.\n\n\nGlasser Dissociates from PCT\n\nFor anyone who questions my belief that Glasser does not fully understand how people act to control their perceptions, or how scientific control theory differs from his personal speculations, I offer the following evidence.\nGlasser: \"Considering that I have always taught that we choose all that we do, I decided in the spring of 1996 to call what I teach Choice Theory. I never liked the name, Control Theory, because it has implied external control. Also, since Powers and I teach so differently, I thought it misleading for me to continue to call what I teach Control Theory. Since I cannot remove the words Control Theory from all I have written, I ask you to read these words as Choice Theory. Everything else I have written that describes or explains this theory is still completely accurate. Changing the name makes it even more so.\"\n\nBourbon: Glasser repeats his claim that we choose \"all that we do,\" which, by his definition, means we choose our behavior. He says that, in spite of the new name for his theory, everything he has ever written on the subject of how we choose our behavior is \"still completely accurate.\" I think Glasser should have said that everything he wrote on that subject is still as accurate as it ever was. The scale of accuracy runs from \"not at all\" to \"perfect.\"\nI believe Glasser reveals a mistaken notion that perceptual control theory is like his Control Theory, in the sense that both are things that people can simply decide to teach, or not. For Glasser to renounce PCT is like an aerospace engineer saying that the physical laws of motion are just ideas that physicists teach, and she has decided to teach something different, something that she also uses when she designs airplanes. I would not want to fly in one of her planes.\n\nAgain, I think that Glasser's Reality Therapy is more humane and respectful of the client than many other psychiatric therapies. I believe that Glasser could have made RT even more effective, had he modified parts of it that are inconsistent with PCT. Glasser had many opportunities to make such changes, but instead he made wholesale changes to create his Control Theory, then finally changed the name and said that he renounced any association with PCT. One result of Glasser's actions has been decades of confusion, when people discovered his non-scientific CT and innocently believed it to be a scientific theory. Many people still think Glasser's Choice Theory is perceptual control theory. It is not.\n\nChronology of Powers's PCT, Ford's Work, and Glasser's RT/CT\n\n\nWilliam T. Powers and two colleagues began to develop control systems theory, which was later renamed perceptual control theory.\n\nHere is some information to help you decide on my suitability to write about the subjects in this chapter. I began my undergraduate studies in 1957 as a physics major who took a psychology course. Later I changed my major to history, then to psychology. In 1966, I finished my Ph.D. in physiological psychology and human perception. For at least a year after that, I occasionally had a dream in which I heard a knock on the door and awoke in the dream to see the committee of professors from my dissertation examination. They said that they had to take my degree back be-cause \"no one should have a degree for knowing that.\" I am no Freudian, but the meaning of the dream is clear: I thought my degree was not worth having. In spite of the dream, I spent the next seven years using and teaching ideas from \"scientific\" psychology that I thought were deeply flawed.\n\n\nWilliam Glasser published Reality Therapy (Harper & Row, New York). In it, he said, \"Psychiatry must be concerned with two basic psychological needs: the need to love and be loved and the need to feel that we are worthwhile to ourselves and to others\" (pages 9-10).\n\n\nWilliam Glasser published Schools Without Failure. The book contains the basic elements of what Glasser eventually called his \"10 Steps to Good Discipline.\" He still said that there are two basic needs.\nEd Ford began to work with Glasser. Ford learned, taught, and applied many of the ideas described in Glasser's books; he was a therapist in RT and became a trainer for RT.\n\n\nPowers published a book, Behavior: The Control of Perception, and a Science article, \"Feedback: Beyond Behaviorism.\" (Research and publications on PCT continue to the present, but I won't include any more citations of that work here.)\nI read both of Powers's publications, and my life has not been the same since then.\n\n\nGlasser published an article, \"New Look at Discipline,\" in Learning: The Magazine for Creative Teaching. In it, he further developed his \"10 Steps.\"\n\n\nGlasser published an article, \"10 Steps to Good Discipline,\" in Today's Education: The Journal of the National Education Association. In it, he further refined his \"10 Steps.\"\nEd Ford and Steven Englund published For the Love of Children: A Realistic Approach to Raising Your Child (Anchor Press/Doubleday). In it, they acknowledged their debts to William Glasser. They relied heavily on techniques from Glasser's Reality Therapy. Scattered through the book are ideas similar to those in Glasser's \"10 Steps.\" Ford and Englund wrote about two basic needs, love and worth.\n\n\nI have heard that this was the year when someone gave Glasser a copy of Powers's Behavior: The Control of Perception, published seven years earlier. Before long, Glasser invited Powers to visit him to explain control theory. Earlier in this chapter, I discussed some of what ensued.\n\nWilliam Glasser's wife Naomi published an edited book, What Are You Doing? Case Histories in Reality Therapy (Harper & Row, New York), to which Ed Ford contributed two chapters.\n\n\nWilliam Glasser published Stations of the Mind. (Powers wrote the Foreword.) In this book, Glasser began to add his own arbitrary and non-scientific revisions to control theory. Glasser is a medical doctor, but he tried to ground Reality Therapy and his version of control theory on ideas from pop neurology, as when he said that the five basic needs are located in the frontal lobes of the cerebral hemispheres. Even if we were to grant Glasser the existence of his five basic needs, claims like his about the frontal lobes are completely unverifiable.\n\nEd Ford was trained as a social worker. He is not a scientist, but in 1981 he began to suspect that there was more to control theory than Glasser said. Ed began to doubt that Glasser's interpretation of control theory was accurate, and he began to communicate with Powers. That was when I first heard of Ed.\n\n\nI organized the first meeting of people interested in Powers's control theory. Ed Ford was there. That gathering eventually led to the formation of the Control Systems Group (CSG).\nEd Ford taught and used ideas found in Glasser's Schools Without Failure, but Glasser began to move away from, or modify, some of those ideas. Based on his major publications, it appears to me that Glasser had already abandoned his own \"10 Steps to Good Discipline.\"\n\n\nGlasser published Control Theory: A New Explanation of How We Control Our Lives (originally titled Take Effective Control of Your Life). In it, he repeated his idea that everyone shares the same basic needs, determined by our genes (pages 5 and 9). He discussed four \"psychological\" needs: a need to belong, a need for power, a need for freedom, and a need for fun. After he gave his standard description of the needs, Glasser wrote the following: \"It is not important to the thesis of this book that I establish with any certainty what the basic needs are that drive us. To gain effective control of our lives, we have to satisfy what we believe is basic to us and learn to respect and not frustrate others in fulfilling what is basic to them. All you will ever know is what drives you, just as I will know only what drives me. We cannot look into other people's heads and see what drives them. We can listen to what they tell us and look at what they do, but we should not make the mistake of assuming we know what drives them. This means that we can never be sure of satisfying anyone else no matter what we do. It is reasonably safe, however, to assume that what drives us is similar to what drives other people, so there is no harm in trying to satisfy another person. But if what we do does not work, we should not persist or we run the risk of losing that person for a friend or lover\" (page 16).\n\nTo me, that paragraph is remarkable, in the light of all that Glasser wrote in the years that followed. In it, he came close to adopting a position like that in perceptual control theory: he acknowledged that no one can know with certainty what \"drives\" another person, and that when we satisfy ourselves, we should not frustrate others who are fulfilling themselves. So close! Of course, in PCT, we do not talk about something inside a person that \"drives\" his behavior. Glasser came close, but he immediately \"bounced off\" when he insisted that, even though we can never be sure of satisfying another person no matter what we do, we should go ahead and try, because they are probably like us anyway. If only he had stopped while he was ahead!\n\nIn the paragraph, Glasser seems to say that every person is driven by his or her own set of needs, which implies that the number of needs, and their names, can vary from person to person. In light of that claim, how could it be that, to the day in 1999 when I am writing this, Glasser and his followers still insist that we all share the same five genetically determined needs, and that those needs drive our behavior? To this day, when they talk about teachers in the classroom, Glasser, present associates, and many of his former associates say that teachers must meet all of the needs of all of their students, simultaneously. Does it sound \"exactly like RTP\" to say that \"we can never be sure of satisfying anyone else no matter what we do,\" and then to go on and assign precisely that impossible task to all teachers, in all classrooms?\n\nIn this book, written in 1984, the \"10 Steps\" are gone. All that remains of them is a little material about how children must learn rules and about how to get them to make plans when they have broken the rules.\n\nGlasser said, \"The purpose of this book is to help in-crease our knowledge by attempting to teach the control theory through which we attempt to satisfy our needs\" (page 18). That is a strange goal. Imagine that someone told you he wanted to teach you the gravitational theory through which you go to the refrigerator to take out the things you will eat for lunch. This is one of many times when Glasser has talked about a theory as something you do in your daily life, rather than as an organized attempt to explain what you do. He said you do something called Control Theory, rather than that control theory explains what you do. That confusion runs through all of Glasser's writings.\n\n\nGlasser published Control Theory in the Classroom. In it, his presentation of control theory continued to deteriorate. He emphasized the importance of the basic needs and said that \"control theory explains that all of our behavior is always our best attempt at the time to satisfy at least five powerful forces which, because they are built into our genetic structure, are called basic needs\" (page 14). I have given a critique of that idea above.\n\nGlasser began to describe teachers as managers, in the sense of managers in business and industry. He said that, as managers, teachers are responsible for the happiness of every child in their classes. If the teacher has identified which needs are not met for each child, and if the teacher arranges the classroom so that all of those needs are met for all of the children, then the classroom will be perfect, and there will be no need for discipline. It is obvious that Glasser was moving to the idea that teachers are accountable for everything that happens in classrooms, an idea that ironically places Glasser in perfect agreement with all behavior-management programs that rely on theoretical ideas from operant conditioning and S-R theory.\n\n\nEd Ford published the book Love Guaranteed (Harper & Row, San Francisco). In it, he demonstrated the results of his attempts to understand PCT and to incorporate principles from PCT in his counseling practice.\n\nBy this time, some differences between Ford and Glasser were very clear. Glasser continued to modify his non- scientific version of control theory to his own aesthetic ends; in contrast, Ford labored to better understand PCT and to modify his own practice accordingly. Ford continued to use many valuable clinical techniques he learned from Glasser, but he understood that those techniques provided him a way to interact with people as living perceptual control systems, whose actions vary any way necessary to control their own perceptions. Glasser moved further into the idea that people are need-driven, and that they plan and select their behavior.\n\n\nEd Ford published Freedom from Stress (Brandt Publishing). In it, he gave evidence of further developments in his understanding of PCT as it applied to his counseling practice. By this time, I was using Ford's two books about PCT and counseling in my experimental psychology classes at the university. I had students read one of the books at the start of the semester, as a \"teaser.\" Ed's writing style is conversational and non-threatening. Most of my students, both graduate and undergraduate, \"took the bait.\" They liked the practical techniques Ed described, and they got a small dose of PCT. During the remainder of the semester, I would always refer back to Ed's clinical examples while I led my students through the technical details of scientific PCT, including experiments and exercises in computer modeling. Years later, more of my former students remember and use ideas from Ed Ford's books than re-member the technical details I worked so hard to get across to them!\n\n\nWilliam Glasser published The Quality School: Managing Students Without Coercion. The title reveals that Glasser had moved even further from anything that resembles scientific control theory, toward the idea that teachers are managers, like those in business and industry. Glasser had discovered and become enthralled with the work on management by W. Edwards Deming. Even more than in his book Control Theory in the Classroom, Glasser laid the responsibility squarely on teachers to identify and to meet the needs of all students in their classrooms. I will say more about his specific suggestions for discipline below.\n\n\nWilliam Glasser published The Quality School Teacher. Scientifically, his presentation of control theory deteriorated even further. He said, \"Control theory explains that we will work hard for those we care for (belonging), for those we respect and who respect us (power), for those with whom we laugh (fun), for those who allow us to think and act for ourselves (freedom), and for those who help us make our lives secure (survival)\" (page 30). I see no reason at all why some of the relationships Glasser described in that passage should be labeled with the particular names he selected. From the perspective of PCT, the ideas in the passage are arbitrary assertions and do not represent what we know about people, viewed as living perceptual control systems.\n\nGlasser said very little about discipline in this book. Problems are supposed to disappear from schools when teachers recognize and meet all needs for all students.\n\n\nEd Ford started his Responsible Thinking Process (RTP) at Clarendon and Solano Schools in Phoenix. He tried to use principles from PCT to guide his development of RTP, and he used ideas from PCT to interpret its effects. It is clear that many features of RTP are similar to Glasser's earlier \"10 Steps to Good Discipline.\" That is no surprise, given Ford's long association with Reality Therapy during the years when Glasser taught and used the \"10 Steps.\" However, the distribution of responsibility and accountability in Ed Ford's process differs sharply from that in William Glasser's current program of Quality Schools and Choice Theory, and, viewed as a total program, RTP is not identical to Glasser's \"10 Steps.\" Some of the questions are the same, but the total \"packages\" in which they are used, and the ways their roles are understood by their developers, are not at all alike. (I say more about that later.) What is more, by the early 1980s, Glasser had abandoned the \"10 Steps,\" and in 1996, he renounced them altogether. In effect, Ed Ford revived an impressive discipline process that had been abandoned by Glasser, and he made it even more effective.\n\nFord published Discipline for Home and School (Brandt Publishing) to describe RTP and its effects at Clarendon School. Bill Powers wrote the Foreword. In the book, Ford described RTP as \"Teaching children to respect the rights of others through responsible thinking based on perceptual control theory.\"\n\n\nNews about RTP spread, and Ford began to teach people at schools in several states how to use it.\n\n\nIn January, representing the scientific side of PCT, I traveled to Arizona to observe schools that used RTP. I looked specifically for evidence that RTP actually produced positive changes in schools, and that RTP had anything to do with PCT. I was satisfied on both counts. I obtained a grant to visit schools that use RTP and to study RTP's effectiveness. Under the grant, I also work with Ed Ford to improve the process and to introduce as much of PCT into RTP as is practicable.\n\nDrawing on information gathered during visits to schools with me, Ford published the first edition of Discipline for Home and School, Book Two (Brandt Publishing). In this book, Ford described features of RTP that were found in every school where the process was working very well. He also described practices that led to RTP not working in some schools.\nUsing ideas from Book Two as his criteria, Ed Ford began to certify schools that used RTP effectively. He also began to certify administrators and teachers directly responsible for RTP in successful schools.\n\nWilliam Glasser visited Australia and discovered that many people in schools there were not using his Quality School program the way he intended. In a flurry of letters, newsletters, and policy statements, he formally renounced all discipline programs, including his own \"10 Steps to Good Discipline\" that he had stopped using by the early 1980s. He renounced all associations between his own work and Powers's PCT, and he renamed his own theory Choice Theory. Glasser said that whenever you read something that he wrote earlier, you should read the words \"Control Theory\" as \"Choice Theory.\" Glasser established a new institute, named after himself. He required that anyone who wanted to become a member must renounce all discipline programs and all ties to PCT. Earlier in this chapter, I described other changes that Glasser initiated in his program in 1996.\nIn the Winter 1996 issue of The William Glasser Institute Newsletter, Glasser announced that he was working on a new book, Choice Theory: A New Psychology for a New Century.\n\n\nMore than 40 schools, in at least nine states, used RTP. During the summer, Ed Ford conducted workshops on RTP in Australia and presented information about RTP at conferences around the United States. He hosted his second annual workshop on RTP in Phoenix. Many people who attended the workshop also attended the annual meeting of the Control Systems Group in Durango, Colorado.\n\nFord published a greatly expanded second edition of his book, Discipline for Home and School, Book One (Brandt Publishing). It included numerous revisions, as well as several new chapters written by people who had used RTP successfully at their schools.\n\nSeveral people who were associated with William Glasser for many years, including some whose work was individually rejected by him in 1996, declined his invitation to join the new William Glasser Institute. Instead, they formed the International Association for Applied Control Theory (IAACT). At the start, it was not clear how IAACT would define \"control theory.\"\n\nThe Australian Reality Therapy Newsletter 9(1), 1997, included \"A Message From Dr. William Glasser, To All Faculty, The Quality School Consortium Board and All Members of the Consortium.\" Here, Glasser repeated a now-frequent lament: \"I deeply regret ever using my own reality therapy ideas to create the 'ten steps of discipline.' It was an honest mistake\" (page 5). A few lines later, he said, \"I have not taught or supported that program for over ten years, well before I created The Quality School\" (page 5). The newsletter was published in 1997, and The Quality School was published in 1990. The most recent reference I can locate for a publication by Glasser specifically about his \"10 Steps to Good Discipline\" is from 1977. I conclude that he stopped advocating and developing the \"10 Steps\" at about the time that he encountered Powers's control theory. He has not published anything about the \"10 Steps\" for 20 years, at least not in any easily located source, and certainly not in any of his highly popular books. Anyone who thinks the program of \"10 Steps\" is still \"Glasser's program\" is mistaken; from Glasser's perspective in 1997, the \"10 Steps\" program is an unwelcome artifact from a distant past.\n\nThe April 1997 Phi Delta Kappan included \"A New Look at School Failure and School Success\" by William Glasser. In the article, Glasser described how difficult it was for people in schools to change from stimulus-response (S-R) practices to the practices he advocated for his Quality Schools. He wrote about how easy it was for people to cling to, or lapse back into, manipulative and punitive practices. On that topic, Glasser and Ford agree perfectly, although Ford now recognizes that the problem in many schools springs from traditional cause-effect practices, of which S-R practices are only a subset. (Nearly all so-called cognitive and neurological practices are also grounded in a cause-effect theory of behavior.) It is obvious that staff members who punish students create problems in many schools, and it is difficult for many of those people to give up their punitive techniques.\n\nGlasser wrote that, in schools where people abandoned punitive manipulations and initiated positive, supportive interactions with students, learning improved and discipline problems declined. According to Glasser, students in those schools said that teachers cared about them. Again, I believe Ford would agree completely with that idea. When adults listen to children and politely ask them about what they are doing, the children often begin to believe that the adults care about them.\n\nIf Glasser's ideas, as reported in the Phi Delta Kappan article, and Ed Ford's ideas, as presented in his books, are close together on the issues I just described, then does that mean Ford's ideas are the same as Glasser's? No. The reason for my answer is simple. In the Phi Delta Kappan article, Glasser repeated the claim he has made for decades: \"Choice theory teaches that we are all driven by four psychological needs that are embedded in our genes: the need to belong, the need for power, the need for freedom, and the need for fun\" (page 599). Glasser clung firmly to his arbitrary needs. He also retained his idea that teachers must change the environment, specifically their own behavior, to meet students' needs: \"In school, if he senses that Janet (the teacher) is now caring, listening, encouraging, and laughing, John (the student) will begin to consider putting her into his quality world\" (page 600). It looks like Glasser is saying that the teacher must make the student sense her attitudes and emotions, so that perhaps the student \"will begin to consider\" changing himself. Ford recognizes the impossibility of such demands on teachers.\n\nI do not claim that Glasser's program for quality schools is ineffective, or that it does not work. If the data Glasser reported in the Phi Delta Kappan are correct, then something positive happened in the two schools he described. I do contend that any positive changes that occurred were not caused when teachers met the needs that Glasser insists drive our behavior.\n\n\nFord continued to teach his program at schools throughout the United States, in Australia, and in Singapore. He began work on a revised and expanded edition of Discipline for Home and School, Book Two.\n\nThe William Glasser Institute flourished. At its site on the World Wide Web, the Institute posted a description of Choice Theory that included Glasser's assertions \"that all we do is behaving, that almost all behavior is chosen, and that we are driven by our genes to satisfy five basic needs.\" He stated that his CT \"is offered to replace external control theory,\" his label for S-R theory. In a section of the web site titled \"The Ten Axioms of Choice Theory,\" Glasser repeated some of the claims I just described and asserted that we have direct control over how we act and think. Does the material I have quoted from Glasser's web site seem to indicate that he has modified his personal beliefs in cause-effect to make them more compatible with PCT science? Are Glasser's assertions the same as PCT? You tell me.\nGlasser published Choice Theory: A New Psychology of Personal Freedom (HarperCollins, New York). In it, he repeated the list of five basic needs and the \"ten axioms\" that I described from his web site (pages 332-336). He said, \"The strength of each need is fixed at birth and does not change\" (page 91). Glasser calls for extensive changes in curriculum and instructional practices and says that, when they are accomplished, there will be no discipline problems in schools.\n\nThere will be occasional disciplinary incidents, but when they occur, teachers should use Reality Therapy to counsel students (pages 269). There were no fundamental changes in Glasser's program. He still said that teachers must create an environment that meets all of the students' alleged needs (those wonderfully convenient fictions). If a child disrupts, the teacher is responsible, and the teacher must do extra work to make things right. In Quality Schools, teachers do not expect children to change.\n\nIn this book, Glasser said some things about needs that seem at odds with what he said in earlier publications. For example, he said, \"Even though we do not know what these needs are and may never know them to the extent I explain in this chapter, we start to struggle to satisfy them as soon as we draw our first breath\" (page 28). He also said, \"Most of us know nothing about our basic needs. What we know is how we feel . . .\" (page 45). Those statements seem to contradict what Glasser wrote in 1984: \"All you will ever know is what drives you, just as I will know only what drives me.\"\nOnce again, Glasser laments that he created the \"10 Steps\" that he abandoned long ago. He said, \"For years, schools all over the country have been buying discipline programs that promise to get students in order in a coercive system. . . . I developed one myself in the 1970s, the Ten-Step Discipline Program based on reality therapy, and unfortunately it is still in use\" (page 269).\n\nIn Chapter 5, \"Compatibility, Personality, and the Strength of Needs,\" Glasser repeated some ideas from another recent book by him, Staying Together, where he said a person should select a mate by looking for a person with a \"needs profile\" like his or her own. Allegedly, the needs profile assesses the relative strengths of the five basic needs. One of the alleged needs is \"need for love and belonging.\" However, Glasser said in Choice Theory that a person might be high in need for love, but low in need for belonging, or the reverse (page 104). To me, he seemed to say that these are really two different needs, which would mean that there are six basic needs, not five. From time to time, Glasser has changed the number of needs on his list, and their names, exactly the way other mainstream behavioral scientists change their lists.\n\nAlso in Chapter 5, Glasser asserted that a therapist can predict the needs profiles of people in various psychiatric diagnostic categories. Forget for a moment that the manual of psychiatric diagnostic categories changes every few years, often for reasons that are entirely political. Right now, I urge you to remember my earlier comments about the questionable history of \"needs\" in philosophy and psychology, and about the idea that needs are convenient fictions.\n\nThe fictions created by people like Murray and Maslow were adopted more widely than those advocated by Glasser, and they were the objects of much more research than will ever be directed toward the needs on Glasser's list. Convenient fictions are not necessarily bad. In some situations, they can be very useful, but it is a serious mistake to believe that a particular set of needs has been \"scientifically proved\" to be real.\n\nThe IAACT met in Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada. Any doubts about how the IAACT would interpret control theory were resolved when the group unveiled a logo containing native Canadian symbols for each of \"the five basic needs\"-Glasser's five basic needs. The IAACT web site also declared \"all behavior is purposeful and is intended to meet one of our five Basic Human Needs\"; the familiar list followed. Members of the IAACT made the momentous decision to break away from Glasser's organization, but, as of this writing, they have not abandoned the convenient fiction of his five basic needs.\n\n\nIt is late on an April evening in 1999. In a few minutes I will use e-mail to send the final revisions of this chapter to the editor. To check on the validity of my comparisons in this chapter, I just \"visited\" the web sites for the William Glasser Institute, the International Association for Applied Control Theory, and the Responsible Thinking Process. This is what I found at each web site.\n\nAt the site for the William Glasser Institute, under a section labeled \"What We Stand For,\" there is a subsection titled \"What Is Choice Theory.\" There, I found the following statement: \"CHOICE THEORY is the basis for all programs taught by the Institute. It states that all we do is behave, that almost all behavior is chosen, and that we are driven by our genes to satisfy five basic needs: survival, love and belonging, power, freedom and fun.\"\nAt the site for the International Association for Applied Control Theory, I found the following statement on the first page: \"Control Theory is the theory of human motivation and behavior based on the belief that we are internally motivated. That all behavior is purposeful and intended to meet one of our five Basic Human Needs; Belonging, Power, Freedom, Fun, & Survival.\"\n\nAt the site for the Responsible Thinking Process, I found the following statement on the first page: \"Responsible Thinking Process (RTP)[:] A school discipline process that trains educators how to teach students to take responsibility for themselves by learning to think on their own, to respect the rights of others, to make effective plans, and to build self-confidence. The process is based on perceptual control theory (PCT).\"\nDo the program-defining statements on those three web sites look \"exactly the same?\" You tell me.\n\nSummary of My Conclusions Based on the Chronology\n\nThere is no doubt whatsoever that William Glasser's work in schools reflects an understanding of what people are, and how they function, that is different from the understanding in Ed Ford's Responsible Thinking Process. On the one hand, Glasser says that people select and control their behavior so as to satisfy a number of genetically programmed needs. He also says that teachers are responsible for meeting the needs of all children in their classrooms; if the teachers do that, then there will be no problems and no need for discipline. Glasser never tried to modify his practices to match the principles of perceptual control theory; instead, he tried to change control theory to match his practices. Recently, Glasser renounced all ties with perceptual control theory.\n\nOn the other hand, Ed Ford has become increasingly involved in the Control Systems Group, comprising people who study and develop perceptual control theory. Even though he is not a scientist, Ford has worked to understand the formal theory and the behavioral model from PCT. (I know about his efforts firsthand from the many hours he spent talking to me on the phone, and into the early morning hours at CSG meetings.) Each time Ed thought that his understanding had improved, he wrote another book about the implications and applications of PCT in counseling and daily life. He adapted his practices to changes in his understanding of PCT, rather than the other way around. All the while, he continued to use many procedures he had learned as a member of Glasser's organization, including some questions and strategies from Reality Therapy, and elements of the \"10 Steps to Good Discipline.\" However, he continuously modified his use of those techniques to bring them in line with his growing knowledge of PCT.\n\nFor example, Ed Ford recognizes that people always act to control how they perceive some parts of the world, and that to do so, their actions must vary to counteract in-evitable disturbances that come from the world. When people share an environment, sooner or later, one of them will disturb someone else, either accidentally or deliberately. When that happens, a conflict might ensue. Ed's program tries to help children, and adults, learn how to control their own perceptions without unduly disturbing one another, and to help them learn how to resolve any conflicts that occur, when they inevitably do disturb one another.\n\nThe differences between Ford's and Glasser's understandings of people are reflected, directly, in what happens in schools that use their ideas, a topic I discuss next.\n\n\nA Comparison of Certain Features from Ed Ford's Responsible Thinking Process and William Glasser's Quality Schools and Choice Theory\n\n\nWhy Do People Behave?\n\nI have described differences between the explanations of human behavior promoted by William Glasser and those of perceptual control theorists. Those two explanations lead to profoundly different implications for what happens in classrooms. The differences are so great that they offer a classic example of just how important it is for us to examine the theories behind our practices.\n\nContemporary social scientists often dismiss theories as mere guesses, or as arbitrary declarations of personal bias. That is not true of scientific theories. Far from being a mere guess or a biased statement, a scientific theory is a summary of what we think we know about a subject-a summary expressed in a way that allows us to experimentally test the legitimacy of our ideas. Perceptual control theory is that kind of testable scientific theory. William Glasser's ideas are not. I do not say that in a derogatory sense. It is simply a fact that Glasser's \"theories\" can be characterized as guesses, or as declarations of personal preference, but not as testable scientific theories.\n\nIn his newsletters, Glasser has said that his basic program for schools is the one first described in The Quality School, so we must look there to see what Glasser believes should be happening in schools. Remember that Glasser says every time you read the words \"control theory,\" you should re-place them with \"Choice Theory.\"\n\nTo understand what motivation actually is, it is necessary first to understand that control theory contends that all human beings are born with five basic needs built into their genetic structure: survival, love, power, fun, and freedom. All of our lives we must attempt to live in a way that will best satisfy one or more of those needs. Control theory is a descriptive term because we try to control our own behavior so that what we choose to do is the most need-satisfying thing we can do at the time. (pages 43-44)\n\nOur genes, which in essence are the biological instructions for what we are to become, not only dictate what our structure is to be (for example, our eye color) but also (and this claim is unique to control theory) how we, as humans, must attempt to live our lives. Just as a northern migrating bird must always attempt to fly south for the winter, we, too, must attempt to live our lives in ways that we believe will best satisfy our needs. If what we are asked to do in school does not satisfy one or more of these needs or we do not care for the teacher who asks us to do it, then we will do it poorly or even not at all.\n\nFrom birth, our behavior is always our best attempt at the time to do what we believe will best satisfy one or more of our needs. We can no more deny that these needs exist and are constantly on our mind (whether we are aware of it or not), than we can deny the shape of our nose or the color of our eyes. And regardless of our cultural background, we are all members of the same species, and all of us have the same genetic needs. We spend our lives trying to learn how to satisfy these needs, but most of us do not have a clear idea of what they are, especially when we are young. What we always know, however, is how we feel. And what we actually struggle for all of our lives is to feel good. It is from our ability to feel, essentially from our ability to know whether we feel good or bad, that most of us gain some idea of what our needs are. (page 44)\n\nGlasser goes on to explain that students become disenchanted with school when it does not feel as good anymore. When they question why, they are told to work hard, and the rewards will come later. But, unfortunately, \"the genetic needs themselves know nothing about later: They are continually pushing us to do what feels good now\" (page 46).\n\nIn a nutshell, Glasser's theory says that everyone behaves to satisfy the same five basic needs, that those needs are coded in our genes, and that the needs operate in a cause-effect manner to drive our behavior or our actions. He also says that, when our behavior is right, our needs are met, and that in schools, problems occur when adults fail to meet all of the students' needs. If you are drawn to Glasser's ideas about needs, I urge you to review my analyses of the \"needs\" concept. Perceptual control theorists believe that not even our genes act as linear cause-effect devices, the way Glasser describes them. In PCT, we work with the idea that genes are parts of biochemical control systems, and that they do not \"dictate\" anything.\n\nPerceptual control theory explains our actions as the means by which we control our perceptions. In PCT, there are no prior assumptions about which perceptions a person controls at any given time, or about why the person controls those particular perceptions at that particular time. We recognize that most controlled perceptions are not universal; some are highly idiosyncratic. To control a perception, a person must act to eliminate or prevent the effects of environmental disturbances that would otherwise make the perception change from what the person wants it to be. The person must behave in a way that cancels out the effects of the disturbances, or \"opposes\" the effects of the disturbances.\n\nThat kind of opposition is not \"good or bad\" morally. A man is not necessarily good or bad when his actions cancel the effects of influences that would make his automobile veer from the path he intends. A woman is not necessarily good or bad when her actions cancel the effects of influences that would cause her lecture to deviate from the topics she intends. Instead, opposition to disturbances is the necessary means by which a person controls a perception.\n\nUnavoidably, every one of our actions produces many consequences in the environment, not just the consequences that oppose disturbances to our own perceptions. The additional consequences are unintended by us, and we are usually unaware of them. We don't realize that we just cut in front of another driver, we don't know that we are leaving a thermal image of our backside on the chair, we don't realize that our words uttered to one person were overheard by someone else who took offense.\n\nNo person can control another person's perceptions, nor can one person make another decide to control any particular perception. When people are close together in physical space and each behaves to control his or her own perceptions, it is inevitable that, sooner or later, one person will disturb another's controlled perceptions. One way we can disturb another person is unintentionally, by way of unintended consequences of our own actions. Of course, it is also possible for one person to disturb another deliberately. In a school, disturbances are often called \"disruptions.\" It is inevitable that disturbances and disruptions will occur from time to time, sometimes unintentionally, sometimes on purpose. You tell me whether Ford and Powers are saying the same thing as Glasser on the subject of why people behave.\n\nIn the Classroom, Who Is Responsible for What?\n\nBoth William Glasser and Ed Ford believe that teachers have a right to teach to the best of their abilities, and students who want to learn have a right to learn in safety. That said, Glasser and Ford differ markedly on the subject of who is responsible for what, in the classroom.\n\nGlasser's ideas about responsibility are very clear. Teachers must arrange the environment in the school in general, and in the classroom in particular, so that the environment meets all of the needs of all of the students simultaneously. If they do that, then discipline problems will disappear. If there are any residual discipline problems in a school, then the teachers have failed to satisfy all of the needs of all of the students. Quoting again from The Quality School: \"Like boss-managers, lead-managers have the goal of getting their workers to work hard, but to do this, they continually keep the needs of the workers in mind\" (page 42). Glasser says that teachers have to work to become part of the students' quality world. Even though he said earlier that people are all intrinsically motivated, he states that \"students will not work hard for a teacher who is not firmly embedded in their quality worlds. A teacher must expend more time and effort trying to satisfy a student than an industrial manager needs to do for a worker\" (page 66).\n\nAll through The Quality School, Glasser repeats the message that teachers must work hard to create conditions that encourage and persuade students to perform well. There is no doubt that he envisions teachers as managers of student behavior. Neither is there any doubt that, if students do not perform well, the responsibility rests on the teachers. That idea leads to his often-repeated claim that we must change the system, not the children. On the one hand, William Glasser says that everyone is internally motivated, but on the other hand, he says that students do not learn unless the outside world is \"just right,\" and someone other than the students is responsible for making it \"just right.\" The teacher is responsible for making the environment in the classroom \"just right.\" Teachers are to accomplish that task by satisfying the needs that Glasser says all students share. He says repeatedly that when adults make the school satisfy the needs of all students simultaneously, disruptions vanish and there is no need for discipline.\n\nA clear example of how Glasser's needs-driven theory turns into a specific procedure in the classroom is de-scribed on page 48 of The Quality School: \"Learning together as a member of a small learning team is much more need-satisfying, especially to the needs for power and be-longing, than learning individually.\" In that simple remark, I believe Glasser reveals a willingness to impose an arbitrary system of needs on everyone, and to trivialize the differences among people that might result in some students preferring to work alone. The preferences of those \"loners\" would be willfully trampled if a teacher were to follow Glasser's arbitrary system for categorizing behavior according to five basic needs. Perceptual control theorists know that such a flagrant disregard for the interests of individual students would constitute massive disturbances for many of them. Those disturbed students would be highly likely to act to cancel the effects of the disturbances; they might very well disrupt the \"cooperative-learning classroom\" where they were not allowed to study alone.\n\nEd Ford realizes that teachers could never meet all of the needs of all students, even if there really were five basic needs. What teachers can do is try to help students learn how to control their own perceptions without needlessly disturbing others. When disturbances occur, either intentionally or unavoidably, teachers can try to help students learn how to resolve the conflicts that are likely to ensue. In the Responsible Thinking Process, teachers are responsible for teaching to the best of their ability and for following the RTP process. Students are responsible for learning the content of the course, for minimizing avoidable disturbances to others, and for learning how to resolve the results of disturbances that they cannot avoid. Ford's RTP sounds very simple. It is. You tell me whether RTP is identical to Glasser's programs, with regard to who is responsible for what, in the classroom.\n\nWhat Should Teachers Do When Students Disrupt?\n\nAccording to William Glasser, once a school becomes a Quality School, the needs of all students are met and there are no discipline problems. In spite of that frequent assertion, Glasser acknowledges that sometimes discipline problems still occur. In The Quality School, and in recent newsletters, he has said that alternative discipline procedures will be necessary for a few years before a school becomes a Quality School. In the book, he described several different procedures to use with students, for disruptions of various degrees of severity. \"In the quality school program we should not use any discipline program, even if it is seen as being based on Choice Theory and Reality Therapy, such as the ten steps of discipline and restitution. Also, we should not use any other program labeled or perceived as a discipline program.\" How much Glasser's ideas have changed over the years since he wrote The Quality School is apparent when he tells his associates that \"we must be strong enough to resist demands for help with discipline and for discipline programs and offer them lead-management practices that will both eliminate the problems and deal with any problem, no matter how severe, that occurs in any school whether it is just beginning or far along the way toward becoming a Quality School.\"\n\n\"To answer the second question, what to do with a highly disruptive student: learn who they are and reach out to them when they are not disrupting.\" The teacher should use various strategies to engage disruptive students, and should play the role of a \"social director\" for them. \"Finally, if all of this doesn't work, there is only one thing to do when a student is so disruptive that a teacher cannot teach, or students cannot learn. This is not counseling, it is quick and non-punitive. If you think you can keep the student in the room, get a comfortable chair, like an old easy chair, and immediately when the child disrupts, tell him to go take a rest. It is very important that all you say is: 'Take a rest.' Go to him when he settles down and evaluate if he needs reality therapy counseling, but try not to counsel him at the time. Try to integrate him back into the class and offer counseling later. If he does not settle down in the chair he must be removed from the room to a time-out room as described in several places in The Quality School. Remember, do this and only this so all children know you do not play games.\" (All quotations above are from \"A Message from Dr. William Glasser,\" dated May 22, 1996, and reproduced in Australian Reality Therapy News 9(1) 1997.)\n\nIn The Quality School, Glasser wrote that a student should stay in the time-out room long enough to satisfy the classroom teacher, and long enough to work out an (unspecified) plan to stay out of trouble in the future. He encouraged classroom teachers to \"reward\" students who make a plan, for \"trying.\" Also in the book, but not in re-cent newsletters, Glasser said that any student whose disruptions endanger teachers or other students should be sent home for three days, and the sentence should be renewed as long as the student is unwilling to return to school peacefully. It is difficult to think of a procedure that is any more in the tradition of cause-effect, or stimulus-response, than that one: if you \"do time\" (serve a sentence) on suspension from school, it will make you behave.\n\nEd Ford's RTP relies on a series of questions that the teacher asks whenever a student disrupts in a classroom or in any other locale in a school. The questions are like those in the \"10 Steps to Good Discipline\" that Glasser has repudiated. Ford uses the questions to help students focus their attention on what they are doing, on how their actions are related to the rules that apply in their present setting, and on how they might achieve their own goals (control their own perceptions) without running afoul of the rules in the future. Ford thinks of the rules as guidelines that help students and adults know the limits within which they can act to control their own perceptions, without needlessly disturbing other people. The rules also provide guidelines for how to resolve conflicts that occur when one person disturbs another.\n\nA student who continues to disrupt goes to the responsible thinking classroom (RTC) to think about what has happened and to learn to prepare a specific plan for how to return to the classroom and avoid similar problems in the future. The student negotiates the plan with the classroom teacher. When the plan is acceptable to both parties, the student returns to class. RTP is designed to help students learn to manage their own affairs, controlling their own perceptions without needlessly disturbing other people. In Ford's program, teachers are not responsible for meeting a set of presumed universal needs, shared by all students. Instead, teachers simply teach their subjects and use the process consistently.\n\nIn difficult cases, where a student leaves the regular classroom many times and goes to the RTC, the professional staff work to discover which perceptions the student is controlling by going to the RTC. Ford recommends a special intervention team to examine each such case. The team comprises the RTC teacher, the classroom teacher, the parents, perhaps the school counselor or psychologist, and any other people with useful information about the child, or with access to resources that might help the child. In nearly every case where a child makes frequent visits to the RTC, educators discover that the student is experiencing difficult conditions at home or elsewhere, and they develop a special plan to help the student learn how to deal with those circumstances without disturbing other people. For example, in one school, the intervention team studied the situation of a young man who alternated between long periods when he never went to the RTC, and brief periods when he disrupted and went to the RTC very often. The team discovered that, during the times when he went often to the RTC, the young man was being sold by his older brother as a sexual \"boy toy\" for wealthy men. The school could not make that boy's situation different when he was away from the campus, but they devised a plan that helped him succeed while he was at school. The key to a successful discipline program is as profound and simple as that. You tell me whether Ford and Glasser say identical things about what teachers should do when a student disrupts.\n\n\nI hope this chapter has helped you to better understand the relationships among Ed Ford's Responsible Thinking Process, William Powers's perceptual control theory, and the ideas of William Glasser. As I have said before, I hold Glasser's Reality Therapy in high regard as one of several effective present-centered therapies. However, I do not have the same high opinion of the scientific merit of Glasser's \"theories,\" or of the way he portrays his role in the development of control theory. Nor do I think highly of the way Glasser's program, with its needs-driven theory of behavior, requires teachers to explain all behavior as driven by five or six arbitrary needs that teachers must satisfy for all students. In contrast to my assessment of Glasser's theoretical utterances, I respect Ed Ford's attempts to incorporate PCT into RTP. When Ford designed RTP, he at- tempted to acknowledge the fact that both teachers and students always behave to control their own perceptions. Does that mean that RTP follows, necessarily, from PCT, or that RTP is the only possible process that could incorporate principles from PCT? The answer to both questions is no.\n\nEd Ford's RTP incorporates principles from PCT; there is no reason to assume that it is the only possible process that could do so. For example, I can imagine a process that more directly incorporated the \"method of levels\" (MOL), a technique William Powers developed as a way to study the hierarchical organization of human perception. The MOL is used by a few counselors and therapists. In certain ways, Ford's RTP achieves effects similar to MOL, especially when a student answering the RTP questions begins to think about the context of his or her actions, and about the consequences that he or she causes for other people. Nonetheless, Ed Ford's RTP is not identical to MOL, and neither RTP nor MOL is perceptual control theory.\n\nI can also imagine a process in which someone combined features of William Glasser's program for Quality Schools, like the practices he suggests for developing curricula and for grading, with features of Ed Ford's RTP. Such a process could be consistent with principles from PCT. Of course, its creator would probably abandon Glasser's idea that behavior is driven by a specific set of needs, replacing it with the ideas that all people behave to control their perceptions and that the perceptions some people control are highly idiosyncratic. Probably many different processes could be designed that would be consistent with the principles of PCT science.\n\nHere, I have not discussed any discipline programs other than Ford's and Glasser's, even though there are many other programs. Some people tout their programs as applications of operant conditioning theory, while others say that their programs incorporate the principles of cognitive science and neurological science, and still others assert that their programs embrace principles from both conditioning theory and cognitive science. My analyses of some of these programs reveal that many of them share the same model for how events happen in the world. Virtually all discipline programs rely on theories that say cause-effect operates in a direct, linear fashion. You tell me whether discipline programs like that are identical to Ed Ford's RTP.\n\nRTP of Australia\nRTP Testimonials\nExcerpted chapters\nEd Ford's newest book\nCreating Peace Within\nRTP reference materials\nBooks - DVD's - Cards - etc.\nAbout Perceptual\nControl Theory\nRTP compared to\nother programs\nRTP A Non Profit Corp\n\n\n\n\n\nthey would be in violation of the Lanham Act.", "pred_label": "__label__1", "pred_score_pos": 0.7318366765975952}
+{"content": "The steps involved in managing risk\n\nA. Establish Goals and Context\nAs outlined in the Risk Management process, the risk assessment is undertaken within the context of your goals.   The identification / validation of your goals is therefore a critical first step in the risk management process.\n\nEffective risk management requires a thorough understanding of the context in which your Department or Agency operates.   The analysis of this operating environment enables you to define the parameters within which the risks to your outputs need to be managed.\n\nThe context sets the scope for the risk management process.   The context includes strategic, organisational and risk management considerations.   According to the Standard, strategic context defines the relationship between the organisations and its environment.   Factors that influence the relationship include financial, operational, competitive, political (public perceptions / image), social, client, cultural and legal.   The definition of the relationships is usually communicated through frameworks such as the SWOT (Organisational strengths, weaknesses, opportunities and threats) and PEST (Political, Economic, Societal, and Technological).\n\nThe organisational context provides an understanding of the organisation, its capability and goals, objectives and strategies.   According to the Standard, organisational context is important because:\n\na) risk management occurs within the context of endeavouring to achieve the goals and objectives,\nb) failure to achieve the objectives is one set of risks that need to be managed, and\nc) the goals and strategies assist to define whether a risk is acceptable or unacceptable.\n\nThe risk management context defines that part of the organisation (goals, objectives, or project) to which the risk management process is to be applied.\n\nB. Identify risks\nIdentify the risks most likely to impact on your outputs, together with their sources and impacts.   It is important to be... [continues]\n\nRead full essay\n\nCite This Essay\n\n\n(2007, 10). Risk Management. Retrieved 10, 2007, from\n\n\n\"Risk Management\" 10 2007. 10 2007 <>.\n\n\n\"Risk Management.\" 10, 2007. Accessed 10, 2007.", "pred_label": "__label__1", "pred_score_pos": 0.7762436866760254}
+{"content": "\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\nA Towering Mystery Solved: Why ancient alphabets adorn a university icon\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\nSome species threatened by climate change could be moved to new ecosystems, says biologist http://www.utexas.edu/features/2010/04/05/assisted_migration-2/ http://www.utexas.edu/features/2010/04/05/assisted_migration-2/#comments Mon, 05 Apr 2010 21:46:16 +0000 Daniel Oppenheimer http://www.utexas.edu/news/?p=14869 » Continue Reading]]> Camille Parmesan’s new, big idea in conservation biology–the “assisted colonization” of species threatened by climate change–is a product, in roughly equal parts, of cynicism, experience and hope.\n\nParmesan, an associate professor of integrative biology, wasn’t cynical at all when she first got involved, in the mid-1990s, with the United Nations’ Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC). An expert on the responses of butterflies to climate change, Parmesan was brought in to help assess how climate change was affecting species’ ranges on a global scale.\n\nCamille Parmesan\nDr. Camille Parmesan, at one of her field sites in the French Alps. Photo courtesy of Camille Parmesan\n\nWhat she found was frightening. Even though the planet hadn’t yet seen much man-made warming–less than a degree Centigrade increase in global temperatures–the data was already indicating enormous changes in species’ ranges. With a projected warming, over the next century, of 4-6 degrees Centigrade, the future was looking like a scary place for the wild kingdom. Although many of the affected species would be able to migrate away from, or adapt to, warmer conditions, many others, particularly species “endemic” to a particular ecosystem or geographic region, would not. They would, instead, go extinct. Depending on the rate of increase in emissions, in fact, it was estimated that 20-40 percent of the earth’s species were likely to go extinct.\n\nFor Parmesan, whose work on range shifts in butterflies had first helped demonstrate the effects of climate change, the coming changes weren’t just global, they were personal. Some of the species she’d been following for years–like the Quino checkerspot butterfly, which is native to California–were already in serious danger of extinction.\n\n“One reason why I’m more radical than a lot of conservation biologists is that I work on species sensitive to climate change,” she says. “I’ve already watched populations go extinct. A lot of people haven’t seen much change within their systems. To them it’s a thing that’s far away, maybe 100 years from now, but I can see that it’s not 100 years from now. It’s right now.”\n\nStill, Parmesan was hopeful. The data seemed powerful, and the human race certainly had the means, and (just barely) the time, to change. Relatively soon, however, Parmesan began to notice that while a lot of people were talking a good game about dealing with climate change, nobody seemed to be doing very much. By 2001, when the IPCC issued its Third Assessment Report, Parmesan had grown even more cynical about the willingness of people–particularly the American people–to alter their habits in response to climate change.\n\nParmesan has grown even more cynical about the willingness of people-particularly the American people-to alter their habits in response to climate change.\n\n“In terms of actual reduction of carbon dioxide or other greenhouse gases, what had happened?” says Parmesan, who was one of the lead authors of the Third Assessment. “Very little. At the same time, the amount of greenhouse gases being emitted just kept going up and up and up. In fact, we kept exceeding our predictions. It radicalized me.”\n\nParmesan began to entertain the idea of rescuing certain species from climate change by moving them to new ecosystems. It was simple enough, in theory, but for years Parmesan kept the idea mostly to herself. Restoring a former habitat was one thing, but adding a species to an ecosystem which hadn’t historically been its home was a notion that cut radically against the grain of conservation biology. It wouldn’t go over well, in particular, with colleagues who studied invasive species, and therefore knew intimately the extraordinary damage that could be done to an ecosystem by the arrival of a non-native species.\n\n\n“I thought that the 2003 heat wave in Europe, followed by hurricanes Rita and Katrina,  would change the mind of the American public,” she says. “It seemed like for a few months it did, and then that consciousness just went away again.”\n\nOver the last few years, Parmesan and a small but growing contingent of fellow biologists have finally brought the assisted colonization idea out of the closet. The threat of climate change, they’ve concluded, is simply too great, and too novel, not to entertain radical ideas.\n\nA decision framework for assessing the feasibility of whether or not to attempt the movement of a species to prevent its extinction or ecosystem collapse\nA decision framework for assessing the feasibility of whether or not to attempt the movement of a species to prevent its extinction or ecosystem collapse. View large version of the decision framework in a new window.Image courtesy of Camille Parmesan\n\n“In traditional conservation, conservatism is a good thing,” says Parmesan. “Why be risky? But climate change is so different. It’s having such a huge impact all over the globe that you’ve got to be willing to do something that’s a little more risky. Doing nothing is risky too. There is no no-risk option.”\n\nIn the summer of 2008, Parmesan and her colleagues made the case for assisted colonization in an article in Science magazine. The article, “Assisted Colonization and Rapid Climate Change,” was respectful of the anticipated objections from conservationists, and guardedly optimistic about the degree to which traditional conservation measures could help ameliorate the impact of climate change. It was blunt, however, in its assessment of the most likely outcome of climate change.\n\n“We must contemplate the possibility,” they wrote, “that some regions of the Earth will experience high levels of warming (greater than four degrees Centigrade) within the next 100 years, as well as altered precipitation and ocean acidity. Under these circumstances, the future for many species and ecosystems is so bleak that assisted colonization might be their best chance.”\n\nIn order to try to balance the risk of doing nothing against the risks of moving species to new habitats, Parmesan and her colleagues proposed a “decision framework” for when to move forward with assisted colonization.\n\nWe're not going to move polar bears to Antarctica. They would cause the extinction of several penguin species. That's not preserving biodiversity. Dr. Camille Parmesan\n\nIf a given species, for instance, wasn’t in short-term danger of steep decline or extinction, then conservation efforts should focus on preserving and restoring their natural habitat, or on creating low-impact “corridors” between a threatened habitat and other suitable habitats within the species’ historic range. If a threatened species was simply too expensive or too difficult to transport, then efforts might focus on creating artificial environments–an artificial reef, for instance–in cooler, nearby regions to which the species could migrate on its own. In the worst-case scenarios, scientists might simply have to store seeds, sperm and eggs so that at some future point, when circumstances change, they could try to restore a species to existence.\n\nIf assisted colonization proved optimal, after all alternatives were explored, it would be done with the lightest possible footprint. In many cases, it could be as simple as moving a population to a mountain at a higher latitude within the same mountain range.\n\n“We already do something like that, as butterfly biologists, when we’re restoring habitats,” says Parmesan. “We can take an area that’s basically a trash heap, and bring in the soil, bring in the plants, bring in the butterflies, and boom, you’ve got a population. If the host plants of a given area are right, I can create a population with one egg cluster just by putting it in my pickup truck and driving it there.”\n\nUnder no circumstances, says Parmesan, would scientists help a species colonize a new region if the risks to the new ecosystem, or to other species native to it, appeared significant.\n\n“We’re not going to move polar bears to Antarctica,” says Parmesan. “They would cause the extinction of several penguin species. That’s not preserving biodiversity.”\n\nParmesan acknowledges that catastrophic scenarios need to be taken into account in assessing the risks of assisted colonization. But the most destructive invasive species, she says, are almost always ones that have traveled from one continent to another, or from one ocean to another, usually as unwanted hitchhikers on planes or boats. Assisted colonization, on the other hand, would be undertaken over much smaller distances, with much greater forethought, and between ecosystems that are much more similar.\n\nariations of the Earth's surface temperature over the last 140 years and the last millennium\nVariations of the Earth’s surface temperature over the last 140 years and the last millennium. View large version of the temperature variations graphs in a new window.Image from the Third Assessment Report of Working Group I\nof the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC)\n\n“If you confine assisted colonization to organisms that are innocuous in their current communities, and you’re not moving them far, I think you’ve got a very low probability of causing a problem,” she says. “If it’s only a few hundred miles, in fact, there’s a good chance that at some point in their evolutionary history they had contact with this other community.”\n\nNot only are such risks manageable, she argues, the truth is that we’re managing them already. Every time we blast a mountain to make way for a highway, or clear forest to make way for a housing development, we’re shifting the ranges of native species. Sometimes we’re just diminishing their ranges, but in many cases we’re pushing them to migrate out into new areas. The choice we face, she believes, isn’t between intervention and non-intervention, it’s between intervening thoughtfully, with preserving biodiversity as the goal, and stepping back and leaving the interventions entirely in the hands of people–developers, governments, farmers–who are changing the landscape already, often without much concern for biodiversity.\n\n“Think about the panda,” says Parmesan. “Does it have to live where it lives now? Can we create bamboo forests that will be climatically suitable over the next hundred years? Well, why not? It will mean shifting land ownership and land use, but we do that all the time anyway, and for far worse reasons than saving the panda.”\n\nWhen Parmesan began contemplating assisted colonization, she conceived of it primarily as a rescue operation, and on a limited scale. Even under the best of circumstances, biologists won’t be able to save more than a small fraction of species threatened by climate change. The big charismatic carnivores, for instance, like the polar bears and the snow leopards, are probably doomed, along with thousands of other species that aren’t suitable for relocation, or that simply won’t find a benefactor.\n\nWhere we need to be going, I believe, is toward a real science of ecosystem engineering. Dr. Camille Parmesan\n\nAs Parmesan has thought more about assisted colonization, however, she’s also begun to believe that change might be possible, on a much broader scale, if we can let go–in the right way–of the expectation that climate change is going to be stopped or slowed significantly. Keep fighting to diminish the emissions of greenhouse gases, of course, but also begin to think radically about how to use our knowledge and skill to alter the natural world for the benefit of species other than humans.\n\n“Where we need to be going, I believe, is toward a real science of ecosystem engineering,” says Parmesan. “Can we design habitats, for instance, that are viable for species that don’t live together now but that we expect to see come together in a future climate? Can we create new ecosystems that do what we want them to do, whether it’s preserving biodiversity or even mitigating climate change?”\n\nAmong the more majestic ideas that has, recently, emerged from Parmesan’s fertile imagination is that of resurrecting the great American plains. It came to her after reading a study that found that of all the potential biofuel crops, the ones that came closest to being carbon neutral were native American prairie grasses. What if, it occurred to Parmesan, energy companies blanketed the midwestern and western United States with fields of such grass? Since prairie ecosystems need to be managed anyway–in the past, fire and large game grazing (for example, the huge bison migrations) did the trick–the harvests of the grasses would be a win-win-win scenario.  They would, at one and the same, make money for the companies, help our nation decrease emissions, and foster massive, native, diverse prairie landscapes that would allow species to move around the whole American west.\n\n“It’s not that I think anyone’s going to do this,” says Parmesan, “but it’s exciting to think that there are solutions. If people don’t bother to take advantage of them, then that’s on their heads.”\n\nhttp://www.utexas.edu/features/2010/04/05/assisted_migration-2/feed/ 0", "pred_label": "__label__1", "pred_score_pos": 0.772445023059845}
+{"content": "AKLIDES® Nuk Software\n\nEvaluation and Results\n\nThe AKLIDES® Nuk is an adaption of AKLIDES® Kyto for detection of double-strand breaks in cell preparations. The experience with characterization of immunological fluorescence pattern facilitates the valid recording and detection of punctuate fluorescence (foci), which become visible due to specific double strand-break markers.\n\nThis time, measurements are carried out by a 60x lens on object slides. An additional contrasting staining in the blue DAPI channel ensures a robust focussing despite various monolayer cell preparations. Subsequent morphological description allows for a directed selection of cellular phases for the detection of strand-breaks (e.g. exclusion of metaphases). Pre-defined cell-line dependent profiles (e.g. average nucleus size) make for a fast interpretation without the need of manually adjusting measurement parameters. Artefact structures are therefore detected and excluded from further analysis.\n\nHighly sensitive measurement of the γ-H2AX signal in the green FITC channel ensues along several z-planes (cell-line dependent). This makes it possible to detect every strand-break independent of the focal plane. The used algorithms produce a 3-dimensional array composed of the detected x,y and z coordinates of the foci. Succeeding filtrations facilitate the perimeter of for example highly prominent or weakly marked strand-breaks. For every single focus, detailed parameters as size, intensity, brightness, shape and position are gathered.\nThe statistical evaluation of measurement values by, for example, robust median calculation of single cell measurements and the definition of minimum requirements for the quality of foci (visible in at least 2 planes) permit a valid calculation of the measured parameters.\n\n\nalt  Report per slide\n\n\nalt  In detail\n\n\n\nalt  Single report", "pred_label": "__label__1", "pred_score_pos": 0.8476545810699463}
+{"content": "Lutz Strassburger | 3 Jan 2008 23:03\n\nHappy new year!\n\nHello Frogs,\n\nWhat you all have been waiting for for five years is finally a reality:\n\nIt is the first paper that contains a readable proof of the decomposition \ntheorems and it is the first paper that contains a splitting proof \ninvolving exponentials.\n\nAny comments about this new version of an old paper are, of course, \nvery welcome.\n\nBest wishes for the new year,\n\n\nTitle: \"A System of Interaction and Structure IV: The Exponentials\"\n\nAuthors: Alessio Guglielmi and Lutz Straßburger\n\nAbstract: We study some normalisation properties of the deep-inference \nproof system NEL, which can be seen both as 1) an extension of \nmultiplicative exponential linear logic (MELL) by a certain \nnon-commutative self-dual logical operator; and 2) an extension of system \nBV by the exponentials of linear logic. The interest of NEL resides in: 1) \nits being Turing complete, while the same for MELL is not known, and is \nwidely conjectured not to be the case; 2) its inclusion of a self-dual, \n(Continue reading)", "pred_label": "__label__1", "pred_score_pos": 0.9714974761009216}
+{"content": "Using 1-to-1 devices in the classroom > Planning - 21 Steps resource\n\nSupporting 1-to-1 Implementation (non-NSSCF)\n\nHaving access to a wireless portable computer is a critical way to support learning in schools. The portability and multimedia capabilities of the 1-to-1 device can transform teaching and learning. To make this learning succeed, there are some essentials that can be followed, outlined here as 21 steps. \n\nFor each step there is:\n\n  • an overview\n  • questions to consider\n  • suggestions and links to resources to enable you to answer those questions relevant to your school.  \n21 Steps:\n\n\n1 Consider current research\n2 Establish the eLearning vision for 1-to-1\n3 Engage school council\n4 Develop communication strategies\n5 Conduct a detailed readiness assessment\n6 Develop a project plan\n7 Prepare a detailed budget\n8 Select a preferred ownership and finance model\n\n\n9 Ensure teachers are optimising use of devices\n10 Professional learning\n11 Learning places and spaces\n12 Software, tools and online resources\n13 Suppliers and $$\n14 Calculate the total cost of participation\n15 Support documentation\n16 Prepare responses to anticipated questions\n\n\n17 Onsite service structures\n18 Conduct parent and community sessions\n19 ICT infrastructure and technical support\n20 Distribute student devices\n\n\n21 Review and management", "pred_label": "__label__1", "pred_score_pos": 0.6923935413360596}
+{"content": "Art Glass\n\nFrank Lloyd Wright sought to break out of the box-like structure of the Victorian house. In his Prairie style homes, he succeeded in blurring the line between interior and exterior spaces by using groups of art glass windows as “light screens.” He wrote in his autobiography, “Now the outside may come inside, and the inside may, and does, go outside.” Wright's windows usually wrap around the entire surface of the house. Their complex geometric patterns are often abstract representations of nature. Composed of pieces of clear and colored glass, the “light screens” enliven the light as it filters in, yet provide privacy to the dweller within the house. The art glass windows in the Robie House are a key part of the design. They are made of polished plate glass (clear), ‘cathedral' glass (colored), and copper-plated zinc cames (metal joints holding the glass in place). The art glass design consists of a geometric pattern, predominantly triangular, featuring multi-colored smaller panes set in the cames. The windows occur throughout the house, and are used to stunning effect on the main level, where the entire south wall consists of paired art glass French doors, which open out onto a balcony. On the ground floor, the less public area of the dwelling, the windows contain only clear glass and came, with a pattern similar to that used in the other windows of the house.\n\nWright considered light \"the beautifier of the building,\" and glass as an incarnation of light. He wrote in Architectural Record in 1928, “Glass and light—two forms of the same thing.” In the Robie House, they are integral to the building.", "pred_label": "__label__1", "pred_score_pos": 0.9500678181648254}
+{"content": "When older lacrosse players head home for the holidays or for a visit they often unearth old mementos from their former lacrosse lives.  We’ve seen some photos, apparel and even a helmet so far.  Now we take a short trip back in time to Deerfield, MA where the Eaglebrook Varsity team went 11-0 as a middle school squad playing other middle schools and some high school JV teams.\n\nNot only was our main man, Payu, from the Thailand Lacrosse Association on the team, but so was Pete Striebel, who went on to play at Deerfield and later Princeton.  A number of other players went on to play at D2 and D3 schools in college.  I think Payu actually played LSM or close D back then, instead of his now preferred attack.  Deep down every long pole wants to score.\n\nEaglebrook Varsity Lacrosse 2000s\n\nLove the stuff from the past!", "pred_label": "__label__1", "pred_score_pos": 0.969779372215271}
+{"content": "10 decorative uses for old windows\n\n    Head out to your local flea market, antique shop, or garage sale and you can pick up old windows at a steal. Many people simply don't consider reusing them for other purposes, but there are so many exciting ways to recycle them. By finding other uses for old windows, you can help keep them out of landfills and help the environment. Plus, they look pretty darn good when used for decorative purposes. Here, we've listed 10 of our favorite ways to use old windows.\n\n    The best type windows to use for the ideas we've listed are discarded wood-framed windows. They don't have to have glass attached for them to be useful, either. If needed, sand down the surface and repaint the color of your choice. Then, use the decorative uses for windows we've provided to create a country, rustic, or eclectic feel to your current home décor.\n\n    Mirror - Remove the window and replace it with a large mirror, or use several small ones behind panes. Try painting the frame with a Shabby Chic Paint Technique or an Aged Crackle Finish for a unique look. Then, hang your new mirror on the wall.\n\n    Garden accent - Accent the beauty of an outdoor flower garden with a set of old windows. Place the windows behind a colorful bed of flowers, a showy bush, or a shimmering birdbath to add something unexpected to your outdoor display.\n\n    Pot rack - Create a gorgeous pot rack out of an old window by attaching four large hooks to each corner. Anchor the window to the ceiling with heavy-duty chain and attach additional hooks to hold the pots and pans in place. This is a great idea for either a stained glass window or a plain glass window. For safety reasons, do not place any objects on top of the glass.\n\n    Faux window - Have a windowless basement, garage, or office? Use an old window to brighten things up and give the illusion of a view. Simply remove the glass from the window and replace it with a mirror. Then, hang the window on the wall. Hang a set of pretty curtains above it, or a set of old shutters beside it.\n\n    Garden trellis - All you'll need for this project is the frame of an old window, so you can likely find a discarded one absolutely free. Take the frame and insert it behind a flower box, or directly on the ground in front of a climbing vine or flower.\n\n    Room divider - Attach eye bolts to the top of a large window and suspend from the ceiling. Use it to divide the space of a large room, or as a barrier between an open living room/dining room combination. This will help to define two distinct areas, without closing off the space completely.\n\n    Table - Take a long narrow window and attach four table legs to the bottom. Paint the legs the color of your choice and refinish the frame of the window, if needed. The window will act as a tabletop on this one-of-a-kind piece of furniture. For a coffee table, use short table legs. For a dining room table, use long legs. A short window can be used to create a side table, too.\n\n    Side table - Take a small inexpensive standing shelf or bookcase and turn it into a unique side table by attaching a window to the front with hinges. The window will act as a swinging door, and will look great with any décor.\n\n    Refresh kitchen cabinets - Change the look of your kitchen cabinets by removing the doors and replacing them with old windows. The windows act as cabinet doors, but allow you to attractively display dishware, cocktail glasses, and more.\n\n    Message center - Remove the glass from a discarded window and sand and paint the frame. Insert a blackboard behind the frame, and voila - You've created an instant message center for the kitchen, or for a teen's bedroom. Go a step further and add a few cabinet knobs below the blackboard to hang keys.\n\n    More from Jennifer Wagner:\n\n    12 Decorative uses for ladders\n\n    Fix up flea market finds of any kind\n\n    12 Decorative uses for shutters\n\n\n    Personal knowledge", "pred_label": "__label__1", "pred_score_pos": 0.9084023833274841}
+{"content": "Come Visit the California Redwoods  - Victorian Village Inn of Ferndale California - The Perfect Bed and Breakfast Inn for Your Redwood Forest Vacation Discover the Majestic California Redwoods Call us today!\nDiscover the Majestic California Redwoods\nAvailability & Bookings Availability & Bookings\n\nThe California Redwood Forest\n\nRedwoods grow from Big Sur to the Oregon border, but only on California's Redwood Coast, not far from our Victorian village of Ferndale, these magnificent trees achieve their primeval glory. Here are untouched groves that stagger all of your senses. Make the pilgrimage to the Northern California Redwoods and discover why these are much more than the world's tallest trees. To many, a California redwood forest is truly nature's cathedral; feel the peace and reverence as you pass between the lofty pillars, while high above the sunlight filters through the canopy like a great stained glass window. In the misty silence you just might hear an inner voice.\nA short day trip to the California Redwood Forest added to your relaxing stay at the Victorian Inn makes for a wonderful vacation of scenic beauty.\n\nAvenue of the Giants\n\nJust a short 20 miles south of the Victorian Inn, this world-famous scenic drive is a 31-mile portion of old Highway 101, which parallels the main highway with its 51,222 acres of redwood groves. It is by far the most outstanding display of these giant trees in the 500 mile redwood belt and is accessible to all with convenient services provided along the way. The Avenue of the Giants is surrounded by Humboldt Redwoods State Park which has the largest remaining stand of old growth redwoods in the world. Take time to picnic, hike, swim, fish, raft or bike ride in the cool hush of the redwood forest just a few minutes from the Victorian Inn.\n\nBook Your Vacation\nto the Redwoods and\ndiscover why\nRoad & Track authors say….\nthis may be the most scenic drive on the planet”\nClick here for Details\n\nAvenue of the Giants, a short drive from the Victorian InnCoastal Redwoods\nMajestic are these redwoods, reaching to the sky and taking our breath away. Driving from your room through the Redwood Region, you'll be transported to a rare and wondrous world of beauty and peace. Visit the State and Federal parks to experience these trees in all their glory.\n\nStanding beside the tallest living thing on the planet, amazing. Now imagine being surrounded in all directions with these giants of nature, indescribable. You just have to experience it for yourself. If you live in the region or are a short drive away, take a break and get rejuvenated with a walk among these friends.\n\nImagine if trees could talk! Many of these trees are thousands of years old. When we get troubled by the thoughts of current circumstances, a walk in the trees can bring new perspective to our concerns. These trees have been standing prior to current wars, civil wars, stock market crashes, floods and earthquakes. They were here before the explorers first sought and landed on this continent. Before there were kings in Europe ruling, these trees ruled in silence. The concept of something living that long boggles the mind and changes the thoughts of the impossible into possibilities.", "pred_label": "__label__1", "pred_score_pos": 0.9746145606040955}
+{"content": "Soil Temperature/Moisture Sensor - SHT10\n\n  ID: 1298\n\n\nAdd to Cart:\n\n\nTechnical Details\n\n\nThe sensor is essentially just a Sensiron SHT-10 with the 4 data/power wires brought out so any SHT-1X code for a microcontroller will work. The sensor works with 3 or 5V logic. The 1 meter long cable has four wires: Red = VCC (3-5VDC), Black or Green = Ground, Yellow = Clock, Blue = Data. For Arduino, there's a handy Sensiron library with example. For Propeller, there's an SHT1X sensor object. Don't forget to connect a 10K resistor from the blue Data line to VCC.", "pred_label": "__label__1", "pred_score_pos": 0.9200206398963928}
+{"content": "Oxygen Storage\n\nSince many cetacean species are required to make deep dives for long periods of time to hunt for food, they must efficiently store large amounts of oxygen. Inflating their lungs with large amounts of air before a dive would be counter-intuitive since they would need to use energy and oxygen to overcome their buoyant lungs. Instead, cetaceans primarily store oxygen in their blood and muscle, where it can be easily accessed when needed during cellular respiration (Marshall 2002). In the blood oxygen binds to hemoglobin and in the muscle it binds to myoglobin.\n\nHemoglobin and myoglobin are both iron-proteins with an attached heme group. They bind to molecular oxygen, carbon-dioxide and carbon-monoxide and are instrumental in the cardiovascular oxygen transport. When they are saturated with vascular oxygen they are known as oxyhemoglobin and oxymyoglobin. Each protein is more strongly attracted to CO2 than oxygen, so when CO2 begins to accumulate in the blood oxyhemoglobin releases its oxygen to be used metabolically. When both the blood and peripheral tissues are oxygen deprived, the myoglobin in the muscles releases its stored oxygen (King 2005). This is the final metabolic option before anaerobic oxidation begins. Cetaceans must use both oxyhemoglobin and oxymyoglobin during physically-taxing deep dives. Oxygen-saturated hemoglobin gives blood its red color while myoglobin-saturated muscle is characteristically brown.\n\n\n\nPhoto provided by gimp-savvy.com\n\nBrix et. al conducted a study to test the oxygen affinity of hemoglobin in a Lesser Rorqual whale. They looked at the affect of increasing concentrations of CO2 and lactate on the ability of hemoglobin to bind to oxygen. The results reveal that like terrestrial mammals, Lesser Rorqual whale hemoglobin becomes less and less attracted to oxygen as CO2 and lactate levels increase (Brix et. al. 1990). We can therefore conclude that cetaceans can be forced to surface and breath either because of intense physical activity that produces lactic acid in the blood and muscles or because of prolonged submergence leading to the depletion of oxygen and the increase of concentrations of CO2.\n\n\nPorpoises with different behaviors and environments have different volumes of blood and hemocrit per kilogram of body weight. Figure adapted from Ridgway and Johnston 1966.\n\nThe ability of a cetacean species to successfully store oxygen may also be affected by its behavior and environment. Ridgway and Johnston (1966) compared the blood volumes and hemoglobin concentrations of three genera of porpoise. They found that the Dall porpoise (Phocoenoides dalli), the most pelagic and active swimmer, had the highest volume of red blood cells per body weight, while the Montagu porpoise (Tursiops truncates), which lives in shallower waters, had almost half the volume of red blood cells per body weight as the Dall porpoise (Ridway and Johnston 1966). Since the hemoglobin is found in the red blood cells, it comes as no surprise that the Dall porpoise is able to be more active and dive deeper because of its increased ability to store oxygen.\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\nHot Topics in Animal Physiology Page\n\nContact Me", "pred_label": "__label__1", "pred_score_pos": 0.6784898042678833}
+{"content": "milly the monopoly mogul\n\nWe've been playing Junior Monopoly lately and the kids really enjoy it. For the past week someone in the family has been sick and board games are the saviour when we need diversion. Somehow Emily seems to constantly win - not bad considering she is the only player who can't actually count. Sam has fun trying to work out how many different ways he can make $5 using notes of different denominations.The board was taken to Tim and Margaret's last weekend when we went up for Sunday lunch.\n\nwonderful #41\n\nI spent the afternoon working in the library - marking Year 9 work. When I got home Michael was making the icing for this Jubilee Cake. He and the kids had been baking, they were all very pleased with themselves.\n\ndoing it for himself\n\nSuddenly there is constant evidence that Sam is growing up in all the nicest ways. I am loving his shift towards independence; that he no longer relies on me to meet all his needs. It's great to be busy, have him ask if he can have something to eat, encourage him to get it for himself and then keep about my business while he sorts himself out. That said - I am still sometimes befuddled that he no longer needs to drag the chair over to see above the kitchen bench, when did he grow that last 20 centimetres?\n\n\nflights booked\n\nI booked my flights this morning. Five days with Amber (and Russell) in Brisbane during the school holidays. Thoughts of it will keep me going during the coming weeks while I work Monday to Thursday. Heading north in winter will renew me.\n\nlittle things\n\nI'm working two extra days for the next few weeks and I will miss riding to school with the kids.\n\n\nat the moment I am...\n\n...watching Glee. Truly hilarious, from Sue Sylvester's lines to Kurt's ultra campness to the feelgood cheesy singing. Even Michael laughs from behind his book.\n\n...eating Navel Oranges. Buying them by the bagful and converting Sam and Milly to their delights.\n\n...listening to Priscilla Ahn on my iPod. I Shazam-ed one of her songs from a movie soundtrack and when I listened to the album on iTunes decided to buy it all. Really lovely.\n\nwonderful #40\n\nEmily wanted glass like her Dad's. Not quite the same but she was pleased with the result.\nWe found autumn in Queensland! Beautiful Mount Tamborine countryside. Pity about the acres of crafty dross peddled in all the shops.\n\nPlan B\n\nSam has been particularly horrific since Friday afternoon - cheeky, arguing back, teasing Milly, overtly physical all the time - imagine all the intolerable behaviours of a five year old boy from hell and call him Samuel.\n\nIt peaked on Sunday morning when he mercilessly teased Milly then mimicked Michael as he was being told off. His punishment was that he wasn't allowed to go to football, however it was only 8am so we definitely needed a plan B in order to survive the rest of the day:\n\nSo, off to the You Yangs National Park for some rock climbing, making a campfire, cooking sausages for hotdogs, toasting marshmallows, a 3 km bushwalk while Mike and Milly waited for us, a bike ride along the road (downhill at 20km/hr) and taking lots and lots of photos.\n\nIt worked, we had a great day, Sam quickly returned to his normal, agreeable self; both kids returned home shattered and happy; and we salvaged the tone of the weekend.\n\nautumn jobs\n\nEmily has been helping me propagate and sow; seeds and cuttings from the front garden. Sam's job is to water them. Fingers crossed and we will have some new plants by spring time. At the end of the work we settled on the step with ice-blocks while Sam snapped a family photo.\n\n\nwonderful #39\n\nAmber sent me a book about paper art, it is lovely and while this bow is hardly an example of how stunning the pieces in it are, I loved making it to stick on the gift for the hosts of the dinner party we went to last week. \nWonderful blue sky day in the middle of May.", "pred_label": "__label__1", "pred_score_pos": 0.5966781377792358}
+{"content": "Q: I’m training hard and trying to lose some weight in preparation for some Alpine sportives. I’d like to lose a pound a week for the next seven weeks. I currently weigh 12st 12lb and am 6ft tall. I’m currently doing one hard day of intervals alternated with recovery or endurance rides.\nSimon Francis, email\n\n\nTo lose fat, but maintain lean tissue and strength, aim to eat at least 2,500-3,000 ‘quality’ calories a day, every day. Try and spread this intake over the course of the day into five or six small meals/snacks. Athletes tend to eat more regularly anyway than non-active individuals, which in many ways helps them to stay lean! Regular eating helps ‘fire up’ the metabolic rate via the ‘thermic’ effect of eating food.\n\nAnother key to fat loss is effective blood sugar balancing, which is largely determined by our intake of carbohydrate and protein. Eating too many high glycaemic index (GI) or fast-releasing carbohydrates (white bread, potatoes etc) and not enough protein to ‘counter-balance’ glucose levels and burn fat, can result in a sharp rise in glucose and insulin, and fast conversion of blood glucose to fat — if the glucose is not used for energy.\n\n\nLucy-Anne Prideaux", "pred_label": "__label__1", "pred_score_pos": 0.8268061876296997}
+{"content": "LOS ANGELES -- Microsoft Corp. will make a \"major\" announcement after the market closes. It's not saying anything about the nature of it.\n\nSpeculation has ranged from an unveiling of a new tablet computer that uses low-power chips to a new system that will use an upcoming version of Windows to help people access TV shows and movies across a range of devices.", "pred_label": "__label__1", "pred_score_pos": 0.5121995210647583}
+{"content": "Go to the 4schools home pageGo to a glossaryGo to a brief timeline of the First World WarGo to a page of links to useful websites\nPrint the sourcesGo to a close up of these sources\nHome > What was it like to fight in the Battle of the Somme? > What lessons were learned?\n\nWhat lessons were learned?\n\n\nThe Official View\n\nThe infantry officer's view\n\nThe artillery officer's view\n\n18 Durham Light Infantry\n\nDetails about the Battle of the Somme\n\nLessons learned from the Somme\n\n\nMuch has been written about the Battle of the Somme and it has long lain at the heart of controversy. To many the Battle of the Somme represents tragedy and futility. According to this analysis, the Somme was a disaster from start to finish in which many innocent lives were lost due to the stupid and reckless behaviour of the 'butchering and blundering' commanders. This popular view, espoused by historians such as A J P Taylor and Alan Clark, went largely unchallenged until other historians such as John Terraine, Paddy Griffith, Gary Sheffield and Peter Simpkins started to publish alternative theories. Although differing in many respects, these historians have argued that the Somme represented an important step forwards in the war and resulted in developments which would ultimately lead to the defeat of Germany.\n\n\n\nPhotograph showing 142 (Durham) Heavy Battery.\n\nPhotograph showing 142 (Durham) Heavy Battery. (DUL ref: Add MSS 1584)\n\nWorking together also required a change in tactics as did the circumstances. The Army, faced with thousands of new recruits with no military experience, was forced to standardise training and procedures and placed a greater emphasis on the training of junior officers. Officers were also allowed to take more initiative after the Battle of the Somme. Haig and the other generals accepted that company commanders should be making many tactical divisions and so the platoon rather than the company became the key tactical unit.\n\nTactical developments were not confined to the infantry. In addition to pioneering the use of the 'creeping barrage', the artillery also started to develop the techniques of 'flash-spotting' (using the flash from the gun muzzles of the enemy to locate enemy positions), sound-ranging (using the sound of the enemy gunfire to calculate their position) and pre-registration (using grid co-ordinates to target the most likely positions for guns). These techniques allowed them to launch bombardments without giving prior warning and proved to be very effective.\n\nAll branches of the services also benefitted from the development of effective supply lines. Up to and including the Battle of the Somme, supply lines were set up on an almost ad hoc basis but this system of improvisation was near breaking point. After the Somme, a new system of supply was brought in by Sir Eric Geddes. This was based on predicting where supplies would be needed and making sure that lines were quickly established. Again, this proved very successful.\n\n\nPhotograph showing the signalling section of 4 Highland Light Infantry.\n\nPhotograph showing the signalling section of 4 Highland Light Infantry. (DUL ref: Misc Photo Album 2)\n\nThe revisionist camp see these advances and developments as being part of the learning curve that the British Army had to embrace during the First World War and particularly during and after the Battle of the Somme. Admittedly progress was not smooth and the ride was bumpy but these historians believe that the lessons learned from the Somme helped the British and her allies to defeat the Germans in 1918.\n\n\n\nAerial photograph of Somme Battlefield.\n\nAerial photograph showing part of the Somme Battlefield. (DUL ref: Lowe Papers, File B1)\n\nAccording to the revisionist camp, one of the major achievements of the Somme was that it heralded the start of real co-operation and collaboration between the different arms of the armed forces. The artillery and infantry started to combine their attacks, making great use of the 'creeping barrage'; these two branches were able to work much better because of the reconnaisance work undertaken by the Royal Flying Corps; and much vital work was done by the Engineers and the Signallers. From 1917 the attacks on German defences started to become more successful because of this co-operation.\n\n\nDetails of 'creeping bombardment' to accompany the attack on Gavrelle Trench (DUL ref: Lowe Papers File B2)\n\n\nThe commanders soon realised that many of the failures in the Battle of the Somme were due to breakdowns in communication. It was incredibly hard getting information to and from the front line despite the efforts of the signallers. After the Somme, signallers were told to follow close behind the forward attack laying their lines in a ladder formation so that if one part of the line was broken, messages could still get through. This was a major development. Greater use was also made of intelligence. Aerial reconnaissance photographs proved very useful as did the intelligence reports from the airborne spotters.\n\n\n\nHome  | Glossary  | Timeline | Links\nClose up", "pred_label": "__label__1", "pred_score_pos": 0.6717384457588196}
+{"content": "Culture as Location Factor\n\nThanks to the contemporary art biennial Manifesta 7 and the inter – regional exhibition  in 2009, the cultural context in South Tyrol has been enriched by two unique and international events. Other events  such as TransArt and Merano Music Festival complete the cultural landscape of this region.\n\nIn the scientific debate, culture is often seen as an efficient mean to develop the innovation potential. Richard Florida create the expression “creative class” and in his book “The rise of the creative class” (2002) examined the social and economic impact of creativity on regional development.  The European Commission study \"The economy of culture in Europe\" of October 2006 points out how the culture can bring benefits not only to economic and social development, but also to innovation and cooperation.\n\nIn this context, South Tyrol is also facing the interesting question: “do cultural events in the region give a positive boost to art, culture and economy, promoting development and innovation? How is it possible to develop a creative environment and which are the conditions and the background for this?”\n\nThe scientific studies already carried out identify cities and the urban environment as the best conditions for cultural innovation and conclude that events constitute important location factors mostly for cities and metropolitan areas. With regard to this specific aspect, the perspective of this EURAC study is new, as it takes in consideration cultural development in a rural – alpine context.\n\nAim of the research is to explore the importance of art and culture in South Tyrol for innovation and competitiveness in the region. By studying the South Tyrol case, the aim is to understand how it is possible to form a creative environment and which are the necessary conditions for doing that.\n\nTherefore, from the research objectives, the following questions have emerged:\n\n- Can events offer a cultural impulse for art, culture and economy in the Bolzano Province?\n\n- Which are the condition for the birth of a creative environment, that could create innovation through the actors’ network and the cultural, artistic and economic initiatives?\n\n- Which are the general principles to plan and promote a creative environment?\n\nResearch: Projects: Project Details", "pred_label": "__label__1", "pred_score_pos": 0.9984118938446045}
+{"content": "Could you explain to our readers when you decided to become a politician?\nIt was the Parliamentary elections in 1979 where the National Coalition Party won a landslide victory, but the party was still kept in opposition. I found this very unfair and wanted to find the reasons for this. This is how I became interested in politics and little by little this interest has taken over me.\n\nDid you have strong political beliefs during your youth?\nI still have strong political beliefs and a belief in politics.\n\nWas the choice of becoming a “full time politician” difficult to make?\nIt was not really a decision I made. It all went very naturally, once you show your interest in politics and have ideas of how to develop it, the duties start to flow your direction.\n\nHow could you present The National Coalition Party to our readers who don’t know it?\nThe National Coalition Party is a bourgeois party with long traditions but a modern view of the world around us.\n\nHas The National Coalition Party always been present in the Finnish political life?\nThe National Coalition Party was founded on December 9, 1918, at a time when Finland’s fromer party division had grown outdated as a result of the independence in 1917. It was one of the very first political parties in Finland and the guiding idea behind the establishment of the party was the achievement of national unity through the promotion of social justice, among other things.\n\nIf you had to describe this party with 5 words…\nThe national coalition party is bourgeois, individualistic, supporter of social market economy,\n\nWhat are the positive and negative aspects of being a politician?\nIt is hard to live with the lack of privacy. On the positive note I should say, that playing an active role in the politics really is the only way to make a change in the society.\n\nDo you consider it as a profession or is it more than that?\nThis is a way of life, not just a profession. It also is a life-long learning experience, one has to build opinions af a variety of matters and drive for what you think is best for your region or your country.\n\nWhen you became Minister for Foreign Trade and European Affairs in 2002, did you have the feeling that it was the achievement of something?\nI felt it was a recognition of my previous work, I had been active in politics for more than 20 years. But there was also an element of surprise in the process.\n\nIf you had the possibility to totally change your profession. What would you choose?\nI don´t feel like changing anything much, but if I had to, I could see myself working in an international NGO to tackle globalisation.\n\nWhy do you think that  in Europe people become less and less interested in politics?\nLife in Europe is secure and stable, most people don’t need an urgent change.\n\nHow do you explain the results of Mister Tony Halme during the last Parliamentary elections? Do you think that he was elected for his ideas or for other reasons?\nTony Halme was able to draw to the polls people who don’t usually vote. If he adapts to the parliamentary working habits he will probably lose these radical voters. If he does not adapt, then it will be difficult for him to really make a change of the system.\n\nWhat are your professional or personal projects for the future?\nTo participate in drawing my parties future political guidelines. The National Coalition Party will be in the opposition for the near future, but we will not be a quiet opposition.", "pred_label": "__label__1", "pred_score_pos": 0.8999199867248535}
+{"content": "Print Friendly and PDF\n\n\n\n\nColourful storage canopy\n\nAdd extra storage to your nursery or kids' room with this accessible and washable canopy.\n\n\n\nYou will need:\n6 metres of canvas or other heavy, washable material (Measurement may change based on dimensions of your window)\n2 spools of thread\n2 metre curtain rod, cut into two 1 metre sections\n2 finials\n4 small hooks\n3 metres chain\nsewing machine\nhand saw\n\n\nHere's how :\n\n1. Measure the width and height of your window.\n\n2. Cut a length of washable fabric the appropriate length, approximately 20cm off the floor to determine length and 1 metre wide. A heavier fabric, like canvas, is a good choice so the curtain will hold its shape even when the pockets are stuffed with your child's objects.\n\n3. Hem all edges. Then, fold the fabric over and stitch two sleeves for the curtain rods to run through. Be sure the sleeve is wide enough for the finial to fit through, approximately 10cm in circumference.\n\n4. On each side sew horizontal bands of fabric for the pockets. For this project, they created two rows on the front and back of each panel for a total of four rows on each side. You can make the pockets out of a different fabric or keep things simple by using one material for everything. Sew the pocket-bands into place along the left and right edges and bottom only and divide the band up into smaller pockets with vertical stitches. This project features four pockets that are 20cm wide. For a more open pocket, fold 2cm of extra fabric over at each pocket edge - see image right.\n\n5. Hang curtain rods perpendicular to wall at desired height. Install a flat metal bracket to the edge of the curtain rod and used the extra holes in the bracket to attach the rod to the wall. Put a small hook on the outer edge of the curtain rod, facing up and another 50cm\" above the curtain rod on the wall. Run the chain between these two hooks to add support for the curtain.\n\n6. Last, hang the curtain rods and enjoy.\n\n\n\n\nhome and garden tv", "pred_label": "__label__1", "pred_score_pos": 0.7168105244636536}
+{"content": "IdeaLearning Group selected to speak at ASTD Cascadia Annual Conference\n\nTuesday, May 22nd, 2012\n\nJillian Douglas and Jennie Thede of IdeaLearning Group have been selected to present at the 2012 ASTD Cascadia Conference. Their session is titled Your Brain is Not a Bucket: Learning through Experience.\n\nThe brain is not a finite container that you fill up. Instead, the brain is a complex system of dynamic connections that interpret, process, and organize an amazing amount of information. Most of our learning takes place through direct experience as opposed to formal instruction. In this session, we look at the shortcoming of traditional lecture-based training and education through the filter of brain-based learning research. What roles do experience and sensory intake play in learning? How can we implement brain-based learning principles to get back to the basics and create richer, long-lasting learning experiences? This hands-on workshop will inspire you to reframe the way you train using practical brain-based tools and strategies with your learners.", "pred_label": "__label__1", "pred_score_pos": 0.8773147463798523}
+{"content": "Join our channels\n\n\nAfghanistan - Have you Heard of 9/11? (HD) - 9 min 15 sec [10 September 2012]  \n\nIn the West we take it for granted that everybody knows about the events of September 11th. But is this really the case, especially in some of the places that have been most affected by its consequences?\n\nAmazingly, in Afghanistan, where for ten years a war has been fought with 9/11 as its root cause and justification, not only do many locals claim to be oblivious to 9/11 but it appears that so are the police and even some of the translators working with the US military. \"We're farmers, we're just working in our fields. We don't know anything else about the world,\" they shrug. With high rates of illiteracy, poverty and lack of infrastructure, many Afghans live in what is close to a media vacuum. With American troops set to start withdrawing this year, it appears that they will leave with a huge number of Afghans never having really understood why they came in the first place. For the majority of US soldiers however, it's a different story. \"Some of us still have a personal vendetta with the beings that roam here. I still find it very personal.\"\n\nAdam Pletts\n\n\n(Ref: 5627)", "pred_label": "__label__1", "pred_score_pos": 0.9241674542427063}
+{"content": "EL PASO, Texas -\n\nMore than $105,000 was raised during the 19th Annual Humane Society Save-a-Life Telethon on KVIA -- and the final number has yet to be tabulated.\n\nDonate online year-round by going to the Humane Society of El Paso's Website or copying and pasting this link: https://hselpaso.org/index.php?option=com_dtdonate&task=pre_paypal&Itemid=11\n\nWhy give to the telethon?\n\nEvery year the Humane Society of El Paso takes in nearly 2,700 pets. The Humane Society of El Paso works very hard to find each one a new loving home.\n\nWhy is your donation so vital?\n\nThe Humane Society of El Paso is a non-profit organization. It receives no financial support from the municipal, county, state or federal governmental agencies, nor are we affiliated with any national organizations. The organization is able to do its work because of generous donations from individuals like you, local business sup-port, grants and bequests. If it were not for you the HSEP would not exist.\n\nWhere does your donation go?\n\nThe Humane Society of El Paso provides quality care and a safe, healthy, temporary shelter for thousands of animals every year. It provides public education regarding responsible pet ownership, low cost humane euthanasia services and we have the only pet crematorium in the city. These are just a few of the many services that the HSEP provides for the community and it is all made possible because of your pledge!\n\nSource: Humane Society of El Paso", "pred_label": "__label__1", "pred_score_pos": 0.9996078610420227}
+{"content": "Sadhana Pada is the book focused on practice.  And we've been practicing.  As we travel through the second book of the Yoga Sutra we soon learn that the piece we're mostly drawn to; the asana, are nothing without the breath.  Patanjali tells \"once you have perfected the pose, then practice the breath.\"  I don't know about you, but I'm far from perfect as far as my asana practice goes.  \nSvadhyaya is about the Self.  As we practice asana, we learn about the areas in which we hold back, the places where we push too hard and when we have and lack flexibility.  These are all reflections of how we live our lives.  Our breath and the ability to move our breath, can help us to release, engage and move not only our bodies but our selves.  \nAs you practice your asana and get closer to your own perfection, don't forget to breathe.  Each breath creates space, openness and connection.  Use your breath to discover your Self.\nWe have reached the end of bliss contemplation and contemplate it we did.  For those of you who are still having a difficult time wrapping your head around how the ocean would not be the ocean without everything in it and at the same time it is not attached to those things (a metaphor of ourselves), we understand.  Patanjali must have also understood.  Book II; Sadhana Pada, gives us guidance from a tangible perspective.  Throughout the next few months we will work our way through the \"Portion on Practice.\"  As we study the Yamas and Niyamas, Kleshas and Asana, we hope to guide you into deepening your practice and bringing it beyond the physical.  \n\nLake Tahoe Yoga Blog", "pred_label": "__label__1", "pred_score_pos": 0.8831765651702881}
+{"content": "Home Browse Submit Login\n\n\n\n\n\nYazid ibn Muawiyah ibn Abu Sufyan (Arabic: يزيد بن معاوية بن أبي سفيان‎) (July 23, 645 - 683) was the second Caliph of the Umayyad dynasty and ruled for 3 years from 680CE until his death in 683 CE. His mother Maysun was Jewish. His reign is marked by two major revolts. One of Hussein ibn Ali and the other known as Ibn al-Zubair's revolt. He is also notable as an object of Shia Muslim animosity; they reject his legitimacy and condemn his role in the Battle of Karbala which resulted in the death of Hussein ibn Ali and the greater Sunni-Shia schism.\n\nYazid was an important general and naval commander in his father's Syrian army. As early as 668 the Caliph Muawiyah I sent an army under his son Yazid against the Byzantine Empire. Yazid reached as far as Chalcedon and took the important Byzantine center Amorion. Although the city was quickly recovered, the Arabs next attacked Carthage and Sicily in 669. In 670 the Arabs captured Cyzicus and set up a base from which to launch further attacks into the heart of the Empire. Yazid’s fleet captured Smyrna and other coastal cities in 672.", "pred_label": "__label__1", "pred_score_pos": 0.7670381665229797}
+{"content": "Denae Quijas\n\nTrying to pinpoint relevant details regarding Denae Quijas? If this is the case, you have come to the right place because USA People Search specializes in offering data such as address, phone number, and email for people like Denae Quijas. Also, with the vast amount of information we provide about people with the last name Quijas, we are sure that you will uncover the right person.\n\n\nIf you do not stumble upon the Denae you are looking for, try to locate it again with the assistance of the search box above. A different spelling variation might be beneficial, but also make sure to type in the full name, if you know it. Once you locate the exact Denae Quijas, proceed to the details page to see all the details we provide.\n\n Name/AKAsAgeLocationPossible Relatives", "pred_label": "__label__1", "pred_score_pos": 0.8460545539855957}
+{"content": "Valence electron\n\nJump to: navigation, search\n\nIn chemistry, valence electrons are the electrons contained in the outermost, or valence, electron shell of an atom. Valence electrons are important in determining how an element reacts chemically with other elements: The fewer valence electrons an atom holds, the less stable it becomes and the more likely it is to react.\n\nThe number of valence electrons\n\nValence Electrons\nHelium atom (not to scale)\nHelium atom model\nThis helium (He) model displays two valence electrons\nlocated in its outermost energy level.\nHelium is a member of the noble gases and contains\ntwo protons, neutrons, and electrons.\n\nThe number of valence electrons of an element is determined by its periodic table group (vertical column) in which the sup element is categorized. With the exception of groups 3–12 (transition metals), the number within the unit's place identifies how many valence electrons are contained within the elements listed under that particular column.\n\nPeriodic table group Valence electrons\nGroup 1 (I) (alkali metals) 1\nGroup 2 (II) (alkaline earth metals) 2\nGroups 3-12 (transition metals) 1 or 2*\nGroup 13 (III) (boron group) 3\nGroup 14 (IV) (carbon group) 4\nGroup 15 (V) (nitrogen group) 5\nGroup 16 (VI) (chalcogens) 6\nGroup 17 (VII) (halogens) 7\n\n* The count of valence electrons is not generally useful for transition metals.\n\n** Except for helium, which has only two valence electrons.\n\nValence electrons in chemical reactions\n\nMain article: Valence (chemistry)\n\nThe number of electrons in an atom's outermost valence shell governs its bonding behavior. Therefore, elements with the same number of valence electrons are grouped together in the periodic table of the elements. As a general rule, the fewer electrons in an atom's valence shell, the more reactive it is. Group 1 alkali metals are therefore very reactive, with lithium, sodium, and potassium being the most reactive of all metals.\n\n\nThe valence electrons are also responsible for determining the electrical conductivity nature of an element.\n\nExternal links\n\ncs:Valenční elektron de:Valenzelektronnl:Valentie-elektronnn:Valenselektron nds:Valenzelektronsimple:Valence electron sv:Valenselektron th:วาเลนซ์อิเล็กตรอน\n\n\n\nPersonal tools\n\nIn other languages", "pred_label": "__label__1", "pred_score_pos": 0.7665308713912964}
+{"content": "Nature is all around in its glory and the impressive views of mountains and volcanos. Tourists are welcome and embraced with the love Salvadorean are known for. Stay within the tourist limits. If you plan to venture out take a local guide with you. Modernization is in progress and it can be seen with the new infrastructure. The capital San Salvador is glorious with modern shopping center, night clubs (sona rosa)and restaurants from Argentina, Japan, and all your favorite American fast food restaurants.", "pred_label": "__label__1", "pred_score_pos": 0.9954643845558167}
+{"content": "U.S-China talk nuclear issues\n\nThe National Nuclear Security Administration's Anne Harrington recently co-chaired the 7th Joint Coordinating Committee meeting of the 1998 U.S.-China Peaceful Uses of Nuclear Technology (PUNT) Agreement. Hao Weiping, Deputy Director General of the Electric Power Department of the China National Energy Administration, was the other co-chair at the April 9-12 meeting in Washington, D.C.\n\nAccording to info released by the NNSA, both countries reviewed progress made under each of the five PUNT working groups: (1) Nuclear Energy Technologies; (2) Safeguards and Security; (3) Environment and Waste Management; (4) Nuclear Emergency Management; and (5) Radiological Source Security.\n\nThey also explored next steps on technical collaborations in nuclear safety and security, NNSA said. Multiple agencies from each of the countries participated in the meeting.\n\nIn a statement, Harrington said, \"Our PUNT activities represent longstanding cooperation between the United States and China to advance peaceful uses of nuclear technology. As nuclear power expands around the world, the United States and China share an interest in ensuring this growth is carried out responsibly.\"\n\nHao's statement said, \"China and the United States recognize the significant benefits of using nuclear power and actively support the development of civil nuclear applications without compromising nuclear safety, security, and nonproliferation objectives.\"\n\n\nAbout this blog\n\n", "pred_label": "__label__1", "pred_score_pos": 0.9096540212631226}
+{"content": "a night without Perseus\n\ni went the other way this time. a longer but scenic route; a two lane where passing is dangerous and oncoming cars frequently leave their lanes. the curves too hard to hold. the sun was low in the south barely cresting the tree line making long shadows across the road. the flickering light put me into an altered state as i travelled through what was to be the last of blue sky.\n\ni passed a country house which featured a strange fruit of corvidae hanging from the branches by their frozen feet. feathered black drooping as only death does. perhaps the spirit crows shape-shifted into other forms.\n\nhopefully to revisit these woefully ignorant lynchers with their supernatural medicine. the eyes that function as doorways to unknowable mysteries might draw from their trickster's tool bag to play havoc on that house this spring ; or so it goes in my karmic fantasy.\n\nthe black vultures roosting in the fire tower on 129 had no adversaries and their numbers impressed. i would never have noticed them in the green season but now that the world is spare they were startling silhouettes.\nnext came the apple house with the petting zoo that now contained concrete goats,sheep and pigs. the apple house was closed as well -odd for a friday in barely post-apple season. it should have been filled with tourists buying butters and cider, old timey hard candies and country trinkets.\n\non the final eleven miles to the west, the cohuttas appeared ultramarine like a blue whale had laid down on the horizon. the blue skies were behind me and ahead a heavy blanket of dull white with no hope of snow. my driveway appeared barren now that the trees had shed all their fall glory. the american flag cattle gate had rusted like a fall leaf and seemed a fitting metaphor for the nation in this moment and it let out a mournful song as it swung open. dropping below the road i rolled in slowly in case any animals were at the feeder. that would be the last chance i would have to see them because the hound, Trout, will have it creature free within 15 minutes after arrival.\n\ntapping my loblolly of survival resources i made a meal of black beans and yellow rice and pistachio almond ice cream. i had one black tea bag left and 2 hot chocolates. the game is to stay the weekend without going out for groceries. there were frozen lima beans, eggo waffles, apple sauce, expired apple juice, a packet of tuna, and some frozen spaghetti sauce. in the cabinets was a mish mash of soups and canned vegetables, a box of mac and cheese and a box of vermicelli. all set then. looking for something to watch as i dined but avoiding all news, i happened upon the opening scenes of \"the shining\", quite possibly the most elegant horror film of all time. i marveled as i have many times at the lush cinematography the magic way movement is recorded and how tension is built through imagery.\n\nwe walked the perimeter and noted the limbs that had fallen, any changes along the creek side. the rhododendron was heavy from cold with only the tight buds for next summers blooms standing upright. a chickadee stood on a little mud-flat to drink and flew away as we approached. there weren't as many birds as usual - the feeder was empty though i filled it when i was last here. but its been almost a month. too long.\n\nit was freezing cold. less than 30 and dropping in the twighlight. if it the sky was clear i would wait for the first star - most likely not a star at all, but venus and then jupiter. my planet. and my sky of sagittarius. it has been shining so brightly this winter.\n\nif it was a clear night i would build a fire and stay out with perseus; i would be safe in his company as he holds the head of medusa in his hands. i remember this very scene on the side of a greek vase having shown it to my art students last summer. when i have guests to chickory i love to show them the double cluster, a mini milky way found near perseus. when the cabin was burglarized the telescope was taken - probably rolled up the the fabulously warm pine green cashmere blanket my mother had given me for a gift years ago. nights at the cabin have been much colder without it.\n\nTrout's nose twitches and she is off on a hunt across the creek. i watch her climb the hill on the other side until she disappears over the ridge. i wont call. she wont come. until she is ready. i found a few larger limbs that were great for a fire but too long. i fit them into the vise of a double trunked tree and pushed until i felt the satisfying snap - the bright white dry wood inside revealed in a jagged end. i spent the very last of the light taking the limbs to the fire pit.\n\nthe chicks were waiting for me at the door. i took them up into my arms and cradled them above the propane heater until the shivering stopped and put them in their kitchen basket. i offered them some yellow rice and smashed bean, corn and a piece of chocolate chip cookie. the cabin is warm in this room but in the bedrooms very cold. i prep my bed as Trout pushes the door open and barks for dinner. I watch a little telly and then fire up my laptop to find an archived podcast. this one is on the codex alimentium: the control of food. it should be good and spooky for this winters eve. under the covers but still dressed in shirt layers, flannel pants, and socks. any part of my body exposed is cold. I cant count on Trout for warmth, she likes the chair by the fire. when i wake up it is 12:30 and the podcast has ended. before i fall asleep again i hear a dog barking far away and take comfort that at least on this night, that dog isn't my own.", "pred_label": "__label__1", "pred_score_pos": 0.5709483027458191}
+{"content": "Karl Marx and Henry George\n\nW.H. Kaufman\n\n[Reprinted from the Single Tax Review, March-April 1916]\n\n\nMarx and George criticised each other. Each held the other to be superficial and unsound.\n\nThe feud started with such vigor by the Prophets has been sedulously kept alive by their disciples. Of late, however, circumstances have been forcing more amicable relations between these two great divisions of the \"Army of To-morrow.\"\n\nFor a time Single Tax seemed in danger of degenerating from a religion to a creed while Socialism had degenerated from a crusade to a debating society. Single Taxers became too opportunist, calling every slight reform \"Single Tax,\" while many Socialists seemed to care less about real progress than about academic definitions.\n\nThe sole object of this series of papers is to reestablish both Single Tax and Socialism on the \"Gospel according to St. Marx and St. George\" - for, as I will show, the philosophies of Marx and of George agree as completely as though they had collaborated in the same room.\n\nMarx and George agreed in ideas: they disagreed only in the use of words.\n\nI know that, at the outset, both Socialists and Single Taxers will think me Quixotic; but I also know that in the end all will agree with me.\n\nMarx and George each used common words in most uncommon senses: each assumed that the other used words in his peculiar sense: hence each had, as he thought, good reason for esteeming the other a near-fool.\n\nBefore we can intelligently compare the teachings of the two prophets we must get the \"patois\" of each. To some this word-study will be tedious and uninteresting, but it is absolutely necessary and so we will get through with it at once.\n\nLand - This is the only important word which Marx and George use in the same sense-but both use it in a most uncommon sense.\n\nBy land men commonly mean the solid earth as distinguished from water; or agricultural land; or farms as they now are ditched, fenced, cleared, under irrigation, etc.\n\nFar be it from our twin iconoclasts to bow to custom.\n\nBy land Marx and George mean air, water, wild horses, virgin forests, fish swimming in far off oceans, coal, oil and iron!\n\nOrdinary people would call all these things \"natural resources;\" but Marx and George agree in defying common usage by calling them \"land.\"\n\nAs a matter of fact, by land Marx and George do not commonly mean the natural resources themselves, but rather \"the community-made values of natural resources.\" Hence, in order to be understood, when I quote from Marx or George I will put natural resources or the community-made value of natural resources in place of the misleading word land.\n\nCapital - By capital we commonly mean \"wealth used in the production of wealth.\"\n\nNot so with our two prophets!\n\nBy capital George means only labor-made things as are used in the production of wealth; excluding all natural resources and also excluding men (slaves). With George capital means machinery, food, clothing, semi-finished labor products, hand-made things used in the production of wealth. Most men in speaking of the capital invested in an enterprise would include the price of the land in the factory site along with the money invested in the building, in raw material, etc. To this Georgian idea of capital Marx applies the word \"commodities\"- a fairly correct use of the word.\n\nBut if George's use of capital is confusing, Marx' use of the same word fairly makes one dizzy.\n\nMarx says\n\nIII-948: \"Capital signifies the means of production monopolized by a part of society;\" that is, capital means private monopoly.\n\n1-840: \"We know that the means of production and subsistence, while they remain the property of the immediate producer are not capital. They become capital only under circumstances in which they serve at the same time as means of exploitation and subjection of the laborer;\" that is, they become capital only when they become a private monopoly.\n\nIII-207: \"Let us assume that the laborers themselves are in possession of their respective means of production, and exchange their commodities with one another. In that case these commodities would not be products of capital; that is, as there was no \"private monopoly\" so there would be no capital.\n\nTime after time Marx defines capital as the \"privately monopolized means of production;\" or for short, private monopoly.\n\nHence, in the Marxian sense, there can never be public capital for those two words would mean public private monopoly.\n\nWhen Marx proposes to \"abolish all capital\" he means simply to abolish all private monopolies. \"Capitalistic production\" means merely production under or controlled by private monopoly.\n\nCapitalism means merely that condition of society where private monopoly is in the saddle.\n\nMarx' great work \"Das Kapital\" can be translated into English only by the title private monopoly.\n\nGeorge limits capital to commodities (whether monopolized or not); but Marx limits capital to private monopoly, whether of commodities or of natural resources.\n\nMarx' and George's ideas are as much alike as two peas from the same pod-their words alone are confusion.\n\n\nShow George a fish, swimming in a lake and ask him whether the fish is land or capital, and to save his life he could not answer until you had first told him whether it was a \"wild\" fish or one \"hand fed.\"\n\nShow Marx the same fish and ask him whether it is capital and to save his life he cannot answer you until he has learned whether the fish forms part of a private monopoly!\n\nMarx' commodities means exactly the same as George's capital. But capital in the Marxian sense means merely private monopoly.\n\nGeorge never had the faintest idea what Marxian socialism was. Using words in a special sense himself, he assumed that Marx used words in the same sense. So interpreted Marx' writings would be utterly senseless. George therefore hastily concluded that Marx was a near-fool.\n\nI quote from \"The Labor Question,\" an abridgement of \"The Condition of Labor,\" Will Atkinson, Seattle, Wash.\n\nIV: \"Socialists do not seek the abolition of all private property... .What the Socialists seek is the State assumption of capital\" (George thought commodities but Marx' idea was private monopoly in which they vaguely and erroneously include land.\"\n\nThis is a mere jumble of inaccuracies. Marx sought the abolition of all private monopoly, but manifestly the State cannot have any capital, that is the State cannot have a private monopoly; when the State takes charge, it at once becomes a public monopoly. George thought Marx vague in his use of land as capital; but Marx is most explicit. Where land is free; where land has no community-made value and so is not a private monopoly, it is not capital; as in a very new farming community. Ordinarily land is a private monopoly, and therefore is capital. As to its being erroneous for Marx to call land capital - if we go by either the dictionary or by common usage land is capital; George being erroneous and Marx right.\n\nHowever, the essential thing is that in all these ideas Marx and George agree perfectly, only in words do they disagree.\n\n\"But it seems to us the vice of Socialism in all its degrees is its want of radicalism, of going to the root.\"\n\nAs I will soon show, Marx taught the full Georgian Single Tax a generation before the publication of \"Progress and Poverty;\" gave a definition of Single Tax that has never since been equalled for accuracy and conciseness; and also, in some minor matters, Marx is even more radical and consistent than is George himself.\n\n\"It (Socialism) assumes that the tendency of wages to a minimum is the natural law;\" whereas Marx says scores of times that only under private monopoly (capital) are wages less than the full product of the laborers' efforts.\n\n\"This superficiality and this tendency may be seen in all the phases of Socialism. Take, for instance, Protectionism. (But every Socialist is a free trader).... \"Take Trades Unionism.\" (But do not Socialists and Trades Unionists fight year in and year out)?\n\n\"Jumping to conclusions without effort to discover causes, it (Socialism) fails to see that oppression does not come from capital (by which Marx means private monopoly). But from the wrong that robs labor of capital (that is, robs labor of private monopoly)! George never understood Marx.\n\n\"It fails to see that it would be impossible for capital (private monopoly) to oppress labor were labor free to the natural material of production\"-But Marx says again and again that where land is free or very cheap there can be no oppression of the wage worker; that the monopolization of land is the first step toward monopolistic production; that wages are what they ought to be whenever land is free or very cheap.\n\n\"We have no fear of capital,\" says George, attacking the Socialists. But to attack anything except a man of straw, George would have to say: - \"We have no fear of private monopoly,\" for that is what Marx means by capital.\n\n\"In its idea there devolves on the State the necessity of intelligently organizing the industrial relations of men; the construction, as it were, of a great machine whose complicated parts shall properly work together under the direction of human intelligence. This is the reason why Socialism tends to Atheism.\"\n\nFudge! What a pity George never took the pains to understand Marx - who in the misuse of words transgressed only a shade more than did George himself!\n\nThroughout IV George makes so many mistakes that out of sincere respect for the great work he did and the great inspiration he has been to me, I have been trying for some time to have IV expurgated from the \"The Labor Question.\" Personally it does not offend me, for I see precisely how George came to make these tremendous errors; attributing to Marx the same use (or misuse) of words that characterized George's own writings: but a Marxian scholar, on reading \"The Labor Question,\" would naturally think George either utterly dishonest or a near-fool.\n\nAs Marx and George agree perfectly in their attack on private monopoly, special privilege and all related forms of graft; differing only in the choice of words, there seems to be no good reason why we, their disciples (and a rapidly increasing number of us gladly recognizing ourselves as disciples of both Marx and George) there seems to be no good reason why we, their disciples, should not stand shoulder to shoulder in the battle for economic democracy. Hereafter in these articles capital will be a word \"taboo.\"\n\nWhen I mean commodities I will say commodities. When I mean private monopoly I will say private monopoly.\n\nMarx' great work \"Das Kapital\" will be referred to as Marx' work on private monopoly - the only English phrase that expresses Marx' idea.\n\nSometime we will have a new translation of this same private monopoly - a translation that the man in the street can understand.\n\n\nValue Marx defines as the average socially necessary labor time required to produce an article. If it takes four hours average time to produce a bushel of wheat, and the cost of a worker's time be 25 cts. per hour, then the value of a bushel of wheat is $1.\n\nValue and price fluctuate from time to time, but average the same where there is no private monopoly. When price regularly exceeds value, there must necessarily be a monopoly charge (which is what Marx calls profit). Surplus value is the excess of price above wages paid; while profit is the same thing viewed from the standpoint of the employer. In other words, George's \"Unearned Increment\" is one form of Marx' \"Surplus Value.\"\n\nUnearned increment is not caused merely by the presence of people: but by the presence of people who have worked and so have the wherewith to spend.\n\nThe ground value of a business block is created by labor just as certainly as is the value of a bushel of wheat.\n\nMany Socialists regard Marx' surplus value as his chief contribution to economic science, yet it is identical with George's unearned increment, save that Marx' applies it both to land and commodities, whereas George applies it only to land.\n\n\nAt bottom both Marx' surplus value and George's unearned increment are based on the idea made effective in the labor lien.\n\nLet us make this plain even to the school boy.\n\nSuppose my good friend, Dr. Post, brings to my farm a colt, asking me how much I will charge to care for it for three years till it becomes a horse. We agree on $50 a year; $150 for the three years.\n\nJust before the three years are up, Dr. Post brings Victor Berger to the farm, shows him the colt, and sells it to Berger for $200 - never mentioning my unpaid labor claim.\n\nWhen the three years are expired, Berger comes out, puts a halter on the colt and starts for the gate.\n\nI put my back against the gate and tell Berger that he can't take the horse away until I get my $150.\n\nB.-But I have a bill of sale from Post.\n\nK.-That makes no difference at all to me. I don't know where Post is. I hold the colt until I get my $150.\n\nB.-But you have no claim on me. I never made any contract with you. It's my horse, isn't it?\n\nK.-Sure, it's your horse.\n\nB.-Well,' if it is my horse, can't I take my own horse home?\n\nK.-When you've paid the bill. If you take a horse to be shod, it's your horse all right; but you can't take it out of the shop until you pay for the shoeing.\n\nB.-But what am I to do about the $200 I paid for the horse?\n\nK.-That is none of my business-I didn't advise you to pay it.\n\nB.-Then you mean to confiscate my horse?\n\nK.-Not at all. I am merely trying to keep you from confiscating my pasture bill.\n\nYears ago Congress (that is the corporation attorneys in Congress) gave to the Northern Pacific millions of acres of Washington timber lands. That was the colt.\n\nWe, the people, have cared for that timber land until now it has become a horse.\n\nWhatever the Northern Pacific, Mr. Weyerhaeuser or other holders have added to the value of that timber is fairly theirs. But the values added by us constitute a valid labor lien, and there seems to be no reason under heaven why, by initiative measure, we should not so declare, and instruct our State attorney general to at once proceed to collect our labor lien.\n\nPractically the entire stumpage of the 294,600,000,000 feet of privately owned timber in the State of Washington!\n\n\nMarx was an economist. George was a prophet.\n\nMarx is more exhaustively accurate: George more luminous and popular in style.\n\nAt the bottom they agree.\n\nBoth make this robbery (\"surplus value\" or \"unearned increment\") depend on privately monopolized natural resources!\n\nBoth agree that machinery (progress) enables men to create more surplus value (unearned increment).\n\nBoth agree that this surplus value (unearned increment) is mainly absorbed by land.\n\nMarx tells with great glee of a Mr. Peel who took 3,000 people and $250,000 in commodities to Swan river, West Australia, intending to establish a manufacturing village similar to those of England. But the unfortunate Mr. Peel did not have foresight enough to have the land made a private monopoly and so on the morning following his landing, every man, woman and child fled to take up homes on the free land, and the owner of all the machinery, food and other supplies \"had not a servant to make his bed or to fetch his water from the river.\"\n\nHas George anything better than that?\n\nMarx, like George, directs the wage worker against the monopolist - not against the non-monopolist employer. Between St. Marx and St. George there is a far less divergence than between St. Matthew and St. Luke.\n\nI challenge any Socialist to bring forward any quotations from Marx concerning natural resources (land) that I cannot duplicate from George: and I also challenge any Single Taxer to bring forward any quotations concerning natural resources (land) from George that I cannot duplicate from Marx.\n\nIn 1847, thirty-one years before the publication of \"Progress and Poverty,\" Marx and Engles were directed to draw up a statement of principles and also a practical programme that would express the attitude of the Internationals.\n\nOf the sixteen distinct steps or planks therein enumerated the very first one was:-\n\n\"1. Abolition of private ownership of natural resources: application of all rents of natural resources to public purposes\"-which is an excellent statement of Single Tax.\"\n\n\nAs I will show, Marx makes land monopoly the chief cause of most of our economic ills: such as Unemployment, Low Wages, Rural Depopulation,. Congestion in City Slums and The High Cost of Living.\n\nMarx took Single Tax to mean merely getting all taxes from land owners (but not heavy enough to abolish speculation and private monopoly) and so his criticisms of Single Tax are as superficial and foolish as are George's criticisms of Socialism.\n\nBut if we define Single Tax as a means whereby every citizen is assured an equal interest in all the community-made values of all natural resources - as Marx himself states it, \"The application of all rents from all natural resources to public purposes\" - Why then Single Tax is the very heart of Marxian Socialism.\n\nGeorge says: - \"We would simply take for the community what belongs to the community, the value that attaches to land by the growth of the community; leave sacredly to the individual all that belongs to the individual; and treating necessary monopolies as functions of the State....\"\n\nAs a Marxian Socialist I readily subscribe to this statement by George, but would add Marx' provision that a majority should be able, at any time, to operate collectively even a non-monopolistic enterprise - as, for instance, war munition manufacture; which although not necessarily a monopoly is a very dangerous thing in private hands; leading to agitation for preparedness.\n\nTo say that nothing but necessary monopolies are to be operated by the people collectively -this assumes omniscience as to the future. A city's milk supply may possibly be best distributed collectively.\n\nI do not say that it must be best; merely that it may, sometimes, be best; furnishing cheaper and purer milk.\n\nManifestly George erred in limiting public management to \"necessary monopolies.\"\n\nAside from this slip, George and Marx agree perfectly.\n\n*See note under Publisher's Notes.", "pred_label": "__label__1", "pred_score_pos": 0.6160128712654114}
+{"content": "What is B.E.S.T.?\n\nChoosing B.E.S.T will improve your health and your life by removing interference.\n\nMargie BESTDr. Loving, Houston’s BEST. practitioner, former professor, a healer and massagetherapist for over 26 years, specializes in restoring people’s health. Dr. Lovingadded BEST to her practice after her own healing of panic attacks in a 15 minuteBEST session. Wow! That got her attention! BEST is able to heal unexplainableissues like panic attacks because it is the subconscious memorythat is causing the episodes and it is the subconscious memory that is reset to ahealthy setting with BEST. Other healing modalities Dr. Loving uses include Reikiwith massage, Theta Healing, and SRT so clients heal on the mental, physical,spiritual and emotional levels. Energetic healings are available in person or in aphone session.\n\nThe Bio Energetic Synchronization Technique\n(BEST) is a system of health care that is truly\nstate-of-the-art in balancing body/mind/soul\nenergy fields by removing interference between\nyour body and the power that made your body.\nWhen this interference exists, symptoms\ndevelop and health deteriorates. Removing this interference allows your body to repair and rebuild your damaged, painful condition. Often, an immediate response with a BEST treatment is the relief from the pain. Then keeping\nyour body balanced will allow your body to function much more efficiently, repairing and rebuilding\nthe damage from nutritional, physical or mental stress. By touching certain key pressure points in the\nproper sequence with proper energy and having you think about the specific memory stress, we\nhave found that interference is removed and your body will begin to re-communicate with\nyour brain. Your brain controls all functions in your body. When they work together, with the\ninterference removed, body balance and healing are the results.\n\nMy job is to get you to a healthy balanced state and help you maintain that level of health. There\nare 7 basic choices to health, what you eat, drink, think, breath, how you sleep, forgive and\nexercise. The most important out of these are what you think and forgive. Positive thinking is\ncreates positive hormones in the body thus promoting health and well being. Holding on to bad\nfeelings tears the body down, so forgiving the past is important to your health.\n\n\n\nWhen interference causes imbalance in the autonomic nervous system, over time it leads to exhaustion of our organ systems. Researched at major universities, taught in several Chiropractic Colleges and in professional continuing education seminars, B.E.S.T. is recognized as an effective healing science that can be performed by a licensed health-care practitioner who completed the certification process.\n\nThe B.E.S.T. technique is now available at Dr. Loving Wellness Center.\n\nSite Login", "pred_label": "__label__1", "pred_score_pos": 0.6561956405639648}
+{"content": "DRS at National Institute Of Oceanography >\nInstitute's contributions >\nBiological Sciences >\n\nPlease use this identifier to cite or link to this item: http://drs.nio.org/drs/handle/2264/1214\n\nTitle: Environmental pollution detection and bioremediation by marine bacteria\nAuthors: Ramaiah, N.\nDe, J.\nIyer, S.R.\nCitation: Recent advances in environmental science, ed. by: Hiremath, K.G. 376-398p.\nIssue Date: 2003\nPublisher: Discovery Publishing House\nAbstract: Microorganisms, in particular bacteria, play far more important ecological roles in natural environments than their small sizes would suggest. The environment for bacteria is everything that surrounds and sustains them including air, plant, animal surfaces and interiors, soil, water and even the micrometer sized organic particles. Thus, from an ecological perspective, bacteria are integral parts of the organismis communities that interact variously with each other and between other, higher and lower forms of life. These interactions in any ecosystem are of greater significance both in terms of ecological dynamics and stability. Some microbes are autotrophic, capable of generating new organic matter. However, most microbes, in particular bacteria, are heterotrophic. Heterotrophic bacteria are largely responsible for biodegradation and recycling of organic matter. Thus, they are intimately involved in biogeochemical reaction of the key elements of living systems viz. C, H, N, S, P, O in addition to a few trace elements. In simple terms, biogeochemical reactions are all those changes and element undergoes in its oxidation state as it moves through an ecosystem, in and out of organisms. Microbiology is a many faceted science. Its understanding is essential for a better appreciation of ecological and technological events to which microbes are intimately linked. Efficient and economically beneficial industrial applications of microbes have been possible by understanding the basic ecology, physiology, biology and biochemistry of microbes. The results of these studies on the usefulness of marine luminous bacteria in marine pollution pre-screening, the direct viable counts of bacteria in sensing marine environmental pollution stress are reported.\nDocument type: Book Chapter\nCopyright: Copyright [2003]. It is tried to respect the rights of the copyright holders to the best of the knowledge. If it is brought to our notice that the rights are violated then the item would be withdrawn.\nURI: http://drs.nio.org/drs/handle/2264/1214\nAppears in Collections:Biological Sciences\n\nFiles in This Item:\n\nFile Description SizeFormat\nRecent_Adv_Environ_Sci_2003_376.pdf895.66 kBAdobe PDFView/Open\nRestrict Access. You can Request a copy!\n\nItems in DRS are protected by copyright, with all rights reserved, unless otherwise indicated.\n\n\n\nDRS is a service of NIO library (NICMAS) | | Feedback: satya at nio.org\n\nDSpace Software Copyright © 2002-2007 MIT and Hewlett-Packard | | Compliant to OAI-PMH V 2.0", "pred_label": "__label__1", "pred_score_pos": 0.9443373680114746}
+{"content": "Program of Study\n\nThe Women's Studies minor prepares students to gain an awareness of women's issues, to understand how social constructions of gender and sexuality affect and have shaped daily experience, broader social structures, institutions, social relations, and cultural and aesthetic production. \n\n New Course!\n\nWMST A200 Women, Society, and Culture will be offered during the 2012-2013 academic year, and can be considered a substitute for the WS A100 course with the permission of the Women's Studies advisor.", "pred_label": "__label__1", "pred_score_pos": 0.9616211652755737}
+{"content": "Join us!  Sign in   \n\nSweet and Smokey Rotisserie Grilled Chicken\n\nRecipes »  Main Dish  »  Poultry - Chicken\n\nCan you say moist? Flavorful? Easy?\n\nCuisine: AmericanMain Ingredient: Chicken\n\n\n7 people want to try | 4 have favorited\n\n\nReady in 2 hours, 15 minutes\n[ customize ]   [ alert an editor ]   [ I've made ]\nOriginal recipe makes 4\n4 lbswhole chicken; (up to 6 lbs)\n0.5 cupextra virgin olive oil\n2 tablespoonsorange blossom honey\n2 tablespoonsorange juice; preferably freshly squeezed\n0.5 tspsmokey paprika\n0.5 tspgarlic salt\n0.25 teaspoonfresh black pepper\n\nSweet and Smokey Rotisserie Grilled Chicken Preparation\n\nThoroughly wash and pat dry the chicken and gizzards and set aside. Combine remaining ingredients in a small saucepan, until smooth. Brush inside of chicken with mixture, add gizzards, attached to rotisserie, and tie up drumsticks and wings.\n\nCook on indirect heat on a 300º - 350º gas grill until temperature is 175º with a thermometer inserted into the thickest part of the thigh (over the drumstick) and the juices run clear. Take it off the barbie and let it rest, covered in aluminum foil.\n\nLink to another BigOven recipe\n\n\nCalories Per Serving: 1206\nDate My private notes\nAdd notes with BigOven Pro!\n\nSweet and Smokey Rotisserie Grilled Chicken Reviews\n\nNOTE: You can make excellent gravy if you prepare a dripping pan correctly - find an aluminum pan to fit under your chicken and add water to the bottom of the pan. NOW cover it with aluminum foil. This will keep the drippings from sticking to the pan, and will keep them liquified, so you can make gravy. NOTE: 20 - 30 min per pound is average. [I posted this recipe.]\n3 years, 9 months, 8 hours, 16 minutes ago\n\n\n  1. Chicken\n  2. Grill\n  3. Budget\n  4. Excellent Flavor\n  5. Moist\n  6. Summer\n\nBlogger? Grab a link to this recipe\n\nLink type:     \n\n\nhere's how it will appear in your blog:\n\n\nPrint, send, share this recipe\n\nHi there! Please sign in first.\n\n\n\n\nReady? Let's get cooking.", "pred_label": "__label__1", "pred_score_pos": 0.5743001699447632}
+{"content": "An unexpected land of dreams can also be hard and cruel\n\n-A A +A\nBy Fran Salone-Pelletier, Religion Columnist\n\nIt portrays the beleaguered life of Carlos Galindo, an illegal immigrant Mexican gardener in East Los Angeles. He is a single parent struggling to keep his teenage son Eddie away from gangs and immigration agents. He is also trying to give his son opportunities for a better life, a life he never had. In the meantime, they live in substandard conditions, eking out an existence from day jobs, always on guard, always staying under the radar, lest they be noticed by the ICE authorities and are deported.\nThe story depicts two people who are quintessential examples of the cliché, “If it weren’t for bad luck, they’d have no luck at all.”\nIt is delineated from the beginning in Carlos’ flatly stated admission, “This is a land of dreams. It is a hard place, a cruel place.” Yet, he continues to dream of a better life for his son and himself. He dreams of a homeland where he can be as visible as those he sees walking freely and comfortably, heads held high while he tries to shrink into the background.\nNo matter how hard the father works, no matter how honest he is, no matter that he is willing to undertake dangerous tasks like climbing extremely tall palm trees with little protection, he cannot seem to make headway in his impoverished life. At the same time, his son refuses to enter the challenge of betterment. He wishes a better life without the trials of working for it. He is surrounded by those who offer him betterment as a gang member, a drug user and a felon. His internal conflict matches his father’s external one.\nDreams become nightmares. Dreams are dashed in a nanosecond when his one foray into improvement is crushed by a fellow Mexican. When Santiago betrays Carlos’ trust and steals the truck that bore all his hope for the future, Carlos’ optimism is stolen as well.\nIn the way of all providence, however, this tragedy both awakens Eddie to the reality that his father is truly a gift, a caring parent, and initiates a new, deeper relationship between them. Eddie intensifies his son-ship into a true partnership with his father, a transformed understanding that they are together in the quest for a better life.\nThe story continues to challenge the viewer because it is not a walk, hand-in-hand, into the sunrise of a new life. It is a portrayal of what happens when an illegal immigrant is caught, not for a crime but for simply being illegal, in a land of law and order. It awakens the viewer to a harsh reality, to the profiling that exists. It underscores the fact we all have preconceived notions about each other, notions that become concretized when we are faced with our fear of the unknown.\nThe story is not simply a film to watch, analyze, discuss and dismiss. It is an impetus to action, the beginning to understanding someone who is different from us. It impels comprehension of another culture.\nIt asks us to look around at our own “neck of the woods” to see the gardeners and landscapers, construction workers, restaurant staff, field workers—all the invisible people who make our world a better place and dream of living in that world, without fear and trepidation.\nThey dream of a place where they are accepted as they are­—the common dream of all humanity. They dream of being viewed not as they look and talk, but as they are.\nThe movie came to life for me in many ways. One was a recent experience. I was sitting on our tiny porch area, a shady spot where I often chose as my al fresco place to read. Novel in hand, I was absorbed but also aware of the hum of mowers and weed whackers. It was yard maintenance day, and the workers were busy about their tasks. As the men came closer to the house, the noise grew louder and my absorption in the story lessened. I looked up to see one of the men busily edging the area beside the driveway.\nHe looked at me, stopped for a moment, and asked me what I was reading. When I showed him the paperback, he grew still. I inquired if he also liked to read. He answered, “Yes.” I took a chance and questioned him regarding the kind of books he liked to read. His response took me aback. He said, “I like to read the Bible and books about Jesus.”\nOur short conversation ended. He went back to his duties. I closed my novel and reflected upon the episode. What happened here? Had this been my experience of the movie brought vividly to life, to a better life? I believe so.\nI believe I had a preconceived notion that this man, obviously Latino, was not a reader. I likely expected that this would be a person with a heavy accent who could not articulate his thoughts very well. I was wrong...so wrong. Here I sat, a woman who conducts Bible studies, reading a junk novel. There he was, a man who worked hard and probably received little gratitude for his endeavors, a man who enjoyed spiritual reading, not junk.\nThe encounter brought me up short. It is not that novels are to be left unread. That wasn’t the message I received. The lesson I learned, and will likely have to relearn daily, was to refrain from judgment. It was to accept each person who enters my life, in any way, as a companion on the road of life. It is to see each individual as God’s gift to me, God’s presence with me.\nThe better life is fraught with challenges and graced with opportunities to live in a land of dreams, a land where all are offered ways in which to enjoy liberty and the pursuit of happiness, a land where justice and mercy kiss. May we never lose the dream and always work toward its fulfillment!\nFran Salone-Pelletier has a master’s degree in theology and is the author of Awakening to God: The Sunday Readings in Our Lives [a trilogy of Scriptural meditations], lead chaplain at Brunswick Novant Medical Center, religious educator, retreat leader, lecturer and grandmother of four. She can be reached at grammistfran@gmail.com.", "pred_label": "__label__1", "pred_score_pos": 0.5395010709762573}
+{"content": "Exclusive: Paul Bettany: 'I've never seen any of the Iron Man movies' - video\n\n |  By  |  11 comments\nPaul Bettany has admitted that he has never seen any of the Iron Man films and \"knows nothing\" about the series.\n\nThe actor, who voices the role of Tony Stark's (Robert Downey Jr) computer Jarvis, explained that he is never sent the full script for the films - with the exception of The Avengers, which he described as \"an anomaly\".\n\n\"I get brought in right at the last moment, where if they've worked out that they have a clarity issue or whatever, they can always add it to [my] dialog,\" he said.\n\n\"I feel like a pirate. This is robbery. I walk in, I say some lines on a piece of paper for two hours, and then they give me a bag of money and I leave and I go about my day.\n\n\"I sort of feel guilty, because at least acting can be exhausting, with long hours… but I do nothing! And I've never seen one of them.\"\n\nBettany went on to emphasise that there are many of his movies which he has never seen, and the Marvel films just happen to be among them, saying: \"It's not because of any snobbishness, it's just not my thing.\n\n\"I'm plagued by fanboys who love Jarvis... They come up and I've got no idea what they're talking about. I've got no idea about Iron Man - I don't get sent the whole script.\"\n\n> Robert Downey Jr: 'Iron Man 3 could be best superhero movie ever'\n\nIron Man 3 is released on April 26 in the UK and May 3 in the US. A trailer will debut later this month.\n\nBettany's upcoming crime thriller Blood, which is directed by The Awakening helmer Nick Murphy, plays at the BFI London Film Festival this month.\n\nPhoto gallery - Marvel movies in pictures:", "pred_label": "__label__1", "pred_score_pos": 0.8130785822868347}
+{"content": "Progress is slow because I have daily job and family duties.\n\nI wasted a few days on the garbage collector that doesn't work when code is compiled in release mode. The problem is due to the garbage collector and an initialization failure. Since it only shows up in release mode, it is hard to debug.\n\nI am in the process of extending the IDR API to support pre-encoded IDR data insertion and extraction. This will be used to implement a remote IDR data storage service, event dispatching, relays or broadcasting or simply to optimize generation of frequently emitted requests or responses. The need to support exceptions in this process requires some attention.\n\n\n ... because it reduces communication latency and memory requirement.\n\nCommunication latency:\nIn a message oriented protocol the sender has to fully encode the message before it can be sent, and the receiver must receive the whole message before he can start decoding and processing it. The receiver has thus to wait for the whole message to be generated, sent and received before doing anything.\n\nWith a stream oriented protocol the communication process is pipelined. The sender encodes and sends a first chunk of the message allowing the receiver to start decoding and processing it, while the sender encodes and sends the next chunk of the message. The sender and the receiver then work in parallel and not in sequence.\n\nManual data split is possible with message oriented protocol but at the price of a significant complexity increase of user code, and such splitting can become very tricky when dealing with object aggregates.\n\nMemory requirement:\nA message oriented protocol requires that the sender and the receiver hold an encoded copy of the full message. This puts the memory management system under stress because these memory blocks have a short life span, they are of varying size and they are sometime big.\n\nWith a stream oriented protocol, the memory requirement is limited to the storage of the encoded message chunk, and this even if the message size is huge. The buffer holding a message chunk can also be easily recycled because it is of a fixed size.\n\nDITP has thus been designed to be a stream oriented protocol, while most inter-object communication protocols are classically message oriented (i.e. CORBA, RMI, ICE). SOAP is the only inter-object communication protocol I know that is stream oriented. It thus benefits from the reduced latency and small memory requirement; but these benefits are spoilt by the ASCII and xml encoding. \n\n\nThings have a little bit evolved since the last time I checked the D programming language web site. An updated pdf version of the D language specification is available and the poseidon IDE is catching momentum.\n\nThere are some other nice features I forgot to mention in the previous note. Here is a short list:\n\n   - static asserts and if evaluated at compile time\n   - mixins of code and templates\n   - contract programming (pre and post conditions)\n   - version and debug keywords for conditional compilation\n   - scopes\n\nThere are probably more gems in there, but these are a good start to catch the added value of D compared to other programming languages. Note that D is not an academic research product. It has been created by compiler writers that capitalized their experience in designing a new and better language.\n\n\nDIS prototype is currently developped in C++ with Microsoft's Visual Studio C++ IDE. This is because it is a very reliable IDE and has the best debugger I know and at this stage of development debugging plays an important role.\n\nI could have used Java, with Eclipse as IDE, which is as good, and even better on some aspects; an impressive master piece of IBM. But I first need a library for compiled code to be used on servers. I also have the impression that it is easier to translate C++ code into Java than the opposite. C# is on my list, but I need an OS independent language and totally free to use. As far as I know it is currently not the case.\n\nSo, the D programming language is very close to the top of my list. This language has very attractive features and I foresee a brilliant future to it. But, as Java in its very early days, D is laking a good IDE with accurate debugging support. The other weakness is its documentation, but this shouldn't last long.\n\nIt has all the features one would expect from a modern programming language and I have just learned about the scope keyword and its purpose. This is great. Read this article for a clear and detailed explanation on its purpose and usage.\n\nAnother interesting feature is its support of the SWT library called DWT. It makes it easy to implement a portable GUI application. You can also very easily use your pet C library with D. The reverse should be possible but it is not clear yet how to do this. It would be interesting for people developping libraries in D and keep them usable with C or C++. Something I would need.\n\n\nWhen I was younger I always thought Murphy's law was a kind of a joke. It sounds so fatalist. Intuitively I believed there was some truth in it, but I couldn't point it out. Here is its most popular, concise and general formulation.\n\n              \"Everything that can go wrong will go wrong\"\n\nI recently (re)discovered its mathematical justification and thought it might be usefull to present here. Hold your socks, here it goes.\n\nLet p be the probability that the \"wrong thing\" happens in one event. The probability that it doesn't happen is then 1-p. The probability that it never happens in n events is then (1-p)^n. Since 1-p is smaller than 1, this probability tends toward 0 when n gets big.\n\nSo the correct and complete law formulation should be\n    \"Any possible outcome will happen at least once for sure, provided that it is given enough opportunities to occur\".\n\nSo Murphy's law is not complete and general enough on two aspects:\n\n  - it applies for good events as well as bad events;\n\n  - it depends on the number of opportunities to occur.\n\nOk, my formulation is less fun than murphy's law and it is probably because of its provocative formulation and partial correctness that it attracts so much attention. But just to be sure you didn't miss the point, when you consider the probability of occurence of something, good or bad, take in account the number of opportunities it has to occur.\n\nThat's true for startup success as well as for car or software crashes or anything else. People often focus only on  p and forget about n. The YCombinator funding model is based on making n increments cheap. And this is as good for entrepreneurs as for investors.\n\n\nWith most modern programming languages there is no such question because garbage collector is built-in. This is not the case with C++, and since I develop the first prototype in this language, I had to anwser it. Do I really need a garbage collector ?\n\nIDR needs a garbage collector because it supports object aggregate encoding and IDR should impose minimal constrains on them. Cycles allowed, minimal difference with local objects, user implemented classes, etc.\n\nAnother reason result from the reliance on exception handling. This is the price to pay for using the streaming encoding model. If an exception is generated on the encoder side, it has to be propagated to the decoder. And manual memory management with exceptions can become tricky.\n\nThis is why I went into the effort of adding garbage collector support to C++. The good news is that it is planned to be added in the next version of the C++ standard. So the effort to implement IDR in C++ with a temporary solution is not a waste of time.\n\n\nDITP was designed early, together with IDR. Since IDR is now operational and ready for throughout testing, DITP could be implemented and tested.\n\nDITP core is very trivial and easy to implement and a first prototype is already operational. This gave the opportunity to test readabilty and lightness of the IDR API which needed some refinements.\n\nThis also allowed me to check what is needed to build a server and client objects which of course have to be made as simple as possible.\n\nA critical and time consuming task was adding garbage collector support into C++. I'll discuss the C++ and GC issue in another post. I used libgc v6.8 and managed yesterday to get a running client server prototype with full reliance on the GC and showing no memory leaks. Since the client and server may host live objects, they have to support multithreading.\n\nSo far, so good! ... as said a guy at each storey when falling from a building.\n\n\nAs beeing the most fundamental component of DIS, IDR was designed and implemented first.\n\nIDR is fully functional and passed all the tests I did. It still need throughout testings for qualifying for production readyness.\n\nIDR supports bleam, data and object aggregate encoding, as well as exception handling with exception encoding. Bleam encapsulation required special care to achieve this.\n\n\n\n\n\n\nBy reading and using any information published on this web site you implicitely and totally agree to fully assume any possible consequences of this activity.\n\nThe author owns total and exclusive intellectual property on DIS and its covered technology as on all the information published on this web site. Note that it doesn't exclude free use of it.\n\nIf the technology discribed as part of DIS, and claimed to be an exclusive invention of the author of this web site, appears to be covered in part, or totally, by any patents, you must immediately inform the author of it and provide the justifying documentation.\n\n\nIt was time to create this web site so I could explain what is DIS and, what I value most, get your feedback to make DIS more useful. Please leave a comment or send a mail.", "pred_label": "__label__1", "pred_score_pos": 0.5830473899841309}
+{"content": "<<Up     Contents\n\nUnderground Railroad\n\nRedirected from Underground railroad The Underground Railroad was not a railroad per se but rather a network of clandestine routes, often informal and impromptu, by which slaves were able to escape the United States and reach freedom either in states that protected fugitive slaves, or in Canada. The Underground Railroad consisted of secret safe houses and other facilities owned by anti-slavery sympathizers, and operated much like any other large-scale widespread resistance movement with independent cells that only knew of a few of their neighbours. Escaped slaves would pass from one way station to another, making their way north step by step.\n\n\nSee also: Harriet Tubman\n\nFor underground railroads and railways in the general sense (subways, metros), see metro.", "pred_label": "__label__1", "pred_score_pos": 0.9998396039009094}
+{"content": "Historical Bedrooms\nVintage Nurseries\nChristmas Dining Rooms\n\nChristmas Dining Rooms in Victorian Style\n\nThe holiday season can be a time filled with festive gatherings of families and friends. We all enjoy meeting relatives, friends and neighbors and laughing at each other's stories over a holiday table brimming with fine foods and trimmings. For the history enthusiast, the holidays offer opportunities to share your love of the past by decorating your home in authentic historical fashion. The Victorians were particularly fond of the Christmas holiday, and began many of the traditions we enjoy today. For example, Victorians began the custom of exchanging Christmas cards with friends, and invented Christmas crackers filled with small gifts. Moreover, the economy of the times allowed for grand celebration of the holiday like never before. The wealth generated by the new factories and industries of the Victorian age allowed middle class families in England and Wales, in particular, to take time off from work and celebrate over two days, Christmas Day and Boxing Day. Families suddenly found the time and reason for decorating their homes and enjoying lavish dinners!\n\nThis season, don't be afraid to mix and match styles. For your dining table, try layering on different fabrics--a richly trimmed brocade tablecloth, topped with a sparkling runner or even a square quilt, and finished off with colorful doilies, handkerchiefs and ribbons for panache. Spruce up your table with a combination of plates (that need not be the same pattern). Use gold or silver charger plates to create a formal look, and then mix and match a variety of fancy plates, layered atop one another. Or, for a more subdued and clean look, use tone-on-tone whites this season, and adorn your table with wintry, frosted poinsettas, berries, and snowball candles. Don't forget to lay a few Victorian Christmas \"firecrackers\" on your table for fun after the meal!\n\nAnd as a final note, no Victorian home is complete during the holidays without a Christmas tree. The symbol of the Christmas tree can, in fact, be traced back to the 7th century. According to tradition, a monk from Crediton, Devonshire, went to Germany to teach the Word of God to the people. He used the triangular shape of the local-grown fir tree to describe the Trinity: the Father, Son and Holy Spirit. Early Christians continued the use of the tree as a symbol of the Christian faith. By the 12th century, fir trees were hung from ceilings at Christmastime in Central Europe as a symbol of faith. During the 16th century, Protestant reformer Martin Luther reportedly decorated a small tree with candles to tell the story of Christ's birth and how the stars twinkled through the dark night. Before long, trees were decorated in houses all across Germany for Christmastime. Real silver was produced into strands of tinsel and hung on the tree along with candles and other small ornaments. However, it was not until the Victorian era when the Christmas tree truly became a holiday staple, after Queen Victoria and her German husband Albert made Christmas trees all the rage. Young Victorian ladies quilled snowflakes and stars, made paper baskets, and fashioned bead decorations for their trees. Germany also imported lovely angels to top the tree. By the early twentieth century, ornaments were manufactured and sold to the masses. Garlands, glass tree ornaments, glitter and small toys adorned trees that have become more elaborate through the years. If your dining room allows the space, consider placing a tree in the corner to truly add some holiday warmth. Even a small tree will do! Your guests will never forget the experience of a holiday meal by the light of a real Christmas tree.", "pred_label": "__label__1", "pred_score_pos": 0.8014951348304749}
+{"content": "\nQuotes from authors born on Oct 7th\nDesmond Tutu\nWithout forgiveness, there's no future.\nDesmond Tutu\nHeinrich Himmler\nHistory proves that all dictatorships, all authoritarian forms of government are transient. Only democratic systems are not transient. Whatever the shortcomings, mankind has not devised anything superior.\nVladimir Putin\nWhy would people spend good money to have my pants?\nShawn Ashmore\nAuthors born on Oct 7th\nMeyer Levin 1 quote\nDiana Lynn 2 quotes\nYo-Yo Ma 17 quotes\nCatharine MacKinnon 10 quotes\nJohn Marston 2 quotes\nRachel McAdams 9 quotes\nUlrike Meinhof 1 quote\nJohn Mellencamp 34 quotes\nVaughn Monroe 6 quotes\nGeorge Nethercutt 6 quotes", "pred_label": "__label__1", "pred_score_pos": 0.6978026032447815}
+{"content": "post #1 of 1\nThread Starter \nI know this laptop has a limit of 128mb integrated memory, but after installing OSX on it, it was reported as 256mb. This lead me to believe that either you can somehow define how much memory you want to use (not an option in the bios) or that OSX was reporting incorrect information (a possibility). Whats funny is that other laptops with the same chipset have different max memory settings.\n\nAnyone know of anything that might help one change the amount of memory available.", "pred_label": "__label__1", "pred_score_pos": 0.5933117866516113}
+{"content": "RYCO 24•7\n\nRYCO 24•7 offers a comprehensive service for the hydraulic industry with emergency break down, programmed maintenance, OEM support, installation and aftermarket business. Our professionally trained and dedicated teams are on call 24 hours a day, 7 days a week offering expert technical support for all types of hydraulic systems.\n\n\nRHAU-MKT Kalgoorlie 63 R", "pred_label": "__label__1", "pred_score_pos": 0.5713257789611816}
+{"content": "Working with multiple windows/tabs\n\n\nIs it possible to keep several windows open so that I can easily change from one window to another?\n\n\nIf you keep the ctrl button or the right hand mouse pushed down when choosing a link, the new page will be displayed in a new window (or tab) and you can then easily switch between multiple views.", "pred_label": "__label__1", "pred_score_pos": 0.9995161294937134}
+{"content": "\n\n2011 Country Reports on Human Rights Practices - Benin\n\nPublisher United States Department of State\nAuthor Bureau of Democracy, Human Rights and Labor\nPublication Date 24 May 2012\nCite as United States Department of State, 2011 Country Reports on Human Rights Practices - Benin, 24 May 2012, available at: [accessed 19 June 2013]\n\n\nBenin is a constitutional democracy. On March 13, President Boni Yayi won a second, and final, five-year term in multiparty elections. In the April 30 legislative elections, President Yayi's supporting coalition, Cowry Force for an Emerging Benin, won 41 of 83 seats in the National Assembly and formed a majority coalition with the Renaissance of Benin Party and other minor supporting parties for a total of 61 seats. As a result the coalition controlled the Bureau of the National Assembly with six of the seven seats. International observers viewed both the presidential and legislative elections as free, fair, and transparent. Security forces reported to civilian authorities.\n\nThree main human rights abuses reported during the year included police use of excessive force; violence and discrimination against women and girls, including female genital mutilation (FGM); and harsh prison conditions.\n\nOther major human rights problems included arbitrary arrest and detention with prolonged pretrial detention. Vigilante violence occurred, as did trafficking and abuse of children, including infanticide and child labor.\n\nAlthough the government made an effort to control corruption and abuses, including prosecuting and punishing public officials, officials sometimes engaged in corrupt practices with impunity.\n\n\na. Arbitrary or Unlawful Deprivation of Life\n\nThere were no reports that the government or its agents committed arbitrary or unlawful killings, including politically motivated killings. Elements of security forces occasionally shot and killed armed robbers and claimed self-defense to justify the shootings.\n\nFor example, on January 18, police shot and killed a wanted criminal in Fidjrosse, in Cotonou. The criminal, who was reported to have \"challenged and made a fool of\" the police officers, refused to surrender despite their warnings.\n\nb. Disappearance\n\nThere were no reports of politically motivated disappearances.\n\n\nThe constitution and law prohibit such practices; however, there were reports of such incidents. Beatings in custody reportedly were commonplace. The Constitutional Court received complaints from citizens who were brutalized by the police.\n\nPrison and Detention Center Conditions\n\nPrison conditions continued to be harsh and life threatening. Overcrowding and lack of proper sanitation and medical facilities posed risks to prisoners' health. A July 2010 mediator of the republic's (ombudsman) report on the condition in the nine civil prisons indicated that prisons were overcrowded, and malnutrition and disease were common. Potable water was available. Some prisoners suffered from mental illness. There were deaths due to lack of medical care and neglect. Eight of the nine civil prisons were filled far beyond their capacity. The July 2010 ombudsman's report, commissioned by the president, indicated the total prison population (including pretrial detainees and remand prisoners) was 6,908, in a system with an official capacity of 1,900; of that number, pretrial detainees and remand prisoners totaled 5,174. Statistics from 2008 indicated that female prisoners were 3.5 percent of the prison population and that juveniles were 2.1 percent.\n\nWomen were not held together with men.\n\nJuveniles at times were housed with adults. Pretrial detainees were held with convicted prisoners, although not with the most violent convicts or those convicted of crimes subject to the death penalty.\n\nPrisoners and detainees had access to visitors and were permitted religious observance. There was no formal system to submit complaints to judicial authorities without censorship, but prisoners could directly address the director of the prison or complain through the normal judicial processes.\n\nThe government permitted prison visits by human rights monitors. Religious groups and nongovernmental organizations (NGOs) continued to visit prisons. Organizations that visited prisons during the year included the International Committee of the Red Cross, Amnesty International, the local chapter of Prison Fellowship, Caritas, and Prisoners without Borders.\n\nd. Arbitrary Arrest or Detention\n\nThe constitution and law prohibit arbitrary arrest and detention, and the government generally observed these prohibitions in practice.\n\nRole of the Police and Security Apparatus\n\nThe police, under the Ministry of Interior, have primary responsibility for enforcing law and maintaining order in urban areas; the gendarmerie, under the Ministry of Defense, performs the same function in rural areas.\n\nMilitary disciplinary councils deal with minor offenses by members of the military services; they have no jurisdiction over civilians. Civilian courts deal with crimes involving the military. The country has no military tribunal.\n\nThere is an internal affairs division of the police, called the Inspector General, which investigates internal police matters.\n\nThe police were inadequately equipped and poorly trained, but the government continued to respond to these problems by recruiting more officers, building more stations, and modernizing equipment during the year; however, problems remained, including impunity.\n\nArrest Procedures and Treatment While in Detention\n\nThe constitution requires arrest warrants based on sufficient evidence and issued by a duly authorized official, and requires a hearing before a magistrate within 48 hours, but this was not always observed in practice. Under exceptional circumstances the magistrate may authorize continued detention not to exceed eight days. Detainees have the right to prompt judicial determination; this was generally observed in practice. Detainees were promptly informed of charges against them. They have the right to prompt lawyer access after being brought before a judge, also generally observed. They are allowed to receive family visits, which were generally permitted in practice. After examining a detainee, the judge has 24 hours to decide whether to continue to detain or release the individual. Defendants awaiting judicial decisions may request release on bail; however, the attorney general must agree to the request. Warrants authorizing pretrial detention were effective for six months and could be renewed every six months until a suspect was brought to trial. The government provided counsel to indigents in criminal cases.\n\nThere were credible reports that gendarmes and the police exceeded the legal limit of 48 hours of detention in many cases, sometimes by as much as a week. Authorities often used the practice of holding a person indefinitely \"at the disposal of\" the Public Prosecutor's Office before presenting the case to a magistrate.\n\nArbitrary Arrest: The constitution and law prohibit arbitrary arrest. However, at times the authorities did not respect these prohibitions.\n\nPretrial Detention: Approximately 75 percent of persons in prison were pretrial detainees; length of pretrial detention varied from two to 11 years. Inadequate facilities, poorly trained staff, and overcrowded dockets delayed the administration of justice.\n\ne. Denial of Fair Public Trial\n\nThe constitution and law provide for an independent judiciary, but the government did not always respect this provision. Authorities respected court orders.\n\nTrial Procedures\n\nWhile the constitution provides for the right to a fair trial, judicial inefficiency and corruption impeded exercise of this right.\n\nThe legal system is based on French civil law and local customary law. A defendant is presumed innocent. Jury trials are used in criminal cases. A defendant has the right to be present at trial and to representation by an attorney; the court provides indigent defendants with counsel upon request. A defendant has the right to confront witnesses and to have access to government-held evidence. Defendants are allowed to present witnesses and evidence on their own behalf. Defendants can appeal criminal convictions to the court of appeals and the Supreme Court, after which they may appeal to the president for a pardon. Trials are open to the public, but in exceptional circumstances the president of the court may decide to restrict access to preserve public order or to protect the parties. The government extends the above rights to all citizens without discrimination.\n\nPolitical Prisoners and Detainees\n\nThere were no reports of political prisoners or detainees.\n\nCivil Judicial Procedures and Remedies\n\nThere is an independent judiciary in civil matters. If administrative or informal remedies are unsuccessful, a citizen may file a complaint concerning an alleged human rights violation with the Constitutional Court. An individual can appeal to the Economic Community of West African States' Court of Justice.\n\n\nThe constitution and law prohibit such actions, and the government generally respected these prohibitions in practice. The law requires police to obtain a judicial warrant before entering a private home, and they generally observed this requirement.\n\nSection 2. Respect for Civil Liberties, Including:\n\na. Freedom of Speech and Press\n\nStatus of Freedom of Speech and Press\n\nAlthough the constitution and law provide for freedom of speech, the government did not always respect this right. There were radio and television broadcasts in which citizens openly criticized the president's policies without reprisal; however, the government occasionally inhibited freedom of the press.\n\nFreedom of Speech: The law provides for prison sentences involving compulsory labor for certain actions related to abuse of the right of free expression; penalties are for threats to public order or calls to violence. There were no reports that the law was invoked during the year.\n\nFreedom of Press: The independent media were active and expressed a wide variety of views without restriction. Publications criticized the government freely and frequently. A nongovernmental media ethics commission continued to censure some journalists during the year for unethical conduct, such as reporting falsehoods or inaccuracies or releasing information that was under embargo by the government.\n\nThe government continued to own and operate the most influential media organizations by controlling broadcast range and infrastructure. The majority of citizens are illiterate, live in rural areas, and generally receive their news via radio. The Office de Radiodiffusion et Television du Benin (ORTB) broadcasts in French and local languages. There were an estimated 75 private, community, and commercial radio stations, and one government-owned and five private television stations. Rural community radio stations received support from the ORTB and broadcast several hours a day, exclusively in local languages. Radio France International and the BBC broadcast in Cotonou. The government granted 350 million CFA ($78,000) in financial assistance to the private media during the year.\n\nCensorship or Content Restrictions: Journalists practiced self-censorship.\n\nLibel Laws/National Security: The law criminalizes libel, and numerous journalists faced pending libel charges. The law prohibits private citizens and the press from declaring or predicting election results.\n\nAn official from a nongovernmental media ethics commission indicated that the court continued to receive libel cases against journalists during the year, but judges generally refrained from prosecuting them. Journalists continued to fight for the decriminalization of press-related offenses.\n\nPublishing Restrictions: The High Authority of Audiovisual and Communication (HAAC) oversaw media operations and required broadcasters to submit weekly lists of planned programs and publishers to submit copies of all publications; however, the media did not comply with these requirements in practice. The HAAC claimed the information was used for administrative purposes; however, some journalists complained it was a form of harassment.\n\nInternet Freedom\n\n\nAcademic Freedom and Cultural Events\n\nThere were no government restrictions on academic freedom or cultural events.\n\nb. Freedom of Peaceful Assembly and Association\n\nFreedom of Assembly\n\nThe constitution and law provide for freedom of assembly, and the government generally respected this right.\n\nThe government requires permits for use of public places for demonstrations and generally granted such permits; however, the authorities sometimes cited \"public order\" to deny requests for permits from opposition groups, civil society organizations, and labor unions.\n\nFreedom of Association\n\nThe constitution and law provide for freedom of association, and the government generally respected this right. The government requires associations to register and routinely granted registration.\n\nc. Freedom of Religion\n\n\n\n\n\nIn-Country Movement: The presence of police, gendarmes, and illegal roadblocks impeded domestic movement. Although meant to enforce vehicle safety and customs regulations, many checkpoints served as means for police and gendarmes to exact bribes from travelers. The government maintained previously implemented measures to combat such corruption at roadblocks, but they were not always effective, and extortion commonly occurred.\n\nForeign Travel: The government maintained documentary requirements for minors traveling abroad as part of its continuing campaign against trafficking in persons. This was not always enforced, and trafficking of minors across borders continued.\n\nThe government's policy toward the seasonal movement of livestock allowed migratory Fulani (Peul) herdsmen from other countries to enter and depart freely; the government did not enforce designated entry points.\n\nProtection of Refugees\n\nThe government has established a system for providing protection to refugees. As of November 1, there were approximately 2,700 Togolese refugees at the Agamey Refugee Camp and 200 refugees of various nationalities at the Kpomasse Refugee Camp. The government provided protection against the expulsion or return of refugees to countries where their lives or freedom would be threatened on account of their race, religion, nationality, membership in a particular social group, or political opinion. The government did not provide temporary protection during the year. If individuals do not qualify as refugees under the 1951 UN Refugee Convention, authorities direct them to the Immigration Office to apply for a residence permit.\n\n\nEmployment: The government continued to permit Togolese refugees residing in local communities and refugee camps to participate in most economic activities and enroll their children in local schools.\n\nDurable Solutions: The government and the UNHCR continued to educate Togolese refugees on the 2007 voluntary repatriation initiative. Despite the government and UNHCR's July decision to close the Kpomasse camp, the 201 remaining refugees refused the government and UNHCR's assistance in resettling in Benin and refused to leave the camp.\n\n\nThe constitution and law provide citizens the right to change their government peacefully, and citizens exercised this right through periodic, free, and fair elections based on universal suffrage.\n\nElections and Political Participation\n\nRecent Elections: The country held presidential elections on March 13 and legislative elections on April 30. International observers viewed both the presidential and legislative elections as generally free and fair. Both elections were hampered by delays on the days of the vote, usually in receiving voting materials or due to polling staff arriving late. Even with delays, all polling stations remained open the full nine hours required by law. There were no reports of eligible voters unable to cast ballots.\n\nPolitical Parties: Parties could freely run candidates for election. There were no government restrictions on the political opposition. No single party or group has recently dominated politics. For legislative elections, all candidates must be associated with a political party; there were no independent candidates.\n\nParticipation of Women and Minorities: There were eight women out of 83 members in the National Assembly and eight female ministers in the 26-member cabinet. The Constitutional Court had two women among its seven justices.\n\nThe country has no majority ethnic group. Various ethnic groups were well represented in government agencies, including the civil service, and the armed forces. Nine cabinet ministers were from the Bariba, Somba, and Dendi ethnic groups; eleven were from the Fon, Goun, and Adja ethnic groups; and six were from the Yoruba and Nago ethnic groups.\n\nSection 4. Official Corruption and Government Transparency\n\nAlthough the law provides criminal penalties for official corruption, the government did not implement the law effectively, and officials sometimes engaged in corrupt practices with impunity. President Yayi continued his 2006 anticorruption initiative.\n\nOn August 30, the National Assembly approved the law to prevent corruption and related offenses that was pending since 2006.\n\nThe government took a number of actions during the year to combat corruption, including appointment of internal auditors to public companies and creation of a hotline to the presidency to enable citizens to denounce incidents of corruption. To combat customs fraud, the government established the use of scanners to inspect imported cargo before clearance as part of its Imports Verification Program (PVI).\n\nPolice corruption was widespread. Police continued to extort money from travelers at roadblocks. For example, on August 12, two police officers positioned at a roundabout called \"La gaite\" in Cotonou to regulate traffic were caught extorting money from travelers. The two police officers were arrested and jailed for disciplinary infraction.\n\nThe Watchdog to Combat Corruption (OLC), a governmental agency, continued to address corruption. The OLC trained observers and polling agents on measures to prevent electoral fraud during the March and April presidential and legislative elections.\n\nIt was commonly believed, and acknowledged by some judicial personnel, that the judicial system at all levels was susceptible to corruption.\n\nThe World Bank's most recent Worldwide Governance Indicators reflected that corruption continued to be a serious problem.\n\nPublic officials were not subject to financial disclosure laws.\n\nThere are no laws providing for public access to government information, and it was unclear whether requests for such access were granted.\n\n\n\nUN and Other International Bodies: In June 2010 an assessment team composed of two experts from the Office of the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights and the French Speaking Countries Association for Human Rights National Commissions came to the country to check whether the proposed amendments to the law on the Beninese Human Rights Commission were in line with the Principles relating to the Status of National Institutions (Paris Principles). The team provided recommendations for improvement and an implementation plan for priority action.\n\nGovernment Human Rights Bodies: The government met with domestic NGO monitors through the Advisory National Human Rights Council and the Ministry of Justice, Legislation, and Human Rights. The ministry coordinated awareness campaigns to educate the populace on human rights.\n\nSection 6. Discrimination, Societal Abuses, and Trafficking in Persons\n\nThe constitution and laws prohibit discrimination based on race, gender, disability, language, and social status, but societal discrimination against women continued. Persons with disabilities were disadvantaged. The government did not take concrete measures to address those problems.\n\n\nRape and Domestic Violence: The law prohibits rape, but enforcement was weak due to police ineffectiveness, victims' unwillingness to take cases to the police for fear of social stigma, and corruption. The penal code does not make a distinction between rape in general and spousal rape. Prison sentences for rape convictions ranged from one to five years. From January to October 2010, civil society organizations reported 636 gender-based violence cases reported to courts and 1,316 cases to police stations and brigades in the framework of an international NGO's project to combat gender-based violence in the country. These statistics, however, did not cover gender violence in the whole country. Statistics were not available on prosecutions or convictions. Because of police lack of training in collecting evidence associated with sexual assaults and victims' ignorance of their rights and inability to present evidence in court, judges reduced most sexual offenses to misdemeanors.\n\nThe penal code prohibits domestic violence, and penalties range from six to 36 months' imprisonment. However, domestic violence against women was common. Women remained reluctant to report cases. Judges and police were reluctant to intervene in domestic disputes; society generally considered such cases to be internal family matters. The local chapter of a regional NGO, Women in Law and Development-Benin; the Female Jurists Association of Benin (AFJB); and the Women's Justice and Empowerment Initiative through Care International's Empower Project offered social, legal, medical, and psychological assistance to victims of domestic violence. The Office of Women's Promotion under the jurisdiction of the Ministry of Family and Solidarity is responsible for protecting and advancing women's rights and welfare.\n\nFemale Genital Mutilation (FGM): The law prohibits FGM and provides for penalties for performing the procedure, including prison sentences of up to 10 years and fines of up to six million CFA ($13,000); however, the government generally was unsuccessful in preventing the practice. Individuals who were aware of an incident of FGM but did not report it potentially faced fines ranging from 50,000 to 100,000 CFA ($110 to $220). Enforcement was rare due to the code of silence associated with this crime. FGM was practiced on girls and women from infancy up to 30 years of age (although the majority of cases occurred before the age of 13, with half occurring before the age of five), and generally took the form of excision. Approximately 13 percent of women and girls have been subjected to FGM; the figure was higher in some regions, especially the northern departments, including Alibori and Donga (48 percent) and Borgou (59 percent), and among certain ethnic groups; more than 70 percent of Bariba and Peul (Fulani) and 53 percent of Yoa-Lokpa women and girls had undergone FGM. Younger women were less likely to be excised than their older counterparts. Those who performed the procedure, usually older women, profited from it.\n\nNGOs continued to educate rural communities about the dangers of FGM and to retrain FGM practitioners in other activities. A prominent NGO, the local chapter of the Inter-African Committee, made progress in raising public awareness of the dangers of the practice, and the government cooperated with these efforts. The Ministry of Family continued an education campaign that included conferences in schools and villages, discussions with religious and traditional authorities, and the display of banners. NGOs also addressed this problem in local languages on local radio stations.\n\nSexual Harassment: The law prohibits sexual harassment and offers protection for victims. Under the law persons convicted of sexual harassment face sentences of one to two years in prison and fines ranging from 100,000 to one million CFA ($220 to $2,200). The law also provides penalties for persons who are aware of sexual harassment and do not report it. Enforcement of these laws was lax due to law enforcement agents' and prosecutors' lack of legal knowledge and necessary skills to pursue such cases and victims' fear of social stigma. Although this specific law was not enforced, judges used other provisions in the penal code to deal with sexual abuses involving minors. Sexual harassment was common, especially of female students by their male teachers.\n\nSex Tourism: There is no specific law addressing sex tourism. It was not clear whether tourists who used the services of prostitutes came to the region specifically for sex tourism. There was no evidence of government involvement or complicity.\n\nReproductive Rights: The constitution provides that the government should protect the family, particularly the mother and the child. The law promotes responsible fertility to reduce early and/or late childbearing and promote family planning through the distribution of contraceptives. The law guarantees couples' and individuals' reproductive rights, including access to health care, freedom to give birth, freedom of marriage, rights to nondiscrimination, access to contraception, and equal access to health care for people living with sexually transmitted infections, including HIV. The law provides penalties for the commission of all acts prejudicial to the enjoyment of sexual and reproductive health. The government generally respected these rights. An estimated 30 percent of women had an unmet need for family planning. According to the Benin Demographic and Health Survey, 88 percent of women benefitted from prenatal care given by health personnel (80 percent by nurses and midwives, 4 percent by physicians, and 4 percent by others). The proportion of women who had access to prenatal care provided by physicians was higher in Cotonou (18 percent) and other cities (5 percent) than in rural areas (3 percent). The maternal mortality rate was 397 deaths per 100,000 live births; factors contributing to the high rate were delivering without adequate medical assistance and unhygienic conditions during birth.\n\nDiscrimination: Although the constitution provides for equality for women in the political, economic, and social spheres, women experienced extensive discrimination because of societal attitudes and resistance to behavioral change.\n\nWomen are no longer subject to customary law (Coutumier du Dahomey). The code of persons and the family bans all discrimination against women regarding marriage and provides for the right to equal inheritance.\n\nIn response to a complaint filed by a woman being prosecuted for adultery in 2009, the Constitutional Court ruled that adultery-related provisions contained in the penal code are unconstitutional on the grounds that these provisions discriminate against women.\n\nIn rural areas women traditionally occupy a subordinate role and are responsible for much of the hard labor on subsistence farms. In urban areas women dominated the informal trading sector in the open-air markets. During the year the government and NGOs continued to educate the public on the sections of law that provide women with inheritance and property rights and significantly increase their rights in marriage, including prohibitions on forced marriage, child marriage, and polygamy.\n\nIn practice women experienced discrimination in obtaining employment, credit, equal pay, and in owning or managing businesses. Women do not face legal restrictions but may face societal restrictions and discrimination. During the year the government granted microcredit to poor persons, especially to women in rural areas, to help them develop income-generating activities. An estimated 816,936 women benefited from these microcredit projects since they began in 2007.\n\n\nThe Ministry of Family is responsible for the protection of children's rights, primarily in the areas of education and health. The National Commission for Children's Rights and the Ministry of Family have oversight roles in the promotion of human rights with regard to child welfare.\n\nBirth Registration: Citizenship is derived by birth within the country's territory and/or from one's parents. Particularly in rural areas, parents often did not declare the birth of their children, either out of ignorance or because they could not afford the fees for birth certificates. This could result in denial of public services such as education and health care. The government issued birth certificates to children who did not have one through an Administrative Census for Birth Registration. Several donors operated programs to increase the number of registered children. For example, over the last three years, the NGO PLAN International has supported the free registration of children who need to take the primary school leaving exam (without a birth certificate, children may attend primary school but cannot take the exam). UNICEF and the NGOs Catholic Relief Services and World Education also supported the government's campaign to register every birth.\n\nEducation: Primary education was compulsory for all children between six and 11 years of age. Education became tuition-free for all children starting with the 2007-08 school year, but in some parts of the country girls received no formal education. Parents often voluntarily paid tuition for their children because many schools had insufficient funds. According to UNICEF, the net primary school enrollment rate in 2007 was approximately 93 percent for boys and 83 percent for girls. The enrollment rate for secondary education was much lower for girls. Girls did not have the same educational opportunities as boys, and female literacy was approximately 18 percent, compared to 50 percent male literacy.\n\nChild Abuse: FGM was practiced on girls. This practice was largely limited to remote rural areas in the north (see section 6, Women).\n\nChild Marriage: The law prohibits marriage under 18 years of age, but underage marriage (14 to 17 years of age) was permitted with parental consent. Child marriage included forced marriage, barter marriage, and marriage by abduction. A 2008 gender-based violence survey conducted in 13 communes indicated that 23 percent of the 594 children interviewed were subjected to forced and precocious marriage. As part of forced marriage, there is a tradition in which a groom abducts and rapes his prospective child bride. The practice was widespread in rural areas, despite government and NGO efforts to end it through information sessions on the rights of women and children. Local NGOs reported that communities concealed the practice.\n\nSexual Exploitation of Children: The penal code provides penalties for rape, sexual exploitation, corruption of minors, procuring, and facilitating prostitution, and it increases penalties for cases involving children under 15 years old. The child trafficking law provides penalties for people involved in sexual exploitation of children as a result of child trafficking. Under the penal code, individuals involved in child prostitution, including those who facilitate and solicit it, face imprisonment of two to five years and fines of 1,000,000 to 10,000,000 CFA ($2,000 to $20,000). The law does not specifically prohibit child pornography. The de facto minimum age for consensual sex is 18 years.\n\nChild prostitution continued in some areas. Some children, including street children, engaged in prostitution to support themselves without third-party involvement. The penal code prohibits child prostitution; however, enforcement was limited, and the commercial sexual exploitation of children occurred. A 2009 report on the commercial sexual exploitation of children in 11 communes indicated that 43.2 percent of surveyed children (ages 12-17) who engaged in prostitution were also subjected to commercial sexual exploitation.\n\nThrough the traditional practice of vidomegon, which literally means \"placed child,\" poor, generally rural, families place a child in the home of a wealthier family. The child receives living accommodations but often faces long hours of work, inadequate food, and sexual exploitation. Sometimes the income generated by the child's activities is split between the child's parents and the urban family that raises the child. Vidomegon traditionally was intended to provide better educational opportunities and a higher standard of living for children of poor families; however, this practice has made children more vulnerable to labor exploitation and to trafficking. Up to 95 percent of the children in vidomegon were young girls. Several local NGOs led public education and awareness campaigns to decrease the practice.\n\nCriminal courts meted out stiff sentences to criminals convicted of crimes against children, but many such cases never reached the courts due to lack of awareness about the law and children's rights, lack of access to the courts, or fear of police involvement.\n\nInfanticide: Despite widespread NGO campaigns, the traditional practices of killing deformed babies, breech babies, babies whose mothers died in childbirth, and one of two newborn twins (because they were considered sorcerers) continued.\n\n\n\n\nTrafficking in Persons\n\nFor information on trafficking in persons, see the Department of State's 2011 Trafficking in Persons Report.\n\nPersons with Disabilities\n\nThe law does not explicitly prohibit discrimination against persons with physical, sensory, intellectual, or mental disabilities in education, access to health care, or provision of other state services; however, the law provides that the government should care for persons with disabilities. There were no legal requirements for the construction or alteration of buildings to permit access for persons with disabilities. The government operated few institutions to assist persons with disabilities. The Office for the Rehabilitation and the Insertion of Persons with Disabilities under the jurisdiction of the Ministry of Family coordinated assistance to disabled people through the Aid Fund for the Rehabilitation and Insertion of Persons with Disabilities (Fonds Ariph).\n\nThe labor code includes provisions to protect the rights of workers with disabilities, which were enforced with limited effectiveness during the year. The Office of Labor under the Ministry of Labor and Civil Service and the Ministry of Family are responsible for protecting the rights of persons with disabilities.\n\n\nThere are no laws explicitly criminalizing same-sex sexual activity. There were no reports of criminal cases involving homosexuality. There were no reports of societal discrimination or violence based on a person's sexual orientation.\n\nOther Societal Violence or Discrimination\n\nThere were no reports of discrimination or violence based on HIV/AIDS status. It is illegal to discriminate against persons, at any stage of hiring or employment, based on their HIV status.\n\nThe police generally ignored vigilante attacks, and incidents of mob violence continued to occur, in part due to the perceived failure of local courts to punish criminals adequately. Such cases generally involved mobs killing or severely injuring suspected criminals, particularly thieves caught stealing. For example, on January 2, residents of Klogbome in the commune of Dangbo, in the southeast, chased, caught, and burned to death an individual riding a motorbike that he allegedly had just stolen from a nurse's aide in the neighboring village of Hetin Houedomey. The victim was reported to be a well-known and feared criminal who had been operating in the area for years. The police did not investigate the killing or arrest those involved.\n\nSection 7. Worker Rights\n\na. Freedom of Association and the Right to Collective Bargaining\n\nThe labor code allows workers, including government employees, to form and join independent unions of their choice without previous authorization or excessive requirements, and the government generally respected these rights. Worker organizations are independent of the government and political parties. New unions must register with the Ministry of Interior, a three-month process, or risk a fine. Although an estimated 75 percent of government workers belonged to labor unions, a much smaller percentage of workers in the private sector were union members.\n\nWorkers have the right to strike, and they exercised this right during the year. Civil servants also enjoy the right to strike and went on strike throughout the year. The right to strike is enshrined in article 31 of the constitution.\n\nA 2002 law on the right to strike confirms this right for civil servants, employees of public companies, and parastatals. The act provides that civil servants, public and private entities' workers, and parastatal employees who provide essential services shall maintain minimum services during strikes. The act states that essential services refer to services pertaining to health, security, energy, water, air transport, and telecommunications. Workers must provide three days' notice before striking; however, authorities can declare strikes illegal for reasons such as threatening social peace and order and can requisition striking workers to maintain minimum services. The government may prohibit any strike on the grounds that it threatens the economy or the national interest. Laws prohibit employer retaliation against strikers, except that a company may withhold part of a worker's pay following a strike. The government enforced these laws effectively.\n\nThe merchant marine code grants seafarers the right to organize, but they do not have the right to strike.\n\nThe labor code allows unions to conduct their activities without interference, and the government generally protected this right. There are no restrictions on collective bargaining. The labor code provides for collective bargaining, and workers freely exercised this right with the exception of merchant shipping employees. The government sets wages in the public sector by law and regulation.\n\nIn 2009 the government created a National Consultation and Collective Bargaining Commission to facilitate collective bargaining and enhance social dialogue. The commission held sessions during the year to discuss workers' claims and propose solutions.\n\nThe labor code prohibits antiunion discrimination and provides for reinstatement of workers fired for union activity. Employers may not take union membership or activity into account in hiring, work distribution, professional or vocational training, or dismissal; however, the government did not always enforce these provisions, and there were reports that employers threatened individuals with dismissal for union activity.\n\nb. Prohibition of Forced or Compulsory Labor\n\nThe labor code prohibits forced or compulsory labor, including by children; however, the government did not effectively enforce this aspect of the law, and such practices occurred in the agricultural, quarrying, fishing, commercial, and construction sectors. Forced labor mainly involved domestic servitude and bonded labor by children. Trafficking in persons was a problem. Perpetrators of forced labor were mostly Beninese involved in child trafficking. Many traffickers were relatives or acquaintances of their victims, exploiting the traditional system of vidomegon, in which parents allow their children to live with and work for richer relatives, usually in urban areas. The law provides for imprisonment with compulsory labor, and during the year judges sentenced convicts to forced labor for various crimes. Also see the Department of State's 2011 Trafficking in Persons Report.\n\nc. Prohibition of Child Labor and Minimum Age for Employment\n\nThe labor code prohibits the employment or apprenticeship of children under 14 years of age in any enterprise; however, children between 12 and 14 years may perform domestic work and temporary or seasonal light work if it does not interfere with their compulsory schooling. On January 31, President Yayi signed into law the list of types of hazardous work prohibited to children. The list includes 22 trades and 74 related hazardous activities that children under 18 are not allowed to engage in. Child labor remained a problem due in part to limited government enforcement of the law. To help support their families, children of both sexes – including those as young as seven – continued to work on family farms, in small businesses, on construction sites in urban areas, in public markets as street vendors, and as domestic servants under the practice of vidomegon. A majority of children working as apprentices were under the legal age for apprenticeship of 14, including children working in construction, car and motorcycle repair, hairdressing, and dressmaking. Children worked as laborers with adults in quarries in many areas. Forced child labor, including street children engaged in prostitution, street hawking, and begging, was a problem. Children under age 14 worked in either the formal or informal sectors in the following activities: agriculture, hunting and fishing, industry, construction and public works, trade/vending and food/beverage, transportation, and communication and other services, including employment as household staff.\n\nSome parents indentured their children to \"agents\" recruiting farm hands or domestic workers, often on the understanding that the children's wages would be sent to the parents. In some cases these agents took the children to neighboring countries, including Nigeria, Cote d'Ivoire, Togo, and Ghana, for labor. Many rural parents sent their children to cities to live with relatives or family friends to perform domestic chores in return for receiving an education. Host families did not always honor their part of the arrangement, and abuse of child domestic servants was a problem. Also see the Department of Labor's 2010 Findings on the Worst Forms of Child Labor.\n\nThe Labor Office under the Ministry of Labor and Civil Service enforced the labor code ineffectively and only in the formal sector due to a lack of inspectors. The government took steps to educate parents on the labor code and prevent compulsory labor by children, including through media campaigns, regional workshops, and public pronouncements on child labor problems. These initiatives were part of the Labor Office's traditional sensitization program. The government also worked with a network of NGOs and journalists to educate the population about child labor and child trafficking. The government began drafting a National Plan for the Elimination of Child Labor. On July 12, the government, in cooperation with an international organization, held a two-day workshop to examine the first draft of the National Plan for the Elimination of Child Labor. The government undertook a nationwide awareness campaign as a key activity for the 2011 World Day of Action Against Child Labor. On September 21, the government signed an accord with the Republic of Congo aimed at halting the trafficking of children between the two countries. An estimated 1,800 children from Benin, mostly ages 11 to 18, have been trafficked to neighboring Congo.\n\nd. Acceptable Conditions of Work\n\nThe government set minimum wage scales for a number of occupations. The minimum wage was 30,000 CFA ($66) per month. Many workers had to supplement their wages by subsistence farming or informal sector trade. Most workers in the wage sector earned more than the minimum wage; many domestics and other laborers in the informal sector earned less. The Office of Labor enforced the minimum wage; however, its efforts were impeded by the small number of labor inspectors. Significant parts of the work force and foreign workers were not covered by minimum wage scales.\n\nThe labor code establishes a workweek of between 40 and 46 hours, depending on the type of work, and provides for at least one 24-hour rest period per week. Domestic and agricultural workers frequently worked 70 hours or more per week, above the maximum provided for under the labor code of 12 hours per day or 60 hours per week. The labor code also mandates premium pay for overtime and prohibits excessive compulsory overtime. The authorities generally enforced legal limits on workweeks in the formal sector.\n\nThe code establishes health and safety standards, but the Ministry of Labor and Civil Service did not enforce them effectively. The law does not provide workers with the right to remove themselves from dangerous work situations without jeopardy to continued employment. The ministry has the authority to require employers to remedy dangerous work conditions but did not effectively do so. The government did not effectively monitor or control foreign or migrant workers' conditions of work.\n\nSearch Refworld", "pred_label": "__label__1", "pred_score_pos": 0.5000110268592834}
+{"content": "Brief Historical Overview of the Sisseton-Wahpeton Oyate of the Lake Traverse Reservation South/North Dakota (October 2000)\n\nThe following information was copied from the Sota website.\n\n\nThe Sisseton and Wahpeton Bands are subdivisions of the eastern or Dakotah Indians and are two bands of the eastern Santee Division, who speak the Dakotah language with the \"D\" dialect. The other divisions of what often is referred to as the Great Sioux or Dakota/Lakota/Nakota Nation consist of the western Teton division and the middle Yankton division who speak the \"L\" and \"N\" dialects respectively. The word \"Dakotah\" can be translated into English as \"friend\" and is the preferred identification of the Sisseton and Wahpeton bands. The real significance of the word, \"Dakotah\" derives from the word 'WoDakotah,\" which means \"harmony\", \"a condition of being at peace with oneself and in harmony with one another and with nature\", and \"a condition of lifestyle patterned after the natural order of nature\". Within the three major divisions of the Dakota-Lakota-Nakota Nation, there are 7 major bands, who are referred to as the Seven Council Fires. In consideration and respect for this alliance, the Sisseton and Wahpeton Bands have erected seven torches in front of the Dakota Magic Casino's entry, and each torch is representational of each of the seven bands among the Dakota-Lakota-Nakota people. These seven torches also are representational of our seven district council communities on the Lake Traverse Reservation. In summary therefore, the three major divisions and bands within each division of this nation are as follows:\n\nDIVISION: BANDS (council fires):\n\n1. Eastern-Santee-Dakota:\n\n1. Spirit Lake People (MdeWakantonwan)\n\n2. Shooters Among the Leaves People (Wahpekute)\n\n3. People Dwelling among the Leaves (Wahpetonwan)\n\n4. People of the Fish Village(s) (Sissetonwan)\n\n\n2. Middle-Yankton-Nakota:\n\n5. Dwellers at the End - Yankton Ihanktonwan)\n\n6. Little Swellers at the End - Yanktonai - (Ihanktowanna)\n\n\n3. Western - Teton - Lakota:\n\n7. Dwellers on the Plains - (Titonwan)\n\n-7 Major Subdivisions of the Teton:\n\n1). Oglala (Scatter their own) - Pine Ridge\n\n2). Sicangu (Burned thighs) - Rosebud & Lower Brule\n\n3). Hunkpapa (End of Circle) - Standing Rock\n\n4). Mnikowoju (Planters beside the Stream) - Cheyenne River\n\n5). Sihasapa (black foot) - Cheyenne River\n\n6). Oohenunpa (two kettle) \"\n\n7). Itazipco (without bows) \"\n\n\nAt time of initial contact in the mid-1700s with European traders and missionaries such as Father Hennepin, the Sisseton Wahpeton bands resided in villages extending from Manitoba, Canada, to the present homelands here on the Lake Traverse Reservation, and further south in Minnesota and northern Iowa. In the mid-1850s, other missionaries such as Rev. Stephan Riggs identified and described the villages of the Sisseton and Wahpeton bands, noting that a typical village ordinarily would consist of 25 to 150 lodges, and each village was comprised of what is called tiospaye, meaning one's extended family. Rev. Riggs reported that in the 1850s the many Sisseton Wahpeton villages had a population ranging from 5,000 to 9,000 residents.\n\n\nNoted writer and keeper of the traditions, Ella Deloria, correctly stated years ago that KINSHIP IS THE FOUNDATION OF DAKOTA LIFE AND VALUES. From historical times onto the present time, kinship continues to be involved in our Dakota, Sisseton Wahpeton, social life, our economic life, and our political life. In the center of our values is the inner core and circle of immediate family consisting of the father and mother with their children, which is called TIWAHE (immediate family). The brothers and sisters of the father and mother in family are not only considered as in-laws and uncles/aunts, their children become brothers and sisters to the offspring of the brothers and sisters. This inter-relatedness is called TIOSPAYE (extended family). When members of one extended family are related to another extended family, wherein one tiospaye is related to another tiospaye, this extends the kinship to what is called OSPAYE (band), such as the Sisseton Band and the Wahpeton Band. Historically, members of a tiospaye or extended family lived together in a village of lodges numbering 50 to 150 lodges, and as the village grew in numbers, often new villages would form and physically separate from the original village of origin.\n\nWithin each Dakota village, the goal of achieving harmony and well-being was strictly enforced by special organizations or societies. The governing society of a village was called the TIOTIPI or Soldiers Lodge, and its members consisted of males from the ages of 9 years to elderly members of the village. From their midst, officers were selected such as a spokesman, often called Chief, as well as his assistants, and other officers were selected which included keepers of the Sacred Pipe, Drum, Eagle Staff, Whip, and so forth. Deliberation and consensus was the form of achieving decisions within the structure of this governing Soldiers Lodge, wherein all males in the village had a seat and voice.\n\nAdditional to the Soldiers Lodge, there were other societies within the village, such as the red owl feather or mawatani society whose responsibility consisted of assuring that there would be no exercise of jealousy among the families in the village. Warrior societies such as the Kit Fox and Badger or Brave Hearts were the special forces of the governing Soldiers Lodge, and served primarily as defenders of the people in times of war. Often these societies were comprised of family members whose specialty was in negotiation, warfare, hunting, or other civic purposes.\n\nThe old people who came from these times, prior to 1862, and were a part of the establishment of the Lake Traverse Reservation, often referred to those times as one of innocence and purity, wherein the lifestyle of the Dakota people was not only pure, but also euphoric. It was very difficult to do wrongdoing in those times, as the societies in the village assured that everyone had to obey the traditional Dakota virtues which include RESPECT for other persons and their property, SHARING one's earned goods and food with those in need, BRAVERY in regard to freely offering one's life in battle for the village so that the village can survive, COMPASSION for everyone in the village, and therefore offenses and crimes were virtually unknown in those times.\n\nIn those times, the Sisseton and Wahpeton people considered themselves as a CIVILIZED PEOPLE by virtue of the fact that the WHITE BUFFALO CALF WOMAN had come to the Dakota-Lakota-Nakota Nation to give them the Sacred Pipe and with this Pipe, the Seven Sacred Rites and Ceremonies which foster and enhance a civilized way of life. Most of all, these ceremonies enhance the value of KINSHIP, and as an example, if one's parents died, whether from sickness or other cause, the RITE OF HUNKA, adoption, immediately was performed so that the orphan always would have a mother, father, and siblings. From the time of one's birth to the time of one's funeral, the Dakota people utilized appropriate rites and ceremonies for each stage of life, to foster and promote the name that lead been given to them, WODAKOTA, which means the condition and stability of harmony and well-being in the village. It is for such reasons, that the old people would say that this way of life was CIVILIZED and EUPHORIC, and fostered HARMONY and KINSHIP.\n\nIt is for such reasons, that the old people often said that there was no poverty in those times, and that the people were wealthy corporately and as individuals. They also have stated that it was very rare for anyone to openly display anger, aggression, or violence in the village, since the value of harmony and peace permeated the entire community. The old people also have stated that the people had to have considerable wealth, as the cardinal Dakota virtue consists of GENEROSITY, and in order to be generous, one must have goods and resources to share with others, which come from one's exercise of personal responsibilities, whether in hunting, warfare, or in agricultural endeavors.\n\nThis same system of living in a civilized way upheld the value of women in the family and in the community. It is the woman as spouse who owns the lodge and decides who lives therein and who is welcome in this home. Dakota theologians have likened the role of the woman to that of the tri-pod, which are the three foundational tipi-poles used to erect the tipi. The husband is the covering for this lodge, and the children are the pegs which hold the tipi to the earth. The sacred Pipe of the Nation was brought to the people by a sacred woman who also instructed the people in regard to the sacred seven rites and ceremonies of the Dakota-Lakota-Nakota people. In the family, the wife and mother also is the instructor about the ways of the Pipe and the ceremonies, and during certain ceremonies, it is the woman who holds the sacred Pipe during the enactment of the ceremonies. The woman is considered as a co-participant with the Creator since in giving birth to a child, she participates with the Creator in the creation of new life for the family and the community. Her role therefore is significant, and the greatest respect and honor must always be shown to the woman in the home by the spouse, children, and all members of the household. Historically, therefore, the Dakota people considered this view of the woman's role in the family and community as CIVILIZED. In this same context, the Dakota people call the earth their MOTHER who gives life to all plants and creatures, and at all times, the traditional Dakota people require that respect and honor always be shown to their sacred mother, the earth.\n\n\nCommencing in 1815, contact with Euro-Americans occurred and as the decades of the 1800s continued, the Sisseton Wahpeton bands would be detrimentally impacted by contact and relations with white settlers who entered their homelands and villages. From 1815 to 1858, the United States negotiated under show of armed force a series of treaties with the Sisseton Wahpeton bands, which essentially involved land cessions with promises to pay for these cessions with goods and cash. In Minnesota, many of the Sisseton and Wahpetons were assigned to a reservation, and furthermore were subjected to federal Indian agents and missionaries who viewed their way of life and religious practices as pagan and unlawful. The Sisseton and Wahpeton people were required to relinquish their village form of life and practices and were urged to settle upon individual tracts of land and to become farmers. They also were urged to cut their hair and wear factory made clothing appropriate for farmers. Finally, they were urged to banish their own spiritual leaders and medicine men and become christians. In reviewing this drama of enforced acculturation of an indigenous people, Vine Deloria Jr. and others in assessing the impact of such policies have commented: \"When the missionaries first came, we owned the land, and they owned the Bible; now, we own the Bible and they own the land\".\n\nIn late summer of 1862, the eastern bands of the Dakota people in Minnesota had not received their treaty-committed goods and payments, and conditions agriculturally had brought them to a point of starvation and desperation. The policies of acculturation and assimilation furthermore had served to create factions and hard feelings among the families of the eastern Dakota, to such an extent, that groups of the eastern Dakota in August of 1862 declared war and began warfare in the Upper and Lower Sioux Reservation areas in Minnesota. The Army under General Henry Sibley succeeded in bringing this Dakota War to a halt in the late fall of 1862. Thereafter, many members of the eastern Dakota bands were rounded up and incarcerated at Fort Snelling, Minnesota, as well as at Mankato, Minnesota. A military court was convened and as a result, 300 of the Dakota leaders were tried and sentenced to death by hanging. President Abraham Lincoln after reviewing these cases commuted the death sentences of all except for 38 of the chiefs and war leaders, and ordered them to be executed. On December 26, 1862, the Army executed by hanging all 38 of these eastern Dakota war leaders at Mankato, MN. In the aftermath of this mass execution of the eastern Dakota leaders, Congress enacted legislation which abrogated all previous treaties with the Eastern Dakota bands, and furthermore ordered all Eastern Dakota bands banished from the State of Minnesota. Often it has been said by the Old People that the civilized way of life of the eastern Dakota bands came to an end at the time of the execution of the 38 eastern Dakota leaders at Mankato, MN, on December 26th, 1862, one day after christmas, the observance of the birth of the savior.\n\nSisseton and Wahpeton war leaders who had been acquitted then were recruited by General Henry Sibley as scouts and were assigned the task of accompanying the Army to Dakota Territory in order to capture the balance of the eastern Dakota band members who had escaped there and many fled to Canada. On the western edge of the Lake Traverse Reservation, the Army established Fort Wadsworth, later re-named Fort Sisseton, where the Sisseton Wahpeton leaders, under force of Army Cannon, were ordered to establish up to 30 scout camps where they were to detect any of the other Dakota people who had escaped from Minnesota and were trying to return to Minnesota. General Sibley's orders to the Sisseton and Wahpeton Scouts were very clear, as he ordered them to TAKE NO PRISONERS, and should they fail in regard to this order, they and their families themselves would be killed by the Army. The scouts followed their orders to the letter, and approximately 150 prisoners were executed.\n\nSince the Army could not justifiably exterminate the scouts and their families numbering approximately 1,500 Sisseton Wahpetons, the government consented to allow the Sisseton and Wahpeton leaders to request Congress to create a special reservation for them. On February 19th, 1867, Congress approved the request of the Sisseton Wahpeton leaders, and the Lake Traverse Reservation was established pursuant to provisions of Treaty. This Sisseton Wahpeton Treaty however contained many policies of acculturation which included the requirement that the reservation be allotted to members of the tribe, that schools be established, and that a tribal government would be authorized as well as a tribal police force.\n\nFrom 1884 until 1913, the Sisseton Wahpetons utilized an adoptive from of tribal government based on the model of the Soldiers Lodge, however the federal Indian agents and missionaries strenuously opposed this form of tribal government, preferring that christianized members of the community comprise the elected positions on the tribal council. In 1913, owing to conflicts and turmoil, the federal Indian agent at Sisseton Agency abolished the tribal government and established an advisory committee, comprised of church elders and others who were amenable to government policies of enforced acculturation and assimilation.\n\nIn 1934, the government urged the Sisseton Wahpetons to adopt the Indian Reorganization Act, however sufficient families on the Lake Traverse Reservation were influential enough to defeat this proposal, stating that their Treaty of 1867 still remained in effect, and that the Sisseton Wahpeton people can and should organize its own government pursuant to provisions of this treaty. In 1946, the Bureau of Indian Affairs approved a Constitution and By-Laws which returned governance to the Sisseton Wahpeton people, citing authority to do so from the tribe's Treaty of 1867.\n\nIn 1978, Congress approved the American Indian Religious Freedom Act, which recognized that tribes and their members have the right to practice their own religious beliefs, rites, and customs, and can utilize their own language. Since enactment of this law which finally granted freedom to the Sisseton Wahpeton people to practice their own religious and cultural ways, the overwhelming task of renewing and sustaining the human and natural resources of the tribe and its communities on the Lake Traverse Reservation has been challenging for contemporary tribal leaders.\n\nIt is said that in 1867, the people could drink water from any of the streams and lakes on the Lake Traverse Reservation, and that fish and game always were in great abundance. When the Sisseton Wahpeton leaders were banished from their homelands in Minnesota in 1862, they paid a heavy price in order to acquire a new homeland, and now this homeland in the name of progress and productivity has become polluted. The Sisseton Wahpeton people are urging their leaders to restore the lakes and streams, and they are asking for safe water to drink. The small band of refugees in 1863 consisted of only 1,500 tribal members, and today there are close to 11,000 Sisseton Wahpetons on their homeland who want to be keepers of their mother, the earth, whether with regard to her water, the food, and the wildlife.\n\nThe Sisseton Wahpeton people know that renewal and new life cannot come from their efforts alone, that our brothers and sisters from across this land from other tribes and nations must come together to bring about this renewal. Our young people who comprise over 45% of our enrollment and the children yet to be born require us to unite, and set forth an agenda for renewal and hope.\n\n\nDifferences in Native, non-Native culture\nLesson in Traditional Native Culture\nThe following information is adapted from information included in presentations by Sisseton Indian Health Service (IHS) personnel.\n\nValues are defined in the following ways: Interrelated ideas, beliefs, and practices, to which strong feelings are attached; integral part of every individual; in general terms, can often be identified as being characteristic of a group of even a nation; very slow to change in comparison to the more superficial items (for example, clothing, shelter, \"trends\") of a culture; represent the \"heart\" of a culture, reflect and are derived from its language, social structure, economic, and physical stages; contain the established ideals of life, a culture's \"way of life\"; and provide an emotional stance to be used as a yardstick for judging behavior.\n\nRecognizing that these are generalizations, and that most people's values (and behaviors) lie someplace between them, here is a comparison between Indian and non-Indian value systems:\n\nIndian Values\n\nTime is unimportant. Clocks are not watched. Things are done as needed. Often the family gets up as the sun rises and retires soon after the sun sets. \"Indian time\" means when everyone gets there. A community meeting may be set for 1:00 p.m., but people come as much later as they wish, so the meeting may begin an hour or two later. This bothers no one. (Additional: If people gather before a scheduled event, it may begin earlier than announced. I have seen funeral services begin before the scheduled time, but this may be unusual. But if you are anxious to see the grand entry at a wacipi, and come \"on time,\" better be prepared to relax for up to a couple of hours before it happens.)\n\nNon-Indian Values\n\nTime is important. Time is of the utmost importance. When someone says they will be somewhere at 10:00 a.m., they must be there at ten. Otherwise, it is felt they steal another person's time. More and more, non-Indians rush. In these cultures, it is felt that using time to its fullest extent is good.\n\nIndian Values\n\nToday concept. Indian people generally live each day as it comes. Plans for tomorrow often appear to be left until the future becomes the present -- although gathering, harvesting, and storing of foods for winter months was a traditional method of survival for many tribes.\n\nNon-Indian Values\n\nTomorrow concept. Non-Indians constantly are looking toward \"tomorrow.\" Such items as insurance, saving for college, planning vacations, and so on, suggest to what extent non-Indians hold this value.\n\nIndian Values\n\nPatience. To have much patience and to wait is considered to be good and respectful.\n\nNon-Indian Values\n\nAction. The person admired is the one who is quick to act. They get things done and move on quickly to the other things. To sit idly, and let the competitor pass by acting more quickly, is considered bad.\n\nIndian Values\n\nShame. The Indian community groups often shame an individual (to instruct, or encourage re-entry into what is considered by the group to be acceptable behavior), but once this is accomplished, no lingering guilt is felt by the individual.\n\nNon-Indian Values\n\nGuilt. After a non-Indian commits an act that he or she believes to be wrong, he/she carries inside the burden of having done something wrong. This terrible feeling may make them ill mentally and physically.\n\nIndian Values\n\nExtended family. Aunts often are considered to be mothers. Uncles are called \"fathers,\" and cousins are brothers and sisters of the immediate family. Even clan members are considered relatives, so that Indian cultures consider many more individuals to be relatives than do non-Indians.\n\nNon-Indian Values\n\nFamily. The biological family is often of the utmost importance, and relationships are often limited to this group.\n\nIndian Values\n\nAge. Respect is given elders, for it is believed that experience brings knowledge. The older one is, the more knowledgeable he or she is. No effort is made to conceal white hair or other signs of aging.\n\nNon-Indian Values\n\nYouth. Millions of dollars are spent annually for hair dyes, make-up, and other items to make older people look younger.\n\nIndian Values\n\nFew material things. Members of the tribe are often suspicious of individuals who collect many material possessions. Some tribes, the Sioux for example, even hold celebrations and give away most of their possessions to others as \"love gifts\" (giveaways).\n\nNon-Indian Values\n\nMore and more, non-Indian cultures value the acquisition of material things. Many such possessions become status symbols and are considered highly desirable.\n\nIndian Values\n\nGiving. The person respected in many Indian cultures is the one who shares his/her wealth with others (sharing knowledge, experience, and material goods.\n\nNon-Indian Values\n\nSaving. An individual with the quality of thrift is believed to have acquired a value worth much.\n\nIndian Values\n\nMan lives in perfect balance with nature, ideally. The earth is given by the Creator to enjoy. If one accepts it as it is and lives with it in harmony, there will be no sickness or lack of food.\n\nNon-Indian Values\n\nMan controls nature. Constantly, the non-Indian culture searches for new ways to control and master the elements. Artificial lakes are made; natural waters are drained; in general, the natural environment is altered, paved and pushed into shapes and conditions that may not allow continued survival for all.\n\nHere is another model highlighting some of the cultural differences. Indian values are cited first, non-Indian values following in each instance:\n\n*Indian: Live in harmony with nature. Non-Indian: Must have mastery over nature.\n\n*Indian: Present time orientation. Non-Indian: Future time orientation.\n\n*Indian: Explanation of natural phenomena -- mythology. Non-Indian: Scientific explanation for everything; nothing happens contrary to explainable, natural law.\n\n*Indian: Level of aspiration -- follow in ways of the old, traditional people. Non-Indian: Climb the ladder of success, each expected to achieve a higher level than parents.\n\n*Indian: Cooperation. Non-Indian: Competition.\n\n*Indian: Anonymity. Non-Indian: Individuality.\n\n*Indian: Submissiveness. Non-Indian: Aggressiveness (socially acceptable).\n\n*Indian: Work to satisfy present need. Non-Indian: Work to get ahead.\n\n*Indian: Share wealth. Non-Indian: Save for the future.\n\n*Indian: \"Time is always with us,\" Indian time. Non-Indian: \"Time lost can never be regained.\"\n\n*Indian: Humility. Non-Indian: Win first prize if at all possible, or at all costs.\n\n*Indian: Win once, let others win. Non-Indian: Win all the time.\n\nChildren's Place in Circle\n\nIn indigenous cultures, children have always had high esteem, viewed as \"gifts\" of the Creator. From a Native perspective, the child would be the inner spoke of a medicine wheel.\n\nFrom that center, each outward circle might be seen as the following: mother, father, siblings; maternal and paternal grandparents; aunts, uncles, cousins; elders; extended family tiospaye; and the community (clan, band, or tribe).\n\nThis model contrasts with non-Native cultures which separate the nuclear family from other relatives and other members of the community.\n\nDiffering Communication Traits\n\nAnother way of assessing differences is in how people communicate with one another, their body language for example.\n\nHere are several generalizations concerning differences between indigenous and non-Native cultures:\n\n*Situation: Eye contact during conversion. Indian: Very little eye contact; most conversation conducted while looking away from each other; direct eye contact may be considered disrespectful to other person. Non-Indian: Eye contact is continuous or nearly continuous during conversation; lack of eye contact considered lack of respect, not paying attention to the other.\n\n*Situation: Manner in speaking voice. Indian: Tends to pitch voice lower and speak more softly and slower. Non-Indian: Tends to speak with a higher pitch and faster and louder.\n\n*Situation: Custom of handshake in greeting others. Indian: Traditional handshake is soft with only one or two \"pumps\" of a gentle nature, gentle pressure. Non-Indian: Handshake is firm, with several \"pumps\" of the hand; premise is that the firmer and longer the handshake, the more sincere the greeting.\n\n*Situation: A Native and non-Native try to communicate. Indian: Is in no hurry to begin a conversation, is not uncomfortable with periods of silence at the beginning of, or during, conversation. Non-Indian: Feels must get conversation going quickly, is uncomfortable with silence, thus tends to be over-talkative.\n\n*Situation: Communication between people of brief acquaintance. Indian: Tends to express openness, informality, and friendliness; willing to believe the best about people. Non-Indian: Tends not be open to people of brief acquaintance; personal thoughts not usually expressed at first meeting while trying to determine if this person can be trusted.\n\n*Situation: Answer to a question. Indian: Reply is delayed until facts are sifted through; thus, a few moments of \"silence\" may be appropriate before making a reply. Non-Indian: Reply is immediate although the first words of a conversation often contribute little to the answer; may talk while formulating answer.\n\n*Situation: Explanation given by a non-Native to a Native person. Indian: Nodding of the head and exclamations made indicate understanding of what is being said only, not necessarily agreement. Non-Indian: Assumes that Native gestures mean agreement and understanding.\n\n*Situation: Verbal manipulation. Indian: Verbal manipulation, for example \"selling\" techniques and promotion devices, are not used; being humble is important. Non-Indian: Feels that to a large extent a person's success in life depends on skills to influence, or manipulate, others.\n\n*Situation: An anxiety provoking social situation. Indian: Remains motionless and watches for cues from others or from the situation; once the pattern, or situation is interpreted, only then is action taken. Non-Indian: uses \"aggressive experimentation,\" to try again, until the pattern is discovered and/or the situation no longer exists or is a threat.\n\nModels of Lifestyle, Control\n\nThere are other ways to compare and contract indigenous and non-Native ways of life. For example, North American indigenous peoples were traditionally hunters, food gathers, herders, and/or horticulturalists, before contact.\n\nWith European immigration came agriculture, technology, and an industrial way of life.\n\nLabeling these general ways of life as \"traditional\" and \"industrial,\" here are other differences (note -- there is overlapping in these models):\n\n*Traditional: Relative equality among people; horizontal social power organization. Industrial: vertical power hierarchy, with authority coming from the top down.\n\n*Traditional: Generalists. Industrial: Specialists.\n\n*Traditional: Self-sufficiency, sharing, for survival. Industrial: Dependency and self-organization, for survival.\n\n*Traditional: Extended family. Industrial: nuclear family.\n\n*Traditional: Socio-cultural values are pre-determined. Industrial: Self-determination, choices.\n\n*Traditional: Openly spiritual, close to nature; power comes from within (pervasive wakan); spirituality entertwined in daily living. Industrial: Education and knowledge are power; pen is mightier than the sword; formal religion; spirituality less directly involved in day-to-day life.\n\n*Traditional: No need for formal contracts; trust and respect. Industrial: Socio-legal systems, self-gain; mistrust.\n\n*Traditional: Land is sanctuary; not subject to private ownership. Industrial; Land is property, to be bought, sold, used.\n\n*Traditional: Time is meaningless. Industrial: Time is money; great emphasis on time.\n\n*Traditional: Nomadic, freedom of movement. Industrial: Dependence upon standardization, internalization; tied to time clock, job.\n\n\nVisitor's guide to the 138th annual Sisseton-Wahpeton Oyate Wacipi\n\n\nWelcome to the annual Sisseton-Wahpeton Oyate Pow Wow or Wacipi, as it is known in the Dakota Language. The 138th annual wacipi is being held June 30-July 3, 2005.\n\nThis event is the longest-running annual event in South Dakota and one of the oldest established celebration throughout the United States.\n\nOpen to the public, the annual pow wow is always well attended and draws more foreign tourists than any other event in the Glacial Lakes region. This visitor's guide was developed by the Institute for Dakota Studies, Sisseton Wahpeton College, to assist visitors in the enjoyment of the wacipi – a gathering of the people to celebrate with traditional songs and dances.\n\nA wacipi was originally a spring event held to celebrate the seasonal renewal of life. People would congregate to sing, dance, renew old friendships, and form new ones. Pow wows held a religious significance as an opportunity for families to hold naming and honoring ceremonies. In the Dakota tradition, the celebration was also a prayer to what in Dakota is called Wakan-Tanka, the Great Spirit, the Creator, or Grandfather. The word \"pow wow\" is traced by some to the Algonquin language and is believed to have been used by non-Indians to mean, in general, a council or meeting.\n\nToday, pow wows are still very much a part of the lives of members of the Sisseton-Wahpeton Oyate and for other American Indians. While some begin as early as March, the \"pow wow season\" normally runs from June until September (with some notable exceptions, such as the Sisseton-Wahpeton Veterans Day Pow Wow and May graduation pow wows). Pow wows are held every weekend, often at several locations simultaneously during peak periods. Many families pack up and \"go on the pow wow circuit,\" camping out and enjoying the traditional celebrations of singing, dancing, and seeing old friends not since the previous season.\n\nCompetitive singing and dancing for prize money is a relatively recent change in the pow wow. In a contest pow wow, prize money is awarded to top point-getters at the culmination on the last day of the pow wow. Purses have increased significantly at many pow wows.\n\nJust as all pow wows have changed somewhat over the years, so has the annual pow wow of the Sisseton-Wahpeton Oyate been changing. Most spiritual ceremonies -- for example, naming ceremonies -- have recently been excluded and are no longer part of many pow wows. But special memorial and honoring ceremonies, and ceremonies for fallen eagle feathers, do continue.\n\nIt is important to note that the Sisseton-Wahpeton Oyate of the Lake Traverse Reservation are working to return to the spiritual and traditional roots in their annual wacipi as well as in other aspects of community life.\n\nThe circle is an important symbol to Dakota people. It is used extensively during wacipi. The dancers come to the center of a circle, the drums and the audience form a circle around them, the concessions form another circle around the gathering. The pow wow brings the circle of Sisseton-Wahpeton people closer to family, friends, and to the Dakota culture.\n\nGrand entry\n\nA pow wow begins with the grand entry. Spectators should always stand and remove caps or hats during grand entry, flag songs, honor songs, and invocation or other prayers. The grand entry itself is likely derived from rodeos and wild west shows; it is the parade of honored persons and dancers which opens each session of pow wow dancing. Dancers demonstrate their style and regalia.\n\nAll dancers are requested to take part in the grand entry. (In a contest pow wow, they can lose points or risk elimination for failing to do so.)\n\nBecause of the tradition of honoring akicita, or warriors, veterans are also prominent in most pow wow grand entries, and the Sisseton-Wahpeton pow wow is no exception. Watch for the flags to be carried by veteran honor guard members.\n\nSpecial tribute will be given this year, as in 2004, to those soldiers now serving in harm’s way in the Middle East War.\n\nAt the head of the procession, the eagle staff is carried into the circle -- signaling the opening of the grand entry. It is followed by the American, Canadian, state, and tribal flags.\n\nTitle holders from tribal pageants, such as Miss Sisseton-Wahpeton Oyate and Junior Miss Princesses, enter next, followed by invited dignitaries and honored guests.\n\nMale dancers then enter with traditional dancers first, then grass dancers and fancy dancers.\n\nIncidentally, the \"grass dancers\" are a holdover from many years ago. These dancers would come onto the field first, to trample down the tall grass and thus make ready the pow wow grounds for other dancers who would come later. Earlier this week, many of the local Dakota Oyate, including grass dancers, gathered here at the Tribal ceremonial grounds for a special \"blessing ceremony.\" Prayers were invoked over the grounds, and the grass dancers performed this traditional trampling down of the grass.\n\nJunior boys, then junior girls, follow in the same order as the adults. The last to enter the arbor are the little boys (tiny tots -- traditional and fancy dancers), and little girls (tiny tots -- traditional and fancy shawl dancers).\n\nThe dancers come clockwise, or sunwise, showing the audience, singers, and other dancers, that they are dressed and ready to dance. They show their outfits or regalia (the term \"costume\" is believed by many to be derogatory and its use is not appropriate) and their steps, letting people know who they are and what they can do.\n\nWhen the grand entry song ends, there is a flag song (honoring the American flag) and a victory song (honoring akicita and for all the oyate, the people), then an invocation blessing the gathering. The eagle staff (positioned above the American flag to signify the first nation) is tied to the pole in the center of the arbor or brought to the announcer's stand. The dancing then begins.\n\nTypes of songs and the drum\n\nDakota people create different types of songs for different occasions, such as grand entries, dance categories, and honoring ceremonies. While they differ in tempo, words, and emotion, pow wow songs all follow a similar structure.\n\nThere are songs for all occasions, such as honor songs, veterans songs, and war party songs.\n\nMany pre-reservation songs have been put aside in favor of the large number of newly created ones.\n\nSome groups sing only their own songs, others borrow songs and perform their own as well.\n\nThe songs are not written, but tape recorded and then learned by both singers and dancers.\n\nSingers are not judged by the sweetness of their voices. In the Northern Plains, the higher parts of the song are sung falsetto and the melody gains energy and rhythm as the voice descends. The sound is produced at the back of an open mouth and throat. The volume and quality of the voice depends largely on well-developed abdominal muscles. Singers are judged on the range, volume, strength, and expressive quality of their voices as well as how they blend with the rest of the group. Women sing an octave higher than the men and sometimes join the men in songs. Women may \"trill\" at special places in the song to indicate deep emotion such as joy or appreciation of the song.\n\nThe drum is an essential ingredient of the pow wow. These sacred instruments come from many sources. Some are handed down in a family, others are donated to a drum group. Older drums are made of deer, elk, horse, or buffalo hides, but contemporary bass drums can be purchased, renovated, and finally blessed, and considered sacred as are the older drums.\n\nThe drum is more than a musical instrument. It has its own life. Some drum groups have gone through ceremonies to have their drums blessed and named. The drum is regarded as possessing its own powerful spirit. Gifts are made to the drum, and a drum may have its own sacred medicine pipe.\n\nIn some traditions, the drum symbolizes the heartbeat; in others, the powerful medicine of thunder.\n\nThe drum is always treated with respect. Nothing is set on a drum, nor does anyone reach across it.\n\nThe beat of the drum is like a heartbeat, starting slowly, then beating more quickly as the singers move ahead in the song. The drumsticks connect the singers to the power of the drum as they sing. The drumming is judged by the rhythm of the song.\n\nUsually drum groups are judged only on the songs they sing for the dance specials and on intertribal songs. There are many different kinds of rhythms and drumbeats played as required by the type of contest song. The drumbeats must be in perfect time, each player must be in unison.\n\nPeople unfamiliar with pow wows should remember that the term \"drum\" also refers to the drum group itself.\n\nThere are many well-known drum groups from the Sisseton-Wahpeton Oyate. Many play at area and regional pow wows, some have been asked to perform at national events and sites, ranging from California universities to the Smithsonian Institute in Washington, D.C. Among the well-known groups are Grey Fox, Wahpekute, Ridge Runners, Buffalo Lake Singers, Dakota Nation, and the Tiospa Zina Tribal School Drum.\n\nTypes of dance\n\nTo understand and appreciate pow wow dancing, it is helpful to be familiar with the different dance categories. In general, there are separate dance divisions for men, women, juniors, and tiny tots, as well as separate contests for men and women over 50 years of age.\n\nFor men, there are three different dance competitions: traditional, fancy, and grass dancing.\n\nThe men's traditional dance began when war parties would return to the village and \"dance out\" the story of a battle and when hunters would dance their story of tracking and then capturing prey. The outfit of the traditional dance is more subdued in color than that of other dancers. Frequently decorated with bead and quill work, the circular bustle of eagle feathers represents cycles and unity. The eagle feather spikes on the bustle point upward, representing a channel between the Great Spirit and all things on earth. Traditional dancers are often veterans and carry items which symbolize their status as warriors -- shields, weapons, honor staffs. The traditional dance step is done with the ball of the foot touching the ground on the first beat, and the whole foot on the second beat. Dance movements are patterned after animals and birds as an imitation of tracking or of the animal itself.\n\nThe men's grass dance originated with the Omaha Tribe, probably in the 1860s. A very popular dance, outfits feature colorful fringe. The basic step of the grass dance involves the ball of one foot being tapped on one beat and placed down flatly with the next. Weight is shifted from foot to foot.\n\nMen's fancy dancing is relatively new. It is more a freestyle dance with fancier footwork, increased speed, acrobatic steps, and varied body movements. Most dancers wear brilliantly colored bustles. Dancers must stop with the music with both feet on the ground.\n\nTraditionally, women danced only to certain songs or on special occasions and usually in the background. The women's traditional dance consists basically of remaining stationary and bending the knees with a slight up and down movement of the body. Most women traditional dancers wear or carry a shawl, some carry an eagle or hawk feather fan.\n\nThe women's fancy shawl dance is relatively new. Outfits consist of a knee length cloth dress, beaded moccasins with matching leggings, a fancy shawl, and jewelry. Footwork is the chief element of the fancy dance, the style moving toward more movement, especially spinning.\n\nThe jingle dress dance had all but died out at one time, but interest has been rekindled and now women from many tribes make and wear them. The jingle dress cannot be mistaken. It is made of cloth and covered with hundreds of metal cones, or jingles.\n\nAll people, including tourists in the audience, are welcome to dance during a round dance. The round dance is a chance for everyone to dance moving clockwise around the arbor. Street clothes are acceptable, no special regalia is necessary.\n\nAdditional information about the men's bustle or \"Crow\"\n\nJames Steele adds the following information concerning the bustle or \"crow,\" as it was originally called: There was no circular piece in the old days but a square. The two feather spikes represent two slain warriors and the quills themselves represent arrows and should be tipped with red horsehair. The two trails of feather represent going and coming, and the name crow comes from the bird because of its keen sense of smell -- especially of dead flesh. Other feathers included in the original crow were magpies, buzzards, and eagles . . . because that was the order they would appear after a battle. The small shells or bells attached to the spikes represented the sound of the battle. Only men with great war honors or feats wore the \"crow.\" The 5 x 5 center piece was made from an entire eagle skin, and other bird skins (crow, magpie) were used as decoration.\n\nOther aspects of the pow wow\n\nThere are several interesting aspects of pow wows that should be mentioned. The first is the eagle feather. During an eagle feather ceremony, spectators should stand and remove caps or hats. Picture taking is not permissible at this time. To Dakota people and most American Indians, the eagle feather is sacred. When an eagle feather falls from a dancer's outfit, the pow wow stops and this special ceremony is performed.\n\nIn some traditions, a fallen eagle feather is treated as an enemy because the sacred power of the feather can turn against the person who has lost it. The ceremony is necessary to capture the feather, ask forgiveness, and pray over it to restore the feather's power for good. Different tribes have different customs. In some traditions, the eagle feather is looked upon as a protector and its accidental dropping is similar to the American flag touching the ground. Other traditions simply have a veteran pick up the feather and return it after the prayer and the gifting.\n\nDuring an honor song, spectators should always stand and remove caps or hats. As the name suggests, honor songs are requested at a pow wow to honor a person or people. A family might request an honor song for a returning son or in memory of a deceased relative. Honor songs can be made for almost any occasion. In some traditions, people with a Dakota name have their own songs for use when the person is honored. In other cases, there are \"generic\" honor songs for people.\n\nAs already mentioned, veterans are greatly honored by Dakota people. In today's society, they often receive too little attention for their sacrifices. The honor accorded veterans at pow wows takes many visitors by surprise. Veterans are especially well honored by the Sisseton-Wahpeton Oyate, who have several active veterans organizations. Veterans serve as flag bearers and they retrieve dropped eagle feathers. They are honored with many songs.\n\nThe respect for veterans is an integral part of Dakota culture. It is a tradition which grew from times when the welfare of a village depended upon the quantity and quality of the fighting men – the akicita. To be a warrior was a man's purpose in life. And the veterans of today are given the same honor and respect as warriors of long ago. In some tribes, bravery is still honored as one of the four virtues -- bravery, generosity, wisdom, and fortitude.\n\nThe giveaway is believed to be universal among American Indians. Unlike societies where one expects to receive gifts for accomplishments, Native American society holds that a person being honored has a giveaway and provides gifts for others. It has been said that the chief of a tribe was always the poorest man in the village, for he looked out for the good of all his people. Charged with their welfare, honored by them, the chief gave away blankets, horses, food, and whatever else the people needed. Today, giveaways by people being honored or in honor of someone else, are common at pow wows.\n\nVisitors will also notice a renewed interest in traditional moccasin games. The Sisseton-Wahpeton Oyate are involved in intertribal and international efforts to revive these games, and a moccasin tournament is now an integral part of each year’s annual wacipi.\n\n\"Pow Wows Now and Then\" (a poem)\n\n(Editor's note: The following poem was written by Jake Thompson on April 10, 1980. Jake writes of the value of this celebration: \"The annual coming together of the whole Tribe expresses and deepens the Dakota value of sharing.\")\n\nSeeing new and old - friends, Indian cars, teepees, eagle feathers, honor, fringed shawls, fancy dance outfits, traditional regalia, contests, eagles, singers, dancers, \"snags.\"\n\nSmelling new and old - cooking, the four winds, sweat, horses, campfires, dogs, smoke, buckskins, \"perfume.\"\n\nHearing new and old - songs, laughter, bells, eagle bone whistles, jokes, drums, the camp crier, applause, gossip, the announcer, 49's, \"I love you.\"\n\nTouching new and old - drumsticks, respect, giveaways, hospitality, handgames, Mother Earth, drums, tradition, generosity, \"her.\"\n\nTasting new and old - corn soup, fry bread, coffee, rations, cold ones, Indian tacos, dust kicked up, commodities, water, \"and that good-bye kiss.\"\n\n\nHopefully, this information has served to introduce you to the Sisseton-Wahpeton Tribal people, their culture and customs. If you would like to learn more about news of the Tribe, you are invited to subscribe to the Sisseton-Wahpeton Oyate weekly newspaper, Sota Iya Ye Yapi. See the Sota home page for special discounts for purchases made by readers of the internet pages.\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\nBack to the Top\n\n\n\n\n© 2009 Sisseton Wahpeton College\nPhysical Address: BIA Rd 700, Agency Village, SD 57262\nMailing Address: Agency Village Box 689, Sisseton SD 57262", "pred_label": "__label__1", "pred_score_pos": 0.9174310564994812}
+{"content": "Trade Schools & Colleges > The Career Counselor > Fashion Designer\n\nFashion Designer Career Information\n\nFind a School\n\nfashion designer career informationT his morning you got dressed. You went to your closet and chose items based on your personal style. You also probably thought about the activities you were planning to do, the weather, and other factors. What you may not have considered is that fashion designers conceived each and every thing you put on.\n\nWhat is a Fashion Designer?\n\nA fashion designer is an individual who designs clothing. Fashion designers work with all types of apparel, from wedding gowns to children's wear to industrial safety gear—and everything in between. They even design accessories, such as handbags and hats.\n\nThis profession is not as simple as whipping up a pretty drawing or sewing a single top. Designing clothing is a complicated job that entails deliberating over function, cost, aesthetics, style, and more. That means considering a wide range of factors, including style trends and the intended consumers. Plus, fashion designers work within budget constraints, requiring them to deliver a product at a specified cost and within an allotted time frame.\n\nThis broad description doesn't do justice in conveying the wide range of tasks and responsibilities that fall under this profession. Below is a list of career options that fall under the umbrella of fashion design to help you understand the breadth of opportunities in this field:\n\nIn addition, there are a number of professions related to the business side of the industry (beyond the technical and creative aspects). For example, fashion journalists and fashion retail managers aren't directly related to the production of apparel, but they do play important roles.\n\nWhat is a Typical Fashion Designer Job Description?\n\nA typical fashion designer job description can include:\n\nThis is just a sampling of the various responsibilities that can be handled by a fashion designer. Depending on a number of factors, such as size of company or level of expertise, you could be tasked with many or just a few of these items. Upon entering the industry, you could land a junior designer or design assistant position in which you might assist in one specific area, such as sourcing notions (trim, buttons, zippers, etc.), sewing production samples, or putting together storyboards.\n\nFashion designers generally work in a particular niche. The most popular specializations include:\n\nIf you're interested in learning more about what various roles in the fashion design industry entail, this article can provide additional insight.\n\nNow that you have a picture of what it's like to work in the fashion design profession, you might be ready to learn how to be a fashion designer, starting with how to meet the requirements and prerequisites associated with this career path. The information below can provide in-depth insight into these areas.\n\nCan You Tell Me How to Become a Fashion Designer?\n\nIn order to understand how to become a fashion designer, it's important to realize that there isn't one path to achieving this goal.\n\nAlthough formal education is not the only option, it certainly offers the most potential. In the past, fashion designer hopefuls could start out in a fashion-related setting and work their way up through the ranks. However, this isn't a guaranteed route. Unless you have the opportunity to learn all facets of design, you could be limited by a lack of skill and knowledge. These days, a background in just one department or area of fashion design is likely not enough to propel you to full designer status. To become a fashion designer, it's important to possess a strong understanding of a variety of topics, from textile composition to manufacturing processes to pattern drafting.\n\nIdeally, the first step toward becoming a fashion designer should include applying to a post-secondary fashion program. There are a wide range of options to choose from, including vocational schools, art schools, and even prestigious universities. The one you opt for should reflect your career goals, whether you want to open up your own small boutique or land a job with a high-fashion design house.\n\nAdditionally, if there is a specific aspect of the design process that you are drawn to, you can often obtain specialized instruction by taking various electives and choosing related internship opportunities.\n\nUpon graduation, you can start pursuing entry-level positions in your area of interest. You may also be hired on during an internship, allowing you to enter the field directly out of school. To obtain a position, you'll need to be armed with a portfolio showcasing your work. This is paramount for a career in the fashion industry and just as important as your resume (if not more so). A portfolio can be a combination of illustrations, photos, tangible garments, and other examples of your achievements.\n\nStarting out in the field, you should expect to be hired on in a junior role. Such positions often include design assistant, pattern drafter, or junior stylist. Within this role, you will most likely perform a lot of low-level (but important) work, allowing you to gain experience in the industry and make valuable network connections.\n\nAs you earn your stripes in the field, you can work your way up the ladder toward more coveted positions or branch out as a freelance designer or entrepreneur.\n\nRegardless of your goal, there is no way to start at the top. A career in fashion design is definitely one that will require you to pay your dues.\n\nWhat is the Education Needed to Become a Fashion Designer?\n\nWhen researching a potential career as a fashion designer, education requirements are an important factor to understand. Technically, there is no education needed to become a fashion designer. However, formal training is becoming increasingly important. As mentioned above, deciding whether to obtain training in this field depends on your individual goals. But if you plan to pursue work within a larger organization or want to gain the necessary skills to work with industry-standard technology, then education is likely the right option for you. On-the-job training can also be an option for getting into this field, but without a foundation in technical skills and theoretical knowledge, your potential for career opportunities and advancement could be extremely limited.\n\nAn advantage of formal education is that many fashion design programs can allow you to take part in an internship, which can provide you with the opportunity to gain real-world experience and make valuable contacts within a very competitive industry. Plus, an internship may even have the potential of turning into a permanent position.\n\nWhen you get right down to it, the question, \"What do you need to become a fashion designer?\" can be answered in any number of ways, but the most important things you need to get started are passion and dedication. After that, you can choose the education option that suits you best.\n\nHow Long Does it Take to Complete a Fashion Design Program?\n\nFashion design programs tend to begin at durations of one year and increase in length according to the level of credential you plan to earn. The most common training options are two- and four-year diploma and degree programs. Additionally, many programs include internships, which can be paid or unpaid. This means that, while technically your education could last two to four years, you could be spending some of that time earning a paycheck in your new field.\n\nWhat are the Prerequisites for Attending a Fashion Design School?\n\nDepending on the specific school and program that you choose, the prerequisites can vary, but a high school diploma (or GED-equivalent) is often required. Some schools will also require basic sewing skills for entry, which is why high school students interested in the field are encouraged to take home economics classes if possible. Arts classes are also very helpful but not usually required.\n\nIn addition, many fashion design schools will require you to present or send a portfolio of your work for examination, including photographs of your creations, illustrations, and garments displaying your current level of skill. This may sound a little intimidating if you're not a gifted sewer, but just keep in mind that this is used to assess your creative talents, not your technical abilities. The faculty looking at your work will understand that you don't yet have a formal education. After all, that's why you're applying.\n\nSchools may ask you to take part in an interview during which you could be asked to talk about your interest in fashion, your goals, and any related experience. This is not only a good opportunity to wow faculty with your passion, but also to ask questions of your own and get to know potential instructors.\n\nHow Much Can I Expect to Pay For Fashion Design School?\n\nLike most areas of study, there is no concrete price tag on fashion school tuition. The cost can range from a few thousand dollars for a short-term certificate program to well over $30,000 for a degree program.\n\nBefore opting for the most inexpensive program, you should consider what the price of tuition covers. The cost of tuition may include:\n\nAdditionally, the price of tuition at some schools reflects the reputation of the school, which can help open the door to increased opportunities for internships and jobs upon graduation. Being an alumnus of a respected school can be a substantial asset when applying to positions in a competitive industry like fashion.\n\nWhat Can I Learn in a Fashion Design Program?\n\nSubjects that typically make up a fashion design program's curriculum include:\n\nWhat is a Typical Fashion Designer Salary?\n\nIf you're thinking about a career in the fashion industry, you may be considering how much you could potentially make. Since understanding your future earning capacity is important in weighing the factors of an impending career choice, here are some national fashion designer salary statistics (from May 2010) to provide insight:*\n\nWhile these numbers can give you a snapshot of the fashion design field, it's important to keep in mind that the answer to the question, \"How much does a fashion designer make?\" can also depend on level of experience, area of the industry, and type of employment (since fashion designers can also be self-employed or work on a contract basis).\n\nHowever, if you're considering a career in another area of the fashion industry, you should look further into the specifics of the individual profession, since a fashion design salary could be quite different from a fashion merchandising salary or a fashion marketing salary.\n\nWhere Do Fashion Designers Work?\n\nGenerally, fashion designers fall into the category of in-house or freelance design. In-house designers work directly for companies who design, manufacture, and sell the apparel at a wholesale or retail level, while freelance designers are self-employed and sell their designs to companies.\n\nBy choosing to become a fashion designer, you could have the opportunity to work in:\n\nGeographically speaking, fashion designers tend to find work in major urban centers (as you might expect). The largest hubs for the fashion industry in the U.S. are New York and California, which explains why these states employed nearly 75 percent of all salaried designers, according to statistics from May 2010.*\n\nWhat is the Outlook for a Career as a Fashion Designer?\n\nOpportunities within the fashion design profession are predicted to remain steady for the decade spanning from 2010 to 2020.* While there is a projected decline in apparel manufacturing positions, advancements in technology-related areas such as fabric innovation are expected to balance out the shift.\n\nAdditionally, those who possess a formal education and an exceptional portfolio are anticipated to fare the most favorably in this competitive job market.\n\nWhat Are the Pros and Cons of Becoming a Fashion Designer?\n\nLike any career, there are ups and downs. Some of the drawbacks of the fashion design profession are:\n\nHere are some of the potential perks of a career in fashion design:\n\nWhat Does It Take to Be a Fashion Designer?\n\nIn addition to hard work and dedication, the answer to \"What does it take to be a fashion designer?\" can be summed up this way: It takes refined skills, a strong understanding of the industry, and drive. In order to best prepare for a future in this field, you should take advantage of any opportunity to hone your skills. To this end, you can:\n\nHow Do I Get Started?\n\nNow that you've found answers to some of the most important questions about a career in fashion design, you may be ready to take the next step. A great way to begin is by browsing through this guide to fashion design schools where you can research the educational options available to you.\n\nFind a School\n\nMain Sources\n\n* Bureau of Labor Statistics, U.S. Department of Labor, Occupational Outlook Handbook, 2012-13 Edition, web site last accessed on July 25, 2012.\n\nNational Association of Schools of Art and Design (NASAD), web site last accessed on July 25, 2012.\n\nAmerican Apparel & Footwear Association (AAFA), web site last accessed on July 25, 2012.\n\nCouncil of Fashion Designers of America (CFDA), web site last accessed on July 25, 2012.\n\nCanadian Apparel Federation (CAF), web site last accessed on July 25, 2012.\n\nThe Occupational Information Network (O*NET), web site last accessed on July 25, 2012.", "pred_label": "__label__1", "pred_score_pos": 0.988214373588562}
+{"content": "What are the art, science, history, cultural or other museums in Long Beach? Are there sites and spectacles that visitors to Long Beach should see? Are any located near each other for easy viewing? Are any free? Share you knowledge and help TripAdvisor travelers make the most of their trip.", "pred_label": "__label__1", "pred_score_pos": 0.9960670471191406}
+{"content": "Cinema : The Gate\nplay movie, left -and- right sides\nX-ray vision takes us into the secret heart of the mechanical stomach. Here you can see, stripped bare by the screw driver, some of the most basic elements of this mechanical life. The rotary cam at bottom frame is also going round and round, like earth seen from above one of its poles. Invisible to earthlings, but somehow clearly apparent from outerspace, is a nearby and linked piece of super-planetary and perhaps holy metal, called the Maltese Cross. Through their close connection, the happy Newtonian motion of the Globe is converted to stopped motions, which are communicated through the authority of the Maltese cross to the great astral realms which surround the earth in clock-like brilliance. There, this power is used to run blenders (which mix missing souls into composite doughs), toasters (which bake and make the bodies of future Christ-like humans), and wrappers (which place new people in pre-printed packages that have clear warnings and monopoly-set pricings printed in very small letters on the outside).", "pred_label": "__label__1", "pred_score_pos": 0.6874481439590454}
+{"content": "The Horrors\n\nThere are at least three bands called The Horrors: 1) A garage rock band from Essex, England. 2) A garage rock/punk band from Cedar Rapids, Iowa. 3) An American psychedelic rock band active in the 1960s. 1) The Horrors is a garage rock/post-punk band which formed in 2006 in Southend-on-Sea, Essex, England, United Kingdom. The band consists of Faris Badwan (vocals), Joshua Hayward (guitar), Tom Cowan (keyboards), Rhys Webb (bass) and Joseph Spurgeon (drums).\n\nThe Horrors on\n\n2,079 false playlists", "pred_label": "__label__1", "pred_score_pos": 0.7526770830154419}
+{"content": "Location - Where Is It?\n\nWilsons Promontory is the southernmost point of the Australian mainland, located in the South Gippsland region of the state of Victoria. It is protected as the 50,000 hectare Wilsons Promontory National Park with the seas around the southern end known as the Wilsons Promontory Marine National Park. The park, managed by Parks Victoria, contains 130 km of walking trails and a number of campsites. The only settlement within Wilsons Promontory is Tidal River which lies 30 km south of the park entrance. This area is the focus for tourism and recreation within the park and has a campground, Visitor Center and a general store.\n\nHow can we improve this section?\n\nPlease email tips@appytravels.com or tweet @AppyTravels if you you think something is wrong here, or if you would like to add some photos!", "pred_label": "__label__1", "pred_score_pos": 0.9999389052391052}
+{"content": "19 June 2013\n\n\nBringing you the latest sounds from the Mideast and its global Diaspora communities.  \n\nBlazing A Trail of Beats and Rhymes - An Interview with Iranian Hip-Hop Sensation, YAS\n\n align=Without a doubt, Iranian Hip-Hop Artist YAS is a musical maverick. He is blazing a trail of beats and rhymes in a country where Hip-Hop remains a relatively new form of music and is not as readily accepted as it is in other parts of the world. Though YAS raps in his native Farsi, adding a unique, compelling flow to his rhymes, he admits that his native language can often be a hindrance when trying to place it within the familiar staccato rhythms that are the foundation of Hip-Hop.\n\nStill, one can readily sense that his words simmer and float with ease as they burst out of one’s speakers.\n\nUnlike many other Hip-Hop artists who focus on an array of superficial subject matter, much of YAS’ music is imbued with a strong sense of empathy and compassion. As an artist, he is well-aware of the suffering that exists around him, both as an Iranian and, more importantly, as a human being. In this sense, his music transcends geography.\n\nThis keen awareness of the suffering of those around him is, in many ways, the direct result of his own personal trials and tribulations. After the passing of his beloved father at a young age, the responsibility of providing for his family fell on his shoulders; no easy task in a country where jobs remain at a premium. Such profound experiences weigh their influence upon his music. In the true spirit of Hip Hop, YAS has embraced his hardships, allowing them to sharpen his voice and cut through the musical landscape. And, as he continues to grow as an artist, one can sense a deepening of his craft as he draws from this wellspring of personal and social experiences.\n\nIn my recent interview with YAS, he discussed some of his many hardships as well as giving details about his musical process, his influences, and his aspirations.\n\nKG: What are your early musical influences? Do they still play a factor in your creative process?\n\nYAS: I have been musically active for about 8 or 9 years now…I always tried to find a way to lighten some of the weight off my bitter and painful past and be able to deal with the hardships in my personal life; a way to be able to speak of the various pains and realities that exist in life and through this find a way to lift my own spirit. Before this, I listened to rap music starting at the age of 17 and it was something that gave me a lot of energy. But there was one singer in particular that really grabbed my attention, from his style to the way he sang with a feeling of urgency and anger, that took me to another world with his music and this was only done by Tupac.\n\nIt was a strange feeling listening to some of his music. And when I sat around with friends and translated his lyrics I saw that he was talking about social problems and pains within his society; social issues about growing up black in America or just issues in general within his society. I saw this as a great path, a way where one can shout out and tell their life story. This is how I started to write and sing. After all this time has passed throughout the years, I still try to find my energy through my society. I look at either my own personal pains and struggles or others, and in the end steer the direction of my song to show how in the end everything can be worked out. I feel there are many out there who can relate directly to my songs, and of course this gives me even more motivation to keep writing, and this energy adds more power and feelings to my lyrics.\n\nWatch the vide here\n\nKG: Who influenced you the most creatively?\n\nYAS: As I mentioned above, the first one who really influenced me the most to move forward towards rap music was Tupac. But of course there were other great musicians that truly energized me in the beginning such as Public Enemy, NAS and more. But I didn’t want to copy or cover anyone’s style in particular, that never interested me. Yes it’s true that they had influenced me and had an impact on me, but I also saw that as much as some of our problems were similar in some ways, when it came to our different societies, the issues inside Iran and [the] USA were completely different, like night and day, and had no relation to each other. Therefore, dealing with each problem would also be different especially for those listeners who spoke my language. As you may know, in Iran, this genre is still new and it has only been around for a few years; and it is still growing so it was very hard to take an American style music and introduce rap in Iran, especially when you consider that in American rap, using profanity may be considered normal to the listener, where in Iran cursing or using profanity doesn’t hold a place in art. Not in music, not in film or any other form. Maybe for young people this is something normal to speak like that among themselves, but in my opinion, music gets its life (becomes alive) when it can be heard by the entire family. So to introduce this type of music and give it credibility was very difficult. But thank God we were able to do this and introduce our own version of socially conscious rap (topics that relate to our Iranian society) which has gotten great acceptance.\n\nKG: Who are you currently listening to?\n\nYAS: I listen to all kinds of music so I stay updated with the latest music. Right now both in Iran and the rest of the world we have some incredible artists, who are brilliant. But unfortunately, one thing that have noticed coming out of the U.S. lately is that there hasn’t been so much emphasis on the lyrics or a particular message, it seems like most of the emphasis has been on the music and to make sure it just rhymes. Unfortunately, the music seems to be about money and business mostly and those who bring in the money stay on top and so there isn’t as much importance put on talent. A place that is known by the world as “The Land Of Opportunity” I would imagine that it would open more doors for more people with new thoughts and give life to whole new musical identity. But the music I have heard recently doesn’t seem to have staying power. They are released quickly in a short span, make some noise but fade out. I remember years ago that there would be music that to this day I still carry the tune in my head. In my opinion songs that are released relying all on technology won’t have staying power. There is plenty of good music out there that is made with heart and soul that don’t rely solely on the market.\n\nKG: Do you find it easy to freestyle in Farsi? How does the nature of the language play a part in creating your music?\n\nYAS: I agree that the sound and rhythms of our language is natural and soft but I don’t think I agree that they lend themselves easily or naturally on the Farsi language when it comes to matching it to a beat. One can argue that the English language uses many short words and less syllables and they sit great on a beat even if the meaning doesn’t quite match. But in Farsi it’s different, we have to really search hard for a word that both sits on the beat as well as sounds good and makes sense- and this makes the process a bit harder. Iran is the land of great poets and poetry is in our blood. But writing text is different. In writing poetry we have several different styles like Robayi, Ghazal, Ghasideh, Masnavi etc.; but writing text/lyrics is different. We have to change the style and the balance of the music every few beats so that the levels have ups and downs and so the listener can move with the flow of the song and play with its words in their mind so their heart and mind gets closer to the music which isn’t easy to do. \nIn regards to freestyle, I have to say that’s it’s not something that I am really into because it’s all about coming up with something on the go without putting any real thought into it beforehand. Yes, that is a talent in itself but for me, I prefer to spend even up to six months on a song and not release it till I am fully satisfied and put all my energy on the text and the feeling which is the most important to me, then I go to the style, sound and the beat and so on.\n\nKG: As you said, Iran has a rich, poetic tradition. Are there any Persian poets in particular that you draw inspiration from?\n\nYAS: Yes, 100%. I am very proud to say Ferdowsi Toosi, for instance, who is recognized in the world as one of the greatest contributors to the four pillars of civilization with his work. This really energizes me and I try to follow his path in my writing style so that I give my very best to the listener. Who knows maybe one day, I too in some far away future can be someone like Ferdowsi, who is recognized through his words. I don’t say this with an ego, rather maybe one day we too become so powerful in our work that history will take note of it and gives it recognition. Why not? We have to think big to reach big. We have great poets who are world renown and a major reason is that they thought big and far and didn’t put a limit to their work. I get enormous inspirations by those notable Iranians before me who helped pave the way but I try to say my own words in my own way and spread the message internationally. The same way where we may listen to a song in English and not fully understand all its words and meaning but we can relate to it through its feeling and vibe, it’s great to know when a foreigner listens to my music and is interested enough to read the English translations to see what I am trying to say. …like Rumi, whose poetry is written in Farsi but has been translated in various languages.\n\nKG: What’s your creative process? Do you begin with a beat, a rhyme, or do you freestyle around an idea? Do you record ideas immediately or write them down in a notebook?\n\nYAS: There is really several scenarios. Sometimes I may see something that really excites me or gets me worked up and upset and I begin writing. I may not have a specific rhythm at that moment so I pick a tempo in my mind and start writing. Then I will go and set a beat to it. Or sometimes I may hear a beat that really energizes me and its style goes in my head and I begin to write and create a subject to match it. But most of my work that I really feel for or are very special to me usually begin with my writing the lyrics and then go and create a beat for it.\n\nKG: Do you prefer writing and recording songs or performing before an audience?\n\nYAS: Performing live in front of an audience is much better and has a greater impact. To be able to stand in front of someone, look in their eyes and speak from your heart is fulfilling beyond words. In my opinion, if an audience member sees you in that moment and sees you pouring your heart out and singing for them with all your energy -- in that moment they can become your fan, even if till that moment they had never heard of your voice or your music.\n\nKG: Does faith play an important role in your music? Do you believe that music has, potentially, a divine spark in it?\n\nYAS: There was a time when I saw music only as an outlet for fun and I really couldn’t dedicate my full time to it because I carried, and still do, carry the responsibility of being the main caretaker of my family of six; and in these times where a father can barely support himself and his family, never mind me, who at the age of 19 was thrown in that position after the sudden death of my father. But it was also then that I started to take my music more seriously. I loved music but I couldn’t see at it as a career (although I should say that I still can’t see it as a career since we are still considered as underground musicians and we have no real way of making money through music. This in itself is a big and separate discussion). But after releasing a few songs and seeing how well received they were by the public and gaining their tremendous support, that gave me the energy to continue.\nIt may be hard to believe but I remember getting several thousand emails, calls or people telling me in person how my music had an impact on them gave them energy because they could relate and see themselves in it. I am not saying this out of ego but I felt that my music was different than what was out there and something told me that if I continued, I could provide a service or make a difference for people… Maybe some will say, “we already see all our problems and struggles, why are reopening some of our wounds?” But this in itself is part of the problem that those people are not willing to look at themselves or [come] face to face to some of their realities. We must also believe and face some of our realities as well and look for new ways…to build a solid future for ourselves. So in some way I see this now also as a duty for myself to continue and hope that I can provide a source of positive energy and influence in my community.\n\nKG: What are your goals and aspirations for your music? Where do you see yourself as an artist in five years?\n\nYAS: My main goal is to become an international singer. We have Iranian singers that are active in that direction, to get their music out worldwide, but they are mostly pop and dance music…I am very proud of them for getting the people’s attention and proudly planting Iran on the map. And I want to in my own style (Persian Rap) be the first in the world to be listened to and have a global audience. As one of my American friends, Brian tells me “Hip Hop means achieving your dreams, be it name recognition and power or money and success.” His words and this message really stuck with me and I know that I will reach all of that soon because I know in my gut that I am doing all I can and working hard to better myself towards progress and success. They say if you don’t stand up and shout out loud that ‘I am here’, then no one will see that you are and so I am shouting -- And I will keep singing my music till the day comes where my voice will reach the rest of the world. In hopes of that day ...\n\nBy Kashif Ghazanfar, Aslan Media Music Editor\n*English translation of YAS's responses provided courtesy of NSB\n\nYou can find YAS here:\n-Music Available On iTunes-\n\nAdd comment\n\nWe only welcome and encourage constructive and respectful comments. Please avoid slurs, hate speech, general abuse against other participants, or any incitement of violence.\nWe reserve the right to delete your comments and block your participation with continued abuse.\n\nSecurity code", "pred_label": "__label__1", "pred_score_pos": 0.7138667106628418}
+{"content": "Autism: Putting Together the Pieces One Puzzle at a Time\n\nautism puzzleDid you know ….\n\nthat ‘autism’ is not a true disease, nor a specific disorder? It is simply a label for certain observed physical and psychological symptoms that don’t seem to fit any other box.\n\nThe label may provide some sort of psychological relief to the parents (that it is not something ‘more serious’), but often does the contrary, generating stress, as it seems to enlighten without providing any real form of resolution. Autism and Autism Spectrum Disorders are labels that essentially describe a general difficulty in interacting with the outside world and a certain withdrawal into one’s own world. There are as many variations as there are individuals with the label, and the label does nothing to tell you the underlying causes. We seem to live in a world of alphabet soup labels for children – ADD, OCD, ODD, PDD, PDD-NOS, and the list goes on. If we add it all up, with a 1 in 30 incidence of ASD, and a 1 in 10 incidence of ADD  (the most commonly ‘diagnosed’ condition) in North iStock_000004312584Large1America, not to mention all the others, it seems that we are getting close to having somewhere near 1 in 5 children labelled with some form of behavioural, learning or social disorder.\n\nThe problem is that these labels lack specificity and different professionals will come to different conclusions as to whether a given label fits or not. Allopathic diagnosis is notoriously difficult in general . When it comes to psychological issues, the capacity to ‘get it right’ becomes even more problematic, as the definitions for each ‘disorder’ is quite general and open-ended. It is a bit like having certain symptoms and then going on-line to find out what they mean only to discover that it could be one of several dozen conditions. Even professionals are not much better at narrowing the uncertainty. In one case we had, the mother felt that her son had ‘recovered’ from autism, but the professional making the ‘diagnosis’ in the first place disagreed. She even went to a different profession, but he concurred that the child was still autistic. I suggested that many professionals suffer from a certain prejudice in what they see based on past labels, and are reluctant to go against them. She then travelled to another city, presented herself and son to a new professional in the field, but this time did not disclose anything about her son, and simply asked for an evaluation. This time, the professional concluded that her son was not autistic – he had some learning issues, but then, said the professional, so did most children in one form or another, himself included!\n\nFor Heilkunst, autism itself is not real, but what is real are the various issues, physical or behavioural, that each child may have. What is also real are the underlying causes for these issues. The key is to set up a systematic approach that can get at the complex of causes at many levels in each case. In some cases, vaccinations play a role, in others birth traumas or drugs, emotional shocks, and various inherited weaknesses (some genetic, but most epi-genetic). For most cases, particularly the difficult ones, and the so-called ‘non-responders’, we have to consider all these factors.\n\nMany approaches claim some success in certain cases of autism, such as where the cause is purely a gut dysbiosis, or an overload of toxins. Here therapies aimed at these issues can have a significant effect. But what works for one case, doesn’t work for many, indeed, most others. A one-size fits all approach doesn’t work when the problem is complex. The best approach is one that offers a method for working at a long-term resolution of each individual case based on an assessment of its own particular complex of causes. This method must also be able to distinguish between effects (such as gut inflammation) and cause (such as vaccine shock triggering the gut inflammation). Treating for effects can provide some degree of relief of symptoms (palliation), but generally does not result in fundamental change.\n\nHeilkunst is not a magic solution or quick fix but is an effective system for approaching the complexity of causes of each case and getting consistent results. And yes, it can take time, and even quite some time in the more difficult cases but most would say that it was time well spent.\n\nIf you have any questions please contact the Clinic for further assistance at\nIf you would like more information regarding Heilkunst and our approach to treatment you can look at the following resources:\n\nIt’s a SAD World, but It Doesn’t Have to Be.\n\nDid you know…\n\nthat there is a cure for SAD (Seasonal Affective Disorder)?\n\nYes, you heard right. The sad thing about SAD is that it affects a lot of people, and comes up in February, creating a lot of disorder on and around Valentine’s Day. It’s no surprise that chocolates are one of the favourite gifts at Valentine’s as certain components of chocolate (the real stuff, not the pretend chocolate) help to alleviate the symptoms of SAD. But while chocolate may help, it can’t cure the underlying cause, which in Heilkunst, is often linked to another of the chronic disease archetypes we bring into this world with us, called Ringworm.\n\nIn Ringworm the state of mind is “wants to but can’t”. People suffering from the Ringworm chronic miasm would feel caught in things–that they couldn’t do what they want to do. Even just the thought of doing something immediately seems to bring itself down. They feel they can never meet the expectation of family, friends and society. They have strong dependence on someone they trust and they are very loyal. But then they depend on their loved ones to function. They feel trapped. This is the ‘February blah’s’ or seasonal affective disorder (SAD).\n\nEven the bowel movement shows the characteristic. It is bashful: wants to but recedes. They procrastinate and can never finish something. They are comfortable staying at home. Physically this is the misnamed “seasonal disorder” syndrome. It is a progression from the untreated chronic miasm Tuberculosis. It is caught in the incredible inertia of the winter month of February.\n\nClassically, ringworm is well known as a skin problem. The skin lesion, which is fungal (people sometimes think it is a parasitic worm), is usually circular (but not always) and can be itchy. It used to be quite common in children and produces a characteristic eruption, a  round patch of reddish/purplish raised, rough skin that looks like it has worms in it. Ringworm as the skin problem has become rare in our days but continues nonetheless in the more suppressed form.\n\nAcute ringworm skin problem can be treated acutely in various ways, drug and herbal related, including the simple use of apple cider vinegar, and, of course, using homeopathic medicines. But, the chronic form is less easily recognized and even less readily treated other than in Heilkunst.\n\nChronic ringworm can also manifest as a skin condition (not generally itchy), but more likely in psychological terms, such as a certain angry irritability that comes from the underlying keynote of ringworm, which is “wants to and can’t”. This means that the person is motivated to do something, but then loses all energy/motivation to carry out the wish, creating an internal frustration, but also a certain feeling of negativity that makes them feel and look depressed. It can involve constipation, lack of energy, and digestive issues as well (hunger, but difficulty digesting what is eaten).\n\nIf you feel trapped and irritable especially around Valentine’s Day, chances are you might be suffering from this chronic disease pattern. Don’t want to be SAD any more? Consider getting rid of SAD, and getting Heilkunst treatment. And if you still want the chocolates, that remains an option. Valentine’s Day is not as far away as you think. There’s still time to take action!\n\nCan Heilkunst Help for … (Fill in the blank)?\n\nThis week we interrupt our regularly scheduled program for a special announcement.\n\nWe often get asked for specific information about the treatment through Heilkunst of X, Y or Z, whether arthritis, diabetes, fibromyalgia, chronic fatigue or any of the various conventionally named conditions.\n\nThe answer is the same for all of them. These are almost always a name created to describe the obvious, common symptoms or signs in certain patients. For example, arthritis simply means an inflammation of the joints, and colitis means an inflammation of the colon. These names come from mostly Greek and sometimes Latin roots, so they sound more impressive than they are. Lets take another, fibroymyalgia. The term comes from three Latin and  Greek terms meaning pain in the muscle and connective tissue.\n\nWikipedia: The term “fibromyalgia” derives from new Latin, fibro-, meaning “fibrous tissues”, Greek myo-, “muscle”, and Greek algos-, “pain”; thus the term literally means means “muscle and connective tissue pain”.\n\nNow, the patient already knows he/she has pain. The so-called diagnosis simply now tells the patient that the pain is in the muscles and connective tissue, but does not tell him or her the cause. Indeed, as Wikipedia states, and this is true for most if not all such conditions named by conventional medicine, the cause is unknown and is suspected to be multiple.\n\nWikipedia: Its exact cause is unknown but is believed to involve psychological, genetic, neurobiological and environmental factors.\n\nThus, in the face of an unknown, multiple causation, conventional treatment focusses on suppressing the overt symptoms, leaving the cause(s) untouched. Treating for the symptoms themselves is also complex, as they vary from patient to patient, meaning that the ‘diagnosis’ is very general and not specific to an individual patient.\n\nWikipedia: Fibromyalgia symptoms are not restricted to pain, leading to the use of the alternative term fibromyalgia syndrome for the condition. Other symptoms include debilitating fatigue, sleep disturbance and joint stiffness.  Some patients also report difficulty with swallowing, bowel and bladder abnormalities, numbness and tingling, and cognitive disfunction. Fibromyalgia is frequently comorbid with psychiatric conditions such as depression and anxiety and stress-related disorders such as post-traumatic stress disorder. Not all fibromyalgia patients experience all associated symptoms.\n\nWhile any relief to sufferers from symptomatic treatment is understandably welcome, it is usually partial, temporary and often comes with so-called side-effects (really drug induced disease effects or iatrogenic disease). Any treatment tends to be haphazard and random depending on the training and expertise of the practitioner. The old adage is that if all one has is a hammer, everything looks like a nail.\n\nHeilkunst is not able to treat everything, as life is too complex for that, but it does have a systematic, comprehensive approach to various conditions people are suffering from, such as fibromyalgia (or any other condition one wishes to name) that involves regimenal factors (diet, nutrition, exercise, lifestyle, etc), underlying disease causes (such as physical or emotional shocks and traumas, as well as inherited disease archetypes called chronic miasms), and also the broader realm of soul-spiritual issues (living one’s true life, not suppressing the true self, and various false beliefs one may have that block the full unfolding and development of one’s being). Any and all of these can be part of the complex of causes in a given case that produce the symptoms labelled fibromyalgia, and these are all examined and addressed in a systematic, comprehensive fashion. No two cases of fibromyalgia (or X, Y, Z condition) are the same. Yet the complex of causes underlying the condition in each case can be individually addressed.\n\nTrue treatment for any condition involves identifying and then removing the underlying causes, using safe and effective remedies, whether to remove an imbalance in diet or lifestyle, or to remove a disease state, such as unresolved chronic grief or from a vaccination, such as for Rubella, as was a factor in one case of rheumatoid arthritis we treated. Heilkunst can offer that type of treatment.\n\n\nWhy Am I Always on the Move but Never Seem to be Satisfied? \n\nTuberculosis – Restlessness\n\nDid you know…\n\nthat tuberculosis is also an inherited disease pattern, which we call a chronic miasm?\n\nJust as malaria, which we are familiar with in an acute form, now mostly exists in its chronic, hidden form, the Malarial miasm, so tuberculosis has largely disappeared in its acute form, but still plagues man as a chronic miasm.\n\nIf you suffer from the usual ‘colds and flus of the season’, often making the Christmas holiday period and the weeks after more miserable than joyful, you are suffering from the underlying impact of the Tuberculosis miasm. Other lung problems, such as bronchitis, pneumonia, and various coughs, are also largely linked to the presence of this chronic disease pattern in your life, or that of family members. Tuberculosis (miasm) can manifest physically in any part of the body, although the key organ affected is the lungs. This relates to the fact that the issue of Tuberculosis is a lack of grounding and incarnation and lungs are the organ related to the earth element. They feel better at high altitude, but they are then caught in a conflict as their heart feels worse in the mountains. Tubercular children are active, restless, and destructive in a deliberate and selective way.\n\nTuberculosis has a characteristic state of mind – one of restlessness. Tubercular patients only seem to feel well if they are planning travel or change, preparing for travel or change or actually undergoing a change in routine.  Once settled, they seldom stay content for long, seeking again another destination to travel to (racking up the frequent flyer miles), another place to live, another job to do, a new hobby to follow. These are people seemingly on the move, but not with any deeper purpose than the move itself. For them it is more ‘change for change’s sake’. They can be constantly rearranging furniture, redecorating, renovating.\n\nA darker side of Tuberculosis is a sudden impulse to break or destroy something. They can present as an ‘angel with a devil’s grin’ on occasion, usually more apparent in children, but discernible still, if more subtle and disguised in adults.\n\nIf you suffer from lung problems, constant or persistent ‘colds and flus’, particularly in winter, and feel restless, never really satisfied, suffering from ‘the grass is greener on the other side of the fence’ syndrome, then you would likely benefit from treatment for the chronic miasm we call Tuberculosis. Relief is as close as a Heilkunst practitioner near you (and now, with the internet and Skype, relief is just a nano-second away!).\n\nStay tuned. Next we will look at a little-know, but important and difficult miasm that often upsets Valentine’s Day.\n\n\nMalaria – Victimization\n\nDid you know….\n\nthat we have certain archetypal disease patterns that we bring into this world with us, and that lie at the root of many of our health problems? You did if you have been reading these blogs regularly. Our last blog spoke about the first of these chronic inherited disease archetypes, Psora. The theme of Psora is that of a poverty consciousness.\n\nIf you have been reading these blogs, you would also know that the chronic miasms have a certain order to them in the way in which they developed, and also how they are treated in most cases. After Psora, the first of the chronic miasms, we find Malaria.\n\nMalaria used to be endemic around the world, including in Europe and North America, as an acute disease, but is now confined to only a few, mostly tropical places. In most of the world, acute malaria is gone, but has become a chronic,  largely unknown disease, producing and hiding behind many acute conditions that are given fancy names, from Greek or Latin, based on the main symptoms. These conventional ‘names’ aren’t very helpful as they don’t tell us or the person seeking to treat them what the cause is, so treatment amounts to suppressing the symptoms. But the underlying cause remains, and the disease(s) continue, just now deeper inside you and getting stronger as you get weaker. It’s ‘healthcare by proxy’ or ‘healthcare by hook or by crook’ – if you can’t get rid of the cause, then get rid of the evidence and pretend you fixed the problem.\n\nMalaria produces many conditions involving the digestive system, in particular the liver. And the liver is the basis for our energy, our ability to digest food, but also life in general. With a weak liver, we also tend to feel generally weak, unable to handle the demands of the world, and psychologically, we start to feel like we are victims and the world with its many demands is oppressive and unfair.\n\nThe characteristic time for Malaria to manifest in most people is in the late Fall, from late October to early December, following the season of Psora (early Fall). The state of mind of Psora, of not having enough, coincides with the waning days of summer, the approach of the colder weather, shorter days, less sunshine, and the dying of nature’s vegetative cover of the earth. Malaria then follows, with the colder, damper and stormier days of late Fall, where we feel like nature is against us, the reprieve of ‘Indian Summer’ now gone and the harshness of winter soon to come upon us. Of course, these chronic miasms are not dependent upon the weather, and can manifest regardless of geography. To an experienced practitioner, the manifestations of each of the chronic miasms can be seen in the various symptoms that can flare up at certain times of the year. Every November, I used to get depressed by the damp, cold weather, get periodic fevers and feel very cold, seeking out warmth and feeling generally like the world was not a welcoming place. These symptoms were very familiar to me, as I had contracted malaria, the acute disease miasm in my youth when working and travelling in Asia and the Pacific. I had treated for the acute malaria, but the deeper, underlying chronic malarial miasm was still there. However, once I learned about it and treated for it, my seasonal malarial symptoms also ended.\n\nTreating for Malaria, as for Psora, and all the other chronic miasms we’ll talk about can make a large difference in your overall health, and prevent other problems from emerging later in life. Even if the chronic miasms are not affecting you seemingly now, they are latent, and waiting to be activated by some event, and once activated can cause significant health issues. Next time we’ll talk about the chronic miasm following on Malaria, Tuberculosis, behind all the colds and flus we tend to suffer from in winter. Stay tuned.\n\n\nPsora – Poverty Consciousness\n\nDid you know…\n\nthat there are certain archetypal disease patterns that we bring with us into the world?\n\nDo you have one or more of these chronic problems: skin issues, low grade depression, a sense of there not being enough in the world, common acne, asthma, headaches, insomnia, allergies, colds, bronchitis, earaches? You likely are carrying around one of these archetypal patterns from birth, indeed the first one, called Psora. If so, treating the symptoms won’t get you much other than possibly some temporary relief, even if using herbs or dietary changes. Even treating for the secondary disease patterns as homeopathy won’t help that much. You need Heilkunst, which is the only approach I know of that can systematically address these inherited, archetypal disease patterns, and thus, get to the bottom of chronic, complex disease conditions.\n\nLast week we talked about the chronic miasms in general. This week we’ll start to take a look at them in more detail. There are eight such archetypal disease patterns and they follow a particular sequence. There are four major ones and four ‘minor’ ones, just as in music we can have a major and a minor key. They follow the seasons roughly, but as each season is generally divided into an early and later part (early Spring and late Spring, etc.), we then really have eight ‘seasons’.\n\nThe first miasm to appear is termed, Psora. It was discovered by Dr. Hahnemann and traced back to the earliest recorded times through various skin manifestations, including leprosy. The word was taken from the Hebrew term ‘tsorat’, which had the meaning of a ‘fault’ or ‘error’. The two chief characteristics of Psora are dryness and skin eruptions, usually dry and scaly. The allopathic term ‘psoriasis’ for one of the many skin manifestations has the same etymological root. However, Psora covers a multitude of skin eruptions, as well as many other symptoms.\n\nAlthough Dr. Hahnemann did not identify the origin of Psora, work by Dr. Batmangelidj on the chronic impact of dehydration suggests that this may have been the source of the emergence of the first chronic miasm. The nature of chronic miasms is that they can then, once acquired, be passed on from generation to generation.\n\nDr. Hahnemann also called Psora, the ‘mother of all chronic disease’ for two reasons. First, the other chronic miasms emerged from it, and second, because each of the chronic miasms also caused the emergence of secondary chronic diseases in a person. The chronic miasms are primary, fixed nature or tonic diseases, and they then give rise to any number of secondary, variable nature or pathic diseases over time in a given individual.\n\nThe symptoms of Psora are too numerous to list here, but it we can give an idea of the essence of the disease as it tends to manifest in people. Psora is mainly a disease of deficiency at all levels – deficiency of knowledge, thought, assimilation of ideas and nutrition. There are a host of conditions identified by the prefix “hypo” (hypotension, hypochondriasis, hypotrophy) associated with psora. It causes little or no structural change, but much disturbance of functions, feelings and sensations. It seems to involve largely the nervous and reticulo-endocrine systems of the organism.\n\nThe psoric state of mind feels it does not have enough (of anything, be it money, food, energy, love, warmth, etc.). You may be familiar with it if you know anyone who had to live through the Great Depression or a war. They may hoard food, toilet paper, rubber bands or twist ties, for no apparent reason other than, “You never know when you may need them.” The stereotypical street person illustrates this miasm well, when they are carrying with them every one of their possessions, while wearing virtually all of their clothing, including coats and hats, even in sweltering heat. It is not likely to manifest in such an extreme form in most of us, but the underlying traits will be there.\n\nIf there is psora in your family history, it will manifest, according to Dr. Roger Morrison in his Desktop Guide, as: Abscess. Acne. Allergy. Anxiety. Aphthae. Asthma. Boil. Bronchitis. Colds. Connective tissue disease. Depression. Dermatitis. Eczema. Headache. Insomnia. Otitis media. Pharyngitis. Phobic disorders. Psoriasis. Scabies. Sciatica. Skin ulcers. Upper respiratory infection (among other conditions).\n\nNext week is the minor key of Psora, or the Malaria miasm. Stay tuned.\n\n\nWhat are Inherited Disease Patterns?\n\nDid you know…\n\nthat there are inherited factors that affect our health that go beyond our genes?\n\nUntil recently, everything was either controlled by your genes or simply unexplainable. However, despite millions spent on mapping the human genome, it turns out that not only do we differ much from the common fruit fly when it comes to the number and types of genes, but most of the genes are not linked to anything in particular, and are known as ‘junk DNA’. Biology has begun to understand that genes are only receptors for something, like a radio receiver, namely, signals from the environment. These signals are not only physical, such as sunlight, air, water, food, but also thoughts and feelings. In many ways, we are and become what we eat, feel and think. Biology has also come around to accepting the idea prevalent at the start of the debate about evolution some two centuries ago, that we can inherit certain characteristics and influences that are not strictly connected to genes. In a real sense, we are more than what is contained ‘between our hat and our boots’.\n\nIn Heilkunst, the idea of inherited disease patterns was discovered by Dr. Samuel Hahnemann between 1812 – 1816, around the same time that the idea of inherited characteristics was proposed by Lamarck and others. Hahnemann spent over 12 years searching for the answer to a problem: despite the clear successes with homeopathy in removing diseases, he discovered that some patients continued to get worse overall. He felt that he was missing something. From diligent observation of his patients, he then discovered that there were certain fixed patterns that could be traced to birth, and also to various disease patterns their parents and even grandparents had exhibited. These were a peculiar kind of primary, constant nature (tonic) diseases.They also had an original infectious nature, once contracted could be passed on to one’s offspring, such as syphillis and gonorrhoea (which Hahnemann named sycosis). So, he termed them chronic miasms in contradistinction to the acute miasms (i.e. infectious diseases) such as scarlet fever, cholera, measles, etc. The passing of chronic miasms from one generation to another does not rely on a physical contact. This, we may consider, belongs to the “unexplainable” part that science hasn’t been able to understand. We may think that during evolution mankind as a whole has inherited some disease patterns from previous generations in a similar sense that we build our thinking and understanding of the world from the generations before us. Each generation or epoch leaves a legacy for the future generations. So, too, disease may be passed on, both in terms of natural diseases (e.g. tuberculosis, lyme disease) and spiritual diseases (e.g. false beliefs).\n\nMiasms, chronic or acute, are primary, constant nature (tonic) diseases. Due to the fixed/constant nature of these diseases, there is a specific remedial agent or medicine for each one of them, which made them relatively easy to treat. However, the interaction between a given chronic miasm and the constitution of an individual produces various secondary disease patterns. These were more difficult to treat, as they varied according to each case. But fortunately, treating for the parent or chronic miasms seemed to remove many of the secondary diseases as well.\n\nWith his discovery of the chronic miasms, Hahnemann gave us the ability to treat for deep-seated, chronic, complex disease conditions that had roots in weaknesses that had little to do with the shocks and traumas of this life, but were there already at conception. The more of these inherited chronic disease patterns we had, the more likely that various shocks and traumas would destabilize us. Thus, as important as it is to remove the cumulative shocks and traumas, it is also critical in many cases to go past the point of conception and reach back into the various disease patterns we brought with us.\n\nIn our experience, many cases could not be helped without this monumental discovery of Dr. Hahnemann. We encountered many cases where people have tried many other approaches and have had little or no improvement. In the case of children on the autistic spectrum, they are labelled ‘non-responders’. I remember the first time I came across such a case. The doctors and even the natural health community had consistently thrown up their hands. Could Heilkunst do anything, the mother asked? I didn’t know for certain, but knowing that Heilkunst can treat diseases that no one else seems to see or know how to treat, I felt confident it could help at least to some degree. And it did! Since then we have been treating difficult, complex, chronic cases of all types – ones that others have given up on. I still recall one case where a woman did not respond to classical homeopathic treatment and was then told she was ‘incurable’. In tears she came to ask if this was indeed true. I told her that yes, by the tenets of classical homeopathy, this was indeed true, but fortunately, by the laws and principles of the complete medical system that Dr. Hahnemann gave us, Heilkunst, it was not. Her problems were resolved by treating for the shocks and traumas in her life and the inherited miasms.\n\nWho would have thought that a discovery some two centuries ago, the chronic miasms, would be confirmed by the most recent scientific understandings in biology (epigenetics). Heilkunst has built in an effective way of treating for inherited disease patterns. In our next blogs we will look at each of the chronic miasms in more detail. Stay tuned.\n", "pred_label": "__label__1", "pred_score_pos": 0.825058102607727}
+{"content": "Local News\n\nSeptember 23, 2012\n\nCivil War anniversary: The Emancipation Proclamation\n\nOn Sept. 22, 1862, President Abraham Lincoln issued his Emancipation Proclamation, the document that added an important new dimension to the Civil War. Originally intended as a measure to disrupt the Confederate war effort, Lincoln’s proclamation eventually led to the abolition of slavery in the United States.\n\nPrior to the Civil War, the American nation had never known a time without slavery. In the days before the American Revolution, captured West Africans were imported into the British North American colonies to furnish a source of labor. From these beginnings the institution of human bondage took root, and by 1776 slavery was present in all 13 of the original United States. Gradually, however, over the next 30 years all of the states north of the Chesapeake Bay region abolished this practice, thus setting in motion the sectional conflict between North and South that reached its zenith in 1860.\n\nLike most members of the fledgling Republican Party, Lincoln was bothered by the existence of slavery as a legal institution, but was not all that concerned about people of color. Except for a fringe group of abolitionists led by spokesmen such as William Lloyd Garrison and former slave Frederick Douglass, the majority of Republicans wanted to gradually suffocate slavery by preventing its expansion into the new western territories.\n\nEarly in the war, Lincoln even backed a plan to remove slaves to a federally sponsored colony in Central America.\n\nHow then, did the Emancipation Proclamation come into existence? As the war entered its “death grip” phase in 1862, Lincoln came to the realization that he could use his war powers to cripple the Confederate cause by confiscating its human property. “My paramount object in this struggle is to save the Union,” Lincoln wrote. “If I could save the Union without freeing any slave I would do it, and if I could save it by freeing all the slaves I would do it; and if I could save it by freeing some and leaving others alone, I would also do that.”\n\nBecause of recent military reverses during the spring and summer of 1862, the president thought it necessary to wait for a victory before going public with his proclamation. That victory came on Sept. 17, when Confederate Gen. Robert E. Lee’s bold offensive into the North ended at the Battle of Antietam near Sharpsburg, Md. Five days later, Lincoln issued perhaps the single most important document of his administration.\n\nThe Emancipation Proclamation essentially gave the wayward Southern states 100 days’ notice to lay down their arms, after which “all persons held as slaves within any State or designated part of a State, the people whereof shall then be in rebellion against the United States, shall be then, thenceforward, and forever free.” It is important to note that through this language Lincoln was using his war powers to create mayhem among those Confederate regions not already in federal possession. He had no constitutional authority to abolish slavery in areas loyal to the United States — such action required Congress to authorize a constitutional amendment. But he did have the authority to seize enemy property. And Union armies would serve as his liberating agents as they moved through the South.\n\nOn Jan. 1, 1863, a revised version of the Emancipation Proclamation made its appearance. The most important difference from the preliminary version was the inclusion of a provision permitting African-Americans to enlist in the armed forces of the United States. Over the next several months the War Department established a Bureau of Colored Troops and began recruiting regiments. Two of these, the 14th and 44th U.S. Colored Infantry, were garrisoned in Dalton during 1864 and earned distinction as the only African-American units to see combat within the boundaries of Georgia. By the end of the war, an estimated 186,000 African-Americans had been inducted into military service.\n\nThe Emancipation Proclamation was not without its critics. Many white Northerners saw no need to liberate slaves, especially since many of those thus liberated would undoubtedly make their way into the northern states. A number of Republicans in Congress feared that the proclamation would cost the party dearly in the elections of 1862 and 1864. There were even a few abolitionists who criticized Lincoln for not going far enough.\n\nThe Confederate government was livid. President Jefferson Davis proclaimed the Emancipation Proclamation “the most execrable measure in the history of guilty man.” And on the field of battle, United States soldiers of color were frequently singled out for brutal treatment. Several cases were recorded in which African-American troops suffered death rates far in excess of what would otherwise have been characterized as normal.\n\nIn the end, however, the Emancipation Proclamation materially assisted the Union cause. Not only did it increase the nation’s military ranks, it also prompted Great Britain, the most powerful nation on the planet, to back away from aligning itself with the Confederacy. It also had the desired effect of disrupting the Southern war effort and striking fear into those regions with significant slave populations. But most important, the Emancipation Proclamation set the stage for the 13th Amendment to the U.S. Constitution, which abolished slavery altogether in 1865.\n\nSources: James M. McPherson, “Battle Cry of Freedom” (1988); Winthrop D. Jordan, “White Over Black” (1968)\n\nThis article is part of a series of stories about Dalton and life in Dalton during the Civil War. The stories appear on Sunday and are provided by the Dalton-Whitfield Civil War 150th Commemoration Committee. To find out more about the committee, go to www.dalton150th.com. If you have material that you would like to contribute for a future article, contact Robert Jenkins at (706) 259-4626 or robert.jenkins@robertdjenkins.com.\n\nText Only\nLocal News\n\nAP Video\nCommunity Calendar\nEvents by eviesays.com", "pred_label": "__label__1", "pred_score_pos": 0.7746634483337402}
+{"content": "1 to 1 Computing in the Classroom\n\n\nI am technology coordinator at Osceola Middle School and we are finishing our 3rd year in a 1 to 1 laptop project. Our school has an enrollment of 1200 students and each one of them carries a laptop to classes. Because of insurance costs and the inability to filter the internet when students are home, laptops are stored in carts overnight located in the 7th period classrooms. We are very proud of the success of this monumental endeavor. There have been some challenges that, through teamwork, have been overcome. I would like to get your input, thoughts, experiences, and questions on 1 to 1 computing in the classroom. Include both negative and positive, please.\n\nHere are some questions to consider when posting to this blog.\n\n1) What do you see as the pros and cons of a 1 to 1 project?\n\n2) How does 1 to 1 computing change methods of teaching?\n\n3) Is the financial cost, including support, worth this 21st century student immersion into technology?\n\n4) How do you measure program success? I find that many of the successes cannot be measured but are intrinsic.\n\n5) If you have participated in a 1 to 1 laptop program, what would you tell someone who is anticipating the implementation of a similar program?\n\nThank you for participating in the blog. Here is a link for our school virtual tour iso you can visit us: Osceola Middle School Tour\n\n\n\nA voice for 1 to 1 computing\n\nYou pose some very good questions on the topic of 1 to 1 computing. I recently just had a discussion with a colleague about this topic, as our district is starting to debate the pros and cons of integrating a 1 to 1 computing program for the 5th - 12th grade level. As I am always an advocate for the integration of technology in the classroom, I think students would greatly benefit from having their own computer. As with the acquisition of any new program, many are initially hesitant because of the amount of work it takes to get them running and obtaining the desired results.\n\nThe closest our school has come to adopting a 1 to 1 program is that one of our teachers has a desktop computer in his room for each student. With student accounts on moodle (a course management program) and gaggle (free filtered e-mail accounts for students), they are able to access all of their homework documents from home, create wikis with other classmates for assigned projects, and have even created their own videos and podcasts on topics ranging from weather forecasting, book reviews (shown to the entire school once a week), and news casting (on virtually any topic being studied in the classroom). They also use tools such as Audacity to take spelling pronunciation tests, and create audio clips for other projects. I have had the opportunity to collaborate with the teacher of this classroom, and am amazed at what he is able to accomplish with his students. Not only are they learning the content required for state tests and assessments, but they are doing so in ways that ultimately prepare them for life outside of the classroom. They leave with skills that they will need for virtually any profession in today's world. Many are also extremely motivated just by simply using the technology presented to them, and take on learning in a whole new mindset than they ever did before.\n\nAfter observing and working in this type of classroom, I am convinced that each and every student would benefit from these types of classroom experiences. One important thing to note is that in order for 1 to 1 computing to be successful, teachers must be willing to take on the challenges of learning new programs and effective ways to implement technology in their classes. They can not just assume they are going to digitize all of their notes and tests, and see improved results. Dr. David Thornburg, of Thornburg Center: Pragmatic Visionaries, states \"Today we clearly are in the realm where the question is not how technology should change to fit classroom practice, but rather how, given current technology, classroom practice could change. We live in a world where it is commonplace for technology to be used to do different things, not just old tasks differently\" (Technology and Education, May 2004, p. 3). Instead of using 1 to 1 computing to allow all students to have access to word processing software, we need to use it to allow students interactive means for constructing knowledge with classmates in engaging and effective ways. This is when 1 to 1 computing will see the results that schools implementing it hope for.\n\nFor others considering 1 to 1 programs, here is a great guidebook:\n\nDoes anyone have any personal success or failure stories of 1 to 1 computing programs?\n\nA Vital Conversation\n\nrenga's picture\n\nThank you AnnieT for your blog post, and thank you Ksternquist for the thoughtful follow up. The questions raised by this topic are very interesting to me, as a technology specialist and a proponent of 1:1 computer:student education. I am not a regular classroom teacher and have not been exposed to a regular classroom environment which has a 1:1 computer to student ratio. I am however a computer lab teacher who integrates core content curriculum into the technology lessons. I'd like to see more research done with specific attention paid to the degree of student engagement, the quality of student output, and perhaps most importantly the level of student achievement. It would be nice to see some data. Though I think it goes without saying that the variables in any kind of study would be difficult to account for. I think I would like to continue to touch on this topic, but for now I'd like to answer the questions you asked.\n\n1) Some of the potential cons I would be cautious of would be: a decrease in interpersonal communication skills, an over reliance on the computers at the expense of more tactile activities, decreased penmanship, and a potential for decreased classroom community. Some of the potential pros I see are: increased data collection and analyzation, the potential for adaptive/interactive educational software, increased student engagement, increased output options, a potential for increased classroom (virtual)community, more equal response opportunities / rapid feedback, and the potential for students who are more able to use and create the technologies of the future.\n\n2) I think 1:1 computing in the classroom would change quite a bit about the way we teach. I see a tremendous opportunity for interactive / adaptive educational software which aligns with learning standards and objectives. As these tools become more available and better, a teachers job may be to help students use and understand technology as much as teach content. I see the teacher as utilizing the data produced by the software and able to target specific needs of individual students. The students may be able to direct and pace their own learning as long as they are meeting agreed upon goals with regards to content knowledge/exposure and performance expectations.\n\n3) I think the financial cost is worth it. The software that will make this work (interactive/adaptive software aligned with learning objectives resulting in increased student achievement) will require a demand sufficient enough to warrant the expense of production. It is the transition that will be most difficult for those in the teaching profession and the public that will have to bear the cost. With the increases in technology and manufacturing efficiency there will surely be a decrease in the cost of the hardware. The majority of the cost is sure to come from software and training. At some point in the future 1:1 computing will be a reality for most in the U.S. The question is when and how.\n\n4) I completely agree that a great deal of the benefit of 1:1 computing is intrinsic, though in our data driven society we must measure it. I think we should conduct as much research as possible. I truly believe that if implemented correctly 1:1 computing will not only result in increase intrinsic benefits, but also measurable student achievement.\n\n5) I haven't participated in a 1:1 laptop program, but selfishly I would tell others to try it so that they could better inform our strategies for a more successful implementation and ultimately higher achieving students.", "pred_label": "__label__1", "pred_score_pos": 0.7695003151893616}
+{"content": "Folk Music Revivals\n\nUpdated: March 01, 2011\n\nAt the dawn of the twentieth century, amid industrial exploitation of the region’s vast natural resources and abundant labor force, educators and social workers committed to uplifting the region’s people extolled Appalachia’s wealth of distinctive cultural traditions.\n\nAt the dawn of the twentieth century, amid industrial exploitation of the region’s vast natural resources and abundant labor force, educators and social workers committed to uplifting the region’s people extolled Appalachia’s wealth of distinctive cultural traditions. In his often quoted 1899 Atlantic Monthly article “Our Contemporary Ancestors in the Southern Mountains,” Berea College’s third president, William Goodell Frost, affirmed the aesthetic value of traditional ballads and advocated the revival of spinning and loom weaving as profitable, wholesome pursuits for Appalachian youth. Under Frost’s leadership, Kentucky’s Berea College became the epicenter of the Appalachian folk arts and crafts movement.\n\nEmulating Frost, teacher, poet, and folklorist Emma Bell Miles advocated handicrafts as an alternative to factory work for Appalachian people. An enthusiastic self-taught folklorist, Miles was also interested in ballads and play parties (singing games). Miles’s evocative book The Spirit of the Mountains (1905) strongly influenced the founders of Pine Mountain Settlement School and Hindman Settlement School in southeastern Kentucky.\n\nA cofounder of Pine Mountain Settlement School in 1913, Katherine Pettit was also an avid folklorist. In 1907 eminent Harvard scholar George Lyman Kittredge published ballads and play-party rhymes collected by Pettit in an article in the Journal of American Folklore. In 1916 English folklorist and musicologist Cecil Sharp and his assistant, Maud Karpeles, collected traditional ballads and songs from students at Pine Mountain and Hindman (in this era, collecting folk music entailed transcribing lyrics and notating tunes). Among these students was Edna Ritchie, older sister of renowned musician and writer Jean Ritchie, who became a leading exponent of authentic Appalachian music in the urban folk revival that flourished in the post–World War II era.\n\nA lively revival of Appalachian folk music was already underway during Jean Ritchie’s childhood, capturing the imagination of educated natives of the region such as Bascom Lamar Lunsford in western North Carolina and Jean Thomas in eastern Kentucky. In 1928 Lunsford established a major festival showcasing regional folk music and dance in Asheville, North Carolina. A scholar, collector, and per- former who staunchly rejected hillbilly stereotypes, Lunsford recorded traditional songs for the Library of Congress and also made a few commercial recordings, including one of his classic song “Mountain Dew.”\n\nA native of Ashland, Kentucky, Jean Thomas in the 1920s moved to New York City, where she encountered future leaders of the urban folk revival. Returning to Kentucky, she began collecting local folk music and writing popular books about Appalachian musicians. She also established the American Folk Song Festival, which she directed from 1931 to 1972. Academic folklorists of her day questioned Thomas’s scholarship and were disturbed by the undercurrents of racism in her fanciful representations of Appalachian folk culture.\n\nWhile some promoters of the revival of Appalachian folk music in the 1930s undeniably had reactionary political agendas, other influential scholars and promoters of Appalachian folk music at that time were politically liberal and progressive, while several were unabashedly radical. Teaching English at New York University from the early 1930s through the late 1940s, Mary Elizabeth Barnicle also served as a fieldworker for the Library of Congress Archives of Folk Song and espoused left-leaning political causes, including the Kentucky coal miners’ strike organized by the communist National Miners Union. In the mid-1930s, she met and shortly thereafter married Tilman Cadle, a radical Kentucky miner closely associated with union organizers Aunt Molly Jackson, Jim Garland, and Sarah Ogan Gunning, whose powerful protest songs inspired the politically left- wing music group the Almanac Singers (which included future leaders of the urban folk revival such as Woody Guthrie, Leadbelly, and Pete Seeger). In 1947 Barnicle and Cadle moved from Greenwich Village in New York City to east Tennessee. Barnicle taught at the University of Tennessee in Knoxville for almost three years until she retired after having been accused of being a communist. Barnicle and Cadle continued to work with the Highlander Folk School, then located in Monteagle, Tennessee. Using topical songs based on folk music to raise consciousness of social injustices has been an integral feature of the Highlander program since its inception. \n\nAwareness and appreciation of traditional Appalachian music greatly increased between the mid 1950s and early 1960s. The folk music boom created new audiences and markets for performers, instrument makers, and producers. The commercial success of the Weavers, a quartet featuring Pete Seeger on the five-string banjo, inspired the formation of a host of banjo-playing popular groups performing folk- inspired music, most notably the Kingston Trio, but also the Limeliters, the Chad Mitchell Trio, and the New Christy Minstrels. Issued in 1958, the Kingston Trio’s first and biggest hit song was “Tom Dooley,” adapted from the text of a traditional murder ballad that Frank Proffitt Sr., of Watauga County, North Carolina, had recorded in the field for folklorist Frank Warner in 1939. Folklorist Alan Lomax published the ballad in his 1947 book Folk Song USA, crediting Warner rather than Proffitt, and the Kingston Trio learned Warner’s rearranged version of “Tom Dooley” from his 1950 Elektra recording. In 1962, after Warner intervened on behalf of Proffitt, the ballad singer finally received a small share of revenue from the hit version.\n\nProffitt was but one of many Appalachian musicians (known in revivalist circles as “source musicians”) who were “discovered” (or “rediscovered”) during the urban folk revival in the 1950s and early 1960s. Literally reviving the careers of such older musicians as Clarence “Tom” Ashley, Dock Boggs, and Clark Kessinger (who had recorded commercially during the 1920s), this revival also introduced new and highly appreciative audiences to younger Appalachian performers such as the Stanley Brothers and Doc Watson, who mixed traditional material with contemporary innovation.\n\nThe urban folk music boom appeared to have peaked by the mid-1960s, when many young urban musicians previously performing acoustic folk-style material began switching to electric formats and harder rock-oriented styles. However, interest in older and newer forms of Appalachian music was renewed in the late 1960s after the influence of the British Invasion and psychedelic rock began to diminish. Urban non- native folk rock and country rock musicians, such as the Nitty Gritty Dirt Band and the group Old and In the Way, brought a more comprehensive vision to acoustic Appalachian music. Such recording projects as the former band’s influential 1972 album Will the Circle Be Unbroken featured traditional country music performers (such as Roy Acuff and Maybelle Carter) alongside bluegrass musicians (for example, Jimmy Martin and Earl Scruggs) and eclectic interpreters of Appalachian music (including Doc Watson and Norman Blake). A number of younger revivalist performers during this era maintained an even more traditional stance, interpreting Appalachian music on recordings, at concerts and festivals, and in publications. Some of these performers, such as David Holt, Mike Seeger, John McCutcheon, Alice Gerrard, Wayne Erbsen, and Betty Smith, were not originally from the region, while others— James “Sparky” Rucker, Hazel Dickens, Rich Kirby, and Sheila Kay Adams—were natives of Appalachia. During the 1960s and 1970s, a variety of performance venues, including festivals, conventions, and contests, attracted new and old devotees of traditional music. A resurgence of interest in country music dance halls and music barns also took place during this same period. A noteworthy example is the Carter Family Fold in Hiltons, Virginia, established in 1974 by Joe and Janette Carter to celebrate their family’s musical heritage and to promote active interest in Appalachian music and dance traditions. Other notable individual promoters of Appalachian traditional music include John Rice Irwin, founder of the Museum of Appalachia in Norris, Tennessee, which stages the Tennessee Fall Homecoming, a major annual traditional music festival, and master old-time fiddler J. P. Fraley, who hosts an annual festival near his family home place of Denton, Kentucky.\n\nVarious organizations and institutions have also promoted interest in Appalachian music, including the John C. Campbell Folk School, in Brasstown, North Carolina; the Jubilee Arts Center, in Knoxville, Tennessee; the Birthplace of Country Music Alliance, in Bristol, Tennessee/Virginia; the Blue Ridge Traditional Music Association, in Galax, Virginia; and the Appalshop Center, in Whitesburg, Kentucky. Regional schools, colleges, and universities have also played a substantial role in promoting appreciation of Appalachian music. Warren Wilson College, in Swannanoa, North Carolina, hosts highly acclaimed summer workshops in Appalachian music, as does Davis and Elkins College, in Elkins, West Virginia. East Tennessee State University, in Johnson City, Tennessee, offers a popular bluegrass and country music program, attracting students from across the United States and from various other countries.\n\nJust as earlier urban folk revivals led to the dissemination of traditional Appalachian music (via limited-release recordings from specialized folk labels) and of hybrid forms of regional music (via more commercially successful recordings by major labels), the commercial success of tradition- influenced recordings both by Appalachia-born and non- native performers in the late 1980s led to the emergence of a far wider audience for various Appalachian musics. Dolly Parton, Ricky Skaggs, Patty Loveless, and Ralph Stanley, from within Appalachia, and Steve Earle and Gillian Welch, among non-Appalachian alternative country music performers, have achieved significant commercial success in recent years performing music overtly based on the region’s musical traditions. While such musicians cannot rightfully claim to make authentic “folk music,” they have surely contributed to increasing the receptivity of mainstream audiences toward more traditional Appalachian music.\n\nAfter more than a century of rediscovery and revival, Appalachian music has achieved worldwide popularity while remaining firmly rooted within the region, a testament to the tenacity of generations of Appalachian people who have expressed themselves through their traditional music.\n\nCite this Entry\n\nMLA Style\n\n\"Folk Music Revivals,\" Encyclopedia of Appalachia, 2013, Encyclopedia of Appalachia. 19 Jun 2013 <>\n\nAPA Style\n\n\"Folk Music Revivals.\" (2013) In Encyclopedia of Appalachia, Retrieved June 19, 2013, from Encyclopedia of Appalachia:\n\nPoster for the 75th Mountain Dance and Folk Festival", "pred_label": "__label__1", "pred_score_pos": 0.7635188698768616}
+{"content": "The Kid\n\nNumero‘s 100th issue features ‘The Kid’, by Paolo Roversi. Roversi is known for his 19th century style portraits, and I have to say that I am a bit surprised to see he shot this. It’s not something I would expect from him seeing as the colors are brighter and bolder than his usual work. However, it’s always interesting to see photographers do different things and I find myself impressed by this.\n\nMagazine: Numéro (Issue #100)\nEditorial: The Kid\nPhotographer: Paolo Roversi\nModel: Nimue Smit\n\nsource | iperlchen @ tfs", "pred_label": "__label__1", "pred_score_pos": 0.9732152819633484}
+{"content": "Mike Pouncey is good, but No. 9 overall? \n\nApril, 7, 2011\n\nFlorida C Mike Pouncey visited the Dallas Cowboys on Wednesday and tweeted after the meeting that he would be shocked if he wasn't in a Dallas uniform next season. Is this a case of a young man getting overexcited about a great visit, or have the Cowboys truly set their sights on him?\n\nOnly time will tell, but a closer look at Pouncey, the positional value of centers and the Cowboys' needs will provide some perspective.\n\nWhy might Pouncey be a good fit in Dallas? And what could prevent the Cowboys from taking him high in the first round? Become an ESPN Insider to find out. Insider\n\nSteve Muench played four years of Division I-AA football before joining Scouts Inc. in 2002. He has evaluated both NFL and college players for Scouts Inc., but his current focus is on the NFL draft.", "pred_label": "__label__1", "pred_score_pos": 0.5317635536193848}
+{"content": "Nutrition BMP\n\nBest Management Practices for Nutrition\n\n\nHoney bees require food as an energy source.\n\n\nWhy is nutrition important to Honey Bees?\n\n\nVigorous well-nourished colonies are able to withstand bee diseases and parasites better than poorly nourished colonies.  Scientists have emphasized that malnutrition may be playing a key role in the decline of colonies due to Colony Collapse Disorder (CCD).  Honey bees can suffer from a compromised immune system related to poor nutrition.\n\n\nNatural Forage\n\n\n-  Healthy bees require a diversity of natural pollen.\n\n-  Placing bees on locations with abundant and diverse floral resources will help them stay healthy.\n\n-  Locations vary in their carrying capacity, and experience will suggest optimum densities.\n\n-  Placing too many bees in one location will result in inadequate floral resources, robbing, drifting and the spread of bee diseases and parasites. \n\n\nSupplemental Feeding\n\n\n-  Forage can be limited in late summer and fall.  When floral sources are inadequate, feeding bees sugar syrup and pollen substitutes can improve colony survival and performance. \n\n-  Supplemental feeding is critical to build bees for early almond pollination by February 1st.\n\n-  Provide protein pollen patties.\n\n-  Pollen substitutes should have three (3) essential properties:\n\n          1.  Consumable - honey bees should be readily able to eat and consume the supplemental feed;\n\n          2.  Absorbable -  honey bees should be able to digest and absorb the supplemental feed, and;\n\n          3.  Nutritious -  it should contain the necessary and vital ingredients for honey bee health.\n\n-  Place pollen patties between brood boxes or on top of hive frames.\n\n-  It is critical to provide supplemental feed when colonies arrive for almond pollination; dearth is a factor prior to and\n\n   after bloom.\n\n\n\n\n-  Provide plentiful and abundant water.\n\n-  Pesticides, fungicides and fertilizers may drift into water sources; locate colonies near accessible clean water.\n\n-  Drought causes honey bee stress.  Work with your grower on identifying a potable water source for bees to avoid\n\n\n\nThe Beekeeper's Goal\n\n\n-  Provide bees a diversity of natural pollen.\n\n-  When possible, locate natural forage for your bees.\n\n-  Fall is a critical time to build bees for almond pollination.\n\n-  Provide supplemental feed, especially protein, to build strong, 8-frame colonies by February 1st.\n\n-  Water is just as important as food; keep your bees well-hydrated with clean water.", "pred_label": "__label__1", "pred_score_pos": 1.0000072717666626}
+{"content": "Warning: The unauthorized reproduction or distribution of this copyrighted work is illegal. Criminal copyright infringement, including infringement without monetary gain, is investigated by the FBI and is punishable by up to five years in federal prison and a fine of $250,000.\n\nWell that sounds kinda scary doesn't it? Rob McAninch Photography is not trying to steal money from your pocket but we're all trying to put food on the table. Most of the time you get an online proof gallery that is easy to share with your friends and family so please respect the law.\n\nThe Copyright Act gives the photographer the exclusive right to reproduce your photographs. If you need reprints, digital formats, special licensing, or other arrangements please contact us and we will try to accommodate all reasonable requests. Heck, sometimes we don't even charge you anything ;-)\n\nIf you are concerned about the safety of your images for the future. Rest assured the images are securely stored on multiple hard drives and media in multiple off site locations. (Some people call me paranoid but I'm always working to protect our investment in portraits. - Rob)", "pred_label": "__label__1", "pred_score_pos": 0.5758779048919678}
+{"content": "Home > NYU in Madrid\n\nNYU in Madrid\n\nNYU Madrid is the oldest of NYU's study abroad programs. Established in 1958, the Madrid campus hosts one of the most prestigious American university programs in Spain for both undergrad and graduate students. NYU Madrid offers an unparalleled opportunity to advance your command of the Spanish language and immerse yourself in both the European and Latin American traditions that comprise Hispanic cultures. We invite you to join us and experience all the excitement of living and learning in another country while earning college credit or working on your own research. NYU offers you an exceptional array of language courses as well as cultural activities and excursions designed to immerse students in the Spanish language and culture.", "pred_label": "__label__1", "pred_score_pos": 0.9637653827667236}
+{"content": "Length of Time (Days) to Complete Prosecution or Decline ATF Referral 1998\n\nFederal Judicial District = U.S.\n\nmedian time for prosecution (days) 310\nrank: median time for prosecution -\naverage time for prosecution (days) 472\nrank: average time for prosecution -\nNumber of Prosecutions Completed 3,544\nmedian time before declined (days) 278\nrank: median time before declined -\naverage time before declined (days) 464\nrank: average time before declined -\n# of referrals with prosecution declined 1,815\nMedian = half of referrals took longer, half took shorter.\n\nTransactional Records Access Clearinghouse, Syracuse University\nCopyright 2003", "pred_label": "__label__1", "pred_score_pos": 1.000003457069397}
+{"content": "Bare Feet and Hula Hoops\n\nI'm Mia. I'm 19, I'm vegan, and I lovelovelove hooping. I rarely wear shoes, and I really love to cook and grow my own food. I also really like music, books, doing anything outdoors, kombucha, and my pet rats. Living, laughing, and learning every single day. Loving every second of it.\n\nAsk me anything\n\nIs it weird that I believe in fairies but not god?\n\nTagged: Weirdnessfairies", "pred_label": "__label__1", "pred_score_pos": 0.9982941746711731}
+{"content": "Working Together\n\nIndividual actions taken to reduce our use of natural resources and impact on the environment are important steps to achieving a sustainable environment. However, an even greater impact on ecological health takes place when neighbors work together to create larger habitats for the long-term sustainability of the plants, animals, and other organisms that we coexist with. Wildlife management associations, habitat groups, watershed coalitions, and cooperatives organize adjacent or nearby landowners and other citizens with common goals to plan and discuss best practices for the sustainability of habitats and wildlife populations.\n\nWhy is working together important to birds and the environment?\n\nHabitat loss, fragmentation, and degradation are the leading causes of population declines in birds, other wildlife, and plants. Roughly 2.1 million acres of wildlife habitat are converted to residential use every year. Many birds of conservation concern need territories of vast, unobstructed habitat to survive. The decline of many grassland and wetland bird species can be attributed primarily to the loss of habitat, either by complete destruction or patch isolation. Efforts to retain or restore broad tracks of rich habitat are crucial to the survival of both common birds and more specialized species.\n\nWhile implementing the best landscaping practices on an individual property can help support wildlife and protect natural resources, a more effective approach is to link adjacent properties through a broader management plan. Whether it's a suburban neighborhood, a subdivided ranch, or a multi-unit building complex, a community effort to create and manage a habitat will benefit wildlife and people.\n\nCommunity organizations also provide opportunities for social interaction and a forum for presentations by experts in the field. Partnerships with public administrations, government agencies, nonprofit groups, schools, and businesses can strengthen the efforts of habitat enhancement organizations. Federal habitat incentive programs can assist landowners in the planning, funding, and management of restoration or enhancement of habitat, including wetlands.\n\nGetting Started: What You Can Do\n\n  • Form a group of like-minded neighbors to begin discussing the management of a particular habitat.\n  • Contact local environmental groups such as land trusts or watershed coalitions, public officials, and government agencies (see incentive programs listed under \"Helpful Links\") to inform them of your ideas and to see what support they can offer.\n  • Select a few species of greatest conservation concern in your area, and make a plan to attract and sustain them in your community.\n  • Assess existing resources and information, create a program, and implement the plan.\n  • Publicize your efforts and outreach to the community throughout the process.\n  • Monitor your impact.\n  • Contact your local Audubon Chapter\n\nHelpful Links", "pred_label": "__label__1", "pred_score_pos": 0.9775702357292175}
+{"content": "Home      Discussion      Topics      Dictionary      Almanac\nSignup       Login\nÉleuthère Mascart\n\nÉleuthère Mascart\n\nAsk a question about 'Éleuthère Mascart'\nStart a new discussion about 'Éleuthère Mascart'\nAnswer questions from other users\nFull Discussion Forum\nÉleuthère Élie Nicolas Mascart (February 20, 1837 – August 24, 1908) was a noted French\nThe French Republic , The French Republic , The French Republic , (commonly known as France , is a unitary semi-presidential republic in Western Europe with several overseas territories and islands located on other continents and in the Indian, Pacific, and Atlantic oceans. Metropolitan France...\n\nA physicist is a scientist who studies or practices physics. Physicists study a wide range of physical phenomena in many branches of physics spanning all length scales: from sub-atomic particles of which all ordinary matter is made to the behavior of the material Universe as a whole...\n\n, a researcher in optics\nOptics is the branch of physics which involves the behavior and properties of light, including its interactions with matter and the construction of instruments that use or detect it. Optics usually describes the behavior of visible, ultraviolet, and infrared light...\n\n and electricity\nElectricity is a general term encompassing a variety of phenomena resulting from the presence and flow of electric charge. These include many easily recognizable phenomena, such as lightning, static electricity, and the flow of electrical current in an electrical wire...\n\n\nMascart was born in Quarouble\n-1954 incident:An alien encounter was reported in the commune in 1954. Calcinated rock was reportedly found at the site of the incident and some witnesses reported experiencing missing time.-References:*...\n\n, Nord. He attended the École normale supérieure\nÉcole normale supérieure\nAn école normale supérieure or ENS is a type of publicly funded higher education in France. A portion of the student body who are French civil servants are called Normaliens....\n\n (rue d'Ulm). He became a Professor at the Collège de France\nCollège de France\nThe Collège de France is a higher education and research establishment located in Paris, France, in the 5th arrondissement, or Latin Quarter, across the street from the historical campus of La Sorbonne at the intersection of Rue Saint-Jacques and Rue des Écoles...\n\n\nHe won the Bordin Prize of the Académie française\nAcadémie française\nL'Académie française , also called the French Academy, is the pre-eminent French learned body on matters pertaining to the French language. The Académie was officially established in 1635 by Cardinal Richelieu, the chief minister to King Louis XIII. Suppressed in 1793 during the French Revolution,...\n\n in 1866 and the Grand prix of the Académie des sciences in 1874.\n\nHe was elected Perpetual Member and Secretary of the Académie des Sciences and Foreign Member of the British Royal Society. Mascart founded Supélec\nÉcole Supérieure d'Électricité, commonly known as Supélec, is a French Graduate School of Engineering delivering the equivalent of a Master's Degree as well as Ph.D opportunities. It is one of the most prestigious and selective Grandes Ecoles in France, and a reference in the field of electric...\n\n in 1894.\n\nHe died in Paris\n\n at the age of 71. His son-in-law Marcel Brillouin\nMarcel Brillouin\nLouis \"Marcel\" Brillouin was a French physicist and mathematician.Born in Melle, Deux-Sèvres, France, his father was a painter who moved to Paris when Marcel was a boy. There he attended the Lycée Condorcet. The Brillouin family returned to Melle during the Franco-Prussian War of 1870 to escape...\n\n and his grandson Léon Brillouin\nLéon Brillouin\nLéon Nicolas Brillouin was a French physicist. He made contributions to quantum mechanics, radio wave propagation in the atmosphere, solid state physics, and information theory.-Early life:...\n\nwere also noted scientists.", "pred_label": "__label__1", "pred_score_pos": 0.7655943632125854}
+{"content": "Home      Discussion      Topics      Dictionary      Almanac\nSignup       Login\n\n\nAsk a question about 'Ademption'\nStart a new discussion about 'Ademption'\nAnswer questions from other users\nFull Discussion Forum\nAdemption is a term used in the law\nLaw is a system of rules and guidelines which are enforced through social institutions to govern behavior, wherever possible. It shapes politics, economics and society in numerous ways and serves as a social mediator of relations between people. Contract law regulates everything from buying a bus...\n\n of wills\nWill (law)\nA will or testament is a legal declaration by which a person, the testator, names one or more persons to manage his/her estate and provides for the transfer of his/her property at death...\n\n to determine what happens when property bequeathed under a will is no longer in the testator\nA testator is a person who has written and executed a last will and testament that is in effect at the time of his/her death. It is any \"person who makes a will.\"-Related terms:...\n\n's estate\nEstate (law)\nAn estate is the net worth of a person at any point in time. It is the sum of a person's assets - legal rights, interests and entitlements to property of any kind - less all liabilities at that time. The issue is of special legal significance on a question of bankruptcy and death of the person...\n\n at the time of the testator's death. For a devise (bequest) of a specific item of property (a specific gift), such property is considered adeemed, and the gift fails. For example, if a will bequeathed the testator's car to a specific beneficiary, but the testator owned no car at the time of his or her death, the gift would be adeemed and the aforementioned beneficiary would receive no gift at all.\n\nGeneral bequests or general gifts - gifts of cash amounts - are never adeemed. If the cash in the testator's estate is not sufficient to satisfy the gift, then other assets in the residuary estate\nResiduary estate\nA residuary estate, in the law of wills, is any portion of the testator's estate that is not specifically devised to someone in the will, or any property that is part of such a specific devise that fails. It is also known as a residual estate or simply residue. The will may identify the taker of...\n\n will need to be sold to raise the necessary cash.\n\nSome property lies in a \"gray\" area, in which the testator's specific intent must be determined. For example, where the testator bequeathes \"500 shares of stock\" in a company, this may be read as a general bequest (that the estate should purchase and convey the particular stocks to the beneficiary), or it may be read as a specific bequest, particularly if the testator used a possessive (\"my 500 shares\"). Such a gift is deemed to be a demonstrative gift. Such demonstrative gifts are deemed to be a hybrid of both specific and general gifts. If one were to bequeath \"500 shares of stock,\" most states would deem that to be a demonstrative gift. The resultant gift to the heir receiving \"500 shares,\" would be the date of death value of 500 shares of that particular stock.\n\nAdemption may be waived if the property leaves the estate after the testator has been declared incompetent. Furthermore, in some cases the beneficiary will be entitled to the proceeds from the sale of property, or to the insurance\nIn law and economics, insurance is a form of risk management primarily used to hedge against the risk of a contingent, uncertain loss. Insurance is defined as the equitable transfer of the risk of a loss, from one entity to another, in exchange for payment. An insurer is a company selling the...\n\n payout for property that is lost or destroyed.\n\nTo avoid confusion as to what may or may not be adeemed, sometimes the phrase \"if owned by me at my death\" is placed into the articles of a will in which property is being bequeathed.\n\nAs for the sale of land under an executory contract\nExecutory contract\nAn executory contract is a contract which has not yet been performed or executed. Although material, an obligation to pay money does not usually make a contract executory. An obligation is material if a breach of contract would result from the failure to satisfy the obligation...\n\n, traditional case law\nCase law\nIn law, case law is the set of reported judicial decisions of selected appellate courts and other courts of first instance which make new interpretations of the law and, therefore, can be cited as precedents in a process known as stare decisis...\n\n agrees that ademption occurs upon the death of the testator and that the proceeds of sale, when the closing, occurs should not pass to the specific devisee of the property. However, the more modern view and the Uniform Probate Code\nUniform Probate Code\nThe Uniform Probate Code is a uniform act drafted by National Conference of Commissioners on Uniform State Laws governing inheritance and the decedents' estates in the United States...\n\n, which has been adopted by some states, disagrees. These jurisdictions find that when property subject to specific devise is placed under contract of sale before the decedent's death, the proceeds of the sale will pass to the specific devisee.\n\nStatutory variations\n\nMany jurisdictions have ameliorated the effects of the common law doctrine by statute.\n\nIn Wisconsin\nWisconsin is a U.S. state located in the north-central United States and is part of the Midwest. It is bordered by Minnesota to the west, Iowa to the southwest, Illinois to the south, Lake Michigan to the east, Michigan to the northeast, and Lake Superior to the north. Wisconsin's capital is...\n\n, state law (854.08) attempts to abolish the common law doctrine of ademption by extinction, by, for example, awarding beneficiaries the balance of the purchase price of the item sold (subject to some limitations).\n\nIn Virginia\nThe Commonwealth of Virginia , is a U.S. state on the Atlantic Coast of the Southern United States. Virginia is nicknamed the \"Old Dominion\" and sometimes the \"Mother of Presidents\" after the eight U.S. presidents born there...\n\n, ademption occurs with respect to most forms of property, but if the property at issue is stock certificate\nStock certificate\nIn corporate law, a stock certificate is a legal document that certifies ownership of a specific number of stock shares in a corporation...\n\ns, then the fact that the issuer of the stock has been bought out by another company, and that the stocks have been swapped for a new issue by that company, will not adeem the gift of stock. Similarly, if the shares of stock that existed at the time the gift was made have split (for example, where the holder of 500 shares receives a reissue of 1,000 shares each having half the value of the original), then the beneficiary of that gift will be entitled to the number of shares that exist after the split.", "pred_label": "__label__1", "pred_score_pos": 0.79510498046875}
+{"content": "Affirmations For Positive Thinking\n\n\nCreating Success With Positive Thinking\n\nSuccess attracts success. If you want to create success in your life then focus on your success regularly. This is the first step to applying positive thinking to create success.\n\nNow you may say that you haven't had a lot of success in life, but positive thinking requires that you focus on even the smallest success because when you do you start to think of some of the other success that you've had in life. Start with even the smallest success that you can think of.\n\nWhen you do that you focus on the positive, you keep thinking about the positive things that happened in your life and you attract more positive situations. You're drawing on past success to build current success and this process helps you achieve your goals sooner.\n\nIf you continually focus on the negative, where you failed, why you haven't succeeded at something or what you can't do then you attract negative energy and develop a negative thought pattern.\n\nTo change that  you have to develop a positive thinking pattern where you continually focus on the positive aspects so that you build more success.\n\nThis is usually a lot easier than you think and to succeed at it you should apply positive thinking regularly. So everyday take a few moments to think of your success, think of the things that have gone well, think of the things that have worked out for you - this is how you begin to apply positive thinking to attract, build and create more success.\n\nThe more positive, and upbeat you are the more optimistic you become and the more likely you are to succeed. So take some time apply positive thinking to create success everyday by looking at and appreciating even the smallest success that you have.\n\nTo help you to do this I've put together a special Positive Thinking e-email course - it's free and when you register today you'll get my Mp3 download. Simply fill out the form below:\n\nI want to develop Positive Thinking for success..\n\nFirst Name\n\nYour information is secure. We do not rent or sell email addresses", "pred_label": "__label__1", "pred_score_pos": 0.9467054009437561}
+{"content": "Air 1 Sign-in\n[Sign In, My Account]\n\n  • Lecrae \"Background\"\n\n    Lecrae \"Background\"\n\n    Since God grabbed a hold of Lecrae Moore when he was 19 years old, He has used Lecrae’s Hip Hop background to lead the way in a new genre of Christian Rap. Lecrae’s latest song “Background” talks about how important it is to put God front and center, and let everything else fade into the background.\n\n    Lecrae was raised by his mom in various inner cities around the U.S. and he frequently turned to rap as a vessel to express his thoughts and emotions. It wasn’t until he was 19 when he directed his efforts and talents to God. He heard a message by Christian leader James White that would cause him to turn his life around 180 degrees and showed him his need for a Savior. Lecrae would go onto print his life story and conversion and passed it out to students across the University of North Texas campus.\n\n    He went on to speak and rap at juvenile detention centers and began to gain attention for his music. His breakthrough single “Jesus Musik” opened a whole new door into Christian Rap, and while he has flourished musically, Lecrae has never lost his passion for reaching people with the message of Jesus. He cofounded ReachLife Ministries in 2005 to help take the message behind his music to the streets and build and equip leaders in the urban environments with resources to help to reach others.  \n\n    Lecrae \"Background\"", "pred_label": "__label__1", "pred_score_pos": 0.703385055065155}
+{"content": "Retrain the Brain\n\nFor ALL \"emotional\" problems, including unhappiness, patterns of thought, beliefs, and behaviors have to change. \n\nMaster the principles of success, and you will be successful at everything you want or need to accomplish. \n\n\nReading motivational, spiritual, educational and positive books about how to live in a healthy manner with successful values and morals is critically important.  At minimum 5-15 minutes daily.  Books such as \"Your Erroneous Zones\" by Wayne Dyer, \"How to Win Friends and Influence People\" by Dale Carnegie, \"Embraced By the Light\" by Betty Eadie, and \"Happiness is a Choice\" by Barry Neil Kaufman are very helpful.\n\n\nMust overwhelm your mind to new information, and program your \"automatic\" brain to think successfully.  Listen to tapes whenever you can - driving, getting dressed, cleaning, etc.  Zig Ziglar's \"How to Stay Motivated\" series is the best to get started (1-800-527-0306).  Nightingale-Conant has a catalog with an excellent collection of tapes (1-800-323-5552). \n\n\nWe are what we think about all day long.  Must learn to control our self-talk.  The first step is awareness (mood checks), the second \"affirmations\" - saying what we want to be in advance.  It takes 21 days to develop a new habit. \n\n\nCounseling is extremely important and can be remarkably effective.  It needs to emphasize where you go from here, and learning the necessary skills to be happy and healthy.\n\n\nReduce negative influences: acquaintances (and sometimes family members), negative self-talk, media, co-dependent and stress provoking music.  Reduce stress: exercise, meditation, better career choices, lifestyle changes, learn better communication skills, choice of friends. \n\n\nvolunteering to help others, public speaking (support groups & Toastmasters), learning a new hobby, improving skills at something important to you. \n\n\nThese affirmations are mostly from Zig Ziglar, who has given me permission to use them for my patients.  Saying them out loud uses the entire brain and tells your brain what you want.  Here is an example for a person named Benjamin:\n\nI, Benjamin,", "pred_label": "__label__1", "pred_score_pos": 0.9626284837722778}
+{"content": "Global Affinity in Healthcare\n\n\"Global Affinity in Healthcare\" reflects our commitment to become an integrated global healthcare leader. Dynamism, flexibility, reliability, sustainability and innovation are part our core identity and express our calling and commitment to the highest standards of excellence and to create sustainable value to our stakeholders.\n\nGlobal Organization\n\nBroad and balanced presence in more than 40 countries, across 4 continents, CHEMO operates across the pharmaceutical value chain, with a diversified offering of healthcare products.\n\nCommitted to Healthcare\n\nCHEMO is committed to continuously improving healthcare and living conditions, for more than 35 years, providing access to safe, quality and affordable medicines.\n\nAffinity with our Customers and Employees\n\nCHEMO is committed with promoting a positive work environment that encourages ethical behavior, motivation, recognition, engagement and positive long-term relationships.", "pred_label": "__label__1", "pred_score_pos": 0.9638814926147461}
+{"content": "Shinin' in the sun\n\nOl' man Simon, planted a diamond.  Grew his self a garden the likes of none.  Sprouts all growin' comin' up glowin'  Fruit of jewels all shinin' in the sun. Colors of the rainbow.  See the sun and the rain grow sapphires and rubies on ivory vines,  Grapes of jade, just ripenin' in the shade, just ready for the squeezin' into gree\n", "pred_label": "__label__1", "pred_score_pos": 0.9482167959213257}
+{"content": "Quantcast Amanda Mackenzie Stuart from HarperCollins Publishers\n| | More\n\nAmanda Mackenzie Stuart\n\nAmanda Mackenzie Stuart worked as a screenwriter and independent film producer for a number of years before publishing her first biography, the critically acclaimed Consuelo and Alva Vanderbilt: The Story of a Daughter and Mother in the Gilded Age. She lives in Oxford, England.\n\nAuthor Extras\nConsuelo and Alva Vanderbilt Consuelo and Alva Vanderbilt\nWhen Consuelo Vanderbilt's grandfather died, he was the richest man in...", "pred_label": "__label__1", "pred_score_pos": 0.8014861345291138}
+{"content": "\n\nprevious 5/8 next 7/8 \nForca Woudia Netherlands (361324)\n\nThis is a bot team. What does that mean?\n\n\n# 6 in VIII.621\n\nClub details\n\nThis team does not have a human manager. It has been a bot since 22-01-2013.\n\nFan club: 1 475 members\n\nArena: Forca Woudia Arena (capacity 12 000)\n\nRanked 0\n\nServer 096", "pred_label": "__label__1", "pred_score_pos": 0.8860453367233276}
+{"content": "CYBERGOMI [Here Today, Gone Tomorrow]\n\nThe protean nature of the computer is such that it can act like a machine or like a language to be shaped and exploited. It is a medium that can dynamically simulate the details of any other medium, including media that cannotexist physically. It is not a tool, although it can act like many tools. It is the first metamedium, and as such it has degrees of freedom for representation and expression never before encountered ..... [Alan Kay, 1984] Computer software can of course simulate other, more traditional media. However, considered as a medium, computer software can also do many new things: it can interact with users in relatively arbitrary ways; it can simulate other processes; and perhaps most importantly, it can adapt. Unfortunately, as commonly implemented, computer software is not a very good communications medium. It is relatively cumbersome to distribute software, there are too many incompatible platforms that can only 'display\" very specific forms of it, it has very little structure, and it is relatively difficult to create \"content\" that exploits its full interactive potential. Also, software can be a dangerous medium. \"Display\" of the \"content\" in this medium (the execution of computer software) can actually cause damage to the property of the reader through theft or destruction of information. The internet/web is a bubbling primordial soup of opportunity and change. It is also a poorly developed and largely misunderstood rat's nest of incompatibilities, platform incongruities, brain bending hacks and glossed over problems waiting to be solved by ruthless corporate megalabs willing to spend whatever it takes to dominate the nature of art and art in life into next millennium. Many \"cybernauts\" jumped into this broken tornado bright eyed, open hearted and flush with ideas waiting to be loosed on a receptive, like-minded world. I want to peel away some misconceptions regarding the capacity of the net to deliver dreams in tact while opening a dialogue and demonstration on how to good stuff done. Suffer not the slings and arrows of outrageous Fortune 500 companies. Understand a little more about how tools are made, what art requires of all of us and put aside the notion that 18 hour days make you a better anything.\n\nRelated to event: (Poster session) CYBERGOMI here today, gone tomorrow (Henry Lowengard, Nik Williams)\nArtefact (Book of Abstracts) ISEA96 Book of Abstracts including Final Program The Seventh International Symposium on Electronic Art", "pred_label": "__label__1", "pred_score_pos": 0.615165114402771}
+{"content": "Main Menu - Home | About us | Advertise | Contact us | Gear for sale | Links | Privacy policy\nReviews & Features - Amplifiers | Artist features | Effects | Guitars | Home recording | Tone tips & tricks\nMastering 101 Part 2\nFotios Koulakos\n\nWelcome back to part two of mastering 101. Last time, if you recall (or you can re-read part 1), I gave an introduction to mastering, as well as a basic itinerary of what I hope to cover in upcoming articles. Continuing on that theme, here is a brief overview of some of the basic tools and techniques required for mastering.\n\n1). Mastering grade equalizers (analog or digital) Here are a few things that make mastering EQs different than any other EQ.\n\na) The sonic quality, dynamic range, signal to noise ratio and accuracy are vastly increased. Improved sonic quality, dynamic range, and signal to noise ratio are self explanatory. With regard to accuracy though, mastering grade EQs offer far more control over frequencies. Mastering EQs allow up to .5 db adjustments. We’re talking surgical adjustments. In the studio you might be boosting or cutting big chunks of audio (anything from 2 to 15 decibels). In mastering we are refining, so the controls are click indented to assure repeatable settings, and accuracy to the above mentioned half a decibel.\n\nb) Transparency. Here comes another seeming paradox. In mastering you want the EQ to be as transparent (unnoticeable) as possible. “What? I thought the purpose of EQ was to color and shape the sound??” Yes, but here’s the clincher. General EQs, be they anything from studio to stomp box style, not only affect the desired frequencies, but also add sonic artifacts of their own. Added harmonics (not always pleasant ones), and noise are the two main culprits. While those things might be unavoidable, and even desirable in tone shaping of guitars all the way to mix downs, during mastering we want NONE of that. Zip, zero, zilch. We want cut/boost, bandwidth, and frequency adjustment…that’s it. No cool added distortion, no weird phase artifacts, and above all, no noise! Now that we got that out of the way, let’s talk reality…no piece of equipment is totally transparent, or totally colorless. That defies the laws of nature. We refer to transparency in relative terms, compared to inferior equipment. We just want the most amount of transparency available. As a quick side note, a lot of equipment boasts great specs, like high dynamic range, low noise (signal to noise ratio) and wide frequency response, but what looks good on paper is not always the way things sound. A general eq might share the same specs as a mastering EQ on the sheet, but that’s where the similarities end. Hence, some of the chunky price tags of mastering grade EQs.\n\n2) Mastering grade compressors (again, analog or digital)\n\nAll of what was said above about EQ applies to compression. That’s simple enough.\n\nBut here is a summary of what a compressor does, and how it plays its role in mastering.\n\nReduced to its lowest common denominator, a compressor simply raises the volume of low signals and lowers the volume of high signals. All of how much and when, is determined by controls called: threshold, ratio, attack, and release. Some more sophisticated compressors have more bells and whistles, but the main crux is those four mentioned controls. Threshold controls the level your signal has to be at, for the compressor to start operating. Ratio controls how much altering the compressor does…higher ratios have a much more dramatic effect. Attack controls how fast the compressor latches on to your signal. Fast attack times clamp down on your sound quickly, while slower times allow some of the uncompressed sound to get through before clamping down, thus resulting in a fat, punchy sound. Release controls when the signal returns to normal uncompressed status. With those controls you pretty much have complete control over an incoming signal. Now, most musicians use compressors as tools to increase sustain of their instruments. That’s the #1 side effect of compression…the signal leveling and squeezing adds sustain…great for guitars, drums, vocals, etc. Usually, when used in that manner, compressors become a tone shaping tool. However, in mastering we are only interested in dynamic (volume control), not in added harmonics or sustain. So, we’re back to our old friend, “transparency.”\n\nMastering compressors also come in single and multi band versions. Single band versions work on the whole signal fed into it, whereas multi band compressors chop up the signal into 3 or more sub parts based on user determined frequency points, and compress each frequency “band” individually. Both serve their purpose, and we will discuss the mastering engineer debate over the pros and cons of each at a later time.\n\n3) This brings us to Limiters (analog or digital)\n\nOnce again, what was applied to EQs and compressors above, applies to limiters.\n\nLimiters are similar to compressors in function and layout. Even the controls are the same, so I won’t bore you with repetition. BUT…the main difference is that a limiter has one job only…to limit the incoming signal, and not allow it to get louder than a preset point. So, no matter how much signal or volume you apply, it will not go over the “limit”\n\nThat is how we prevent tape or digital overloads and when used in conjunction with a compressor, we can make the signal louder AND denser. With the compressor bringing up the rear, so to speak, and the limiter not letting the signal past a certain point, the ending result is a loud and dense signal. Now how much of that should be used, is a very hot debate going on right now which has spawned the “volume wars.” A full article on this topic WILL be up in the future, covering the history of this war, as well as the scam that most of us have bought into. Anyway, back on track, compression and limiting are subjective topics, but good taste is paramount in not overdoing it, and ruining the original mix. Here is my rationalization for this. For argument sake, let’s use a scale from 1 to 10. 1 being the lowest volume, 10 being the absolute max limit. So as an example, Johnny Guitar mixes his record and it looks something like this. Drums-8.8, bass-8.0, keyboards-5.5, guitars-7.7, guitar solos-100…just kidding- actually-8.7, vocals-8.5. He is really happy with the blend and mix. If we go in and start over compressing and limiting…that ratio might change from 8.8, 8.0, 5.5, 7.7, 8.7, 8.5, to, 9.0, 9.0, 8.5, 9.0, 9.0, 8.8, or something of that nature. You see we can easily screw up a mix, because things that weren’t meant to be in the fore front, now suddenly are. The hard compression and limiting brought EVERYTHING closer to the ceiling max, AND also brought up the lower sounding parts (even though it was mixed that way on purpose!) to the same level. Dynamics and flow are gone, everything is thrown out of whack and we’ve ruined a good mix. That’s an example of over doing it. But seeing how powerful these tools are, they CAN also be used to refine a rough mix, or tame a problem spot.\n\n4) Noise control and reduction. This isn’t the most exciting, but it is a necessary part of the cleanup. Here we use gates, expanders, noise reduction…all in single band and multi band format.\n\nGates, simply cut off a signal at a predetermined level. They are generally abrasive and blunt…great for special effects, or simply chopping off a section of noise with no music on it.\n\nExpanders, work exactly like compressors, only in reverse. Once the signal hits a predetermined threshold, the expander kicks in, and simply shoves the noise far down, rendering it inaudible. This is a much more delicate and controllable form of noise control.\n\nLastly we have noise reduction units. They are not gates, they don’t have the soul of a compressor….they simply analyze a signal, lock onto the noise frame (user adjustable of course) and remove it. Care must be taken though, in checking the original signal vs. the noise print signal, to make sure we aren’t neutering any of the music. You would be surprised at how easily you can accidentally shave off a few KHz before you notice!\n\n5) The last item I want to cover now is stereo image control.\n\nThese tools, on the simpler side, can widen or narrow a stereo sound, and on the complicated end of the spectrum, can manipulate ONLY certain frequency bands. The possibilities are endless. But care must be used again, because widening a stereo field too much (such as in getting a pseudo surround effect) can actually drop 3-4 db off of your signal. Conversely, narrowing the field can have the opposite effect, making all of your EQ, compression, and limiting calculations virtually useless. Again, proper compensation, and foresight are a requisite. By now I’m sure you’ve come to realize that the words “give and take” and “compromise” are a mastering engineers’ mantra. We are still governed but the laws of nature…we can only bend things so far.\n\nOnce again, the purpose of imaging tools can be to correct an out of balance audio field, to enhance, and widen one, or to simply prep the recording for a particular market. An example would be, optimizing it for stereo compatibility, mono compatibility, or both, strictly for CD sales, fm radio, am radio, and so on. Of course, again, keep in mind, that for every method, there is a counter method, and for every counter method, there is a counter-counter method. The rabbit hole goes as deep as you WANT it to go!\n\nWe’ll stop here for now, as this will give you an idea of the basic tenets involved in prepping a master. Technical comparisons and gear discussions will come later. As always, I’ll do my best to keep the thread flowing logically from one topic to the next, but feel free to ask questions or make suggestions.\n\nThe Legendary Forum is a great place for this. Until next time…", "pred_label": "__label__1", "pred_score_pos": 0.5048216581344604}
+{"content": "Reading post 491358 in main thread: How is the weather like where you are now?!\nMarch 11th, 2009  \nIt is 26 degrees F!\n\n\"The willingness with which our young people are likely to serve in any war, no matter how justified, is directly proportional to how they perceive the veterans of earlier wars were treated and appreciated.\" ~George Washington\n(c)02-10 - Post # 491358", "pred_label": "__label__1", "pred_score_pos": 0.775043249130249}
+{"content": "The official motto of Kenya is Harambee, which in English means \"all pull together.\"\n\nIt is a fitting motto for a country consisting of more than 70 tribes that speak more than 30 languages and countless dialects. Fortunately for you, English is the official language along with Swahili, both of which are used as a trade language between the melting pot of cultures that make up Kenya.\n\nSo, forget your phrase books and translation phone apps. Climb Mount Kenya, go on a safari, trek along the Rift Valley, visit a genuine Masai village or relax at one of Kenya's popular beach resorts without worrying (too much) about the language barrier.\n\nOur next stop takes us to South America. We know what you're thinking: an English-speaking country in South America?\n\nIs the rainforest calling your name?\n\nGuyana mountains\n\n\n\n\n\n\nDoes it get more exotic than the Far East?\n\nPhilippines resort\n\n\n\n\n\n", "pred_label": "__label__1", "pred_score_pos": 0.8623917102813721}
+{"content": "page 1  (16 pages)\n2to next section\n\n\nOn limited versus polynomial nondeterminism\n\nUriel Feige? Joe Kiliany\n\nDecember 5, 1995\n\n\nWe show that efficient algorithms for some problems that require limited nondeterminism imply subexponential simulation of nondeterministic computation by deterministic computation. In particular, if cliques of size O(log n) can be found in polynomial time, then nondeterministic time f(n) is contained in deterministic time\n\n2O(pf(n) polylog f(n) ).\n\n1 Introduction\n\nA major open question in computational complexity is whether P = NP . Put in other words, is it true that if a language L can be recognized in time f(n) by a nondeterministic Turing machine (where n denotes the input length), then L can be recognized in time (f(n))c by a deterministic Turing machine (for some constant c)? Let DTIME(f(n)) denote the class of languages accepted by a deterministic Turing machine in time O(f(n)), and let NTIME(f(n)) denote the class of languages accepted by a deterministic Turing machine in time O(f(n)). The trivial relations between these classes are DTIME(f(n)) ae NTIME(f(n)) (by definition), and NTIME(f(n)) ae DTIME(2O(f(n))) (by exhaustive search). Perhaps the only nontrivial relation known is that DTIME(n) <> NTIME(n) [16].\n\nA natural question to ask is whether there is a general methodology that improves over exhaustive search, and applies to a wide range of NP-problems. For some specific NP- problems, improvements over exhaustive search that involve the constant in the exponent were obtained in [23, 22, 4]. However, we seek a more dramatic improvement, with more general applicability. This leads to the following question:\n\n?Department of Applied Math and Computer Science, the Weizmann Institute, Rehovot 76100, Israel. Incumbent of the Joseph and Celia Reskin Career Development Chair. Supported by a Yigal Alon fellowship. Work done in part while the author was visiting the NEC Research Institute.\nyNEC Research Institute, 4 Independence Way, Princeton, New Jersey, 08540.", "pred_label": "__label__1", "pred_score_pos": 0.998140275478363}
+{"content": "The study of botany reveals that a sunflower seed is a small, one-seeded, and indehiscent fruit. The edible remnant which is taken out by removing the hull or the cover is known as sunflower kernel. Talking about the commercial usage of sunflower seeds, it is differentiated on the basis of the patterns on its husk. For instance, if the husk is dark black, the seeds are named as black oil sunflower seeds. The seeds are called striped sunflower seeds or 'stripers', when the husks are striped. The sunflower seeds are generally processed into sunflower oil using various oil mill machinery.\n\nThe crops of sunflower seeds are known as non-oilseed sunflower crops because of their low oil content. The striped sunflower seeds can be called as confectionery sunflower seeds as they are primarily used for the food purposes. There is another variety of sunflower seeds that is whitish and is currently not used for commercial purpose. The most common variety is plain black or black with white stripes.\n\nSo far as the processing of in-shell seeds goes, these are initially dried and later on may be dusted or roasted with salt for preserving their flavor. In-shell sunflower seeds are specifically popular in Mediterranean countries such as Turkey and Israel. Besides they are very common in countries like Bulgaria, China, Iran, Romania, Spain and US.\n\nThe hull of the sunflower seeds can be removed through mechanical processes to obtain the dehulled kernels. These kernels can be sold raw or as roasted product. Also, these are used with baked products like breads for adding flavor to them. Sunflower seeds are also offered as food for pet animals, birds and are available in small packets or boxes.\n\nThe health benefits of sunflower seeds are numerous. It is a rich source of linoleic acid, which is an essential fatty acid. It is also a great source of protein, vitamins like vitamin B and vitamin E, dietary fiber, iron, zinc and calcium. One of the distinguished advantage of sunflower seed is that it is rich in cholesterol-lowering phytosterols. The oil content in sunflower seeds is 32-40% which is quite lower as compared to the groundnut, Castor seed, coconut, palm oil seeds, sesame seeds and linseeds. There are also some of the edible oil seeds that have even lower oil content than the sunflower seed. For instance cotton seeds and soybean have oil content ranging from 18-22%. The palm fruit, another edible oilseed has oil content ranging in between 20-22%.\n\nQuick Query\nYour Requirement:\nPlease enter \"Security Code\"\nRape Seed\nCotton Seed\nSunflower Seed\nCastor Seed\nGround Nut\nMustard Seed\nSesam Seed\nCocoa Bean\nPalm Kernel\nSoya Bean\nShea Nut\nMacadamia Nuts\nCorn Germ\nCashew Shell\nSeed Cleaners\nSeed Flakers\nSeed Crackers / Breakers\nCopra Cutters\nDecorticators / Separators\nHammer Mills / Disintegrators\nSeed Cookers / Heating Kettles\nSeed Elevators\nSeed Conveyors\n\nOil Processing Indian Oil Mills Oil Seeds Disclaimer Link to us Resources Site Map", "pred_label": "__label__1", "pred_score_pos": 0.5234248638153076}
+{"content": "The pacific islands forum meeting\n\nCAIRNS, AUSTRALIA - AUGUST 05:  Australian Pri...\nImage by Getty Images via @daylife\n\nThe pacific islands forum meeting was held in Port Vial,Vanuatu. Held in the month of August this meeting invited the top leaders of the pacific. A lot of steadfast arrangements were made for this event by the government of Vanuatu. The country did well to make the event a grand success, considering that it had before this event celebrated its thirtieth independence day.\n\nTopics of discussions revolved around the climate changes in the pacific islands, and its security concerns. Challenges that were being wrestled by the islanders was brought to the spotlight. The Pacific Plan was a new proposal that was discussed extensively.\n\nThe Pacific plan is a multipurpose strategy to look into issues faced by the inhabitants of the islands. It offered inventive strategies to overcome challenges by greater regional cooperation frameworks. A number of pioneering start offs was envisioned in the pacific plan. All these initiatives were directed at providing development across all regions of the pacific islands.\n\nStrong growth, good policies, and sustained economic activity drivers were identified. Issue related to poverty and unhygienic living conditions came under the scanner. To improve living standards the forum leaders developed a strategy that combined employment opportunities with emphasis on education.\n\nThe main aim of the pacific islands forum has always been to work in unison to support the cause of welfare of the people of the pacific islands. This is done by bringing together the different governments and enabling cooperation and bilateralism.\n\nFrom the forum members, Australia and New Zealand stand prominently as economically developed countries. This is a good thing for the other countries in the Pacific Islands. Australia and New Zealand are great markets for the island countires to market their goods. Also, Australia and New Zealand have supplied their troops to maintain peacekeeping activities in certain island countries of the Pacific.\n\nIndia has been a dialogue partner. So is China. A lot of other countries are dialogue partners in the forum as well.\n\nHealth concerns in the pacific islands\n\nCAIRNS, AUSTRALIA - AUGUST 05:  Australian Pri...\nImage by Getty Images via @daylife\n\nHealth concerns have been raised at the Pacific islands after the WHO (world health organization) issued an alert on the spread of epidemics. Islands have geographical challenges, in that it is predisposed to being epidemically quarantined. Because of its isolated geographical disposition, epidemic diseases might not get out of the geography easily.\n\nApart from infectious diseases, the WHO also spotted cardiovascular diseases on the rise in the pacific islands. Even obesity was on the rise. Since the islanders have a propensity to indulge in drugs and alcohol due to the tourist influxes, inhabitants now have addiction problems too.\n\nMost diseases prevalent in the pacific islands are lifestyle-induced. Statistics indicate that the Pacific islands have the highest lifestyle-induced diseases. This is an alarming trend, and the WHO is taking steps to resolve this.\n\nRecently the WHO held a workshop to help people realize the benefits of maintaining a healthy lifestyle. The workshop covered aspects of nutrition, and healthy lifestyle patterns. Intending to promote an increased level of awareness, this workshop was worth its efforts in spreading the message of healthy living.\n\nTop ministers and politicians of the Pacific met in Vanuatu, in August 2010, to discuss this problem. They developed a guideline for applying a successful approach to resolve issues related to diet and lifestyle. Emphasizing the need to restrict minors to alcohol, the guideline will pave the way for a more controlled availability of lifestyle food and beverages.\n\nWHO in coordination with the leaders of the Pacific islands, and other global healthcare consortiums are coming up with ways to tackle the problem. Aiming to block the access of alcohol and narcotics to children is the primary concern of the WHO. Young addicts are becoming common in the pacific islands. Given the influx of foreign nationals in most islands, the situation often times is something that is difficult to control. The health of the people of the Pacific islands need to be salvaged, before it is too late.\n\nBring A Note\n\nOnce we graduate from high school, we stop having to bring notes from mom and dad explaining absences; it is too bad that the last prime minister of the Pacific Islands nation of Vanatu didn’t have the same luxury. The situation is a bit more complicated, but at its core, Prime Minister Edward Natapei lost his job in early December because his office failed to submit correct paperwork explaining his absence.\n\nHe had left the country for a week to meet with commonwealth leaders in order to prepare from a quickly approach climate change summit in Copenhagen. Climate change, specifically global warming, has long been a driving issue for the former prime minister. He believes that their island nation is suffering drastically from global warming and has long sought to work on creating a plan aimed at addressing his nation’s climate problems.\n\nOne must wonder if, after years of service, the prime minister was forced out because of this very issue. It seems that the majority of the citizens do not rank global warming as a primary concern. Instead, the residents of Vanuatu are focused on life necessities. Sewage treatment, clean water and basic needs are more important. What they may be failing to recognize is that, at least according to some studies, climate change is directly impacting sea levels and weather patterns. For a nation like Vanuatu that relies heavily on tourism and agriculture for its survival, global warming could literally wipe them out.\n\nThe good news for Natapei is that it is likely he will still represent the nation at the climate control talks. Currently his vacated position is held by a caretaker and elections will be held to find a replacement. Until then and because of his extensive background in climate control, Natapei will be able to participate in the talks on behalf of his country.\n\nProblem of Unsafe Water in the Pacific Islands\n\nMwamanongu Village water source, Tanzania. &qu...\nImage via Wikipedia\n\nWater-borne diseases are on the rise in the Pacific Islands. Countries in the Pacific Islands are now raising concerns of a potential mass-spread of an epidemic. The SPC Applied Geoscience and Technology Division (SOPAC) is coming forward to deal with this problem.\n\nA lot of people die every year after consuming toxic water. Unsafe water is quite a bad thing to have in the picturesque countries of the Pacific Islands. Children are worst affected. Due to bad sanitation of the houses, children are getting infected faster. Hygienic imbalances are also creating perilous living conditions in the Pacific Islands.\n\nAnother contributing factor to this unhealthy condition is the spread of drought. Certain countries are experiencing prolonged periods of drought. Such situations aggravate matters, and make water storage a matter of survival. Water storage creates hygiene issues, in that it also creates a perfect setting for mosquitoes to breed.\nSOPAC is now revving up plans to educate the people about safe ways to store water. They are also coming out with programmes to education people on how to make water clean and drinkable. Things like sanitation and general healthy living conditions are also being planned-out.\n\nIt seems that the only way out would be to educate people. As the saying goes that prevention is better than cure, education is in a way a preventive measure. Largely plagued by mass-illiteracy, some islands nations will offer challenging propositions to the volunteer organizations and SOPAC.\n\nSOPAC had come out with a Drinking Water Safety Plan to encounter this problem. Successfully implemented in various countries of the Pacific Islands, the same is being envisioned across a lot of other countries.\n\nTo better dispense the program, communities living in the cities as well as the villages will be engaged into action. After providing them training, they will be given the tools and methodologies to conduct inspections. Trained people will then go forward and train others. In this way, a multi-level induction of training is achieved.\n\nEnhanced by Zemanta\n\nPacific Islands Forum Education Ministers’ Meeting\n\nUS Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice (center...\nImage via Wikipedia\n\nThe Pacific Islands education ministers’ meeting was held in Papua New Guinea, in the month of October 2010. The ministers’ meeting was held to take the education initiatives as enumerated in the Pacific Education Development Framework further by constructive actions.\n\nImportant ministers met to discuss educational initiative taken by the individual governments in the Pacific Islands. The meeting raised a lot of applause for Papua New Guinea’s initiative in the education space. The government of Papua New Guinea had offered scholarship to meritorious students. The forum members felt this was a great act to emulate by other countries in the Pacific Islands as well.\n\nAcknowledging the fact that education was now the mainstay of the region, the forum ministers gave education the indispensability status that it should have always had. They felt that the development of the region was sustained of the basis of how much knowledge and skills the citizens of the country had. And this is only possible through sustained education programmes that supported meritocracy and inclusiveness.\n\nThe meeting was a perfect setting for the ministers to urge other members to work as a cohesive unit in successfully implementing the education framework. The Pacific Education Development Framework’s main aim is to incubate, and nurture the core values and sensibilities related to education. It aimed to provide children the necessary foundation and support to get access to primary education.\n\nRealizing the fact that children of today are the custodians of the country tomorrow, the ministers lay a blueprint for implementation of the education framework. They felt that the education framework will help the youth participate in the development of their countries, maintain their cultural systems, and live enriching lives.\n\nA plan was introduced to implement the education framework. The plan focused on things like an initial survey to assess the levels of literacy, followed by mapping educational initiative with the needs of the country, and then taking efforts to reach set educational goals, through coordinated action.\n\nEnhanced by Zemanta\n\nMedia Awareness in the Pacific Islands\n\nDagobert Lindlau (deutscher Journalist und Sch...\nImage via Wikipedia\n\nFor many years, journalists in the Pacific Islands have been trying to create awareness of the media. Many residents of the Pacific Island territories do not pay attention to the media or the news coverage of their area or the whole Pacific Islands. There is a public outcry from journalist because of the lack of knowledge for residents of the Pacific islands on the media. Journalists have set out to make the residents aware of crisis in their territories.\n\nMany journalists in the Pacific Islands are freelancers that report for various news sources for companies in other parts of the world. Many residents do not understand the obstacles of covering major conflicts such as militant wars, natural disasters, and the poor. Because residents do not have a respect for what journalists do and refuse to watch media coverage of events, journalists are trying to make them understand.\n\nMost residents of territories in the Pacific Islands believe that all journalists are corrupt. They believe that journalists in the media threaten, harass, and give into extortion, which is why they do not believe the news coverage is credible. Journalist want the residents of the territories to understand that their coverage is not bias and they put themselves in danger every day to make sure that the residents understand what is going on in order to keep them out of harms way.\n\nThe neutrality of local journalist are questioned by the residents whereas foreign journalist are well respected and listened to by the residents. Most journalists believe that the lack of knowledge of journalists is their own fault because they have not educated the public about the laws that are set to protect the community from corruption by media. Journalists are working hard to create awareness starting in schools so the future generation of the territories will come to trust the media in the Pacific Islands.\n\nEnhanced by Zemanta\n\nJournalism Awards in Pacific Islands Get a Makeover\n\nCAIRNS, AUSTRALIA - AUGUST 05: Australian Prim...\nImage by Getty Images via @daylife\n\nIn the Pacific Islands, journalism awards are getting a makeover to include more territories and more journalists. These awards are to encourage media that provides more coverage on public issues and to gain more coverage worldwide for the Pacific Island territories.\n\nThere are not many journalism awards available in the Pacific Islands. The makeover of the awards available is a step to increase the amount of awards available both locally and globally. The foundations set up to present the awards available in the Pacific Islands have been formed in memory of journalists who paved the way for the media in the territories to be widely recognized.\n\nThese past journalists are an example for future journalists because they represent the backbone of Pacific Island media and journalism by contributing creative and informed journalism of the territories gain national attention and put the Pacific Islands on the map as being more respected by other countries globally.\n\nEvery year, the awards are analyzed to ensure they are recognizing the right journalist and if they are creating awareness of the Pacific Islands. The awards have been successful through the years, but board members for each award do not believe they are doing enough. Journalism awards have been getting a makeover, which includes a monetary award that helps journalists travel to the United States and Europe to help create awareness of the Pacific Islands and their contributions to the world.\n\nThe Pacific Islands have not been recognized for their ideas on global policy that could provide solutions to the many problems faced by all nations. Journalism awards are presented to outstanding journalists that have created awareness of the territories and pressed the policy ideas that the territories have for global change. The award makeovers are an attempt to help those journalist take their coverage to the next level and get the Pacific Islands in the game of changing global policy.\n\nEnhanced by Zemanta\n\nThe Pacific Island News Report\n\nCAIRNS, AUSTRALIA - AUGUST 05: New Zealand Pri...\nImage by Getty Images via @daylife\n\nThe Pacific Islands Report offers daily news and commentaries about the Pacific Islands. The report is informational and offers the territories up-to-date information through the Internet, so everyone has the report available to them. The Pacific Island Report is a collaborative effort of the East-West Center in Hawaii and the University of Hawaii’s program of Pacific Island Studies.\n\nThe Pacific Island Report does not just focus on the news from the island of Hawaii, it showcases news reports from Polynesia, Melanesia, and Micronesia to give a sense of what is going on throughout all of the Pacific Island territories. Pacific News Service, Radio Australia, and the Pasifik Nius are just a few of the programs available on the Pacific Island News Report. The online report offers news from Hawaii and the mainland that are specific to the Pacific Islands.\n\nThe online report is just one part of a bigger project on journalism that offers on-the-job training for students, journalists who are mid-career, and journalists who have only been in the business a few years. Internships are also available to journalists from the United States who desires to learn about the Pacific Islands or eventually work in the area.\n\nThe main goal of the Pacific Island Report and the programs that surround it is to create worldwide awareness of the Pacific Island territories. The islands are important to the United States and to the world because of their contributions and the area wants to make them known. The concerns or ideas of Pacific Islanders are not heard by the rest of the world even though their solutions to global issues could be significant to making a change. The news coverage of the Pacific Islands is sparse and sometimes ignored because they are remote and lack the communication operations to make themselves known to the world.\n\nEnhanced by Zemanta", "pred_label": "__label__1", "pred_score_pos": 0.6900311708450317}
+{"content": "ProSci Incorporated\n\nAntibodies For All Your Research\n\nProduction and Services\n\nGrowth Factor Antibodies\n\nGrowth factors are a large family of proteins which are responsible for stimulating or inhibiting cellular proliferation and differentiation, angiogenesis, and neurotrophic effects. Growth factors typically bind to the extracellular domain of membrane growth factor receptors which activate the intracellular domain. This sets in motion a signaling cascade, eventually leading to a change in cellular proliferation and differentiation. Changes in these growth factor signaling pathways can lead to abnormal cellular growth.\n\nGrowth factors can cause an extremely wide array of changes upon binding to their receptors, and are implicated in many cellular processes. Growth factors such as platelet derived growth factor (PDF) and fibroblast growth factor (FGF) are involved in the cell cycle. Platelet derived growth factor (PDF) and fibroblast growth factor (FGF) are each required for progression through the G1 phase of the cell cycle.\n\nProSci has a wide array of growth factor antibodies, to many different groups of growth factors. These primary antibodies include antibodies against brain derived neurotrophic factor (BDNF), epidermal growth factor (EGF), fibroblast growth factor (FGF), bone morphogenic protein-2 (BMP-2) as well as many growth factor receptors.\n\nProSci antibodies are appropriate for ELISA, western blot, and immunohistochemistry (IHC) applications as noted for each growth factor antibody.\n\nA B C D E F G H I J K L M N O P Q R S T U VW X Y Z All\nItems per page 10 25 50 Page of 3 >>Next\nProduct NameCatalog #App.ReactivityDescription\nVaspin Antibody38-184E, WBHBiotin - Anti-Human Vaspin\nVaspin Antibody38-183E, WBHAnti-Human Vaspin\nVEGF AntibodyXP-5740-MEHAnti-VEGF, monoclonal\nVEGF Antibody38-207E, WBRBiotin - Anti-Rat VEGF\nVEGF AntibodyXP-5291BtE, WBHBiotin - Anti-Human VEGF - Rabbit\nVEGF AntibodyXP-5292BtE, WBHBiotin - Anti-Human VEGF - Goat\nVEGF AntibodyXP-5293BtE, WBMBiotin - Anti-Murine VEGF\nVEGF Antibody38-206E, WBRAnti-Rat VEGF\nVEGF AntibodyXW-7649WBHVascular endothelial growth factor \nVEGF AntibodyXP-5291E, WBHAnti-Human VEGF - Rabbit\nItems per page 10 25 50 Page of 3 >>Next", "pred_label": "__label__1", "pred_score_pos": 0.9999969601631165}
+{"content": "General Questions\n\nDoes Roam Control work with custom ROMs?\n\nRoam Control will work with most custom ROMs, but is not guaranteed to work with all of them.  If you find one that Roam Control is not compatible with, contact support to see if support can be added in a future release.\n\nWhen I change the mode to “automatic”, why doesn’t it go back to a home signal.\n\nWhen the phone is in \"automatic\" mode, it will eventually go back to a home signal if it's available.  That is the normal behavior of \"automatic\" mode - it supports both home and roaming signals, and the phone chooses which one to use.\n\nWhat is your refund policy?\n\nRefund requests made within 24 hours of purchase will be honored.  Any requests made after that will be handled on a case-by-case basis.\n\nWill Roam Control with with GSM phones and networks?\n\nNo, the app will only with CDMA networks and phones (Sprint, Verizon, US Cellular, etc).\n\nHow do I tell if my phone is actually roaming?\n\nPhones generally show a roaming triangle above the signal bars in the notification tray.  Some phones also show the current carrier under the \"About phone\" settings menu, or in a different menu.\n\nWill Roam Control allow me to roam onto other 4G networks?\n\nNo, unfortunately the 4G networks are not compatible with each other.\n\nWhat data speeds should I expect when roaming onto other networks?\n\nDue to roaming agreements between carriers, you should generally expect to receive 1x data speeds when roaming.  There are certain areas around the country where you might get 3g data speeds when roaming. Note that it is possible to get 3g roaming speeds if you flash a custom PRL on your phone.\n\nWill I be charged extra for roaming minutes or data?\n\nIt is your responsibility to read and understand your carrier's roaming policy.  Please go to your carrier's website for more information.\n\nWhat does ‘rooted’ mean, and how do I do it?\n\nPlease read the following Wikipedia article to learn about rooting: For instructions on how to root your phone, please do a Google search to find rooting guides. Rooting methods differ from phone to phone, and there is no universal method.\n\nWill Roam Control work everywhere in the US (including Puerto Rico)?\n\nIn general, yes, it will work in parts of the US (including Puerto Rico). However, Roam Control will not work with Samsung phones in the following areas: - Texas (outside of the Houston area) - Florida - Chicago and surrounding areas - Puerto Rico When Samsung phones are put into a \"roam only\" mode, they only roam on the 800mhz frequency band. The areas mentioned above only have 1900mhz towers, therefore Samsung phones will not get any roaming signal when in \"roam only\" mode. It's possible that this behavior can be fixed, however I'm still looking into it.\n\n\n\nMy EVO 3D takes a long time to lock onto a signal, and often has no signal.\n\nThis is an issue with the EVO 3D radio.  This behavior occurs during normal use of the phone as well, it's just not as obvious because it's not switching between roaming modes as often, and usually not while you're looking at the screen.\n\nMy phone does not get any signal when in “roam only” mode.\n\nChances are you have a Samsung phone.  Samsung phones have different behavior - when in \"roam only\", they only roam on the 800mhz frequency band.  There are areas in the US that are 1900mhz only, which means that Samsung phones will not get a signal in those areas.\n\nMy incoming calls go straight to voicemail when in “roam only” mode.\n\nRoam Control puts the phone into a \"roam only\" mode and then the phone takes over from there. There isn't anything I can do about this, it appears to be more of a CDMA/network issue. A few things you can try: - Update your PRL - Update your profile - Try to disable data roaming - sometimes data can interfere with incoming calls - Call Sprint and tell them that your phone doesn't ring when roaming - perhaps they can do something on their end (re-activation, HLR reset, etc) Sometimes this issue resolves itself with time, sometimes not. If you experience this behavior and are unsatisfied, send contact support for a refund.\n\nI’m getting a license failure when starting the app.\n\nPlease make sure your phone has a good signal, and for PayPal purchasers, make sure you are using the correct activation code (case sensitive). Try checking the license while connected to a wifi network as well.  Otherwise, please contact support.\n\nI see an error message when using the app.\n\nPlease read the error and follow any instructions that are given.  You may need to try exiting and restarting the app, or uninstalling and re-installing the app directly from this website.  Otherwise, please contact support.", "pred_label": "__label__1", "pred_score_pos": 0.8962476253509521}
+{"content": "Books: 8 X 8 = Gliglish\n\nHOPSCOTCH by Julio Cortazar. 564 pages. Pantheon. $6.95.\n\nBy the exacting standards of Julio Cortázar, a lazy reader is one who expects the author to do all the work. Such a reader assumes that a story will unwind consecutively, rationally, grammatically, before his indolent eyes. The sentences parse, the paragraphs link, the chapters march, good soldiers all, to a dramatically acceptable denouement. So much for the lazy reader. Author Cortázar wants nothing to do with him.\n\nPath of Obstacles. Hopscotch is aptly named. Not since Ulysses have so many obstacles strewn the path of understanding....", "pred_label": "__label__1", "pred_score_pos": 0.9301856756210327}
+{"content": "The First Muslim\n\nThe Story of Muhammad\n\nLesley Hazleton - Author\n\nHardcover | $27.95 | add to cart | view cart\nISBN 9781594487286 | 336 pages | 24 Jan 2013 | Riverhead | 9.25 x 6.25in | 18 - AND UP\nAdditional Formats:\nSummary of The First Muslim Summary of The First Muslim Reviews for The First Muslim An Excerpt from The First Muslim\nThe extraordinary life of the man who founded Islam, and the world he inhabited—and remade.\n\n       Muhammad’s was a life of almost unparalleled historical importance; yet for all the iconic power of his name, the intensely dramatic story of the prophet of Islam is not well known. In The First Muslim, Lesley Hazleton brings him vibrantly to life. Drawing on early eyewitness sources and on history, politics, religion, and psychology, she renders him as a man in full, in all his complexity and vitality.\n       Hazleton’s account follows the arc of Muhammad’s rise from powerlessness to power, from anonymity to renown, from insignificance to lasting significance. How did a child shunted to the margins end up revolutionizing his world? How did a merchant come to challenge the established order with a new vision of social justice? How did the pariah hounded out of Mecca turn exile into a new and victorious beginning? How did the outsider become the ultimate insider?\n       Impeccably researched and thrillingly readable, Hazleton’s narrative creates vivid insight into a man navigating between idealism and pragmatism, faith and politics, nonviolence and violence, rejection and acclaim. The First Muslim illuminates not only an immensely significant figure but his lastingly relevant legacy.\n\n\"A rich biography… Those who read it will come away well prepared to understand the prophet whose message, 14 centuries later, is the creed of more than a billion and a half people.” –The San Francisco Chronicle\n\n\"This book offers a welcome chance to read [Muhammed's] life story in a more familiar and accessible form than the Islamic sources… The First Muslim succeeds. It makes its subject vivid and immediate.\" –Hari Kunzru, The New York Times Book Review\n\n\"Richly detailed and beautifully written... [Hazleton] is able to do with words what is almost never attempted in pictures... indispensable.\" –The Seattle Times\n\n\"Like her subject, Hazleton brilliantly navigates 'the vast and often terrifying arena in which politics and religion intersect,' revealing the deep humanity of faith.\" –More Magazine\n\n\"The book's focus is an effort to portray the prophet's unique circumstances and recognizable humanity… Hazleton's biography covers the broad strokes of his life with fairness—she doesn't gloss over his more fallible moments—and insight.\" –NPR\n\n\"This story is deep with details not only of Muhammad's life journey, but with historic information about the culture of the times in Arabia... filled with rich color of the locations, culture, and people; it is a book plentiful with tales of Muhammad's life that follow logically from orphan to religious leader, but more than that, it enriches us with the detail of a time and place in history.\" –The New York Journal of Books\n\n“[A] humane, audacious biography… An elegant narrative crafted for open-minded readers… a vivid canvas of Arabian life in the early seventh century.” –Ha’aretz\n\n\"A genuine attempt to try to understand the human experience Muhammad went through…  Hazleton queries and questions in a way that will resonate with a non-academic audience trying to come to grips with the fastest growing religion on the planet. It is a welcome antidote to the barrage of hatred and distortion to which Islam has been subjected since the early Bush years, an opportunity for balance to be restored and for those of us who don’t subscribe to the extremes to regain the middle ground.” –Guernica\n\n\"Hazleton... is in the revelation business: She's out to consider Muhammad as a mortal human, a man who lived and died and was vulnerable... A world-class history teacher who contextualizes the realities of [his] far-off times... [she] can effortlessly distill years of research into a few conversational sentences.\" –The Stranger\n\n\"Vivid and engaging... a fluid and captivating introduction that will be invaluable for those seeking a greater understanding of Islam's message and its messenger.\" –Publishers Weekly\n\n\"Winning... a level-headed, elegant look at the life of the prophet amid the making of a legend.\" –Kirkus\n\n“Beautifully written, The First Muslim respectfully humanizes the inimitable prophet of Islam and sees him whole.\" –Cornel West, Professor, Union Theological Seminary, and Professor Emeritus, Princeton University\n\n“Hazleton sets her keen eye and her sculpted prose on one of the most fascinating and misunderstood figures in history. What she uncovers is a complex yet utterly relatable man whose personal trials and triumphs changed the course of history. This is a wonderful book.” –Reza Aslan, author of No God but God and How to Win a Cosmic War\n\n\"Hazleton has done the seemingly impossible: rendered into human proportions a man who is more often the subject of pious veneration or political vitriol. This is the most readable, engaging study of Muhammad I have ever come across.\" –G. Willow Wilson, author of Alif the Unseen and The Butterfly Mosque\n\n\"The First Muslim tells the mostly unknown story of the prophet Muhammad in a masterful, accessible, and engaging way.  Hazleton's empathetic touch softens her rigorous scholarship and research as she crucially demystifies both the man himself and the birth of Islam. An absolute delight (and indispensable) for believers and non-believers alike.\" –Hooman Majd, author of The Ayatollah Begs to Differ and The Ayatollahs' Democracy\n\n\n“Thrilling in its depiction of long-ago events.” The Wall Street Journal\n\n“Marvelous... [for] any reader interested in a story of human passion and consequence, told with consummate skill.” The Dallas Morning News\n\n“Anyone seeking to understand today’s Middle East... can learn from this book.” The Seattle Times\n\n“A Sunday school story it is not... Essential.” The Christian Science Monitor\n\n\nPlease alert me via email when:\n\nThe author releases another book", "pred_label": "__label__1", "pred_score_pos": 0.6851379871368408}
+{"content": "The Washington Accord\n\nMembers Login\n\nThe Washington Accord, signed in 1989, is an international agreement among bodies responsible for accrediting engineering degree programs. It recognizes the substantial equivalency of programs accredited by those bodies and recommends that graduates of programs accredited by any of the signatory bodies be recognized by the other bodies as having met the academic requirements for entry to the practice of engineering.\n\n\nDownload: The Overview of Washington Accord (pdf)", "pred_label": "__label__1", "pred_score_pos": 0.5059722065925598}
+{"content": "A lot of the research that helps rheumatologists provide better care comes from patients' participation in the NDB. Here is a recent video put out by the American College of Rheumatology, an organization that almost all of the NDB researchers and rheumatologists belong to, that highlights the importance of medical care and research in this area.", "pred_label": "__label__1", "pred_score_pos": 0.9998006224632263}
+{"content": "The attacker can specify his own plain text and encrypt or sign it. He can carefully craft it to learn characteristics about the algorithm.\n\n\nIf Vigenère cipher is used for example, it is very easy to extract the key length and recover the key by repeating one letter.\n\nhistory|show excerpt|excerpt history", "pred_label": "__label__1", "pred_score_pos": 0.9973277449607849}
+{"content": "electric potential difference, Δ V\n\nof a galvanic cell\nDifference in the potentials of electrodes on the right and left of a galvanic cell. When Δ V is positive, positive charge flows from left to right through the cell.\nThe limiting value of E cell for zero current flowing through the cell, all local charge transfer and chemical equilibria being established, was formerly called emf (electromotive force). The name electromotive force and the symbol emf are no longer recommended, since a potential difference is not a force.\nGreen Book, 3rd ed., p. 71", "pred_label": "__label__1", "pred_score_pos": 0.9197670817375183}
+{"content": "Dablo Daares   &    Dablo Aasele\n\nboardgames from Lapland\n\n\n\nDablo Daares derives from southern Lapland. Goal is either to capture the enemy king or reduce his forces so that only the king remains. All pieces move by single steps and can capture, by the short leap, in all directions. The soldier can only step in the three forward directions. Promotion does not occur. For the soldier, capture is mandatory. For the king, capture is optional. The king can only be captured by the enemy king.\n\nA piece moves to an empty adjacent point. If an adjacent point is occupied by an enemy piece, of the same rank or lower, and the point directly behind is vacant, then one may jump over it and capture it, as in checkers. Several pieces may be captured like this in a single turn. Dablo Aasele follows the same rules.\n\n\nAs capture is mandatory for the soldier, it is sometimes possible to sacrifice one or more soldiers to enemy soldiers, thus to create a situation where the enemy king can be captured. However, it is necessary to hunt enemy soldiers with the king, although this exposes the king to combinations. A shortage of soldiers can lead to a lost game as it allows the opponent to continue exchanging soldiers until he wins according to the lone (bare) king rule. This game is strategically and tactically very interesting, and takes appropriately long time, too.\n\nimage Example of simple combination. Here black can win by moving the king to the left (e5-c5). This forces white to capture the soldier, which leaves the king en prise.\n\nimage Another typical combination. Black moves the soldier to nw (f2-e3), forcing the white soldier to capture. Thus, black can capture the enemy king in two consecutive jumps.\n\nDablo Daares (Dåres dablo/tablo/tavelbräde/kloter) is mentioned in connection with the village Daares (Dåres) in Vilhelmina, Lapland, in northern Sweden (Pettersson, 1999, p.402f). This implementation builds on a reconstruction by P. Michaelsen to which I've added the lone (bare) king rule and a combined mandatory/optional capture. There exists an incomplete description where a board with 144 fields are described. These are here interpreted as the triangles, thus relating the board to another Laplandian game Dablot Prejjesne. The Daares game is described as having one king and two rows of pieces on each side, and that capture occurs by the short leap. It is thus suggested that Dablo Daares belongs in the category of dablo games and is closely related to Dablot Prejjesne.\n\nAn interesting fact is that the board has the same type of pattern as the African game Kharbaga, and the capture rules are reminiscent of the Italian checkers variant Damone. The notion of forward moving soldiers that do not promote, but can capture in all directions, is known from Ossetian checkers. If the soldiers were able to go in all directions, then there is a lot of movement back and forth which would create monotony. Pettersson says that in certain parts of Lapland has the rule of forward movement only been introduced, at least for the soldiers. This is also borne out by Anta Pirak's description of \"tablo\" (1937, pp.17-18).\n\nThe 'absolute king' rule is reminiscent of Italian Damone variants, where capture of the Damones is sufficient for a win. This rule is corroborated by a note to Dablot Prejjesne from 1892 by Wiklund: \"Den som först förlorat alla sina brickor, har tappat. Efter öfverenskommelse kan äfven den tappa, hvars kung blifvit öfverhoppat och slagen af den andres kung; vanliga brickor kunna då ej slå kungarna\" [\"The party who first loses all his counters has lost the game. According to agreement, the player also loses whose king is jumped over and thus captured by the other king, in which case normal counters cannot capture the king.\" (my transl.)]. There also seem to have existed smaller dablo variants where king capture was sufficient for a win. The suggested 'lone king' rule exists also in Shatranj. The soldier's mandatory capture remains a point of contention.\n\nimage This setup uses 33 pieces in five rows on each side. The below source says two rows of pieces on each side, but the dablo type of game functions finely with any number of pieces (or any size of board). Several variants have been implemented.\n\nDablo Aasele\n\nimage Sigrid Drake (1918, p.291) relates a variant from Aasele (Åsele), Swedish Lapland. It includes 18 pieces plus king on each side, on a 41 square board. It is also implemented, as Dablo Aasele.\n\n\nDrake, S. (1918). Västerbottenslapparna under förra hälften av 1800-talet. Uppsala: Almqvist & Wiksell.\n\nKeyland, N. (1921). 'Dablot prejjesne och Dablot duoljesne'. Etnologiska Studier. Göteborg.\n\nPettersson, O.P. (1999). Nybyggares dagliga leverne. Umeå: DAUM.\n\nPirak, A. (1937). En nomad och hans liv. Stockholm: Nord.\n\nWiklund, K.B. (1892). Note: catalogue nr. 71978. Nordiska Museet (Stockholm, Sweden).\n\nimage  You can download my free Dablo Daares program here (updated 2010-03-14), but you must own the software Zillions of Games to be able to run it (I recommend the download version).\n\n© M. Winther 2010", "pred_label": "__label__1", "pred_score_pos": 0.6341993808746338}
+{"content": "Social / Problems / Attitude Problems / Main\n\nAttitudes are key towards all efforts, for without a will, there can be no way possible. However, there are a great number of attitudinal problems that are both difficult to tackle, but have a huge reach and impact on society. Some of the more prominent problems are mentioned in the indents. Browse through them to find out more!", "pred_label": "__label__1", "pred_score_pos": 0.7668662071228027}
+{"content": "Definition Plagiarism. Definition Of Plagiarism; Checklist For Students;.\nDefinition there is some difference of opinion over how much credit must be given when preparing a newspaper article or historical account generally, reference is made to. Definition of plagiarism; checklist for students; referencing and citing; turnitinuk; definition of plagiarism plagiarism is the use, without adequate acknowledgment, of the intellectual. What is plagiarism? back: plagiarism, believe it or not, comes from a latin verb that means, to nap if you plagiarize you re napping and.\n\nIn ing weeks, the mittee will continue to discuss a proposal that would redefine plagiarism in the honor manual photo by t sorbo the mittee.\n\nA selection of articles related to plagiarism - definition dream sharing forum at global munity share your dreams and let others help you with the interpretation!. mit plagiarism when you present someone else s ideas -published or unpublished - as if they were your own. Definition of plagiarism (from viterbo university student planner and handbook, -2002) plagiarism includes but may not be limited to the intentional use of another.\n\nPolicies ori policy on plagiarism although there is widespread agreement in the munity on including plagiarism as a major element of the phs definition of scientific. Definition of paraphrasing paraphrasing is a close restatement of another person s argument using your own sentences when you paraphrase, you must still acknowledge your.\n\nParadise munity college s definition of plagiarism plagiarism includes, but is not limited to, the use of paraphrase or direct quotation of.\n\nWhether you re a student preparing a research paper or a professional writer in search of a new career opportunity, it s important to be aware of the definition of plagiarism. Definition of plagiarism from the merriam-webster online dictionary with audio pronunciations, thesaurus, word of the day, and word games. This is how plagiarism is defined at indiana university in the student code of conduct, how to recognize plagiarism, school cation, indiana university bloomington.\n\nPlagiarism: review the definition, me ng, pronunciation, explanation, synonyms, and antonyms of the term plagiarism in the online dictionary what is a letter word that starts.\n\nAdmission to graduate and professional studies and eligibility petitive fellowships general academic regulations & requirements definition of plagiarism. The definition of plagiarism varies by differing institutions and is considered a difficult concept to define plagiarism c nclude a range of possibilities including incorrect. Plagiarism: what it is and how to recognize and avoid it what is plagiarism and why is it important? in college courses, we are continually engaged with other people s.\n\nDefinition a simple definition of plagiarism is: copying some text and using it without indicating that it was copied or where it was copied from.\n\nDefinition: plagiarism involves using the work of another person and presenting it as one s own any of the following acts constitutes plagiarism unless the.\n\nSwinburne university of technology s definition of plagiarism plagiarism is the action or practice of taking and submitting or presenting the thoughts, writings or other work. Plagiarism using ideas, plots, text and other intellectual property developed by someone else while claiming it is your original work. Plagiarism is the act of taking credit for someone else s work to help you avoid plagiarism, here is a detailed discussion of different forms of plagiarism. Copy & paste this link to your blog or website to reference this page.\n\nDefinition taken from the latin words plagiaries, me ng plunderer, and plagium, me ng napping, plagiarism means \"to steal and use (the ideas or writings of another. Do you have more to add? share your linguistic knowledge or observation.\n\ne macdonald ross (2005) offers this review of the key features of this definition: \" first - there is no reference to the student s intentions inadvertent plagiarism due to.\n\nFind dictionary definitions, audio pronunciations, and spellings for plagiarism in the free online american heritage dictionary on yahoo! education..\n\ndefinition plagiarism\n\n©2009 Definition Plagiarism •", "pred_label": "__label__1", "pred_score_pos": 0.9916635155677795}
+{"content": "John Koch\n\nthrone/thrown (2008)\n\n\nthrone/thrown (2008) | Media List\n\n\nConceptualized by choreographer/director Vanessa Voskuil and filmmaker John Koch. Taking its impetus from W.B. Yeats' poem \"The Second Coming,\" \"throne/thrown\" explores the search for the position in one's life by which to conduct one's authority over it. Directed and conceived by Vanessa Voskuil (2006 Sage Award for Outstanding Design) and John Koch (writer/director of \"Je Ne Sais Quoi\" and Cinema Revolution founder), \"throne/thrown\" strives to create a frenetic, visually compelling, and cinematically moving experience. Shot in HDV video. Click here to view the film online.", "pred_label": "__label__1", "pred_score_pos": 0.99655681848526}
+{"content": "Re: Dumb How to play chords question\n\nOn Nov 30, 12:13 pm, Musicman59 <cwestbro...@xxxxxxxxx> wrote:\nBeing a sax player I know how to play the notes, but an not sure what\nto do with guitar chords.\n\nso you have a measure with various quarter and eighth notes with the\nchord box listed above the measure.\n\nHow is one supposed to determine whether to strum and hold the chord\nfor the entire measure or strum it to the beat of the song, say four\ntimes for a 4/4 song.\n\nIf I can figure this one out I may just be able to deal with this\nguitar business.\n\nThx from a crusty old musician trying to learn something new...\n\nDear Crusty,\n\nYou aren't very clear here, but I'm guessing you are talking about\nordinary sheet music that usually consists of a double staff piano\npart and above that a single staff melody and above that little guitar\nchord diagrams with the name of the chords written in. This is\nopposed to say a chart from a big band where you can have chord names\nwith strokes written in for strums or actual guitar music where the\nactual notes you are to play are written out.\n\nGenerally the sheet music is like a \"fake book\" but the fake book is\nmissing the piano parts. That leaves you with melody and chord names.\nSo your question, I take it is how does one know when to strum the\nchords or what rhythms to use? One basic hint, is that the chord\nnames are written on the page where the harmony changes to that chord\nin the music. It's not precisely accurate but it usually gives you a\npretty good idea. The changes in the chords as you go through the song\nare called the \"changes\" (duh) of the song. Generally sheet music is\ndesigned for someone to sing the song with some accompaniment, either\npiano or guitar. So the guitar part is really designed to be pretty\nsimple so the singer can just strum along with themselves as they\n\nFiguring out how to strum (you are essentially playing rhythm guitar\nto accompany your singing) is in many ways like the way a drummer\nfigures out what rhythms to play when there is no drum music. Your\nstrums are essential the \"drum\" part and set the rhythm of the song.\nThe chords you play set the harmony that goes with the melody. The\nmelody is what you sing. OK? So how do drummers do it? Not only\nambidextrously but also with a collection of standard beats that they\nknow go with various types of songs. You have to do likewise. For\nhints you listen to the recording(s) of the tune in question. What do\nother people use for basic beats? You also get to make up your own if\nyou are in the mood. It's really all about art so there are no\n\"correct\" answers here. If your rhythms work and sound good then they\nARE good. If not, try something else. Since you already play you must\nhave some kind of ear for music already. And the next thing about\nplaying drums has to do with accents and fills (remember that your\nstrums are like drums?) A fill is a rhythmic pattern that is used to\nfill and and carry over held notes in the melody. Accents are just\nwhat you think they mean. On a guitar, especially a lead guitar, fills\nand other melodic patterns are called \"licks\". Licks often give a\ncharacteristic quality to a song that makes it instantly recognizable.\nSome of those can't hurt but at your starting noob stage, fills are\nprobably more important than licks. Fills would be accents and changes\nin your strumming patterns rather than the melodic phrases of lead\nguitar licks.\n\nSince you already play horns I may have over-simplified things here or\nperhaps not understood your questions, but I've tried to start very\nbasic so we are all on the same page. So my answer to what I think is\nyour question is that you strum according to a rhythmic pattern that\nfits the song. You do not strum just one time for each chord symbol\nUNLESS that fits the music. A strumming pattern might be each 1/4 note\n4/4 or 1 and 3 of 4/4 (downbeats) or even 2 and 4 of 4/4 (upbeats or\ncalled \"backbeats\" on drums) or it might even be a \"slow-quick-quick\"\n1, 3, 4, 1, 3, 4etc. uneven rumba rhythm. Just listen to lots of\nmusic and you'll get the idea.\n\nGood luck.\n\n\nRelevant Pages\n\n  • Re: Harmonies\n    ... but a different note sounded much better when playing with the band. ... his chord, but not the root. ... that's more prominent on his guitar than in the same chord on the album, ... Whatever I'm doing doesn't seem to detract from the song. ...\n  • Re: So, What Are You All Working On?\n    ... My original, solo, acoustic, instrumental 6-string guitar composition called ... I ran into a chord formation that has given me fits. ... wondering what else this song has in store for me. ... I'd do it with a thumb pull-off ... ...\n  • Re: Voice Leading / Chord Melody\n    ... producing harmony in chord melody arrangements. ... because you loose the independance of the seperate voices. ... That type of writing evolved ... of the guitar and i had no finger-style chops at the time. ...\n  • Re: How to write a song\n    ... Jeremy's sit down and create the chord structure idea is what I'm ... of the tune and not suck. ... What makes a 'good' song ... guitar instrumental. ...\n  • Re: Voice Leading / Chord Melody\n    ... because you loose the independance of the seperate voices. ... That type of writing evolved from a prior era where chords were not really seen as being entities in their own right but rather as the result of counterpoint between two or more lines of music. ... In classical harmony there is very little cross relation between voices, i.e. where a a diatonic and a chromatic version of notes with the same letter name coexist within a chord. ... I especially had no idea how this applied to guitar playing because the stuff I was writing always exceeded the range of the guitar and i had no finger-style chops at the time. ...", "pred_label": "__label__1", "pred_score_pos": 0.9744778275489807}
+{"content": "The laws against Online-Bullying by GretaThis is a featured page\n\nOnline Bullying can be much more severe in its ways than actual bullying because the targets feel they have no escape. Also, because of the wide scope of the Web, there can be many more witnesses to the bullying.\n\nOnline bullying can be adressed by civil law and criminal law, based on the situation.\n\nCivil law:This is the type of law that deals with property rights, personal dignity and freedom from injury. Under civil law, there are three categories of online bullying:\n\n1.An online bully may take on in defamation. This is when the bully causes harm to someone’s reputation by spreading false information about that person. In general, defamation that appears temporarily is called backstabbing, and defamation that appears permanently is called lying.\nTo be aspersive a statement must: do harm to someone’s reputation, have a clear and obvious statement, and be seen by people other than the person making the statement and the target.\nIn libel cases, the target can lay a case against the person making the statement. If the case is successful, the person making the statement will have to pay damages (money) to the target.\nA person involved of lying may defend himself or herself by saying that the statement was true, that it was afair commentor that he or she innocently reproduced the statement without knowing what it was.\n\n2.A criminal may be creating an unsafe environment by making the target feel that she or he cannot go to school without facing violence, teasing or exclusion. Schools and workplaces are required to provide a safe environment for their students or employees, and must take any appropriate action to do so. A school, therefore, might punish a student for online behaviour that is making it hard for other students to learn in a safe environment. In Ontario, the Safe Schools Act has been changed to specifically include online behaviour: students can now be suspended or expelled for cyberbullying, even if it is done outside the school.\n\n3.A person is responsible for any consequences that he or she might thought or guessed it would happen. Therefore, a criminal who suggests that a depressed and sad student should kill herself would be accountable if the student actually did kill herself, as long as the criminal had reason to believe it was a likely decision.\n\nCriminal law: This is the law that determines which actions are crimes against the state. In criminal law, there are two approaches to online bullying:\n\n1.Harassment is a crime under the Criminal Code. Harassment is when something a person says or does makes someone fear for his or her safety, or for the safety of others. Even if the criminal did not attempt to frighten someone, she or he can be charged with harassment if the target feels threatened. Criminal harassment is punishable by up to 10 years in prison.\n\n2.Defamatory libel is a crime under the Criminal Code. It is most often treated as a crime if the libellous statement is conduct against a person in authority and could seriously harm his or her reputation. Defamatory libel is punishable by up to 5 years in prison.\n\nLatest page update: made by online-bullying , Nov 20 2009, 2:05 PM EST (about this update About This Update online-bullying Edited by online-bullying\n\nview changes\n\n- complete history)\nKeyword tags: None\nMore Info: links to this page", "pred_label": "__label__1", "pred_score_pos": 0.61623215675354}
+{"content": "Oral Cancer - Confronting the Enemy\n\nThe Human Toll\n\nRick Bender is sometimes called \"the man without a face,\" a description he feels suitably describes his appearance. After 14 years of using spit (or smokeless) tobacco, he was diagnosed with oral cancer and underwent surgery that resulted in the loss of part of his tongue, half his jaw, and partial use of his right arm. Rick Bender is evidence of the damage oral cancer can do to a face, a person, a life.\n\nOral or pharyngeal cancer will be diagnosed in an estimated 34,000 Americans this year, and will cause more than 8,000 deaths. The disease kills one person every hour -- more people than cervical cancer, Hodgkin's disease, or malignant melanoma. When the definition of oral cancer is expanded to include laryngeal cancer, which shares risk factors with oral cancer, the number of cases in the United States, per year, climbs to 41,000 and the number of deaths to 12,500. Oral cancer is the sixth most common cancer worldwide and the third most common in developing nations.\n\nSome might say the old adage, \"the cure is worse than the disease,\" applies to existing treatments for oral and pharyngeal cancers. Victims of oral cancer not only deal with the debilitating side-effects of radiation and chemotherapy but with the very visible evidence of surgery. Surgery to treat oral cancer is often extensive and disfiguring and may involve removing parts of the face, tongue, cheek, or lip -- causing changes in appearance that can be especially difficult to live with in a society that values physical beauty. Chemotherapy and radiation to the head and neck cause their own problems: jaw pain, mouth sores, and salivary glands that cease to function, resulting in difficulty chewing, swallowing, and talking. Recovering the ability to speak clearly and adjusting to new oral prostheses are additional challenges.\n\nAs with any cancer, the threat of death is an overriding fear. Most disturbing about oral and pharyngeal cancer is the survival rate. In the United States it is approximately 50 percent, a statistic that has not changed appreciably over the past 20 years. Oral cancer is unusual in that it carries a high risk of second primary tumors. Patients who survive a first cancer of the oral cavity have up to a 20-fold increased risk of developing a second primary oral cancer. The heightened risk can last 5-10 years, sometimes longer. Until researchers learn more about this phenomenon, second primary tumors will remain a specter faced by all oral cancer patients.\n\nAdditionally, oral cancer, like many diseases, continues to take a disproportionate toll on minorities. Incidence peaks in African Americans 10 years earlier than in the general population, in whom the disease is usually diagnosed between ages 65-74. The difference in survival rates between whites and African Americans is staggering -- 55 percent of whites survive five or more years, while only 34 percent of African Americans live that long. African American males suffer the highest incidence and lowest survival rates of any group. Oral cancer is the fourth most common cancer among African American men in the United States.\n\nWhat We Know...About How Cancer Develops\n\nWe've known for a long time that cancer cells, unlike normal cells, multiply uncontrollably, ignoring the usual signals to stop. We also know that cancer cells can metastasize -- migrate from their original site and set up shop in another part of the body, where they continue to multiply unchecked.\n\nBut over the past two decades cancer research has uncovered much more. We now know that all neoplastic transformations (cancers) result from mutations, or changes, in genes that control cell growth and behavior. These genes normally restrict cell proliferation and direct the cell to repair DNA damage, or failing that, to self-destruct, a process called apoptosis, or cell 'suicide.' The mutated genes free the cell from these controls, allowing it to divide continuously and to pass on the mutation(s) to its progeny.\n\nWhat causes these mutations? Many factors come together to cause each type of cancer. Genetic mistakes can be inherited or they can be acquired as a result of exposure to chemicals, radiation, or viruses. Random mistakes also occur each day in the course of duplicating the three billion units in our DNA during cell division. No one mutation is enough to make a cell cancerous. Multiple genetic changes, in specific classes of genes, are needed to transform a normal cell into a neoplastic cell that grows out of control. A small percentage of people inherit a susceptibility for certain types of cancer, putting all their body's cells one step closer to the disease.\n\nWhat We Know...About Oral Cancer\n\nScientists now understand that oral cancers, which are included in the category of head and neck cancers, result from a multistep process of accumulated genetic mutations caused by many factors. Tobacco and alcohol use, diet, viruses, and a possible genetic susceptibility may all work together in various combinations to cause these cancers.\n\nUsing tobacco -- including cigarettes, pipes, cigars, and spit tobacco-is a well-established risk factor for oral cancer, as it is for some other cancers. Tobacco in any form contains carcinogens and nicotine, an addictive chemical that can keep the user hooked. A popular betel quid-spit tobacco mixture, used throughout India, has been implicated in the high rate of oral cancer in that part of the world.\n\nExcessive alcohol consumption can also increase a person's chance of developing oral cancer. One theory suggests that alcohol generates metabolites, or byproducts of metabolism, that are carcinogenic to humans; the major metabolite of ethanol is acetaldehyde, a recognized animal carcinogen. Alcohol also might \"grease the wheels\" for tobacco by acting as a solvent and making it easier for carcinogenic agents to penetrate the oral tissues.\n\nRick Bender-\nIn his own words\n\nRick Bender appeared in a videotape titled \"Dangerous Game,\" produced by the National Institute of Dental and Craniofacial Research, the National Cancer Institute, and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. In addition to Rick, the videotape featured major league baseball players and trainers who talked about the dangers of using spit tobacco, also called smokeless tobacco. The video was distributed to major and minor league baseball teams, and was made available to high schools as part of a package that includes pamphlets for students and a teachers' guide.\n\n\"The ulcer grew to about the size of a dime shortly after the first of the year there in '89. I then pretty much resolved to myself that, 'hey, Rick you've got cancer.' They had to take a third of my tongue -- they took all the lymph glands out of the side of my neck to biopsy them to make sure the cancer hadn't progressed into my lymph system, which, luckily, knock on wood, it hadn't. They ended up having to cut my jaw just to get to my tongue.\n\nUsing both tobacco and alcohol produces a much greater risk for oral cancer than using either substance alone. It is estimated that approximately 75 percent of all oral and pharyngeal cancers in the United States are caused by smoking and drinking, with most of these cases caused by tobacco and alcohol working synergistically.\n\nViruses, too, are thought to be involved in the development of these cancers. The human papillomavirus (HPV), particularly the HPV-16 and HPV-18 strains, and the herpes viruses are now considered possible contributors to some cases of oral cancer. DNA from HPV and certain herpes viruses, including Epstein-Barr, cytomegalovirus, and herpes simplex, has been detected in oral cancer biopsies. Genes encoded within these viruses are implicated in the initiation of the multiple steps required for a normal cell to become malignant. Interestingly, scientists have recently linked a new virus with AIDS-related Kaposi's sarcoma (KS), a cancer that has a preference for the head and neck. Oral lesions are present in about half of KS cases and the hard palate and gingiva are the most commonly affected areas. The newly identified virus, called human herpesvirus 8, has been found in all forms of KS, suggesting it might be involved in the sarcoma's development. A direct causal role, however, has not yet been established.\n\nResearch also suggests that a diet lacking fruits and vegetables could contribute to oral cancer, an idea postulated about other cancers as well. These foods contain antioxidants that trap harmful molecules, a process that can help prevent cancer-causing genetic mutations. The consumption of Cantonese salted fish from early childhood on has been associated with oral cancer in some Asian countries.\n\nIt [chewing tobacco] was an addiction. Today, I don't consider it a nasty habit as much as it is a dangerous habit -- a very dangerous habit. When I first started chewing, it was billed as a safe alternative to smoking. That's so far from the truth it's not even funny. It's just real far from the truth.\n\nIf somebody's chewing now -- quit. Quit now before it's too late. Don't wait till something like happened to me happens to them or a sore comes along--whether it's cancerous or not -- to quit. Quit now. Quit now before it's too late.\"\n\n--Rick Bender works with state health departments, associations, and the spit tobacco consortium NSTEP (National Spit Tobacco Education Program) to educate youngsters about the dangers of using spit tobacco. He travels the country talking to schoolchildren about his experiences with spit tobacco use and his battle with oral cancer.\n\nNIDCR and NCI continue their efforts to warn adults and children that spit tobacco is not a safe alternative to cigarettes.\n\nVirtually all oral cancers are squamous cell carcinomas, cancers of the epithelial cells that line many parts of the body, including the mouth. These cancers can develop in any part of the oral cavity or oropharynx. The most common sites are the tongue, the lips, and the floor of the mouth. Cancers of the hard palate are uncommon in the United States. Research has shown that changes in oral epithelial cells often are manifested as lesions called leukoplakia, a white patch, or erthyroplakia, a red patch, which can be early signs of oral cancer.\n\nResearch is revealing what goes on beneath the cell surface -- at the genetic level -- to set the cancer process in motion. Scientists now realize that multiple mutations in specific classes of genes contribute to head and neck cancer. The two classes most fully characterized to date are proto-oncogenes and tumor suppressor genes. Proto-oncogenes code for proteins that stimulate cell division; altered forms, called oncogenes, can cause stimulatory proteins to be overactive, with the result that the cell divides more rapidly than usual. Scientists have so far identified the oncogenes (EGFR)/c-erb 1, ras family, c-myc, int-2, hst-1, PRAD-1 (CCND1 or cyclin D1), and bcl-1 as possible participants in head and neck cancers.\n\nTumor suppressor genes code for proteins that inhibit cell division. When these genes mutate, the corresponding protein may no longer be produced correctly and cell division may occur when it should not. Inactivated tumor suppressor genes that are suspected in head and neck cancer include Rb, p16 (MTS1 or CDKN2), and p53, whose failure is already implicated in approximately 60 percent of all human cancers. p53 has been of great interest to cancer researchers since it was discovered that the molecule could stop tumors from forming when it is functioning properly. Located on the short arm of chromosome 17, p53 works by recognizing damage to a cell's DNA and stopping the process of cell growth and division until the damage is repaired. If that fails, p53 can launch the cell's 'suicide' software, causing the cell to undergo apoptosis.\n\nAs more and more genetic events are implicated in head and neck cancers, scientists are now converging on the next question: in what order do those events occur to cause tumor development? One team has already proposed part of the answer by developing a preliminary genetic progression model for head and neck cancers.\n\nThe National Institute of Dental and Craniofacial Research: Asking the Questions, Seeking the Answers\n\nKnowing the order and manner of genetic events involved in head and neck cancers has obvious appeal. Health professionals and patients can now look forward to confronting cancer on the molecular level -- where it originates -- instead of waiting to deal with its aftermath. It may one day be possible to detect the disease at its earliest stage using biomarkers found in blood and saliva; develop better tests for tracking the progression of cancer; and design therapies based on fixing or replacing mutated genes.\n\nThrough its grants program -- including the Oral Cancer Research Centers co-funded with the National Cancer Institute -- and in projects conducted on the NIH campus, NIDCR is seizing the opportunity to explore the range of topics related to oral and pharyngeal cancer. This article describes only a few of NIDCR's ongoing efforts and a handful of findings by NIDCR researchers and others in this burgeoning field.\n\nViruses, Variations, and Environment-Studies on Oral Cancer Etiology\n\nFor many years the human papillomavirus (HPV) has been suspected as a possible culprit in the etiology of oral cancer. Two types of the virus, HPV-16 and HPV-18, are found in oral cancer tissues more frequently than in normal tissues. Scientists are still not sure, though, how HPV might contribute to the development of oral cancer.\n\nRecently, a team of NIDCR-funded investigators at the State University of New York Health Sciences Center in Syracuse discovered mutations in the long control region (LCR) of HPV-16 and HPV-18 taken from oral cancer cell lines. This region of the virus plays an important role in regulating the expression of two viral genes called E6 and E7. Earlier research implicated overexpression of these two genes in the development of cervical cancer, and the oral cancer researchers suspect the same phenomenon might be at play producing oral neoplasms. They speculate that the LCR mutations disturb the normal balance between up- and down-regulation of E6 and E7, leading to their overexpression and thus to oral cancer. Future research by these scientists and others will focus on trying to locate concrete molecular evidence of E6 and E7 overexpression in oral cancer cells. Taken together, these studies will eventually help confirm, or rule against, HPV's involvement in oral cancer development.\n\nAnimal and cell line studies have led two other groups of NIDCR grantees to make discoveries about genetic variations that might play a part in oral cancer development. At the Harvard School of Dental Medicine one group has identified, isolated, and partially characterized an oral tumor suppressor gene. Discovered in the hamster oral cancer model, the gene is dubbed 'doc-1' for 'deleted in oral cancer.' The mutation of this gene in malignant hamster oral keratinocytes leads to a reduction of its expression and protein production, while re-expression of the gene results in the reversion of malignant phenotypes to normal.\n\nImportantly, the scientists now have data to support the existence of a human version of doc-1. They also have evidence that the gene seems to work by regulating cell cycle progression, as do other tumor suppressor genes such as Rb and p53. Studies are currently under way to determine whether doc-1 is a tissue-specific tumor suppressor or whether it might be involved in the development of other cancers as well.\n\nA team of NIDCR-supported scientists at the University of Pittsburgh has shown that genetic variations occurring in head and neck cancers have been extended to include the FHIT gene, which was not previously associated with these malignancies. The finding that 22 of 26 squamous cell carcinoma lines showed aberrations in this gene strongly indicates that its function may be important in the development and progression of these neoplasias. Studies on the FHIT gene are continuing, and the scientists hope their findings will add to the knowledge of underlying genetic variations related to oral cancer.\n\nA country halfway around the world and a U.S. island territory are the sites of two NIDCR studies correlating environmental and biological factors with oral cancer. In Taiwan, researchers are studying families with multiple members affected by nasopharyngeal cancer (NPC). The study capitalizes on recent investigations of NPC in Taiwan that found strong evidence of a genetic susceptibility to the disease and identified dietary factors that might contribute to its development. The current project is providing scientists with an ideal opportunity to investigate the association of NPC with environmental factors such as diet and to identify and characterize susceptibility genes for the disease. The molecular genetic work resulting from this study will almost certainly have implications for research into other subtypes of oral and pharyngeal cancer.\n\nCloser to home, a case-control study of oral cancer is continuing in Puerto Rico, chosen as a study site because of its high oral cancer mortality rate for males. One of the study's strengths is that it is population-based, with cases derived from the island's central cancer registry. Biological specimens and information on diet and the use of tobacco and alcohol have already been collected from the 800-plus participants, and data analysis has begun. The idea is to discover how behavioral factors and genetic variations influence the development of oral cancer.\n\nDiagnosing the Disease\n\nCurrently, diagnosing oral cancer relies on studying the histopathology of tissues through biopsy. X-ray technologies, like computed tomography, and other imaging techniques such as magnetic resonance imaging are sometimes used to detect the location and extent of the primary tumor. These techniques can help determine the stage of the tumor based on its size and whether it has spread. But cancer that can be evaluated by these imaging technologies has already taken root. Now, scientists are looking for ways to find cancer before it becomes clinically evident. To this end, many investigators are searching for markers at the molecular level that could warn of impending cancer.\n\nIn one such search for biomarkers, scientists at the University of Texas M.D. Anderson Cancer Center, an NIDCR Oral Cancer Research Center, are looking for alterations in short sequences of DNA called \"microsatellites\" on p53 and five other genes that might signal oral cancer. By examining cell samples from archived tissue of normal and dysplastic epithelium and invasive lesions, they plan to determine the most consistent biomarkers for each stage of oral cancer. In another phase of the study, the researchers will use tissue from recently diagnosed oral cancer patients to correlate genetic biomarkers with disease stage, tissue changes, tumor aggressiveness, and key epidemiological factors over several years.\n\nOne molecule already suspected as a predictor of head and neck cancers is telomerase. This enzyme helps a cell to reproduce chromosomal ends and circumvent the mechanism that counts and limits the total number of times the cell can reproduce. When cells become immortal they appear to bypass this safeguard and are able to replicate without limit. Telomerase is absent from most healthy cells, but present in almost all tumor cells. Scientists at Johns Hopkins University in Baltimore have recently found evidence of telomerase activity in oral rinses collected from head and neck cancer patients. Further research is necessary to discover whether telomerase is a marker consistently associated with head and neck squamous carcinoma. If so, telomerase activity may one day be used to detect the presence of cancer cells in the oral cavity and upper aerodigestive tract.\n\nUntil reliable biomolecular markers are identified, clinicians must rely on visual examination of oral tissues to detect precancerous lesions. Research by NIDCR, however, has indicated that less than 15 percent of American adults report they have ever had the head and neck examination that could reveal early signs of cancer. In an effort to improve this situation, NIDCR is focusing on encouraging dentists and other health care practitioners to perform this simple, potentially lifesaving, screening examination.\n\nNIDCR's National Oral Health Information Clearinghouse (NOHIC) distributes a poster titled, \"Detecting Oral Cancer: A Guide for Health Care Professionals,\" which offers a step-by-step pictorial guide on how to conduct the exam. Additionally, NOHIC has developed a companion slide show based on the poster. The slide show is distributed with a script and copies of the poster, patient education pamphlet titled, \"What You Need to Know About Oral Cancer,\" and 'tips card' that lists signs and symptoms of the disease. NOHIC sends these materials to dentists, physicians, nurse practitioners, and other health care providers around the country.\n\nDegrading and Invading-Studying Metastasis\n\nMetastasis is a complex series of steps in which cancer cells leave the original tumor site and migrate to other parts of the body via the bloodstream or lymph system. To do so, malignant cells break away from the primary tumor and attach to and degrade proteins that make up the surrounding extracellular matrix (ECM), which separates the tumor from adjoining tissue. By degrading these proteins, cancer cells are able to breach the ECM and escape. When oral cancers metastasize, they commonly travel through the lymph system to the lymph nodes in the neck.\n\nIn studying oral cancer metastasis, scientists at the NIDCR-NCI Oral Cancer Research Center at the University of Alabama at Birmingham are focusing on matrix metalloproteinases (MMPs), a group of enzymes implicated in the metastatic process. Currently, they are looking at the MMP collagenase, an enzyme that can degrade collagen -- one of the ECM proteins. In healthy tissue, collagenase is activated only at appropriate times, and reacts with collagen to aid in wound healing, in fighting infection, and in the normal turnover of cells. In cancer, however, collagenase becomes active at the wrong time and enables cells to escape from the parent tumor.\n\nEarly data from the collagenase studies suggest that many oral tumor cells can produce the active form of the enzyme. In one of their experiments, the scientists used purified collagen in a tissue culture dish as an extracellular matrix model and then placed human oral tumor cells on top of the collagen. Upon removing the tumor cells, the scientists found a hole eaten through the collagen layer -- evidence, they say, that activated collagenase was present underneath the tumor cells. The researchers ultimately hope to prevent collagenase activation in tumor cells and pre-empt the metastatic process.\n\nAt the University of California, San Francisco, another NIDCR-NCI Oral Cancer Research Center, researchers are studying a viscous molecule called hyaluronic acid (HA), a building block of the \"glue\" that anchors cells to one another. The molecule is present on the surface of cancer cells as well, and allows them to become motile and to create space into which they can move, two requirements for metastasis. Saliva's HA-rich environment gives cancer cells further opportunity to fulfill these two requirements, and may be the reason oral cancers can be so aggressive, the scientists say. In some cancers, high levels of HA and its receptor, CD44 (in certain forms), have been correlated with advanced metastatic behavior. In these latest NIDCR studies, the scientists will evaluate whether HA and CD44 are predictors of oral cancer metastasis by documenting their levels in cell culture and in human biopsy specimens. The scientists say these potential biomarkers may be of enormous value in identifying patients at increased risk for developing malignancy, and also in predicting which lesions might be particularly aggressive. Additional studies are aimed at trying to determine whether hyaluronidase, an enzyme that breaks down HA, can inhibit oral cancer metastasis.\n\nOne compound that has already shown anti-metastatic activity is a non-antimicrobial tetracycline analogue called CMT-3. Current research on this molecule evolved from earlier NIDCR studies on periodontal disease that found tetracyclines could inhibit collagenase activity independently of their antibiotic property. In recent laboratory tests, NIDCR-funded researchers at the State University of New York at Stony Brook found that CMT-3 inhibits cancer cells from degrading and crossing synthetic basement membrane. The analogue also showed promise in a rat model of prostate cancer in which it reduced tumor size in some animals, caused tumor remission in others, and inhibited metastasis to the lung. Additional safety and efficacy studies, now under way, are necessary steps in moving toward the planned clinical testing of this compound. Further anti-metastasis studies could lead to application of CMT-3 in treating many cancers, including oral cancer.\n\nCurbing a Killer\n\nTraditionally, surgery and radiation were the only treatments thought to be effective against oral cancer, with chemotherapy used as a palliative measure. Within the last decade scientists have found that certain drugs do indeed work against oral cancer. Researchers are now using radiation and chemotherapy in tandem, giving cancer a 'one-two' punch in an effort to knock it out. One of the newest drugs in the oral cancer treatment armamentarium is paclitaxel (Taxol, Bristol-Myers Squibb Co.), which has shown some success in treating other cancers. Currently, clinical researchers are studying paclitaxel as a treatment for oral cancer, using the drug by itself and in combination with other chemotherapeutic agents and radiation therapy.\n\nLong before drugs are used in the clinic, they undergo extensive testing for safety and efficacy. Countless compounds initially thought to have some activity against cancer ultimately fail. But a few, like paclitaxel, do not. So researchers continue to screen thousands of compounds searching for those that show evidence of antitumor activity. Recently, NIDCR and the National Cancer Institute have become partners in the effort to identify natural or synthetic agents that demonstrate activity against squamous cell carcinoma. NIDCR is now testing the ability of certain agents -- already shown to have antitumor activity by an NCI cell line assay -- to diminish growth of squamous cell carcinoma lines in vitro and in vivo . The scientists hope to confirm the efficacy of these compounds and move them a step closer to clinical testing.\n\nDiscriminating virus. Lacking the protein that shuts down p53, the mutant adenovirus can't reproduce in p53-bearing cells (top), but destroys cancer cells lacking p53 (bottom).\n\nCourtesy ONYX Pharmaceuticals\n\nOther research is focused on inventing new systems to test potentially therapeutic compounds. NIDCR-funded investigators at the M.D. Anderson Cancer Center are developing a unique tissue slice organ culture (TSOC) that consists of normal, premalignant, and malignant human oral tissue slices kept alive in the laboratory. The advantage of the TSOC is that it preserves tissue organization, cell interaction, and cell function more so than do cultured cell lines. Because the model essentially mimics in vivo conditions, it is ideal for testing numerous agents in various amounts and combinations. Oral cancer research has been hindered by the methods usually employed to investigate growth and differentiation of normal and premalignant oral cells. Culturing normal oral cells is complicated, and no successful method for culturing genuine premalignant oral cells exists. The scientists hope to establish the TSOC system as the standard for examining normal, premalignant, and malignant oral tissues.\n\nUsing the TSOC the scientists are looking at the ability of vitamin A analogues (retinoids) and sodium butyrate, a four-carbon fatty acid, alone or in combination, to reverse aberrations in cell growth and differentiation. Scientists already know that one retinoid, called isotretinoin, can reverse premalignant oral lesions; however, the analogue has side effects that preclude its prolonged use. One of the research goals is to identify other retinoids with similar or better efficacy than isotretinoin, and analyze them to determine whether they may have fewer side effects. If so, these compounds could be candidates for clinical testing. The scientists also hope to investigate whether butyrate might be effective in preventing or treating oral malignancies.\n\nComplementing the vast array of laboratory experiments are clinical studies aimed at testing new cancer treatments or helping to improve the quality of life for patients living with the disease. At the University of Chicago and Northwestern University, another NIDCR-NCI Oral Cancer Research Center, scientists in one clinical study are looking at the chemotherapeutic effects of 5-fluorouracil (5-FU) in combination with radiation therapy. One problem with using this drug has been that the enzyme dihydropyrimidine dehydrogenase (DPD) can degrade 5-FU and lower its level in the body below a therapeutic range. To circumvent this problem, the scientists are testing 5-FU in combination with a chemical that blocks DPD action, which might keep the cancer-fighting drug at its therapeutic level. Scientists will correlate the activity of 5-FU with enzyme activity and with patient response and survival. By conducting studies aimed at elucidating the idiosyncrasies of this powerful drug, the researchers hope to learn how to use it most effectively against oral cancer.\n\nIn patients with advanced cancer, one of the primary goals is to reduce the symptoms of large tumors and preserve organ function, thus maintaining or improving quality of life. This is the focus of another study at the University of Chicago-Northwestern University. Clinicians are analyzing the effects of high-dose radiotherapy combined with chemotherapies on tongue strength and swallowing function in patients with advanced cancer. Using the latest imaging techniques, scientists are able to observe even minute changes in organ function.\n\n\nSuppose there were a mutant cold virus that killed only cancer cells? Or a genetic 'cocktail' whose ingredients could provoke tumor-specific immune activity? Or what if there were a technique that allowed clinicians to replace a damaged p53 gene with a normal version? In fact, these are all therapies under study by head and neck cancer researchers right now. They are examples of a new approach to cancer treatment known as 'biotherapy.' Biotherapies are biological, based on the molecules and genes involved in the cancer process. A decided advantage of these therapies is that unlike chemically based chemotherapy or physically based radiotherapy -- which can harm healthy cells as well as tumor cells -- biotherapies can target tumor cells but leave other cells relatively unscathed. How successful will these therapies turn out to be? Ongoing research, like that described below, will eventually be able to give us the answer.\n\nOne biotherapy being studied at ONYX Pharmaceuticals has shown success in the clinical setting. The technique consists of a mutant adenovirus that selectively infects and kills only cells that are deficient in p53, such as tumor cells. (Lacking the E1B protein that shuts down p53, the mutant adenovirus can't reproduce in cells with normal p53; but it can replicate in and thus kill cells that do not have functioning p53. See diagram) ONYX has tested this adenovirus in a small number of patients with head and neck cancer who had not responded to surgery, radiation, and in some cases chemotherapy. The adenovirus treatment produced significant destruction of tumors in some patients and lesser improvement in several others. Scientists do not yet know if the tumor cells are dying because of direct viral assault or from attack by the immune system on virus-infected cells.\n\nA different kind of biotherapy uses a type of molecule called a ribozyme, which is able to bind to and destroy RNA. NIDCR oral cancer researchers at SUNY in Syracuse have developed ribozymes that destroy the RNA of tumor-associated human papillomavirus and have devised a method for introducing them into cancer cells in vitro to inhibit tumor cell growth. Of major importance was their finding that the tumor suppressor protein, p53, usually absent in HPV-containing tumor cells, could be detected in the cells into which ribozymes had been introduced. These results imply that the ribozyme inhibited the HPV gene product(s) involved in the breakdown of p53. These studies provide a strong basis for current investigations designed to determine if ribozymes can inhibit tumor formation in an animal model by the administration of HPV-positive tumor cells.\n\nTo Be or Not To Be...Cell Suicide As Cancer Therapy?\n\nApoptosis, or cell 'suicide,' is a backup system that prevents runaway division by alerting a cell to DNA damage and initiating self-destruction. Although apoptosis is bad for the cell, it is ultimately good for the body, which this way rids itself of damaged genetic material. Learning more about apoptosis is key to fully understanding cancer, and ultimately to developing strategies based on harnessing this process as a cancer therapy.\n\nAt the University of Chicago, NIDCR- and NCI-funded scientists are studying whether alterations in the susceptibility of tumor cells to undergo apoptosis contribute to the development, progression, or recurrence of oral and pharyngeal cancer. Their current studies focus on the bcl-2 gene family. Within the family are genes that code for proteins that suppress cell death, such as bcl-2 and bcl-xl, while others promote apoptosis. So far, the scientists have correlated overexpression of bcl-xl in human oral cancer tissue with a poor prognosis, and overexpression of bcl-2 with a more hopeful outcome. These findings are consistent with their earlier work on breast cancer. Those studies showed that bcl-xl overexpression was associated with a higher tumor grade and increased number of positive lymph nodes, and tumors expressing bcl-2 were of a lower grade and a smaller size.\n\nFor their latest studies on bcl-xl, the scientists created a transgenic mouse model that overexpresses the protein in the mouth, throat, and skin. When the animals' skin was exposed to known carcinogens, approximately 70 percent of them developed invasive skin cancer, whereas only 18 percent of the control group developed the disease. The scientists are now beginning studies of the oral mucosa using a similar transgenic model. Can a cell be tricked into dying? Ultimately, the scientists hope to be able to answer this question as they learn more about the apoptotic process and the so-called 'cell survival genes' that code for proteins like bcl-xl.\n\nA three-gene 'cocktail' is the focus of a unique gene therapy strategy set to be tested soon by NIDCR grantees at Johns Hopkins University. The herpes simplex virus thymidine kinase (HSV-tk) \"suicide\" gene and genes for two cytokines -- interleukin-2 (IL-2) and granulocyte macrophage colony stimulating factor (GM-CSF) -- will be delivered via an adenovirus into a mouse model of oral cancer. The scientists speculate the therapies will act synergistically. Here is why: The HSV-tk therapy causes oral cancer cells to commit 'suicide' in the presence of certain anti-herpetic drugs such as ganciclovir. As that occurs, the tumor cells release cellular debris and antigens recognized by immune cells. The HSV-tk/ganciclovir therapy, then, not only works to reduce tumor size, but also sets the stage for tumor-specific immune activity by IL-2 and GM-CSF. In turn, the two cytokines stimulate specific immune cells that are able to recognize and help destroy tumor cells.\n\nFurther along in the research pipeline is an apoptosis-based therapy using the p53 gene. Clinical investigators at the M.D. Anderson Cancer Center and Introgen Pharmaceuticals, Inc., recently completed a study on the safety of p53 gene therapy in a small number of patients with head and neck cancer. The study was a dose-escalation trial in which the investigators used an adenovirus to deliver normal p53 gene into the patients' tumors. All the patients had advanced, recurrent cancers of the head and neck and had failed conventional treatment. The researchers found that the gene therapy was not only free of serious side effects, it actually resulted in tumor regression in some patients. With its safety now documented, scientists can move the p53 treatment to the next stage of clinical testing.\n\nWhere Do We Go From Here?\n\nClearly, our exploration into the fundamental mechanisms of cancer must continue -- for every step in the cancer development process is a potential target for new therapies. Basic research has already paid off in many ways, showing us that specific classes of genes are involved in cancer development, that environmental factors can trigger genetic mutations, and that cancer cells spin out of control and proliferate unchecked. Within the next few years NIDCR studies on cell signaling, cell cycle regulation, tumor angiogenesis, and a myriad of other topics might further elucidate how cancer develops and spreads, information that is paramount to learning how to stop the disease.\n\nWe must also continue to educate -- spreading the word that many cases of oral cancer can be avoided by changing certain behaviors. Quitting tobacco use, stopping excessive drinking, and eating a diet rich in fresh fruits and vegetables are all things people can do now to reduce their risk of developing the disease. Clinicians, too, can help save lives by performing the simple head and neck examination, and by talking to patients about cancer's early warning signs.\n\nOral cancer is a disease whose survival rate has not improved appreciably in decades, a disease that has a high rate of second primary tumors, and a disease that leaves its mark on survivors in the form of facial disfigurement. Through basic, translational, clinical, and community-based research, and through public and professional education, NIDCR is continuing its fight against oral cancer, working to ensure that no one need ever suffer from this devastating disease.\n\n\n\nAny reference to a commercial company does not imply, nor should it be viewed as an endorsement of the company, or any of its products or services by NIH or NIDCR.\n\nOral Health & Wellness Content provided by NIH\n\nOnline Editor: Sims, Jane\nOnline Medical Reviewer: Eakle, Stephan W., DDS\nDate Last Reviewed: 12/15/2010\nDate Last Modified: 12/15/2010\nThe views represented by this article are that of the author and not of Delta Dental. This article is provided for information only. Please consult with a licensed dentist to discuss the best way for you to improve or maintain your oral health.\n\nIn all cases, specific group contract provisions, benefits, limitations and exclusions take precedence over oral health recommendations given here. We recommend that you contact your dental benefits carrier to determine the specific limitations and exclusions for your group.\n\n© 2001- Delta Dental. All rights reserved.", "pred_label": "__label__1", "pred_score_pos": 0.8503814339637756}
+{"content": "Government ND ch 2\n\nAbout this set\n\nCreated by:\n\nlowreya  on October 17, 2011\n\n\ngovernment, am. history\n\n\nGovernment ND Lowreya\n\nLog in to favorite or report as inappropriate.\nPop out\nNo Messages\n\nYou must log in to discuss this set.\n\nGovernment ND ch 2\n\nMagna Charta\n\"Great Charter\" 1215 Granted Englishmen the -Right of trial by jury -King must consult a group of nobles to raise taxes\n\n\nCards (new!)\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\nSpace Race\n\n\n\n\n\n\nOrder by\n\n\n\nParliament the lawmaking branch of the british government\nPetition of RightA document drawn up by Parliament's House of Commons listing grievances against King Charles I and extending Parliament's powers while limiting the king's. It gave Parliament authority over taxation, declared that free citizens could not be arrested without cause, declared that soldiers could not be quartered in private homes without compensation, and said that martial law cannot be declared during peacetime.\nEnglish Bill of Rights1689 document declaring Parliament would choose who ruled England, that the ruler could not tax without Parliamentary consent, that the ruler could not suspend Parliament, that the ruler was subject to all laws, that Parliament was to meet frequently, that MPs were guaranteed freedom of speech, and that cruel and unusual punishment was illegal.\nCommon Law a system of law based on precedent and customs\nPrecedent An act or statement that may serve as an example or justification for a later one\nCharter a written document granting land and the authority to set up colonial governments\nProprietor An owner of a store or other business.\nAssembly a lawmaking body of government made up of a group of citizens\nBurgess n. In colonial times, a member of the lower house of the legislature of Maryland or Virginia.\nMayflower CompactThis document was drafted in 1620 prior to settlement by the Pilgrims at Plymouth Bay in Massachusetts. It declared that the 41 males who signed it agreed to accept majority rule and participate in a government in the best interest of all members of the colony. This agreement set the precedent for later documents outlining commonwealth rule.\nFundamental Orders In 1639 the Connecticut River colony settlers had an open meeting and they established a constitution called the Fundamental Orders. It made a Democratic government. It was the first constitution in the colonies and was a beginning for the other states' charters and constitutions.\nSalutary Neglect an english policy of relaxing the enforcement of regulations in its colonies in return for the colonies' continued economic loyalty.\nAlbany Plan of Union plan proposed by Benjamin Franklin in 1754 that aimed to unite the 13 colonies for trade, military, and other purposes; the plan was turned down by the colonies and the Crown\nStamp Act A tax that the British Pariliament placed on newspapers and official documents sold in the American Colonies\nBicameral based on two legislative bodies\nUnicameral composed of one legislative body\nBill of Rights a statement of fundamental rights and privileges (especially the first ten amendments to the United States Constitution)\nRatification Method of enacting a constitution or amendment into law\nQuorum The minimum number of members who must be present to permit a legislative body to take official action\nVirginia Plan Initial proposal at the Constitutional Convention made by the Virginia delegation for a strong central government with a bicameral legislature dominated by the big states.\nNew Jersey Plan New Jersey delegate William Paterson's plan of government, in which states got an equal number of representatives in Congress\nFederalists supporters of the stronger central govt. who advocated the ratification of the new constitution\nAntifederalists opponents of a strong central government who campaigned against the ratification of the Constitution in favor of a confederation of independant states\n\nFirst Time Here?\n\n\nSet Champions\n", "pred_label": "__label__1", "pred_score_pos": 0.8309768438339233}
+{"content": "giusy - italy - sixteen\nwhere would i be, if you didn't believe?\n\n\nAU MEME: “When Selena see Justin with another girl, her discovers being betrayed, and gets mad for revenge, and takes revenge on Justin killing him.”\n\n\nTitle: Let It Be\nArtist: Justin Bieber\nAlbum: Let It Be\nPlays: 48590\n\nlet it be (live in nyc) - justin bieber\n\nI don’t let anyone’s insecurities, emotions, or opinions bother me. I know that if I am happy, that’s all that matters to me. And it’s okay to be selfish like that sometimes, when it comes to your well-being. Do what makes you happy, and don’t care what others think.", "pred_label": "__label__1", "pred_score_pos": 0.9983302354812622}
+{"content": "Educators Smithsonian Education\nDecoding the Past: The Work of Archaeologists\nLesson Plan 1\n\nArchaeological Thinking\n\n  • Identify \"artifacts\" from a contemporary setting.\n  • Describe the function of each artifact.\n  • Interpret possible associations between artifacts.\nSocial studies, science, language arts\n\n1. Choose four or five areas in your school with which students are familiar (e.g., your classroom, the cafeteria, and the library). Observe each location, noting what students commonly do there (e.g., study, eat,and socialize). After school hours or when the areas are clear of students, examine the trash and recycle bins and the floors for evidence of those student activities. Select artifacts (e.g., portions of candy wrappers, plastic from pen caps, and portions of student papers) that can help to tell the story of each site. Place each site's artifacts in a separately numbered bag (numbered 1 through 4 or 5).\n\n2. At the beginning of the next class, discuss the difference betwee n historians and archaeologists by asking your students how we know that an event happened in the past. Answers may vary, but students will probably conclude that information about the past event was recorded in some form.You may wish to have your students suggest various methods of documenting past events (e.g., oral histories, written records, video and audio recordings,and digital data) and have them evaluate how each method differs from the others. Tell your students that historians use all of these recorded sources to understand the past. (Be sure to note that not all societies have kept records and that records can often be incomplete or biased.) Next, ask your students how they might learn about a past event if they could not read about it or view it on videotape. Some students may find this question difficult. Ask them to think about the work of an archaeologist—what does this type of researcher look for? Students should conclude that an archaeologist seeks physical evidence (clues) of the past.\n\n3. Using the Introduction as a guide, tell your students that they will be learning how archaeologists use physical evidence in the form of artifacts (human-made objects) to learn about the past. Tell them to imagine that an archaeological expedition at your school has recently uncovered a number of artifacts that the class must now examine and interpret. Stress that the students were picked for this job because they were the foremost experts on the archaeological sites.\n\n4. Divide your class into four or five groups of equal size. Give each student a copy of Worksheet 1 and provide each group with one of the numbered bags of artifacts. Direct your students to open the bags and carefully examine each object. Ask them to consider what each object is made of and how it may have been used. (Tell students to put this information on their worksheets.) Students may find some objects easier to identify than others. Walk among the groups and provide hints as necessary. After the students have identified the objects, ask them to speculate where these objects may have been found. (Tell students to put this information on their worksheets.)\n\n5. Conclude the activity by having a representative from each group explain its interpretation of the objects. Provide explanations of the objects and their contexts as necessary. Emphasize that archaeologists are often challenged with interpreting artifacts that they cannot immediately identify or date.\nRequired Materials\n\nLesson Plan 1 (pdf)\n\nPrevious Page: Decoding the Past Next Page: Lesson 2\n\nSmithsonian Institution\n\nWebsites A-Z\n\nAdult Learning\n", "pred_label": "__label__1", "pred_score_pos": 0.582717776298523}
+{"content": "Tuesday, September 23, 2008\n\nGinger Pear Crepes\n\nI really am being a negligent blogger these days. Things are so busy between prepping for classes, trying to research and write, run a small bakery, and look after 3 kids! Anyway, this is the dessert I made for my date night with Vegan Mom on Sunday. The inspiration comes from the latest issue of Food and Drink. The original recipe has apples and I had every intention of the following/veganizing the recipe, but when I went to make it I could not find the magazine anywhere. Then I noticed that we had a bunch of pears that needed to to be eaten up. I think this recipe could benefit from a few splashes of liquor, but I am not sure what kind (any ideas, Celine?).\n\nMakes 10 crepes\n- 1/2 recipes of crepes (should make about ten 6\" crepes)\n- 8 ripe pears, peeled, cored and diced (I used Bartlett)\n- 1/4 cup margarine\n- 1/2 cup sugar\n- 1 1/2 tsp cinnamon\n- 1 tsp ground ginger\n- 1/4 tsp nutmeg\n- few splashes of water\n- 1 recipe vegan cream, or soy yogurt\n\n1. Make crepes and set aside, stacked on one another.\n2. Melt margarine in a saucepan over medium heat. Add pears and cook for 3-4 mins, or until they begins to break down a bit. Add sugar and spices and bring to bubbling. Let thicken a bit adding some water if needed. Remove from heat.\n3. Place 1/10 of the filling in the centre of a crepe. Fold in half, then in quarters. Press the crepe down a bit to distribute the filling. Top with cream, or yogurt, and serve.", "pred_label": "__label__1", "pred_score_pos": 0.6487120389938354}
+{"content": "Physics 2\n\nParticle track detectors are used to measure the speed of particles if the lifetime of the particle is known. Particle X has a lifetime of 256.2 ps. These particles are created in an experiment inside the detector by a given reaction. The particles leave 10.6 cm long tracks on average before they decay into other particles not observable by the detector.\nWhat is the average speed of the particles in terms of the speed of light?\nThe speed of the particle is the ratio of the track length and the lifetime. However the simple ratio of these two quantities gives unphysically high speed: 1.379 c. The reason is that the length of the track is measured in the resting frame of the detector. On the other hand the lifetime of the particle is its life expectancy measured in the frame moving with the particle. Either transform the length of the track to the particle's frame, or the particle's lifetime to the detector's frame. You can take the ratio of the tracklength and the lifetime only if they are from the same reference frame.\n\nAnswers (0)\n\nThere are no answers to this question yet.", "pred_label": "__label__1", "pred_score_pos": 0.9695491194725037}