One way to measure doctrinal unity

Applying the outcome of the Jerusalem meeting in Galatians 2:1-10 naturally leads to an affirmation of doctrinal unity. Paul and the Jerusalem leaders would never have struck an agreement in the first place if they were not affirming the same things. So a natural question is, what are the central doctrinal affirmations of the church today? In other words, on which points of doctrine do believers need to agree to be considered unified? Christianity has historically acknowledged that certain subjective beliefs stated objectively as doctrines are central to being Christian. These have been classically expressed in the various creeds of the Church, such as the Nicene Creed, developed out of the Council of Nicea in A.D. 325:

Evangelicalism in more recent times has developed a theological center around certain distinguishing characteristics. David Bebbington in his work Evangelicalism in Modern Britain: A History from the 1730s to the 1980s identified four key characteristics which mark evangelicals: biblicism, crucicentrism, conversionism, and activism. Whether one looks to the historic creeds or current definitions of evangelicalism, there are definite, measurable theological contours which have marked the church both historically and in contemporary times, and these shared convictions provide a doctrinal basis for unity within all the contemporary expressions of the Christian church. When considering questions of doctrinal unity and subsequent fellowship within the Church, these creeds provide a helpful starting point for assessing agreement about the central doctrines of Christianity.


no waste

returnOver-doing / Changes

waste6Most people are lazy, so why would we over-do a job? Well, over-doing is not about the "120%" effort or working "25 hours" a day. It is not about putting in a final touch with pride or giving it a bit of extra polish because you believe it will enhance the usability. Instead , it is about doing more than we need to get the job done.

Sometimes this is about self-inflicted "unnecessary movements" but the big hit comes from changes. From project management to production schedules, change is not necessarily welcomed. Why? Because change means doing something again - perhaps differently. The impacts are significant- since the work has to be done again, all the efforts, resources and support activities/ energy use will be spent again.

Often the reason for change is not explained clearly or in the context of the individuals and teams doing the work- this leads to demotivation. One construction team leader told me ".. we dug that pit about 15 times: every time we finished, something was changed - new service or different services were introduced, so we dug it up again...". Even when you are being paid to re-do a job, emotionally it is not pleasant, especially if you reckon you are working for people who have little or no skill in planning a project.

We cannot really avoid these changes because they are often outside our control. What we can do is to prepare ourselves for change. Having a detailed change management log is useful, but it must also be coupled with a workforce that is trained to be flexible. An organisation where the workforce is regularly encouraged to be come up with innovations will certainly help when responding to change requests. Flexible working practices also mean that people may be able to shift from one activity to another with greater ease. Having a process to reuse resources is also a good way to minimise the impact of changes on materials use (and their embodied energy).

This waste is part of the classic Toyota 7 Wastes, which formed the foundations of Lean Operations. Toyota believes that these 7 wastes are the reason why we have physical wastes. However, as these were originally developed for large scale manufacturing, we explored what these wastes mean in a generic sense and have changed some of the emphasis so that they can be readily applied to other business areas.


Lithified nodules up to 6 cm across floating in a muddy matrix have been recovered by piston coring from carbonate slopes in the northern Bahamas. Petrographic data indicate that most nodules are multi-generation, deep-water, grain-supported intramicrites to intramicrudites cemented by pelloidal high-Mg calcite. Carbon-14 activities indicate that the nodules are at least 4-5 x 10 3 years younger than the surrounding sediment. Carbon and oxygen isotope data indicate that the nodules were submarine cemented and that cementation was accompanied by increases in delta O 18 and delta C 13 values. Nodular units were found predominately in association with peri-platform oozes. Thickness of these nodular units is variable (9-345 cm) but is usually less than 130 cm, and upper and lower contacts are commonly indistinct. These units appear to have formed essentially in situ by nodular submarine cementation of carbonate sediment. Cementation occurred in the shallow subsurface, yet near the sediment-water interface at water depths above the permanent thermocline (<800-1000 m). The sequence of events leading to the formation of these modern nodules includes: 1) an initial predominantly grain-supported forampteropod sediment; 2) submarine cementation of this sediment by amorphous to vaguely pelloidal high-Mg calcite; 3) break-up of this cemented material by currents and benthic organisms; 4) reworking and winnowing by bottom currents to produce a grain-supported sediment of silt to gravel-sized intraclasts, reworked and infilled grains plus new forums and pteropods; 5) cementation of this reworked sediment by pelloidal high-Mg calcite to produce nodules; 6) decreased current velocities and the deposition of pelagic muds; and 7) vertical mixing by burrowing organisms. The extent to which carbonate slope sediments are lithified is controlled by a combination of physical, biological and chemical processes that act concomitantly. Bottom currents tend to enhance synsedimentary cementation if they either: 1) increase the permeability of the sediment by winnowing muds which allows for increased interstitial circulation of pore fluids; 2) create a pause in sedimentation and allow sediment to be exposed near the sediment-water interface for extended periods of time; or 3) provide large volumes of seawater that contain the necessary ions (Ca (super 2+) , Mg (super 2+) , CO 3 (super 2-) )for cementation. Burrowing organisms may also enhance submarine cementation by "irrigating" the shallow subsurface which may also increase interstitial circulation. On the slope north of Great Bahama Bank, the degree of submarine cementation decreases downslope from well-lithified hardgrounds at depths <375 m to nodules from 375-500 m, and finally to soft, unlithified oozes at greater depths. This transition in the degree of submarine cementation correlates well with a gradual downslope decrease in the strength of contour following bottom currents as observed in bottom photographs. The current action appears to control the degree of lithification by controlling the permeability of the near-surface sediments and thus, the degree of interstitial circulation. These modern nodular deposits on Bahamian slopes may serve as analogs for some deeper-water nodular limestones in the rock record. Recognition of similar facies in the ancient may be of great use for paleo-environmental interpretations.

You do not currently have access to this article.


Tag Archives: Belief

Is the definition of atheism “a lack of belief in God”?

I have a key that will unlock a puzzling mystery
I have a key that will unlock a puzzling mystery

First, let’s see check with the Stanford University Encyclopedia of Philosophy:

‘Atheism’ means the negation of theism, the denial of the existence of God.

Stanford University is one of the top 5 universities in the United States, so that’s a solid definition. To be an atheist is to be a person who makes the claim that, as a matter of FACT, there is no intelligent agent who created the universe. Atheists think that there is no God, and theists think that there is a God. Both claims are objective claims about the way the world is out there, and so both sides must furnish forth arguments and evidence as to how they are able to know what they are each claiming.

Philosopher William Lane Craig has some thoughts on atheism, atheists and lacking belief in God in this reply to a questioner.

In my discussions with atheists, they  are using the term that they “lack belief in God”. They claim that this is different from not believing in God or from saying that God does not exist. I’m not sure how to respond to this. It seems to me that its a silly word-play and is logically the same as saying that you do not believe in God.
What would be a good response to this?
Thank you for your time,

And here is Dr. Craig’s full response:

Your atheist friends are right that there is an important logical difference between believing that there is no God and not believing that there is a God.  Compare my saying, “I believe that there is no gold on Mars” with my saying “I do not believe that there is gold on Mars.”   If I have no opinion on the matter, then I do not believe that there is gold on Mars, and I do not believe that there is no gold on Mars.  There’s a difference between saying, “I do not believe (p)” and “I believe (not-p).”   Logically where you place the negation makes a world of difference.

But where your atheist friends err is in claiming that atheism involves only not believing that there is a God rather than believing that there is no God.

There’s a history behind this.  Certain atheists in the mid-twentieth century were promoting the so-called “presumption of atheism.” At face value, this would appear to be the claim that in the absence of evidence for the existence of God, we should presume that God does not exist.  Atheism is a sort of default position, and the theist bears a special burden of proof with regard to his belief that God exists.

So understood, such an alleged presumption is clearly mistaken.  For the assertion that “There is no God” is just as much a claim to knowledge as is the assertion that “There is a God.”  Therefore, the former assertion requires justification just as the latter does.  It is the agnostic who makes no knowledge claim at all with respect to God’s existence.  He confesses that he doesn’t know whether there is a God or whether there is no God.

But when you look more closely at how protagonists of the presumption of atheism used the term “atheist,” you discover that they were defining the word in a non-standard way, synonymous with “non-theist.”  So understood the term would encompass agnostics and traditional atheists, along with those who think the question meaningless (verificationists).  As Antony Flew confesses,

the word ‘atheist’ has in the present context to be construed in an unusual way.  Nowadays it is normally taken to mean someone who explicitly denies the existence . . . of God . . . But here it has to be understood not positively but negatively, with the originally Greek prefix ‘a-’ being read in this same way in ‘atheist’ as it customarily is in . . . words as ‘amoral’ . . . . In this interpretation an atheist becomes not someone who positively asserts the non-existence of God, but someone who is simply not a theist. (A Companion to Philosophy of Religion, ed. Philip Quinn and Charles Taliaferro [Oxford:  Blackwell, 1997], s.v. “The Presumption of Atheism,” by Antony Flew)

Such a re-definition of the word “atheist” trivializes the claim of the presumption of atheism, for on this definition, atheism ceases to be a view.  It is merely a psychological state which is shared by people who hold various views or no view at all.  On this re-definition, even babies, who hold no opinion at all on the matter, count as atheists!  In fact, our cat Muff counts as an atheist on this definition, since she has (to my knowledge) no belief in God.

One would still require justification in order to know either that God exists or that He does not exist, which is the question we’re really interested in.

So why, you might wonder, would atheists be anxious to so trivialize their position?  Here I agree with you that a deceptive game is being played by many atheists.  If atheism is taken to be a view, namely the view that there is no God, then atheists must shoulder their share of the burden of proof to support this view.  But many atheists admit freely that they cannot sustain such a burden of proof.  So they try to shirk their epistemic responsibility by re-defining atheism so that it is no longer a view but just a psychological condition which as such makes no assertions.  They are really closet agnostics who want to claim the mantle of atheism without shouldering its responsibilities.

This is disingenuous and still leaves us asking, “So is there a God or not?”

So there you have it. We are interested in what both sides know and what reasons and evidence they have to justify their claim to know. We are interested in talking to people who make claims about objective reality, not about themselves, and who then go on to give reasons and evidence to support their claims about objective reality. There are atheists out there that do make an objective claim that God does not exist, and then support that claim with arguments and evidence. Those are good atheists, and we should engage in rational conversations with them. But clearly there are some atheists who are not like that. How should we deal with these “subjective atheists”?

Dealing with subjective atheists

How should theists respond to people who just want to talk about their psychological state? Well, my advice is to avoid them. They are approaching religion irrationally and non-cognitively – like the person who enters a physics class and says “I lack a belief in the gravitational force!”.  When you engage in serious discussions with people about God’s existence, you only care about what people know and what they can show to be true. We don’t care about a person’s psychology.

Dealing with persistent subjective atheists

What happens when you explain all of that to a subjective atheist who continues to insist that you listen to them repeat over and over “I lack a belief in God, I lack a belief in God”? What if you tell them to make the claim that God does not exist, and then support it with arguments and evidence, but instead they keep leaving comments on your blog telling you again and again about their subjective state of mind: “I lack a belief in cupcakes! I lack a belief in icebergs!” What if they keep e-mailing you and threatening to expose you on Twitter for refusing to listen to them, or denounce you via skywriting: “Wintery Knight won’t listen to me! I lack a belief in crickets!”. I think at this point you have to give up and stop talking to such a person.

And that’s why I moderate and filter comments on this blog. There are uneducated people out there with access to the Internet who want attention, but I am not obligated to give it to them. And neither are you. We are not obligated to listen to abusive people who don’t know what they are talking about. I do post comments from objective atheists who make factual claims about the objective world, and who support those claims with arguments and evidence. I am not obligated to post comments from people who refuse to make objective claims or who refuse to support objective claims with arguments and evidence. And I’m not obligated to engage in discussions with them, either.

Related posts

Are atheists right to say that you can’t prove a universal negative?

Lets take a closer look at a puzzle
Lets take a closer look at a puzzle

I hear a lot of atheists complaining that they shouldn’t have any burden of proof because it is impossible to prove a universal negative, i.e. – “there is no God”.

Here’s a post from William Lane Craig about it.

The first claim is, ironically, usually found on the lips of atheists, who thereby seek to excuse themselves from bearing any share of the burden of proof in the discussion. Usually, the claim is that a universal negative cannot be proved, and therefore the claim that “There is no God” is unprovable. The second claim is typically given as the reason why a universal negative cannot be proved: no matter how much knowledge you have acquired, there will always be more facts that you do not yet know, and perhaps the exception is among them. So one can never prove that there is no God. Perversely, this is somehow interpreted, not as an admission that atheism is indefensible, but as a demonstration that it is in no need of defense!

Unfortunately, the argument is misconceived on a couple of counts.

First, negative, universally quantified statements can be proved. We do this all the time. When we make statements about “all” or “none,” we are speaking about what is the case with respect to a certain domain. We are saying that all or none of the members of that domain have or has a certain property. If the domain is not too large, I can confidently make universally quantified affirmative and negative statements. For example, I am quite confident that “No U.S. Senator is a Muslim.” Or again, if I have a typical sample of the domain, I can make inductive inferences on the basis of the evidence from the sample to the whole, even if the whole domain is too large for me to canvass; for example, taking as my domain all the microbes on Earth, I can confidently assert, “No microbes have brains.”

Now someone might say that while it is admittedly true that negative, universal statements can sometimes be proven, still the point remains that in the case of God, the domain is too large and our sample too small to come to any negative conclusion. But those who propound this argument seem to think that the way one determines whether God exists is by taking a sort of universal survey to see if anything answering to the description of God exists somewhere out there. There are, however, other ways of coming to a knowledge of negative, universally quantified statements than doing an inductive survey.

For example, we can have knowledge of negative, universally quantified statements on the basis of things’ essential properties; for example, “No water molecules are composed of CO2.” (Even if something looked and behaved just like water but was made of CO2 , it still would not be water but just a look-alike substance.) Or if we could show that a notion is logically impossible, we would know that it does not exist; for example, “There are no married bachelors.” Significantly, many atheists have tried just this route to proving that God does not exist, arguing that the idea of a being which is all-powerful or all-knowing is logically incoherent.

[…]Second, the statement that “God does not exist” is not a universally quantified statement. When the theist asserts that “God exists,” the word “God” is being used as a proper name, not as a common noun. It is not a statement like “Dogs exist” but rather like “Lassie exists.” In order to prove that God does not exist, one need not prove that there are no gods whatsoever. Our interest is in one specific being, not in all the other beings which may have been imagined or worshipped throughout the world. So the claim that “God does not exist” is really a singular claim, like “Sherlock Holmes does not exist” or “Harry Potter does not exist.” No one thinks that negative, singular claims cannot be proven.

So there are two ways to disprove a universal negative. Look where you expect the thing to be evident, and show that the evidence is not there. For example, show evidence that the universe is eternal. You can’t have a Creator if you can show evidence that the universe is eternal. The second way is to show that the concept of God is logically contradictory, e.g. – that the concept of a “timeless person” is self-contradictory. Scholarly atheists try to do this, but this has not filtered down to the rank and file, which is why they still hold to these atheist slogans like “you can’t prove a universal negative”. Of course you can.

And finally, Craig concludes with some good advice:

The bottom line is that we have no choice but to go on the basis of the knowledge and evidence that we do have—just we do in all other affairs of life.

WorldGoneCrazy found a video of William Lane Craig answering the universal negative objection:

Rank and file atheists seem to be very keen on holding out for today’s scientific and historical data to be overturned by Star Trek theories of the future. But the more we study the good, scientific arguments for God’s existence, the harder it is for naturalism to account for it. I am talking about the origin of the universe, the cosmic fine-tuning, the habitability argument, the origin of life, the origin of phyla, scientific evidence for consciousness and free will (e.g. – mental effort) and so on. Not to mention other arguments like the moral argument and the minimal facts case for the resurrection of Jesus.

We have to decide on the data we have now. And the data we have now fits better with a theistic worldview than an atheistic worldview. I can imagine all kinds of data that would argue against Christian theism. Finding the bones of Jesus. The universe being eternal. Experimental evidence for the multiverse. A probable naturalistic scenario for the origin of life. Etc. Arguing against Christian theism is not hard, it just takes work. That’s why intelligent and informed atheists like Peter Millican and Austin Dacey can do it, but rank and file atheists want to talk about “I lack a belief in God” and “I can’t prove a universal negative”.

No one is asking atheists to prove anything, just as theists don’t prove anything. We are asking them to give logical arguments with premises that are supported by the evidence. And that’s what we expect theists to do, too. Once we have all the arguments and evidence on both sides, then people can decide for themselves. You don’t have to “prove” anything in a debate, you just have to state your case as persuasively as possible and the other side does the same, then people decide. Simple.

Positive arguments for Christian theism

Pastor Matt discusses his past experiences as an atheist – part 2

A long journey through the night
A long journey through the night

Here’s another post from Pastor Matt that I think offers some more helpful insight into how we should approach young people with Christianity. The point of this post is that relationships matter.

When I was attending North Hollywood High in the fall of 1990, there was a kid in one of my classes who often followed me on my walk home to my apartment off of Magnolia Boulevard.  He did the Four Spiritual Laws and Roman Road presentation.  He spoke about he and his family’s faith in Jesus and wanted to know if I would come with them to church.  But he never asked a single question about me personally.  I always declined his invitations and eventually he moved on to someone else.

I think that I do my best work away from the blog when I take on atheists or new Christians or Christians who want to grow one on one and focus on them for long periods of time. Sometimes, it’s talking to them on Skype. Sometimes, it’s rewards for doing well in school or in their Christian lives. But all the best work is done one on one. That’s when you really get a chance to get to know people and to care about them.

I think the most important thing you can tell a young Christian is to focus less on mere following of the rules. I always ask them more about making a plan for their lives that achieves something amazing for God’s kingdom, while still not breaking any of the rules. The following the rules is not the key thing to focus on. The key thing here is your relationship with God. So you should find out what needs doing, and just do it. If it’s intelligent design research, then do it. If it’s finding early NT manuscripts, then do it. If it’s working for the ADF defending religious liberty at the Supreme Court, then do it. If it’s becoming a Christian professor at a secular university, then do it. If it’s debating an atheist cosmologist, then do it. If it’s promoting the free market system which alleviates poverty, then do it. If it’s protecting democratic countries from aggression by being a soldier, then do it. Stop making Christianity a dull prison, and start making it a blank canvas for a masterpiece.

Pastor Matt discusses his past experiences as an atheist – part 1

A long journey through the night
A long journey through the night

Don’t worry, he was an atheist then, and now he’s pastor Matt, thanks to God’s grace.

In this post Pastor Matt talks about why he was once an atheist.

I am sometimes asked, by both skeptics and believers alike, why I was once an atheist and what convinced me to become a Christian.  I will answer the latter in another post but let me deal with the former now.

I am a “PK” or “preacher’s kid.”  My father served as the founding pastor of the largest church in southern Ohio.  It is a non-denominational, evangelical congregation that grew very quickly.

As a PK, I was privy to a lot of “inside information” and it was not encouraging.  I learned men and women who sang hymns with passion and shouted “Amen!” with gusto during the sermon were cheating on their spouse or on their taxes.

By the time I was a teenager I understood why those who called themselves Christians lived secret lives–they wanted to believe but really didn’t.  I understood because I became one of them.

I was an active member of an ’80′s evangelical youth group.  So, I rocked out to Stryper, had comedian Pat Hurley tapes and volunteered for the children’s ministry, which consisted of videotaping episodes of Superbook and The Flying House for the kids.  However, I actually seriously doubted if God even existed.

I was struggling with the normal sins of a teenager and begged for help in prayer.  I also petitioned God on a regular basis to feel His presence but that didn’t happen either.

I eventually came to the conclusion that Christianity simply didn’t work.  I declared myself an atheist at age fifteen and remained an unbeliever for the next ten years.

I ran away from home at age fifteen as well eventually making my way to Hollywood.  During those days I partied like it was 1999 (until 1997) and like Aldous Huxley is quoted as saying decades before, I came to not even want God to be real because even the possibility interfered with my desire to create my own morality.

Christianity is not something where you just profess it and suddenly you are automatically perfect. You get the gift of eternal life immediately by faith in Christ, but becoming more like Christ takes time. It’s easier to act consistently with the teachings of Christ if you have spent the time studying, practicing and growing as a Christian. You shouldn’t expect perfect behavior on day one – that is crazy. You should expect that as your beliefs become more solid, then your outward actions will change naturally. And often what you hear at home and in the church is not the best for finding truth through investigation and debate.

It would be terrible to have to put out “good” actions when you never settled the questions of what is true and how are we going to apply what is true in our own decisions. Sometimes, I think that young Christians face too much pressure to appear to be perfect when no one has been willing to help them work through the grounding for the behaviors they are expected to display. And I think a lot of the behaviors they are expected to display are either not important or not Biblical. Behaving like a  Christian should be natural – it should proceed from free inquiry, not dogmatism.

Now I’m skipping a lot, but here is his advice for people who were in his situation:

I’ll get to my conversion later but keep in mind: (1) just because a person attends a church, even if they are a PK, that he or she truly comprehends the Gospel because I didn’t a full understanding; (2) pastors need to constantly remind their parishioners that sin is easy and living for Christ is difficult because believers are part of a cosmic struggle; (3) the spiritual disciplines are invaluable especially so for young people; and (4) there are many solid arguments for the existence of God and few for materialism and all Christians deserve to know them.

I’ve spent some time mentoring young Christians who had fallen away for some period of  time, and I always make a point of asking them why. Their answer is usually something like this: “I knew that what I was doing was wrong, but I didn’t care because no one else cared.” The first thing to do with a person who is rebelling is to get in there and start to ask them questions and get involved in helping them to succeed in their lives. People do bad things because they feel that no one cares. So you better start caring for these young people, whether they are smart, dumb, pretty, ugly, poor, rich, popular, unpopular – it doesn’t matter. They all have souls, and they were all made to know God. Get in there and be real with them before they make a mess of their lives.

Are Latter Day Saints (LDS) doctrines supported by philosophy, science and history?

A conflict of worldviews
A conflict of worldviews

The scientific evidence

Philosophical problems

Now let’s see the historical evidence against Mormonism.

The historical evidence

The Book of Abraham papyri are not as old as claimed:

Further study

There is a very good podcast featuring J. Warner Wallace that summarizes some other theological problems with Mormonism that I blogged about before. And if you want a nice long PDF to print out and read at lunch (which is what I did with it) you can grab this PDF by Michael Licona, entitled “Behold, I Stand at the Door and Knock“.


Thursday, November 3, 2011

The followings are notes on all of the talks that I attended that I found important or interesting. In bold are the ideas that were discussed, and it follows with impressions and my interpretation of what they mean or represent to me. Please feel free to add or edit anything in here, or comment to make this a better understanding of keypoints of what it takes to be a good leader and awareness in becoming a better asset to the company.

Strive for perfection.
Always take pride in what you do, it is your work and it reflects you and the company. Follow what motivates you! And do it for yourself. It might be really understated the reminder to strive for perfection, but as artists and in the game industry we want to deliver an experience that is entertaining, visually pleasing and fun! All of this comes through our experience, and that experience comes from our motivation to make awesome and great games.

To have the curiosity to learn new tools, techniques and skills that makes us better at what we do. With our hard work we can inspire the team to achieve greatness. Influence the team by allowing them to see the game come together. That as a team you review the game and give out ideas in other disciplines as well. Don't be secluded to only your discipline, it will confine the game and it won't reach its potential. After all, we are all working together to make a game. Remember that your work reflects you as an individual and the company.

-Friends, Educators, Family
Inspiration comes in many ways, and are perceived differently by each of us. But it is equally important that we know where we find it, and to always be in the look out for it. Whether its a tutorial, or a movie, a good book, all of these ideas are what define our drive and clear our path to make great art in a video game.

We leaders need to be devoted and hard working people. We have to be selective on what we work on and who we work with. Knowing who you work with is really important, knowing their drive and work style. When you take this into consideration then you can plan schedules more efficiently and make sure people are working on things that they enjoy and will make the best with their efforts. But encourage people to expand their horizons and explore new things.

When facing a problem we look for solutions, and if we can't find one we make a solution with hard work and research. Understanding, Purity and Passion are keywords that define inspiration or where I find feelings that drive me to strive for greatness.

Always look at other peoples work. Learn from what they do and always be open listening to their experience. Ask questions. Devote yourself to the team and the project at hand, always making sure that you are moving forward towards the goal that is completion.

Not only is this open in the workplace, but understand that we live in a community, and we can learn from a lot of people. Get new ideas from other areas and to always look at the world with curious eyes. The world out there wants to be understood and explored, and just like our work, it grows and evolves with our attention to detail and hardworking mindset.

When you look at other people grow with your through work you get a sense of inspiration. Trying to become better yourself to not let the game and the rest of the team down. Polish your ideas and try to get a sense of what works best. There is a lot in this area that we should be aware, and always recognize other peoples work. Which brings me to the next point.

To be a good lead you need to earn respect through example. By making mostly right decisions that earn the trust of the team.

Scope control.
Collaboratively defining a Bad-ass Subjective Shifting Unknown. - job of the Art Director or Art Lead.

In the beginning things in a project are very blurry. Lots of unknowns, and most areas of discipline tend to overlap. It is the leader responsibility to make sure there is no line separating areas of the game, that all disciplines merge together and work together in harmony and that people have a sense of ownership.

When we work outside of our discipline we make sure that we are aware of other aspects that the game needs. The experience in the game is more rich, and therefore the game will be better. Also, you'll be more aware of the needs of the project and you will gain a lot of experience from it, making you more versatile and allowing you to influence the direction of the game.

We need to plan things out and react better to improve decisions made or problems that we face on the journey that is game development. Remember that iterations of something eat time. But with iteration we find polish and balance. We need to educate the team with the Goals of the project. I can't emphasize this enough. It is really important to make sure that the team is in the same wavelength. Understand the needs, the scope and time frame of the project so that people are not indulging in tools and tasks that might not be benefiting the project and only costing us precious time. Identify is really important, and always check for peoples impressions, we need to adapt to these, change and improve upon this feedback. With that said, focus on the core elements, get them right. Iterate and find balance and then polish on them. There is always time for polish, and if you build on that mindset you will find a better game experience overall and a solid product.

Things that need to take priority is the experience that the player has with the game. Is it fun? If its not fun, then how do we make it fun? And as a rule of thumb know that Design will always drive the game, not art or code. Design dictates if the game is fun to play, and art and code support both design and ultimately the game.

Focus on tech and tools.
This is really important. We need to build on our tools to make them better, and aid everyone (and I mean all disciplines) in the process of development to make things better and easier. If we have a tool that works it increases our production. It also means that we have a better and more clear understanding of the tech and therefore be able to produce better games using them. Tools compensate for manpower. Better tools means we don't have to use brute force to accomplish something, which then helps us make better schedules to use the assets at our disposal in a smart way.

Review work in-game, peer reviews, style sheets and documentation are really important to preserve consistency and substance in the work being done. Make sure that everything is documented so that people don't waste time asking questions that they can answer themselves through them. If artists have a clear idea, style and understanding of the objectives then the art will come together in a seamless way.

Artists need to have a tech heart. They need to get into the habit of understanding the tools that they use within the game. If we learn this then we can produce better work for such engine, or game sequence. If we don't work tends to become sloppy, and has to be revised a lot more often. So keep a tight ship, and know that ship so that you can exploit what it can do to the fullest.

We need to be passionate about the games that we make, but we need to be objective to the needs and listen to the team. This will bring the work to a new level that has better communication and less confusion. Specially when we are working with publishers and their needs.

Crystal clear, there needs to be boundaries and liberties, and being very specific about them will allow people to be more creative within the scope of a project and within the studio. If we are clear from the start, then we can make sure no time is wasted.

If something doesn't work we don't give up. We look for solutions, if no solution is available we understand the problem and make a solution. If a whole level doesn't work then we take it down, dissect it, take what works and rebuild it so that it works. Being persistent doesn't mean stubborn. We have to let go of our attachment to work and make sure that we are delivering something that is worthwhile. If we can do this, we grow a lot more and we can learn from it, giving us tools and skills that will always be there at our disposal.

People need to be comfortable with the work and the people around them. This brings motivation and it allows for creative freedom that makes better work.

Always respect the workplace, the people around you and the game. Everyone is different and sometimes see things in a different light. We should always listen, but we should be aware that there are decisions that have to be made, and knowing when to draw a line is really important as a lead. Doing so in a respectful ways will earn the trust of your teammates, and this will let the project keep moving forward.

Like I mentioned before, trust is really important. People need to believe in the progress and direction of the work. You want to make sure people are honest and you can trust in them to accomplish a task. To know the strengths and weaknesses so that you can work on them to make yourself a better asset, and help those around you by teaching or sharing experience with them.

Along the same lines of trust.

Allow people to have one on one conversations. Allowing information to flow, and ideas to reach other people. We are making a game together, and there should be a free flow of information. This more often that not helps innovation and evolution of projects.

Making sure that people work together, and the right people are working with each other makes for better production. People need to be on the same page and have the same mindset so that we are well aware of the needs and demands of a project. This will bring less surprises and less conflict. Unity is what gets a game done.

Love for the company and for the project. There needs to be a passion to create great things. We need to work towards a common goal and grow with it. Do our research and ignite that curiosity that makes us grow as individuals and as a team.

~Overall be smart and keep to the principle that games should be fun, and that everyone involved in the development of it works towards that same goal. Even when we have separate disciplines in the development cycle that should not stop us from being curious and exploring them. An artist that posses more knowledge on the process will become a better asset and stronger artist. Learn to read code when necessary, understand tools and teach them. Education is what makes teams stronger, and sharing that knowledge will benefit everyone in the long run.

Things to consider in the workplace and for the company in general.

Know your co-founders, it is the foundation and mindset of what to expect in the workplace.
This is pretty straight forward, we need to understand and realize who we work for. Be involved to invoke the community awareness within the company. Understanding who we work for and the mission statement and such help increase the motivation that people have within the studio. Making sure that you agree and feel drawn to the foundation will make sure you are happy within the studio.

Always check references when hiring.
Not only do we have to follow up on references, but we have to do our homework and make sure that the potential candidate has what it takes in his/her field, but also to be a match to the goal that we have. Making sure that only people that are motivated and bring a lot to the table with their personality, and not someone that creates conflict and has a hard time following direction, or work with the team towards the same goal of making a game. In a few words, someone that can work in a team, gets along with everyone and can produce more than being just a distraction. There needs to be discipline and the curiosity to work and strive for perfection.

Make the office feel like home.
People spend most of the day at the office, making the place comfortable will ensure that they are more productive, and that they are happy to come to work. Treat people well, and always ask for their opinion. Making games is FUN! So should the environment.

No comments:


FCE LTER Journal Articles

A once in 10 year drought alters the magnitude and quality of a floodplain prey subsidy to coastal river fishes

Disturbances that alter cross-habitat food web linkages can lead to whole-scale changes to aquatic systems. In coastal rivers of the Everglades (Florida, U.S.A.), increases in rainfall inundate adjacent floodplains, providing habitat for floodplain fish and macroinvertebrate species. In the dry season, rainfall decreases and floodplains dry, forcing floodplain prey into these river systems. These prey provide a prey subsidy for an estuarine predator, the common snook (Centropomus undecimalis). In 2011, severe drought impacted the region, likely affecting this prey subsidy. In this study, we ask (i) did the 2011 drought affect the magnitude and composition of floodplain prey subsidies to the common snook? and (ii) if species composition changed, were there energetic differences between the pre- and post-disturbance prey species? Results showed that 1 year after the drought, subsidies to the common snook decreased by 75%. On top of that decrease in overall flux, diet composition of the common snook switched from floodplain fishes to drought-tolerant floodplain macroinvertebrates. Lastly, energetic analyses showed that these postdrought macroinvertebrate prey subsidies had 43% less calories than floodplain fishes. Our findings illustrate the importance of considering not only the biomass that transfers from one food web to the next, but also how the species composition of the subsidy may affect incorporation into recipient food webs.

Published at www.nrcresearchpress.com/cjfas

DOI: 10.1139/cjfas-2015-0507

This document is currently not available here.


circulatory arrest

Also found in: Dictionary, Thesaurus, Encyclopedia.

cir·cu·la·to·ry ar·rest

1. cessation of the circulation of blood as a result of ventricular standstill or fibrillation.
2. intentional cessation of circulation by temporarily stopping cardiopulmonary bypass flow during certain thoracic aortic operations; used with intentional profound total-body hypothermia to protect vital organs.

pertaining to circulation.

circulatory arrest
see cardiac arrest.
circulatory collapse
shock; circulatory insufficiency without congestive heart failure.
circulatory failure
includes cardiac or central circulatory failure and peripheral circulatory failure. Although the mechanisms, causes and clinical syndromes are different the pathogenesis is the same, the circulatory system fails to maintain the supply of oxygen and other nutrients to the tissues and to remove the carbon dioxide and other metabolites from them. The failure may be hypovolemic, distributive.
circulatory response
changes in the cardiac and vascular functions in response to such factors as emotional stress, physical exercise, temperature change.
circulatory shock
see shock.
circulatory support
see extracorporeal circulation.
circulatory system
the major system concerned with the movement of blood and lymph; it consists of the heart and blood vessels. The circulatory system transports to the tissues and organs of the body the oxygen, nutritive substances, immune substances, hormones and chemicals necessary for normal function and activities; it also carries away waste products and carbon dioxide. It helps to regulate body temperature and helps maintain normal water and electrolyte balance.
The rate of blood flow through the vessels depends upon several factors: force of the heartbeat, rate of the heartbeat, venous return and control of the arterioles and capillaries by chemical, neural and thermal stimuli.
References in periodicals archive ?
Totally normothermic aortic arch replacement without circulatory arrest.
Clancy said the benefits seen in this study may result from the drug's ability to scavenge or inhibit the production of oxygen free radicals, tissue-damaging chemicals produced during circulatory arrest.
The combination of Argonne's ice/water-based slurry with BioTime's HetaCool([R]) technology, if further developed, integrated, and brought through human clinical testing may thereby improve outcomes and potentially save lives, which now are forfeited to the consequences of circulatory arrest and trauma.
The goal of the BioTime research project is to use HetaCool to increase the time during which a patient may be maintained in hypothermic cardiac and circulatory arrest during surgery.
We are trying to provide surgeons with products that will give them the additional time needed to perform complex surgical procedures that require cardiac and circulatory arrest.
Research on circulatory arrest on children was conducted at the Fuwai Cardiovascular Institute, Beijing, PR China.
Letsou, of the University of Texas Medical Center's Department of Cardiothoracic and Vascular Surgery, presented a series of canine experiments involving the revival and long term survival of dogs after two hours of hypothermic circulatory arrest.
In one set of experiments, replacing all the circulating blood at near-freezing body temperatures allowed recovery even after extended periods of cardiac and circulatory arrest in a variety of animals from rodents to primates.
In surgeries of this type, patients are often chilled to temperatures cold enough to sufficiently reduce their metabolic rate and oxygen needs to a level that will permit periods of cardiac and circulatory arrest necessary for such vascular repairs.
Hal Sternberg, BioTime research vice president, revived five hamsters following extended periods of cardiac and circulatory arrest.
Reperfusion injury can occur after open heart surgery requiring cardiopulmonary bypass and circulatory arrest, organ transplantation, severe trauma or stroke.


The project provided Sida information about anti-corruption strategies and analytical tools of various donor and multilateral organisations. It also supported the line organisation in developing and applying approaches and methods that aided Sida in: transitioning from a project based approach to a program approach, introducing a rating system, improving efforts to combat corruption and increasing capacity development.


Previous Page

Is It Plagiarism Yet?

There are some actions that can almost unquestionably be labeled plagiarism. Some of these include buying, stealing, or borrowing a paper (including, of course, copying an entire paper or article from the Web); hiring someone to write your paper for you; and copying large sections of text from a source without quotation marks or proper citation.

But then there are actions that are usually in more of a gray area. Some of these include using the words of a source too closely when paraphrasing (where quotation marks should have been used) or building on someone's ideas without citing their spoken or written work. Sometimes teachers suspecting students of plagiarism will consider the students' intent, and whether it appeared the student was deliberately trying to make ideas of others appear to be his or her own.

However, other teachers and administrators may not distinguish between deliberate and accidental plagiarism. So let's look at some strategies for avoiding even suspicion of plagiarism in the first place

When Do We Give Credit?

The key to avoiding plagiarism is to make sure you give credit where it is due. This may be credit for something somebody said, wrote, emailed, drew, or implied. Many professional organizations, including the Modern Language Association and the American Psychological Association, have lengthy guidelines for citing sources. However, students are often so busy trying to learn the rules of MLA format and style or APA format and style that they sometimes forget exactly what needs to be credited. Here, then, is a brief list of what needs to be credited or documented:

  • When you copy the exact words or a unique phrase

Bottom line, document any words, ideas, or other productions that originate somewhere outside of you.

  • Writing your own lived experiences, your own observations and insights, your own thoughts, and your own conclusions about a subject
  • When you are writing up your own results obtained through lab or field experiments
  • When you use your own artwork, digital photographs, video, audio, etc.
  • When you are using "common knowledge," things like folklore, common sense observations, myths, urban legends, and historical events (but not historical documents)
  • When you are using generally-accepted facts, e.g., pollution is bad for the environment, including facts that are accepted within particular discourse communities, e.g., in the field of composition studies, "writing is a process" is a generally-accepted fact.

Deciding if Something is Common Knowledge

Generally speaking, you can regard something as common knowledge if you find the same information undocumented in at least five credible sources. Additionally, it might be common knowledge if you think the information you're presenting is something your readers will already know, or something that a person could easily find in general reference sources. But when in doubt, cite; if the citation turns out to be unnecessary, your teacher or editor will tell you.

Other Pages in This Section :

  • Safe Practices against Plagiarism : Here are certain practices that can help you not only avoid plagiarism.

  • English Writing Resources| Plagiarism to HOME PAGE

    Follow These Links!


Limited series of 10 & 20 pieces
Carte blanche given to Lyndie Dourthe – 2016

Lyndie Dourthe reinterprets the hybrid characters conversing in a boudoir, originally created by Rachel Convers for a collection of serving trays.

Displayed like a collection of butterflies in wooden boxes, they are glorified by their new surroundings filled with pinned insects and delicate colored paper flower garlands.

Infused with a little botany, a touch of voodoo, some plant anatomy and a zest of superstition, the Lyndie Dourthe workshop is a cabinet of tiny curiosities.

Confined in her lightweight fabric and paper-filled laboratory, the perseverant hunter, passionate explorer, and unrelenting worker, transforms everything into unique and precious jewelry. Just like naturalists, she has a habit of collecting things: filed, sorted, labeled, and carefully stored in countless boxes, her little treasures become the elements of a collection. But Lyndie also has a talent for telling stories: her pieces are like charms that bring you one step closer to a talisman-like world, while conveying childlike fantasies and evoking plant structures with a certain disarming casualness.

Grace, finesse and sensuality are also in her nature. Considered as an unparalleled colorist, she extracts the most delicate shades of colors from nature and sprinkles them onto flowers and their bulbs. Throughout the year, like a fairy of seasons, she dreams up new specimens of plants, animals, hybrids and germinations inspired from grimoires and horticultural experiences.

Why did you want to meet ?

Rachel : We both have tremendous mutual respect for each other’s creative talent!

I followed Lyndie’s work for years before finally getting in touch with her. In fact, I even own a few of her creations!

I had been longing to collaborate with her on a project. Working together was also an opportunity for us to get to know each other and exchange views on our similar sources of inspiration.

Lyndie : I immediately fell in love with this unique collaboration that consisted in revisiting a part of Ibride’s iconography, in my own way.

Rachel and I share a passion for 19th century pictorial art so I naturally chose to work on the Boudoir characters.

I decided to keep each portrait’s medallion shape, while adding a plant-like feel to them. A paper cutout of a small climbing plant emerges from their hand, wraps itself around our two protagonists and adorns small insect boxes in which I have also pinned flies and beetles.

Lastly, in order to remain true to my work as a curious observant, I have numbered each box from 1 to 10 or 20.

Each piece is thus enriched with a peculiar new story…


Failure to diagnose meningitis 2016-10-20T14:28:57+00:00

Failure to Diagnose Meningitis

Meningitis is a very serious disease with grave implications if not identified and treated quickly, so early diagnosis is essential.

Helping people affected by NHS Negligence. Call us today for free impartial advice.

Meningitis is caused by either a virus or bacteria, which infects the spinal fluid and leads to inflammation of the brain. This can lead to the death of the patient, permanent brain damage or disability and is particularly dangerous for babies and young children. The bacterial form of meningitis is the most dangerous and requires immediate medical care.

Given the Need to Treat Meningitis as Soon as Possible, This Failure Can Have Tragic Effects

The early symptoms of meningitis include pain in the muscles, joints or limbs, unusually cold hands and feet, or shivering and pale or blotchy skin and blue lips. These may be accompanied by a fever, headache vomiting and a blotchy red body rash which does not turn white to the touch. Later stage can include neck stiffness, photophobia and confusion.

Symptoms in babies often vary from those in adults and include vomiting, drowsiness or floppiness, irritability and a refusal to feed. They may also develop a swelling in the front of the head and a ‘staring expression’.

Unfortunately, it is all too common for medical professionals to mistake these symptoms for other, less serious, conditions. Given the need to treat meningitis as soon as possible, this failure can have tragic effects.

Can you make a claim?

Call for a free no obligation chat with our specialist malpractice lawyers

NAME (required)

EMAIL (required)

PHONE (required)

Please leave this field empty.

Your Message


Canvas Wrap

Before we go through the methods of canvas wrapping used during canvas print production, we should mention the methods of canvas stretching.

For a long time the main method of canvas stretching was «museum type», which is when a canvas is fastened to the stretcher with iron cramps on the sides. The canvas wasn’t fastened to the back of the stretcher since it was covered by a frame.

Currently, the most frequently used method of stretching is called «gallery type». This is when a canvas is fastened with iron cramps on the back of the stretcher. This method of stretching means that iron cramps on canvas prints do not attract attention the way they would with the museum method of stretching.

Back side of the stretched canvas print

There are various styles of wrapping butts of a stretcher (i.e., the part of the canvas that covers the stretcher on the side). These styles are listed below, beginning with the most popular style and ending with the least popular:

1. Image extension: This is the most popular style of wrapping as it allows the canvas print to match the interior of a room. Image extensions means that the side sections of the canvas do not stand out when you’re viewing it.

Gallery wrap

But this method has one drawback — the part of the image that covers the stretcher is not visible when viewed from the front. Therefore, if key details of a photo are located near the edges, a different type of wrapping should be used instead. This method is temporarily absent in our online editor, but we will implement it soon.

2. Mirror reflection of a part of the image is equal to the thickness of the stretcher:

Mirror image wrap

You should be careful when using this method and check whether any clear figures, faces, etc. are not located within the reflected area. But there are also advantages since the most aesthetically pleasing wrapping could be achieved, therefore creating an impression of a natural extension of the photo.

3. White, black, or other colors:

White color wrap

When a white wrapping is selected, you are actually choosing no wrapping. That is, the stretcher is only covered by the canvas.

Custom color wrap

This method is ideal if the image has a uniform background or a dominating color.

4. Blurring of the image boundaries: In this case, the edges of the image are stretched and blurred in order to achieve an impression of a gradual extension of the image.

Blur extrusion wrap

Whatever method you choose, we recommend that you view the canvas print with other wrapping methods applied, as you may discover that the method you original chose might not be ideal.

Each picture is unique, which is why there might not be only one solution for each picture.

All types of canvas wrappings are available in our functional online configurator. We are always willing to make your preferred type of wrapping. Start by searching for a suitable image. The main categories can be found on the home page of the Miracle Canvas store.


Aregbesola Plans To Replace ‘Sacked Medical Doctors’ With Native Doctors, PDP Alleges

0 12

The Osun state chapter of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP), has alleged plans by the state governor, Rauf Aregbesola, to replace the striking medical doctors with native doctors and traditional healers.

The party, in a statement issued in Osogbo by its spokesperson, Prince Diran Odeyemi, on Sunday, revealed that Governor Aregbesola’s reason for the replacement was due to his personal belief in a tradition he called “Isese.”

You will recall that on Friday, the state government had said the striking doctors have automatically sacked themselves for abandoning their duty posts for six months.

The state government said that it was invoking the civil service rule that says whoever shuns his or her duty post for a certain period is considered to have resigned.

However, the PDP, while condemning the sack, described the action as another “outstanding misstep from the slumbering administration of Governor Rauf Aregbesola.”

The statement said, “We have been authoritatively informed that Governor Aregbesola’s intention is to replace sacked medical doctors with native doctors and traditional healers because of his personal believe in tradition he called “Isese”.

“Now that all the ill-conceived measures to cow the doctors have failed and the Plan “B” of replacing them with new intakes had been frustrated by the Nigeria Medical Association, NMA, Governor Aregbesola, wants to experiment with the use of native doctors.

“Governor Aregbesola has a rich history of odd actions all in a bid to be “unique”. If a governor could unilaterally change the education system in Osun from the 6-3-3-4 operating across the country to 4-6-3 by recategorising primary and secondary schools in the state to Elementary, Middle and High Schools, then his plans to replace orthodox medical doctors with native doctors in this modern age cannot be dismissed with a wave of hand.

“It is truly depressing that once shining light among states of the federation could be reduced to the least in every aspect that is noble in the space of five years. Osun in the last WAEC rating was 29th and least in entire South West of Nigeria. In 2010, this same state was 9th in the entire country according to WAEC rating.

“Despite the fact that this and many actions of the present administration left sour taste in the mouth, all stakeholders in the affairs of Osun must not give up. They should rise up against the continued misdemeanor being dressed as governance in Osun state.”


Justin Trudeau’s Surprising Ascent

Liberal Party leader Justin Trudeau campaigning with former Prime Minister Paul Martin in August.

photograph by Steve Russell/Toronto Star via Getty

For nearly a decade, Canadian Prime Minister Stephen Harper has confounded many observers’ view of Canada as an open and pluralistic society with an idealistic global face. Its perceived sins have included opposing abortion funding in developing countries, stridently backing Israel, and oil-drenched climate villainy. Its diplomatic posture has at times been belligerent, and even militaristic. To some, the country has come to seem practically un-Canadian.

Harper, who has led the Conservative Party (and its antecedent) since 2002, called this year’s election earlier than expected, in early August, setting the date as this Monday, October 19th. His gamble with the long campaign—it will be more than double the length of the previous two—was that the Conservatives could use their considerable fundraising advantage to beat back the threat posed by the traditionally progressive New Democratic Party, led by Thomas Mulcair, which held just under a third of the three hundred and eight seats in Parliament at dissolution, and the Liberal Party, led by Justin Trudeau, which had barely a tenth. At the outset, the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation’s poll average showed the Conservatives and N.D.P. in a dead heat, with the Liberals five points back. Since then, the campaign has wound through stretches of scandal (the fraud trial of a Conservative senator), sorrow (the publication of a photo of a Syrian toddler who died en route to Europe, and whose family had hoped to immigrate to Canada), more scandal (the departures of candidates and apparatchik from several parties, most memorably a former repairman who’d been filmed peeing in a client’s coffee mug), and xenophobia (by the Conservatives, following a court decision allowing women to wear the niqab during citizenship ceremonies).

Toward the end of September, the polls began a shift that has crystallized in the campaign’s final days. The N.D.P.’s support began to plummet, and the Liberals, who were decimated in the last election, in 2011, under Michael Ignatieff, began to vie with the Conservatives for the lead. In the past week, the Liberals have jumped ahead, and they now sit above thirty-five per cent, four and a half points clear of the Conservatives and twelve ahead of the N.D.P. A substantial contingent of Canadians will vote for whomever offers the best chance to defeat Harper, and that bloc appears to be coalescing behind Justin Trudeau, who was feeling confident enough this week that he asked voters to give the Liberals a majority.

A Liberal victory would be an operatic turn in a long-running Canadian psychodrama. No leader played as great a role in fostering the perception of a pluralistic and idealistic Canada than Justin Trudeau’s father, Pierre, who was Prime Minister for the better part of sixteen years, starting in 1968. Canada officially adopted bilingualism and multiculturalism during his tenure, forerunners to his crowning achievement: the patriation, in 1982, of the Constitution, which ended the U.K.’s legislative power over the country and included passage of the Charter of Rights and Freedoms, a bill of political and civil rights. (A 2012 study published in the New York University Law Review found that the Charter is now the constitutional document most emulated by other countries.) Trudeau, a self-confident public intellectual, was also among the most galvanizing leaders that Canada has had. Writing in The New Yorker in 1969, Edith Iglauer described the elder Trudeau’s maiden election campaign as Liberal leader: “His every quip made the headlines, and he was photographed dancing in the streets and kissing his way across the country…. Trudeau’s charm produced a nationwide reaction so powerful that it was given a name of its own—‘Trudeaumania.’ ”

This mania had its depressive counterpart, which came to the fore when oil prices crashed in the early eighties, the pain exacerbated by an ill-conceived federal energy policy passed in 1980. The oil-producing West, in particular, blamed Trudeau and the Liberals for the fallout. Harper, who grew up in Toronto, had arrived in Edmonton, Alberta, in 1978 to work in the computer room at Imperial Oil. Within a few years, he had taken to the province’s anti-establishment political religion with a convert’s zeal, helping to birth a new party that later comprised the base of a reformed Conservative Party. In 2000, after Pierre Trudeau died, Harper wrote a Hitchens-esque scourging of the dead in the National Post. “Under his stewardship, the country created huge deficits, a mammoth national debt, high taxes, bloated bureaucracy, rising unemployment, record inflation, curtailed trade and declining competitiveness. From these consequences we have still not fully recovered,” he wrote. “He continues to define the myths that guide the Canadian psyche, but myths they are.”

Harper’s politics, with their focus on the resource economy, security, and socially conservative values, formed very much in reaction to Trudeau, and they have resonated in the West and in rural areas, as well as among fiscal conservatives and some immigrant communities. His supporters frequently diagnose his most ardent opponents with Harper Derangement Syndrome, which, in its most acute form, manifests as a compulsive need to compare Harper’s policies to those of George W. Bush. Those parallels have in fact hit close to the mark at times, for example when the Conservatives sent Canadian special forces to serve as advisers in Iraq, and in the wake of last fall’s terrorist attack on Parliament, when they passed Bill C-51, a draconian security law that took up the sorry torch of the Patriot Act. “Harper Derangement Syndrome” was itself borrowed from the rhetorical wars of the Bush era, which made it an especially apt taunt, and one that highlighted Canada’s comparable divisions.

Justin Trudeau initially seemed like an improbable challenger to Harper’s legacy, and an improbable heir to his father’s. His protracted path to the Liberal leadership began with a florid televised eulogy for Pierre Trudeau, and took him from teaching to engineering school to nonprofit work to a seat in the House of Commons. Since he became the Liberal leader, in 2013, the Conservatives have been trying to tar him as too callow to be Prime Minister. At first, the strategy seemed to work, especially as Trudeau announced his support for the legalization and regulation of marijuana, and made off-the-cuff remarks that came off at times as juvenile. Responding last year to the proposed escalation of Canada’s involvement in the bombing campaign against ISIS, for example, he accused Harper of “trying to whip out our CF-18s and show them how big they are.”

During the campaign, though, Trudeau has confronted attack ads declaring him “Just Not Ready” with upbeat and effective “I am rubber/You are glue”–style spots—part of a strategy meant to contrast him with Mulcair, whose temper is notorious and who ran alternately too hot and too cold in debates, and Harper, whose petrocratic persona typically breaks only when he’s watching hockey or singing Beatles tunes to Benjamin Netanyahu. He has also displayed some of his father’s charisma. In a profile of Trudeau for the Globe and Mail, Ian Brown writes, “His talent for face-to-face connection is beyond words and logic, which may be why his opponents, Tutting Tom and Strapped-In Stephen, who can’t manage it as effectively, mock him so viciously in public.”

Then there’s the vision question. Trudeau undoubtedly shares many of his father’s most deeply felt ideals, and his rhetoric has been marked by principled stands that have at times seemed strategically ill-advised. With Canada in a mild recession, he has said that a Liberal government will incur a deficit in order to fund infrastructure. He has mostly stuck by the Liberals’ vote in favor of Bill C-51 (though they now say they will revise the law). And, on Charter grounds, he has criticized Harper’s stance on the niqab, despite government polls indicating that most Canadians side with the Prime Minister. These positions all stood to cost Trudeau politically, but they seem instead to have conveyed to many Canadians that he might be a genuine leader.

Of course, the Conservatives, or even the N.D.P., may yet prove the polls wrong, abetted by a new scandal that emerged on Wednesday, when a Liberal campaign co-chair stepped down because he was revealed to be moonlighting as a lobbyist. But as Paul Wells of Maclean’s, Canada’s foremost Harperologist, has suggested, the obsession with the Trudeau name that propelled Harper’s ascent might now portend his decline. “In the last two years, Harper has neither amended his diagnosis of Pierre Trudeau nor drawn any substantive distinction between father and son. He seems to reserve the darkest corner of his political passion for Justin Trudeau,” Wells wrote this week. “Again and again, it has distorted Harper’s once-formidable judgment until now, when he is running with gadgets and sound effects against a man he once dismissed as a drama teacher.”

Should the Liberals win, Harper would almost certainly resign. For many inside and outside the country, that alone would be enough to make Canada feel a bit more Canadian again. The Conservative base, absent the passionate countervision of its leader, would be left to hope that Justin Trudeau doesn’t revisit what it sees as his father’s sins.


House prices in Church Gardens, York YO30 6FJ

What's the average house price in YO30 6FJ?

The average price for property in YO30 6FJ stood at £262,158 in September 2017. This is a fall of 0.08% in the last three months (since June 2017) and rise of 1.67% since 12 months ago. In terms of property types, flats in YO30 6FJ sold for an average of £211,687 and terraced houses for £226,266. This is according to the current Zoopla estimates.

Are you interested in?


Engineering Reference — EnergyPlus 8.3

<< Prev | Table of Contents | Next >>

Plant Load Profile[LINK]

The LoadProfile:Plant object is used to simulate a scheduled demand profile. This can be useful when the building loads are already known. Demanded load and flow rate are schedules specified in the object definition. The load profile can specify heating and cooling loads. Cooling loads are entered as negative numbers. The actual load met is dependent on the performance of the supply loop components.

The LoadProfile:Plant object must be connected on the demand side of the plant loop. If desired, multiple LoadProfile:Plant objects can be combined in series and/or parallel.

Calculation Model[LINK]

The LoadProfile:Plant object calculates the outlet water temperature based on the inlet water temperature from the plant loop and user inputs for the scheduled plant load and the requested flow rate. The calculation can be expressed with the equation:

Tout = the outlet water temperature

Tin = the inlet water temperature

Qload = the scheduled plant load

˙m = the water mass flow rate

cp = the specific heat of water

The user requested flow rate is not always available from the plant loop. The actual flow rate used in the calculation is the lesser of the user requested value and the plant available value.

Note that the LoadProfile:Plant object can still request and receive flow even if the scheduled plant load is zero. In this case the outlet temperature will be the same as the inlet temperature. This allows users to drive the plant loop flow without necessarily affecting the loop temperature.

For reporting purposes the energy consumption of the object is calculated using the equation:

E = the energy consumption

Qload = the scheduled plant load

Δt = the time step interval


Physical Description: 45 Tomus appears to be a man of medium height, but somewhat odd proportions for a rokugani (broader shoulders than normal, slightly longer legs). In public he is always overly demure, and tends to shy away from direct eye contact.

When approached, Tomus seems like a mildly retarded man who speaks very slowly and simply, but from a distance he may be seen speaking very quickly and animatedly, and observed to be working on architectural drawings.

L5R - Great Stone Bridge esteban1013


"High Stakes" Assessments Fail to Deliver

I felt very fortunate to recently hear a presentation from Margaret Wu, an internationally respected authority on educational assessment. If only the National Government had sought her advice before embarking on the ideological nonsense that formed the basis of their National Standards, then we may not be dealing with our current mess.

Margaret's quietly authoritative style and conclusions based on a distinguished career in educational research effectively exposed the myths that form the basis and justification for the National Standards.

Myth Number One: New Zealand's long tail of underachievement can be addressed principally by raising the quality of teaching.

Given that New Zealand is already ranked in the top five of education systems internationally it was always going to be difficult to significantly improve an already strong system. Margaret made the enormity of that claim even more ridiculous by presenting the determining factors for any child's academic attainment. When all factors are accounted for; family income, ethnicity or culture, past experiences etc - the influence of a teacher is only 10% of all determiners. With the current consultation on the government's Green Paper for Vulnerable Children, most people are beginning to realize where our attentions should really be aimed. To claim, as the government has, that failing children are the result of a failing education system and poor teaching is highly misleading and patently untrue.

Myth Number Two: National Standards will provide the Ministry with useful data to identify failing schools.

Margaret explained how any raw data provides little information on causes and any attempts to correlate data can be misleading. She gave the example that when there are increases in ice cream sales there are always similar increases in crime, the real relationship between the statistics is that warm weather contributes to the increases in both and there is no direct correlation. Margaret explained how the differences in achievement between schools are more likely to be related to income inequities between communities than school performance.

The fact that the majority of New Zealand schools have just over 100 pupils or less is problematic because the numbers are too small to draw useful conclusions on school performance. I recently taught in a rural school that suffered from the transient nature of the dairy workforce. On "Gypsy Day" the school could easily find 25% of the children would change and only around 50% of any class would have pupils who had been in the school for most of their education. To use achievement data in these schools to assess school performance ignores the small amount of influence a school may have on some children's learning.

The existing qualitative assessments provided by ERO  are already able to identify struggling schools better than National Standards will ever do. The National Educational Monitoring Project (NEMP) also provides high quality research that looks at the strengths and weaknesses of current teaching practice in each learning area in a more practical way than National Standards ever could.

Myth Number Three: The creation of league tables from the National Standards data will help parents choose the best school for their child and provide assurances regarding their school's performance.

Margaret was adamant that conclusions drawn from raw data, without qualitative support, have very little value. Parent communities will not be able draw any accurate conclusions from such comparisons to usefully guide their choice of a school because their ability to interpret the data will be limited.

Myth Number Four: National Standards will force schools to lift their performance, especially when the data will enable comparisons between schools and create competition.

Margaret called this scenario "high stakes assessment" and claimed it created data that was not reliable. Even with the best of intentions and professionalism there will be a temptation for teachers and schools to slant their results more positively than what may be the reality. If a teacher was asked to assess a child to determine what level of support they may need to assist their learning, then that assessment is more likely to be focussed on the child's needs. If you asked a teacher to assess a child's attainment so that the assessment will be used to determine their ability as a teacher and to help rate the school, the focus has shifted from meeting the child's needs to something completely different. The accuracy of teacher judgements would understandably vary greatly depending on other pressures and expectations being placed on individual teachers and each school.

Myth Number Five: National Standards will lift child attainment because of their "aspirational" settings that are above current norm-referenced assessments.

Overseas research has found that National Standards systems did produce a short term lift in achievement, but Margaret noted that such leaps in achievement, especially in "value added" models are unsustainable. Children do not continue to make huge leaps in their learning year after year. Also, unless the other factors contributing to the tail of under achievement are addressed, any broad improvements in the education system may lift all attainment slightly but the spread of achievement will remain the same.

Myth Number Six: The publishing of each school's National Standards data will just highlight the results of demographic groups and the privacy of individual students is assured.

Margaret did not directly comment on this except to refer to the difficulties of assessing the performance of small schools where pupil numbers are not enough to allow for any accuracy in conclusions. The concern from schools and teachers from any public release of the data is that even though children aren't identified by name it will still be easy for school communities to identify the results of individual children. Now that schools have been told to report on the achievement of all children, if they have only one child with an established disability their scores could be easily identified from amongst all the others. Similarly if the results of Maori or Pasifika children are highlighted and there are only a few of these children in a school it would be relatively easy to attribute individual scores to the child. This is a highly unethical situation.

I found Margret's presentation and her answers to our questions hugely valuable, many of her conclusions were not new, but the fact she could express them so succinctly and support them with valid research was very useful. It is hugely frustrating that such useful knowledge and our own academics are still being ignored by the National Government as it continues to implement this highly flawed assessment system.

A recent meeting of NZEI Te Riu Roa with the new CEO of our Education Ministry made it very clear what level of engagement the profession will have regarding any changes over the next three years. Under the new regime teacher organisations only exist to represent teachers on industrial matters and will not be consulted regarding professional issues. The government has already indicated that there are too many people in the Ministry with links to NZEI (through their teaching backgrounds) and their influence needs to be reduced. I was recently talking to someone who had just left the Ministry and she described an obvious culture change as those with bureaucratic and administration backgrounds were replacing those who had always worked in education.

I can see another three years under a National Government being a very challenging one for our quality public education system, or even maintaining the quality we currently have. One of the biggest concerns for most of us who work in education is the narrowing of the curriculum due the Standard's unhealthy focus on literacy and numeracy.

Popular Posts


Forty Intruders Solitaire – A little of Understand how

The necessities to perform forty robbers solitaire match are simply 8 foundations as well as two packs of cards as all to which it starts off by having an Ace. The gamer builds up foundation in sets by altering cards, just one card in a time which is made up of 10 stacks to generate a set in free solitaire downward purchase or might even instantly enjoy by piling playing cards over the basic principles. The varied attribute is usually that the gamer might location whichever card they needs on every space. In see in the truth that its intend will be to have each solitary a person within the base, the 40 intruders solitaire match is done once the gamer has exhausted all sets of playing cards and isn’t victorious in putting the many cards over the base.

Forty intruders Solitaire can be a well known and aged activity which was played by a few of the globes well-known people today. In the beginning, the gamer bargains the complete set of cards, the right way named 40 burglars in 10 sets with all of their pics perceptible. The remaining cards are available from the form of stockpile and twisted over one in a time over the squander pile. It’s an important basis however having a quantity of dissimilarity with relatively modified restrictions to create them quicker to triumph. For that kinds who’re fascinated with forty burglars Solitaire and people that are approximately confront, there are actually quite a few Net websites that proffer the 40 thieves solitaire and affiliated editions. They could get on the net or may even obtain them to participate in at their advantage and possess time.

You can find elementary techniques which the gamer can benefit from to generally be successful at 40 robbers solitaire. The gamer requires building decrease rank cards available as they require about to the bottom ahead of the other folks. Keep away from casing them just as much as possible. Produce vacant piles so that you will be able to very clear up the prevailing card piles and disclose the other cards. This can be built uncomplicated with the forty thieves’ solitaire video game which allows the gamer to place the demanded card to the vacant piles. Even though they are doing this they involve being vigilant with putting the vacant files as they is usually used to draw to a shut a variety of actions. The very important law is often is stodgying the vacant piles when it is actually crucial.

The opposite approach that may be utilized is always to safeguard singletons considering that it can be simpler to change them as similar to shifting a whole established of cards. This will enable the gamer to easily reach the playing cards that happen to be beneath them. Now there might be split-piles also, the gamer calls for for being cautious to not put in cards on to these piles mainly because it will impede them from which makes it challenging to perform mutually sections with the divide builds to the base abruptly. So don’t forget these procedures when you perform.


Your Attitude Determines Others’ Attitude Towards You

If you ever asked yourself why others behaved rude or unpleasant with you at a given moment, there is a simple answer: your own attitude determined their behavior. I see this every day, when I watch my son (one year and five months old) playing with other children. If one of them is shy, then my son will dominate and rule their interaction. If there is one of them bold (usually being older than my son), then my son will be more cautious and less rude with him.

There are studies which show that depressed, anxious children are more likely to be bullied. This prove the idea that your attitude, behavior determine others’ attitude and behavior towards you.

Each of us is a good psychologist when it comes to read others’ attitude and inner & outer power. Even a little boy can see if a peer is stronger than him or not. But not each of us is a good psychologist when it comes to implement and practice a certain attitude or behavior. You may notice and even be conscious what kind of attitude do you need in order to obtain something from others, but you may have problems to implement it in your daily life.

There is a simple and efficient solution. It is called “as if” attitude. This means that you can behave in a certain way, even if in reality (daily) you don’t behave so. If you think that a certain attitude or behavior may have good results for you, it is a good choice to try this in your daily life, in the form of “as if” attitude.

The philosophy of “as if” is especially pertinent for constructivist psychotherapy. Rather than seeing people’s personalities as hard-wired in some kind of essential way, personal construct therapists employing fixed-role therapy encourage an “as if” approach. For example, a client who identifies as “shy” might be asked to act out the role of a “gregarious” person for a few weeks; that is, the client lives “as if” he or she was more outgoing in order to see what ensues. By acting “as if” he or she is more outgoing, the client experiments with new ways of behaving and anticipating life, which often leads to positive therapeutic change. While the logic of ‘as if’ has been mostly applied in the realm of psychotherapy, it can easily be generalized to just about any area of human inquiry, making it a key concept in personal construct psychology specifically and constructivism more generally.

Philosophy of “as if”

“As if” attitude cause two results: one is that practicing an external attitude for an enough long time, it may become an inner and authentic attitude; other one is that you can consciously and voluntarily determine others’ behavior towards you.


Are You A Distracted Executive? 5 questions you can ask yourself to see how focused you are at work these days

Are You A Distracted Executive?<br /> 5 questions you can ask yourself to see how focused you are at work these days

But under the surface, Adam is today's quintessential distracted executive. He is anxiety ridden much of the time. He sleeps with his phone and wakes several times a night; checking his email afraid that something has fallen through the cracks. His voicemail piles up incessantly, and he can hardly bear listening to his messages for fear of adding more to his already untenable to-do list.

Another challenge to Adam’s productivity is the amount of meetings he must sit through each day. After speaking with him for the first time, I quickly calculated the number of hours he spent away from his desk, and came to the conclusion that a startling 70% of his day is taken up by non-negotiable meetings. True story! These meetings are often surprisingly vital and exciting and produce amazing ideas. But when 70% of Adam’s time is taken up by meetings, it means that he has 30% of his time leftover to execute on 100%. And while Adam is at the meetings, demands are piling up. Emails, voice mails and questions from his assistant ... you get the idea. He never quite feels complete or caught up no matter how many hours he logs in. It’s easy to understand why he feels out of whack much of the time.

See if you identify:

  1. Do you always know that there are many things you have to do today, but you find yourself fumbling from one to the other instead of having a plan of action?
  2. Do you feel that things are constantly flying in all directions, and you have no clue how you'll have the time to focus and prepare for your next meeting?
  3. Do you find that it is really hard to get back on track once you are interrupted or distracted from the task you are working on?
  4. Do you avoid making to-do lists because you don't know where or when to write them?
  5. Does managing everyday tasks - returning emails, calls, preparing for meetings - feel like it is going to push you over the edge some days?

I am committed to helping people who feel just like you!

Please reach out for a free 10 minute consultation if you are ready to not live like this anymore.

There are solutions and simple strategies that really work! Ironic as it is, sometimes pain is the best motivator of all.

Have a productive day! Coach Nancy


Robin Lynn Griffith joins me in this episode to talk about death and dying. Both of us are called to minister to the dying and while, for the two of us, this is a normal process, for most people in our culture, death is something you just don’t talk about. Why does our society tend to try and banish the idea of death? Why are we so afraid of something that is inevitable? Are we doing a disservice if we don’t allow someone to really grieve in their own way or telling people to just “get over” their grief? When does one’s grief need more professional help? Should we be talking a lot more about end of life issues than we currently do?

Robin Lynn Griffith is a Spiritual Woman, a Clergywoman, a Fire Dancer, A Priestess of Queen Isis, an Herbalist, and a Grandmother.  Robin’s personal, spiritual, and professional experiences provide for her to be a conscious, aware, and mindful End of Life Midwife or Doula.

Robin lives in the San Francisco Bay Area of California and has been active in her local Spiritual and Religious Communities for well over 18 years. She has a vast network of community and many valuable resources at her fingertips.

As a Spiritual woman, and a successful Coach, she has supported individuals, family, and friends as they find themselves facing sacred moments in a person’s earth journey.
Leveraging song, stories, simple Presence, honorable rituals, and intimate connection Robin hopes to provide her clients with openings for Love, Peace, Empowerment, Release, and Forgiveness.

Kaiser Santa Clara Volunteer Services (To inquire about No One Dies Alone)

[iframe style=”border:none” src=”″ height=”150″ width=”480″ scrolling=”no” allowfullscreen webkitallowfullscreen mozallowfullscreen oallowfullscreen msallowfullscreen]
Click here to open a player in a new window.


Your Brain at Work

av David Rock
9t 43m Läses av Bob Walter

Förlagets beskrivning

Meet Emily and Paul: The parents of two young children, Emily is the newly promoted VP of marketing at a large corporation while Paul works from home or from clients' offices as an independent IT consultant. Their lives, like all of ours, are filled with a bewildering blizzard of emails, phone calls, yet more emails, meetings, projects, proposals, and plans. Just staying ahead of the storm has become a seemingly insurmountable task. In this book, we travel inside Emily and Paul's brains as they attempt to sort the vast quantities of information they're presented with, figure out how to prioritize it, organize it and act on it. Fortunately for Emily and Paul, they're in good hands: David Rock knows how the brain works-and more specifically, how it works in a work setting. Rock shows how it's possible for Emily and Paul, and thus the reader, not only to survive in today's overwhelming work environment but succeed in it-and still feel energized and accomplished at the end of the day. YOUR BRAIN AT WORK explores issues such as: - why our brains feel so taxed, and how to maximize our mental resources - why it's so hard to focus, and how to better manage distractions - how to maximize your chance of finding insights that can solve seemingly insurmountable problems - how to keep your cool in any situation, so that you can make the best decisions possible - how to collaborate more effectively with others - why providing feedback is so difficult, and how to make it easier - how to be more effective at changing other people's behavior

Antal betyg: 4
Boken har ännu inga kundrecensioner

Böcker av samma författare (1)

Ytterligare information

Läses av
Bob Walter

Ekonomi, finansväsen, näringsliv &


Sentence Examples with the word sixty-five

Medicines were regarded as of secondary importance, but not neglected, two hundred and sixty-five drugs being mentioned at different places in the Hippocratic works.

View more

The count of Flanders was obliged to sign the treaty of Boves in July 1185, which gave the king, in addition to the expectation of Artois, his wife's dower, sixty-five castles in Vermandois and the town of Amiens.

The male matures when about fifteen years of age, marries when about twenty-six, begins to age when about forty, and lives on to sixty or sixty-five if he reaches old age.

The statement in Noldekes Geschichte des Artachlir Edpakdn, after Alexanders death there were in Iran 240 local governors), but the administrative divisions, hukumat, or kalamro, with governors appointed by the Crown and responsible to it for the revenues, have been under fifty for sixty-five years or more.


"Medical Admissions Unit (Firth 8) - Northern General Hospital"

About: Northern General Hospital

(as the patient),

The things that could be better is, there should be both cheaper and better parking. There should be somewhere for patients and visitors to smoke. Under 12's should be allowed to visit again.


Lapitec is committed to respecting the environment and the health of others, and in helping create a more sustainable tomorrow.

The manufacturing process for Lapitec is closely monitored, and the company does not use any raw materials obtained through petroleum processing. Additionally, Lapitec uses renewable energy in its manufacturing – thanks to the 13,000 sq./m of solar panels fitted to the roof of Lapitec’s headquarters in Treviso, Italy.

Once manufactured, Lapitec panels can be used as cladding and these offer improved thermal insulation compared to other available cladding products. Additionally, Lapitec is an inert product, which does not release any substance or VOC’s (Volatile Organic Compounds) into the environment.

At the end of the cycle, Lapitec can be recycled as aggregate or disposed of as an inert product.