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President Donald J. Trump's decision to recognize Jerusalem as the capital of Israel, breaking with decades of U.S. policy, has been met with alarm in some diplomatic circles, and unrest in Israel.
WikiTribune spoke to Stephen Walt, a Harvard professor of political science and controversial critic of the influence of pro-Israeli lobby groups on U.S. policy, by phone about the decision.
In a 2006 essay in the London Review of Books and book The Israel Lobby and U.S. Foreign Policy the following year, Walt and his colleague John Mearsheimer wrote that U.S. policy in the middle east has either run counter to U.S. interests, or has disregarded U.S. interests in favour of Israel.
Walt and Mearsheimer used "the lobby" as a catch-all for a loose coalition of individuals and organisations that they said drive U.S. policy in a direction that consistently and disproportionately favors Israel. This lobby does not represent the views of all, or even the majority of American Jews, but does tend toward the most pro-Zionist of the population, they said. What most distinguishes the lobby from other interest groups, they said, is its success.
The essay and book caused controversy and Walt and Mearsheimer were met with a tide of criticism, mostly labelling them anti-Semites.
Jeffrey Goldberg, now editor in chief of The Atlantic, reviewed the work in New Republic, calling it "malignant" and criticised the authors' methodology, pointing out that they had not interviewed any members of Congress. Writing in the Washington Post, political scientist Eliot Cohen called their work "bigotry", as well as simply "a wretched piece of scholarship".
In a more positive critical appraisal in the New Yorker, David Remnick wrote that the book was a "phenomenon of its moment", providing answers that were probably too simplistic to public frustrations in U.S. foreign policy, particularly in Iraq and the wider Middle East.
Q: Can you talk about how Trump's announcement fits with the long-term trend of favourable policy towards Israel you found in your research?
A: It demonstrates the continued political clout of at least some elements of the pro-Israel community. Moving the American embassy has been a staple request or demand that these groups have made in the past, and many previous political candidates have promised that they would do something like this once they got elected, and once they were elected they all found ways to back away from it because of possible consequences in the region.
In this case Trump was clearly encouraged by people like Sheldon Adelson and others. So I don't think this is a demonstration of these groups becoming more powerful, I think it's just an indication of the type of influence they've long had.
Q:What does Trump gain from the policy change?
I'm not sure, to be perfectly honest. I think that most people that are skeptical about this change don't see enormous benefits.
Obviously it will make the people, like Adelson, who were pushing him to do this, happy, and this guarantees their support. You could argue this nails down support among the evangelical community and the right wing parts of the American Jewish community. By taking this largely symbolic step he solidifies that base a little bit.
You could also argue that this shows he's a man of his word – he made a promise in the campaign and now he's going to fulfil it.
But in a larger sense it's not clear what the United States or really anybody actually gains from this, or why he chose to do it at this moment.
Q: What is the view of the "Israel lobby" to an issue like Jerusalem as Israel's capital – is it purely symbolic/ideological?
A: I don't think it's purely symbolic – well it depends which parts of the Israel lobby you're talking about. In the last 10 years or so since we wrote the book you've seen a greater divergence of opinion among those groups. So groups like J Street who are very much in favor of the two-state solution and a peace settlement are not happy with this decision because they understand that it will make any effort at a peace agreement even more difficult.
But groups like AIPAC or the Zionist Organization of America are very supportive of this because they tend to be very sensitive towards what the Israeli government wants, but also because they see themselves as defenders of a greater Israel and if Israel ends up controlling all of the territory, including all of Jerusalem, they're fine with that.
Q: How do you think the recognition will affect other areas of U.S. policy, particularly in the region?
Well it's not gonna help. Though I think people can disagree about how much damage it will do.
It's not going to affect the peace process very much as there isn't really much of a peace process under way.
As I said it's not clear what the U.S. gains here. Trump has been trying to support a broad coalition of Middle Eastern forces, and as far as there's been any clear Trump Middle East policy it's been to focus on Iran and collaborate with Egypt and Saudi Arabia and others.
The problem is this [recognition] makes that hard to do. It's embarrassing for the Saudis, it's embarrassing for the Egyptians, Turkey has already spoken out against it very vehemently. So if your goal is to isolate Iran and form a broad coalition against them this was a step in the wrong direction.
Q: How do you think the "Israel Lobby" viewed Trump before this, particularly in comparison to Obama?
A: Well Obama was very unpopular, certainly with the right wing portion of the Israel lobby because his relationship with [Israel's Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu was bad and of course he had tried on several occasions to slow down or stop the settlement building. A couple of times he was critical of Israeli policy and at the very end of his presidency he allowed a UN Security Council resolution that was very critical of Israel to go through without a veto.
So groups like AIPAC aren't happy with Obama even though many of his policies were supportive of Israel – he increased military aid to them for example. The idea that Obama was anti-Israel is laughable.
[Under Trump] I think the lobby groups have been mixed. I think groups like J Street have been alarmed by Trump's actions and statements and his rather cavalier attitude towards the whole problem. Groups on the right have been more supportive of Trump in part because he has been so publicly supportive of Israel.
I don't think Trump himself actually cares about Israel very much one way or the other. I don't think this is an important issue that he is personally invested in – if there's never any progress towards peace that's not gonna bother him at all.
The silver lining here, the only positive feature of this is it reduces the amount of hypocrisy in American policy – for the last 25 years or more the U.S. has pretended to be really devoted to the peace process and trying to pretend as though we were even-handed, although of course we never were.
This decision, as well as other things, really underscores that the United States is not even-handed on this one. When it comes to any choices between the Israelis and Palestinians we will side with the former and I think Trump has made that clear, or hard to miss.
This interview has been edited for clarity. A full transcript will be uploaded soon.


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subset: commoncrawl


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Finite element analysis and mesh generation with TB
Anybody use TB to generate a FEA of a structure? Are there any FEA programs that use TB?
How about mesh generation?
Re: biomesh.org ...
jimf & Bob ... Very early this morning I Googled FEA "true basic". The first item was titled "FEA in Biology". The following text looked interesting, and included - This model of a carnassial tooth was generated using a custom True Basic program by inputting a 2-dimensional set of nodes at the model's ...
I visited the site, and it was very interesting. It was also VERY early in the morning, so I didn't dig very deep into the site. Check it out. Regards ... Tom M
Re: 3D FEA ...
jimf and Bob Brannock ... I wouldn't be surprised that if one has the TB 3D Toolkit software package, one could get into 3D FEA.
I wrote just one TB program, FLOATCUBE.TRU, that animated the famous "cut cube" structure in three dimensions simultaneously, and which is offset from the XYZ origin in 3D space. That's the most difficult TB program I ever wrote - and it worked!! Regards ... Tom M
Structure FE in 3D
Bob Brannock
Doing a frame in FE 3D adds significantly to the challenge, as one would assume from your comment: "your most difficult TB program" about the rotating cube and there are other problems also, such as six degrees of freedom at a node vs. three for the plane frame and selecting the "best" torsional constants to use for structural sections. The plane frame (or continuous beam) FE program is better as a starting point. Most of the big commercial structural analysis programs rely heavily on FE theory and have visual perks (i.e. rotation of the frame about axes) as well as advances in dynamic analysis (natural frequencies, modal shapes, and response to time dependent loading). The learning curve on these programs is pretty hefty and generally require prior knowledge of the underlying theories of of engineering mechanics. curiously enough a only limited knowledge of Finite Element theory is required to run the programs.
I always enjoy your comments. There were a lot of dandies back on the old forum. I wish John Arscott would finish his texts about Windows programming in modern TB.
In our case a "home made" program is easier to use. Seems you wrote all your own analysis programs yourself ... back in the good ol' days.
Re: sonnetsoftware.com
jimf ... I remembered this morning that my old friend and ex-GE-co-worker Jim Rautio (now Dr. Rautio) built the Subject software company in Syracuse NY a decade or more ago. His expertise is in design of electromagnetic microwave circuits & structures. If you visit his website, sonnetsoftware.com, you can download his free Sonnet-Lite (about 46 MB) software package. It's worth the time to learn about. Regards ... Tom M
Finite Element for Structures
Bob Brannock
TB works great for FE analysis of plane frames and beams. Both the math and graphics capabilities are very good for such an undertaking. I wrote one a year ago and the civil engineering office in Orlando uses it regularly. I'm not sure of your background. You'll need some good texts on both subjects, FE and TB. The older Finite Element texts are the best in my experience. All the old TB texts are all that is available.
Drop me an email if you want my favorite references (old but frequently available used). FE was started in structural analysis many years ago and has expanded to many other disciplines. Some of the newer texts are a bit abstract for this old retired structural PE.
Bob Brannock
Send Me Your Mmail Address
Bob Brannock
Send me your email address. I'll dig out titles and authors of the old goodies of early FE structural analysis texts. FE went through a lot of evolution before it settled on the Stiffness Method as more or less standard so far as structures are concerned. However there still are many variations of techniques involved, frequently also called matrix analysis of structures. You are not as rusty as me. I graduated in '56 and got Ph.D. in structures well over 10 years later. There are days I miss the Slide Rule. I'm not familiar with bioengineering as engineering got into that several years later (hot major well after my time). Dover has some later texts on FE on their web site. They've dropped some of the good oldies. Most are too abstract for me as FE has expanded into so many other disciplines, but the price is right. No doubt you are well versed in math.
I suspect what you are doing is more complex than matrix analysis of a typically framed structure that was my interest, but TB will probably do it ... with a lot of patience.
There are a lot of big time commercial programs available. This is getting too long so I'll quit as I tend to get verbose. As you can tell FE and TB are two of my favorite topics. I'm at firstname.lastname@example.com.
Bob Brannock
Re: FEA & TB ...
jimf ... I got interested in FEA in 1997. I have two books on the subject, Finite elements for electrical engineers (3rd Ed) and FINITE ELEMENT METHODS IN ENGINEERING SCIENCE. I haven't seriously pursued the subject though.
With TB's matrix statements & functions it looks like a good fit with FEA. I'll search the net for applications. TB is perfect for mesh generation, even if the matrix elements are complex numbers. Regards ... Tom M


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ScandiPet is an approved quarantine that has an official license from the Swedish Board of Agriculture for import/export and boarding of pets. Veterinaries visit our premises regularly for health check, treatment and quarantine routine.
We are able to assist you on the preparation of the export documents from id-marking to the final veterinary certificate before travel. ScandiPet has elaborated its private database of country export files based on local requirements for each country and the company overall shipping activity. We follow a classification that:
- divides the World into categories or group of countries that have the same specifications
- is independent from any other official publications
- assigns to each category of countries its own export check-list that must be fulfilled before the departure.
The country check-list is provided to our customer the time of booking along with other directions.
Below list is an overview of the veterinary services we are providing. Further details are discussed when the customer gets in touch with us.
- ISO-standard microchip marking
- Rabies vaccination
- Rabies blood tests sent to the National Veterinary Institute of Sweden (SVA), Uppsala
- Treatment against Echinococcus spp with a preparation containing praziquantel or epsiprantel.
- Official health inspection, health certificate and completion of the health part in pet's passport (applicable for EU)
- Treatment against external parasites such us fleas and ticks (with Frontline)
- Treatment against internal parasites such as worms (with Drontal Comp)
- DHCPPi vaccination
- Blood tests for Brucellosis, Ehrlichiosis, Leptospira canicola and Leishmania sent to SVA
- Veterinary Certificate A (for Australia and New Zealand)
- Poo samples
- Veterinary Certificate B (for Australia and New Zealand)
- Sealing


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Poisoned Michigan: How weak laws and ignored history enabled PFAS crisis
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Michigan government 101: Want more taxes? Hold elections when few vote
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Letter suggests Bill Schuette shrugged off request to sue 3M over PFAS
Graphic photos vivid reminders of horror of Michigan PBB chemical crisis
June 11, 2013 | Derek Melot


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City council leaders are refusing to back down in their battle with the planning committee over a controversial £10 million revamp of Centenary Square.
Proposals, which include 43 tall lighting columns, a major water feature and minor changes surrounding the historic Hall of Memory, were put on hold following stinging criticism from planning committee members.
They argued that the lights would block major events such as the big wheel, ice rink, Christmas market and concerts.
They also highlighted the council's poor track record maintaining water features such as the Floozie in the Jacuzzi and called on city bosses to revise the design.
But council bosses have instead come back with a detailed defence of the scheme highlighting how the square will be able to host major events and structures - using diagrams to show the available event space.
They say they have consulted event organisers who have no concerns.
They even provide a parade route to show how veterans will be able to march to the Hall of Memory on Remembrance Sunday to lay wreaths after grassed areas outside the Library of Birmingham are removed and the square levelled.
The only concession is that plans to move slabs dedicated to Birmigham's Victoria Cross heroes have been dropped and they will stay in place.
It is also argued that the water feature, a five-centimere deep pool with water jets, which can be drained for events to take place, is "an important part of the over all design and will be an attractive feature for the square".
In conclusion, the report back states: "The points of concern raised by members have been addressed."
Planning committee member Coun Gareth Moore (Con Erdington), speaking when the committee decided to put the proposal on hold, said: "It's just a few trees, over sized street lights and a paddling pool.
"That's all it is for £10.4 million, I've seen more interesting dishwater. It seems very cluttered, very claustrophobic."
The £10.4 million development is being funded by the Greater Birmingham and Solihull Local Enterprise Partnership and is part of the Enterprise Zone initiative designed to attract and grow business in the area.
Council deputy leader Coun Ian Ward said: "Centenary Square is already one of Birmingham's most important public spaces and home to some of the city's landmark buildings, including the Library of Birmingham and the International Convention Centre.
"Now, this exciting project will transform it into a place where people will want to stop, relax and socialise. Thanks to Enterprise Zone grant funding from the Greater Birmingham and Solihull LEP, which has been specifically allocated to this project, we're creating a space suitable for a wide range of public events."
The planning committee meets on Thursday to decide whether to approve the scheme.
Below: Centenary Square plans showing how major events can be held despite the construction of 43 giant street lamps


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The Red Wing Shoe Company Foundation was created in 1955, the same year in which Minnesota passed a law providing the framework for corporate foundations. The first gift was $6,000 to the Red Wing YMCA, for an addition to their building, making the YMCA the foundation's longest ongoing partner. Since 1955 the foundation has given more than $2,000,000 to the YMCA, strongly supporting the positive work it does in the Red Wing community.
In addition to the strong partnership with the YMCA, the Foundation has had a consistent, significant partnership with the Red Wing Environmental Learning Center (ELC) and the T.B. Sheldon Auditorium.
The ELC was founded in 1970 with an $8,000 grant from the RWSF. The foundation's strong commitment to youth, education and our rich natural environment is uniquely expressed in the ELC and since its inception the organization has received nearly $6,000,000 in direct support from the foundation.
The Sheldon Auditorium enriches the Red Wing community culturally and provides a multitude of educational opportunities for our youth. The foundation's financial support of this organization has exceeded $1,500,000.
In addition to these significant partners, the foundation has supported hundreds or nonprofit organizations, events and projects, primarily in the greater Red Wing Area. The foundation has also supported nonprofits in many other communities in which our employees live or work, especially the United Way or organizations that enhance our ability to experience our natural environment.
In 2002, the RWSF initiated its Partners in Sharing Program, to match employee giving. The Foundation's philosophy of matching gifts is that we have a responsibility to recognize and support our employees in their efforts to improve their communities and the lives of others.
Employees, retirees and board members of Red Wing Shoe, S.B. Foot Tanning and the St. James Hotel are eligible to participate and submit requests to match donations they have made to nonprofit organizations. In 2011, a new option was added which allows volunteer hours to qualifying organizations be matched with monetary gifts from the Foundation.


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Problems with Dentures
Understanding The broken DentureEven though dentures are fabricated from extremely durable materials they will break, wear out, or a tooth will come out and their fit will change.
Accidents happen, dogs still like to chew on plates of the dental kind, and trash compactors have never taken kindly to dentures. In fact, it is frequently not a matter of "if" but rather a matter of "when" will a denture become broken, lost or damaged beyond repair.
One can be assured that a problem will likely happen when least expected, and immediate, usually important, plans will definitely be altered – – unless a person is prepared.
How to expect the unexpected and be preparedA short-term use duplicate denture will bridge the gap of being without a regular denture while it is being repaired, renovated of replaced. Sometimes this type of denture is referred to an "embarrassment denture" because it helps a person avoid the embarrassment of being without teeth in an emergency or during planned denture maintenance.
While this type of denture may be made at any time from an existing functional denture, it is generally fabricated immediately after a new denture is made. The embarrassment denture is neither as accurate nor as esthetic and durable as the original, but it is adequate and only meant for short-term use. The cost is generally considerably less than the original denture.
Such an interim prosthesis may be relined annually and adjusted in advance to fit the current changing shape of an individual's jaws, and therefore be ready to use at a moments notice.
However, some individuals choose to have their embarrassment denture relined and adjusted only when they need the short-term denture. Following this latter course means that they will have to wait to wear their interim denture until an appointment can be scheduled with a dental professional to complete the reline and any adjustments. But a reline for an embarrassment denture can be done in the dental professional's office during a single appointment so a patient may leave with it refitted in the mouth.
In either case, a person would not be without a prosthesis while their regular denture is being worked on.
The embarrassment denture facilitates planned periodic maintenance
All dentures need to be periodically relined to accommodate the constant change in shape of a person's jaws. There are also times when the plastic body of a denture needs to be changed due to deterioration, or the entire denture replaced because of wear or poor fit from changing mouth conditions that can no longer be remedied by relining.
While relines can be completed in a one appointment office visit, more durable relines may require that a dental professional keep a denture for several days. Replacing the plastic body of a denture (called a rebase) takes several days and making a replacement denture takes several weeks.
It becomes easy to see how an embarrassment denture would solve being without one's regular denture for a period of time, even for planned maintenance, while getting on with one's life.
Are Lower Dentures Always A Problem?
While dentures are marginally adequate substitutes for missing natural teeth, the lower denture can be troublesome for many individuals.
Inherent lower denture problems
A lower denture interfaces with more movable mouth surfaces than an upper denture.
The lower denture has less stabilizing surface to rest upon – – for example, there is no broad palatal surface (roof of the mouth) as in an upper denture.
Loss of jaw bone over time brings a lower denture into closer contact with tissue extensions called frenum attachments which create dislodging forces.
While these problems are inherent to lower dentures, every person is different and not affected in the same way. There are ways to approach these problems.
Some considerations for improving lower denture stability
A thin band-like tissue extension (called a frenum) may attach between a jaw ridge (called alveolar ridge) and the inside of the cheek. This strip of tissue may become active while eating or speaking and can lift a denture from its alveolar ridge. This frenum attachment may be surgically moved (this is called a frenectomy).
Alveolar ridge bone profile lessens or literally comes closer to the floor of the mouth as jaw bone is lost over time. The bone loss is called resorption. This reduces the vestibule or space between the lip and alveolar ridge. Surgical extension of this vestibule (called vestibuloplasty) provides more alveolar ridge exposure for a denture to rest upon and reduces muscle pull due to a high frenum attachment.
As an alveolar ridge losses bone, it may often be built-up by surgically placing various substances beneath the gum tissue to increase both bulk and height of the ridge. This is called alveolar ridge augmentation.
As a person eats and speaks, the lips and cheeks exert forces towards the inside of the mouth while the tongue exerts an outward counter force. There is a space between the tongue and lips and cheeks, called the neutral zone, where there are balanced forces during function. These opposing forces can help maintain a denture in place, with surprising power, if the denture is fabricated so that it's bulk and teeth rest within this space.
Inserting metal implants into the jaw bone and fabricating a lower denture to receive and connect with these implants, in various ways, will help stabilize a lower denture – – while still allowing for comfortable and easy removal of the prosthesis for cleaning.
Ensuring that upper and lower teeth contact optimally during function (called balanced occlusion) is a basic means of stabilizing a lower denture. If one tooth strikes on one side only, the denture will rock. Even contact or biting is a necessity.
Fabrication of a denture that completely avoids contact with all potentially dislodging structures and having metal base for strength and some weight, will often facilitate stability.
What's the best approach?
Frequently several approaches are combined, and not all may be suitable for a particular patient. After a thorough examination, a licensed dental professional can best advise an individual as to the best means of helping stabilize a lower denture in their unique situation.
Usefulness Of Denture Adhesives And How To Clean-up
Denture adhesives enhance the retentive interface between the surface of a denture and underlying tissues upon which a denture rests.
Optimizing the interface space
There is a slight space at the interface between the inside of a denture and the jaw that is usually filled with saliva. As this gap increases a denture becomes less retentive and stable.
The interface space arises because of material and fabrication limitations used in making a denture. This gap is also contributed to by the constant changing contour and shrinkage of jaw bone.
While an interface space exists in all dentures and increases with time, optimum denture function and retention depends upon reducing it. Denture adhesives fill this increasing space and improve suction, and also create a sticky contact between a denture and underlying surfaces. This also helps resist foods from collecting under the denture base.
How to use denture adhesives
Thin paste adhesives are preferred to powders since they are already fluid and easier to manage and apply. However, some prefer powder types. Whatever works best for an individual should be used.
Pea sized amounts of the paste may be placed in a few places within a denture where jaw ridges fit and middle where the roof of the mouth contacts. A thin film of adhesive spreads out as a denture seats in the mouth. Use the least amount to do the "job."
If excess amounts are necessary, then the opinion of a dental professional should be sought since denture maintenance may be necessary. A licensed dental professional should be routinely seen at six-month intervals for routine oral examinations and bite adjustments.
A person needs to experiment with how often to apply adhesives. Some apply it before meals while others function satisfactorily all day with one application.
A denture and mouth should be cleaned of all adhesives at least once a day, and the denture should be left out of a cleaned and rinsed mouth for at least an hour a day.
How to clean up
It can be difficult removing adhesives. The denture may be cleaned with a brush, soap and running water or with a little white distilled vinegar in water.
All adhesives should be removed from the mouth for hygienic purposes. Rinsing with extremely warm water or salt water helps removal. It may be necessary to use a soft toothbrush or wash cloth-like material to assist removal from the mouth tissues.
Advantages of adhesives
- Effectively fills the interface gap between a denture and underlying jaw.
- Provides a sense of security with wearing dentures, even with well fitting dentures when additional confidence is desired.
- Facilitates acceptability and builds confidence with wearing new dentures.
- Reduces food impaction beneath dentures by closing prosthesis borders.
- Helps an individual open their mouth wider for more confident chewing (increases the chewing stroke) rather than eating with small strokes to compensate for concerns about the potential for a denture coming loose.
- Decreases the irritation and chafing of mouth tissues from habits such as grinding teeth together (parafunctional activities).
- Facilitates wearing dentures for individuals with persistent dry mouth (xerostomia).
- Difficult to remove adhesive from the mouth and denture.
- A false sense of security that a denture is still satisfactory may develop using adhesives with a poorly fitting denture that should be relined, replaced or maintained in different ways.
There is no specifically agreed-upon chronological answer to, "when should a denture be replaced?" There are instances where dentures have been replaced after one year or less, and on the opposite side of the spectrum, we have all heard of people who have worn the same denture for twenty-five or more years. These ranges are obviously extremes.
However, on average, dental professionals seem to be replacing dentures somewhere between four to eight years. This would seem to imply that the average denture fabricated from contemporary biomaterials will wear out and deteriorate within that time and/or the average denture patient's jaws have changed so much that a new denture must be redone.
Each individual's denture needs are different. There are some factors that a licensed dental professional takes into consideration when evaluating the need to replace dentures.
Denture longevity considerations
Lost vertical dimension: The proper linear distance relationship between the upper and lower jaws is called vertical dimension. This is unique for each individual.As jaw bone changes and the ridges upon which dentures rest shrink, a denture becomes loose and vertical dimension begins to change (the vertical dimension is said to be lost by a certain linear measurement unit such as millimeters). Additional plastic (acrylic resin) is added to the inside of a loosening denture (called relining a denture) to stabilize it by reducing looseness caused from jaw shrinkage. However, relining does not restore vertical dimension in an accurate way.
The current position, held by most dental professionals is that when vertical dimension has been lost by three millimeters or more a new denture should be fabricated in order to restore vertical dimension and maintain functional health.
There are individuals who have worn the same denture for extended periods with considerable loss of vertical dimension over time. Since vertical dimension loss is a slow, but nevertheless progressive, process they have gradually adapted to a continually increasing closed bite position. These individuals often have a sunken facial appearance and usually appear much older than their chronological age.
Functioning in such a progressive and excessively closing vertical dimension position may eventually result in alterations of the temporomandibular joints (TMJ, the jaw joint located in front of the ears). This can lead to significant pain and difficulty with effective eating and even the jaw motions involved with speech. It frequently becomes quite difficult, if not impossible, to restore such individual's proper vertical dimension and chewing efficiency by relining and repairing this older denture.
Tooth wear: Aside from impaired ability to chew effectively, excess tooth wear will adversely affect esthetics and cause other problems associated with lost vertical dimension, as described above. While porcelain denture teeth will wear at a slower rate than plastic teeth, they nevertheless will wear and are more susceptible to chipping and cracking. Multiple cracked teeth will ned to be replaced.
Deterioration: While the biomaterials used to fabricate dentures today are quite durable, they still deteriorate and exhibit dimensional change over time – – no longer properly fitting, even after relining.Aging plastic looses its natural appearance and texture, and coloration fades, making dentures look quite artificial.
Deteriorating plastic also makes it easier for dentures to become excessively contaminated with microorganisms. This contributes to mouth irritation and bad taste, and socially unacceptable odors will develop that no amount of denture cleaning will seem to eliminate.
Keeping regular dental check ups so that one's dentures, soft tissues and jaw bone may be checked is essential to extending the life of a denture and maintaining oral health.


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Last week my sister and her husband were burgled in Westham, while they were out, which obviously caused a great deal of distress.
However, the Police responded to their call sending two police officers within two hours, to see them to ascertain the damage and take statements. They were kind and reassuring and their whole attitude helped my sister and her husband to get over the shock. As the officers were leaving, the scene of crimes officer came and was also immensely helpful and concerned.
At a time when the Police are severely under pressure the overall response was excellent and I cannot express how grateful I am to them for their help.
R Lovell
Stone Cross


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Archive for August, 2011
NFL quarterback believes in HIPAA
We never thought we'd link to ESPN on this blog, but lo and behold, we found a way.
Peyton Manning, future Hall of Fame quarterback for the Indianapolis Colts, cited HIPAA when approached by reporters about the status of an ailment.
"I don't know what HIPAA stands for," ESPN reported Manning telling the media, "but I believe in it and I practice it."
And kudos to ESPN for linking to the Office for Civil Rights website on HIPAA.
Hey Peyton — it's Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act, for the record. We bet Tom Brady knows that.
HIPAA Update popular blog posts
So what has interested our blog visitors in the last 30 days? Check out the numbers for yourself:
- HIPAA auditor involved in own breach – 619 views
- OCR's HIPAA audit hot-button topics revealed – 601 views
- AHIMA: Proposed HIPAA access requirement a significant burden – 516 views
- Breaking down OCR's HIPAA hotspots – 491 views
Pulling patient info. from filing cabinet
Is it HIPAA compliant for therapists to pull their patient files from a general filing cabinet that contains all the patient files? They would see the names of other patients plus access to other patients information if they accidentally pull the wrong chart.
Follow HIPAA Update on Twitter!
We've gone Tweeting.
You can now follow HIPAA Update, the blog managed by HCPro, Inc., which also produces this weekly e-newsletter, on Twitter.
Catch snapshots of our HIPAA privacy and security compliance news and tips on Twitter by following us!
HIPAA Q&A: PHI on website
Q. One of my colleagues made a website accessible to invitees only. He plans to upload a spreadsheet that contains clients' names and diagnoses. The spreadsheet will be password-protected, but I believe it will compromise our HIPAA compliance nonetheless. Am I correct?
A. Posting patient-identifiable health information on any website, even if it is password-protected, could result in a breach of patient confidentiality. This situation requires a detailed review by your organization's compliance officer before your colleague proceeds any further.
Editor's note: Mary D. Brandt, MBA, RHIA, CHE, CHPS, a nationally recognized expert on patient privacy, information security, and regulatory compliance, answered this question. She is associate executive director of HIM at Scott & White Healthcare in Temple, TX. Advice given is general. Readers should consult professional counsel for specific legal, ethical, or clinical questions.


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Christmas at LUSH | 'Snow Fairy' & 'Hot Toddy'
4 years ago
'Once in a while someone will confess in an intimate moment, "everyone thinks I am very quiet and composed, but if only they knew how I really feel..." This nagging self-doubt is at the basis of so much depression in the lives of many people who are struggling in our competitive society. Moreover, this corroding fear for the discovery of our weaknesses prevents community and creative sharing. When we have sold our identity to the judges of this world, we are bound to become restless, because of a growing need for affirmation and praise. Indeed we are tempted to become low-hearted because of our constant self-rejection. And we are in serious danger of becoming isolated, since friendship and love are impossible without a mutual vulnerability.'How true! But is it not rather obvious that Henri himself was the 'someone' making the confession?


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Speaker biographies
Stephan Thernstrom is the Winthrop Research Professor of History at Harvard University. He has also taught at Brandeis University, UCLA, and the University of Cambridge. His writings in American social history include Poverty and Progress: Social Mobility in a Nineteenth-Century City, The Other Bostonians: Poverty and Progress in the American Metropolis, 1880–1970, A History of the American People, and—with his wife, Abigail—America in Black and White: One Nation, Indivisible and No Excuses: Closing the Racial Gap in Learning. He was the editor of the Harvard Encyclopedia of American Ethnic Groups (1980) and the co-editor of Beyond the Color Line: New Perspectives on Race and Ethnicity (2002) and Nineteenth-Century Cities: Essays in the New Urban History (1969).
His writings have been awarded the Bancroft Prize in American History, the Harvard University Press Faculty Prize, the Waldo G. Leland Prize, the R.R. Hawkins Award, the Peter Shaw Award, the Caldwell Award, and the Fordham Foundation Prize. In 2007, he and his wife, Abigail, received the Bradley Prize for Outstanding Achievement. He has held fellowships from the John S. Guggenheim Foundation, the American Council of Learned Societies, the Social Science Research Council, and the John M. Olin Foundation, and research grants from the National Endowment for the Humanities, the Mathematical Social Science Board, the American Philosophical Society, the Rockefeller Foundation, the Earhart Foundation, and the Smith Richardson Foundation. He also has written widely in periodicals for general audiences, including The New Republic, the Wall Street Journal, the Washington Post, the Times Literary Supplement, The Public Interest, the Los Angeles Times, Commentary, and National Review.
Additional information and copies of many of his articles and are available at www.thernstrom.com.


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If you lead in any way at your church, you likely go in before the crowd arrives (maybe I'm assuming too much...). If that's true for you, it means you arrive on your church campus before...
- the heaviest traffic time and the potential scramble for a parking space
- any lines form at your children's center for kid check-in
- knowing whether every necessary greeter role is filled
- the cafe or coffee area is backed up by caffeine junkies
So, I'm suggesting you go to church late. That's right, choose a weekend and go late. Intentionally.
Show up and experience the traffic flow. Stand in line with other parents who are trying to check-in their kids before they're late for the service. Observe the teams in place: is everyone serving in roles for which they're wired? Try to get a cup of java just before or right after the service starts.
The point is not to just experience it, but to assess it. Are your guests experiencing what you want them to experience?
This past weekend I showed up late. While the traffic line was still formed on University Drive at our primary entrance. When folks were still showing up - late.
I actually took a few snapshots to get a real picture of the flow, the movement, the experience.
By the way - I was proud of our teams and their commitment to sharing the love of Jesus... before the service started.


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The Holidays are coming! Let's come together as a community for the children this holiday season. Bring your donations of new toys for children of all ages - we will make sure they get into the hands of local children.
Toy drive drop-off is Nov. 11 – Dec. 16, 8am – 5pm at ValleyArts, 400 S. Jefferson St., Orange, NJ 07050.
For toy drop-offs outside those hours, or for more information, please contact us at email@example.com


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This giveaway is now closed. Thanks!
All Points Patchwork is the new book from Diane Gilleland of CraftyPod. The book launches next May 19th, but you get a sneak peek here right now!
All Points Patchwork is like an extensive technique manual, a resource to help you dream up thousands of different English paper pieced projects! You probably know all about English paper piecing (EPP) in terms of "hexies," but Diane's book teaches you how to do this technique with diamonds, triangles, octagons, pentagons, curved-edge shapes and more. The book features nearly thirty project inspirations, 84 pattern diagrams and over 300 detailed images.
From the publisher:
- The key to perfect patchwork is getting all of the points to match up– which is no easy feat! Thanks to the rediscovery of a traditional technique known as English paper piecing, success is now possible for quilters of all levels. By cutting the desired shapes from paper, basting the paper to the back of your fabric, and then hand-sewing the pieces together, you'll ensure perfectly matched points every time. This complete course in English paper piecing takes you far beyond traditional hexagons with step-by-step photos showing you how to connect triangles, octagons, diamonds, jewels, triangles, tumblers, pentagons, and curved shapes. It even provides dozens of ideas for incorporating the pattern designs into clothing, pillows, quilts, and home decor items!
To kick of a month of blog hops, reviews and events Diane has a Scrappy Flower Coaster project for you, including a PDF excerpt from All Points Patchwork about basic EPP sewing techniques. There's also a giveaway! Comment below for a chance to win a "hot off the presses" copy of All Points Patchwork. (US + Canada addresses only, please.) Fill us in on your thoughts about or experiences with EPP. You could also share some love for Diane Gilleland! Diane has joined us before with her Hexie Diamond Pillow. We also have a project inspired by her Quilting Happiness: Projects, Inspiration, and Ideas to Make Quilting More Joyful, a book she co-authored with Christina Lane.
You may have seen English paper piecing in the form of hexagons, but you can actually make all kinds of shapes with this technique. That's why I wrote All Points Patchwork— to show just how easy it is to EPP with triangles, diamonds, octagons, curved shapes and more.
This coaster project is an excellent way to explore EPP beyond the hexie. It's a surprisingly quick project and, depending on how you arrange your fabrics, the design possibilities are endless. (That center section takes beautifully to fussy-cutting.) Even better: it's a project you can carry with you and work on anywhere!
For more on basic EPP sewing techniques, be sure to download the PDF excerpt from All Points Patchwork, generously provided by Storey Publishing.
Finished Size: 5″ x 5 3/4″
You'll Need (per coaster):
- Scrappy Flower English Paper Piecing PDF Templates
- Scraps of 3-4 quilting cottons
- 5″ x 5″ piece of low-loft cotton batting
- 5″ x 5″ piece of wool felt
- Pencil
- Scissors for paper
- Scissors for fabric
- Washable glue stick
- Sharp or quilting needle in a size you like
- Polyester thread (grey or beige blends with different-colored fabrics)
- Removable fabric marking pen
- Walking presser foot
Planning Your Fabric Placement:
Download the Scrappy Flower Coaster PDF Template and print it onto lightweight cardstock. This design has some directional pieces, so I recommend planning your design ahead and marking the templates; it's the simplest way to keep all the pieces facing the right direction. So, first cut along the outer edge of one coaster form. Then decide which of your fabrics will go where in the design. Use a pencil to lightly write the fabric color (or print, or whatever makes sense to you) on each template.
* Note: I've written pretty firmly on my templates here so it shows up in the photo. But don't write this dark in real life; you'll end up transferring pencil marks to your fabrics.
Cutting the Templates + Fabric:
Usually, you'd cut out all your EPP templates at once and then start cutting fabrics and basting. But with directional pieces like these, I recommend working in stages. To begin, carefully cut the center hexagon shape out along the printed lines. Leave the outer petal sections intact and set them aside for now. Cut the hexagon along the lines to form six triangle templates.
Take the first triangle template and the fabric you've chosen to go with it. Lightly pass a glue stick over the side of the template you've written on. Then press the glued side to the wrong side of the fabric. (Don't use much glue here; all you're doing is tacking the fabric and paper lightly together.)
Cut the fabric so it's a generous 1/4″ larger on all sides. Don't worry too much about your cuts being straight; they'll never show in the finished product. Repeat this process with the other five triangles.
Basting the Templates:
I like to baste with templates this size so no stitches show on the right sides of my patches. It's a secure way to baste smaller templates, and the added bonus is that when I remove the templates later on there's no need to remove the basting. It sure saves time! You can see this kind of basting in action in this video.
I prefer to baste in a counter-clockwise direction, but you might prefer clockwise. Begin by folding one side of the fabric over the edge of the template. Then fold the adjacent side. The fabric will form a little flag shape at the tip of the triangle as shown above. Take a tack stitch over the point where the two edges meet: pass your needle under both layers of fabric and back up a short distance away. (Don't pass the needle through the template at all.) Then pass the needle under a second time to form a small stitch, as shown above.
Fold the next edge of the fabric over the template and take another tack stitch at the corner point.
…And, finally, take one last tack stitch at the last corner. Don't knot your basting thread; you'll want to be able to remove it easily if you need to. Instead, end the thread by passing your needle through the seam allowance at the back of the patch and trimming the thread to about 1″ long.
Repeat this process to baste the other five triangles.
Sewing the Triangles:
I like to sew my EPP patches together with a whip stitch. First, place two triangles side by side to determine which edges you'll be sewing together. Then place the patches right sides together, making sure the ends of the patches line up. (You can just fold those little fabric flags out of your way.)
Pass your needle through the very edges of the patches, catching a tiny bit of the fabric from each patch. Stitch through the fabric only, not the edges of the cardstock templates. Your needle will pass through easily if you're passing through fabric. If you feel resistance, you're stitching through the template; adjust your needle placement.
Pull the thread through and repeat this process, passing the needle through in the same direction each time. Try to keep your stitches very close together. (Incidentally, if you have trouble with your thread knotting up as you sew, take a look at these helpful tips.)
It's easiest to get all the triangle points matching up in the center if you first stitch the triangles together to form two units. Then sew these together, starting the seam at center and working outward to both ends.
Making the Outer Petals:
Now we can cut, baste and sew the outer petals. Work with one petal at a time. Cut it into sections along the printed lines. Then lightly glue to your chosen fabrics, cut and baste as you did with the center triangles.
Sew the pieces together with a whip stitch. Then stitch the finished petal to one edge of the hexagon center before moving on to the next one.
As you add each new petal, sew the little side seams between them.
Finishing the Coaster:
With the templates still in place, press the finished coaster with a hot steam iron. Press any bits of fabric that may be sticking out at the edges toward the wrong side, as shown.
Then, place the coaster on a piece of batting and trace around the outer edges with a removable fabric marker. Cut the batting about 1/4″ inside your traced line and then set it aside for a moment.
Carefully pinch out all of the templates. It's usually easiest to start at center and work your way outward. Some EPP-ers prefer to use a small crochet hook to grab the edge of each template and peel it out. You can see both processes in action in this video.
Now that the templates are all out, give the coaster one more pressing.
Lay out the wool felt. Stack the batting on top, and stack the coaster top over the batting. Place several pins to hold the layers together.
Install a walking presser foot on your sewing machine. Stitch through all layers about 1/8″ from the outer edge.
Carefully trim the felt to match the edges of the coaster top. For a complex shape like this one, I find this sewing-then-trimming method infinitely simpler than trying to keep two complex shapes aligned while I sew them!
Machine or hand-quilt your coaster as desired. I've shown you a few ideas, or you can make up your own design. Since we finished the edges of the coaster first, it's best to keep the quilting minimal; all you need is a little stitching to keep the layers together.
PDF excerpted from All Points Patchwork (c) by Diane Gilleland; interior photography (c) by Harris & Harris Photography; cover photography (c) by Alexandra Grablewski; used with permission from Storey Publishing.


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"There are no rules in filmmaking. Only sins. And the cardinal sin is dullness." - Frank Capra
Monday, September 19, 2016
Paranormal Activity 3 Review
I gotta say, as a person who saw only the original Paranormal Activity and mildly liked it, only to skip the rest of the films going forward initially, watching these films now has been a surprising treat. Despite being flawed, the franchise has been a lot of fun, and that includes the third installment.
The decision to make a prequel to the first two films to explain the origin of the demonic entity that haunted sisters Katie and Kristi is an interesting one, as the backstory (that I didn't care for) involving their childhood is vaguely discussed but never fleshed out in detail. New to the franchise co-directors Henry Joost and Ariel Schulman, best known for their hit documentary Catfish that has since shined a light on a cultural phenomenon, explore where the evil began with unfortunately mixed results.
The first misstep involves the pacing early on in the film, because while this is the third of a series, it doesn't simply feature already established characters that an audience has a deep understanding of going into the experience. Katie and Kristi, sure, familiar despite going back in time and seeing them as children here, but their parents are fresh faces and it is vital that we feel something for them before the scares start to take over. Joost and Schulman along with writer Christopher Landon waste little time before trying to fill the viewers with dread, but it's missing a factor that helped make the first two films work: the idea that you need to earn the scares by allowing the characters affected to mean something first.
Paranormal Activity 3 also suffers from a bit of predictability that takes some intensity away from what happens. The scariest moments in films like these are those we don't see coming, and there is a lot I saw coming here, but not all. There are a few pretty entertaining moments that sent shivers down my spine, and the usage of an oscillating fan with a camera attached to it proves to be an absolutely ingenious piece of horror filmmaking, easily my favorite thing to happen during the franchise through three films.
I'm not sure why, but I anticipated a disaster once I reached the third Paranormal Activity film. Perhaps there was word of mouth I recall that only added fuel to my skip all those movies fire, but truthfully even this pretty mediocre picture still gave me a few moments to smile about and one or two scenes I may never forget.
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Part of the quality service that MTC Engineering provides to you is our world class technical assistance.
• Don't know anything about the different types of clutches?
You need to check out the Clutch Differences section. This is a brief explaination of the 3 different types of clutches and where they are appropriate.
• What's This Gen II Multistage I've been hearing about?
In the Clutch Installation, you can get instructions to help you.
• Need help installing your piston kit?
In the piston installation section, you can find useful information that will answer many questions about installation.
We also have a FAQ section that will help you with frequently asked questions.
|You can also contact us by:
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Clutch Support
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(321)636-9480 Monday - Friday, 8 am - 4:30 pm Eastern Time.
If we're not here, leave us a message.
We will normally call you back no later than the next business day.
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Hey guys look what I found! There's a stick coming up through this bridge. What a strange place to find a stick? Hey guys a little help here - this thing is really stuck.
Dog Pictures Galore is a fun site where I regularly post cute puppy pictures, fun dog pictures, and other entertaining pictures of dogs.
Saturday, November 26, 2011
Puppy Finds Stick
Posted by Your Guide Hershey at 1:31 PM No comments:
Labels: cute puppy, puppy pictures
Saturday, November 12, 2011
Stick Fetchin Dog
Posted by Your Guide Hershey at 5:44 PM No comments:
Labels: beach dog, dog pictures
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text: Scott Adams 264 Report post Posted May 14, 2013 Medscape AbbVie, partner team up on drug to treat Celiac diseaseChicago Tribune Celiac disease is the most common autoimmune disease, affecting about 6 million people in the U.S. and Europe. Those affected can't properly digest gluten, the protein found in wheat, rye and barley. There is no approved therapy for celiac disease ... AbbVie, Alvine Pharma to Collaborate on Investigational Drug for Celiac Disease Fox Business Hersh: Celiac disease causes gluten intolerance MetroWest Daily News AbbVie and Alvine to Collaborate on Investigational Oral Therapy for Celiac ... FierceBiotech Medscape - Wall Street Journal (press release) - WBNG-TV all 18 news articles » View the full article Share this post Link to post Share on other sites


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Throughout the day, every day, employees make decisions that have an impact on businesses. There are all sorts of decision and organizational models that are common, many that still cling to the old industrial (hierarchical) model of structuring and managing a business. In the information age making decisions is a critical business function of what we like to call information workers (or sometimes knowledge workers). I suggest though, that the definition of information worker has changed quite a bit in this post-industrial era. With the explosion of hand-held computing devices (smartphones, tablets and special purpose handheld units) more and more workers are connected to the corporate network, corporate systems and corporate knowledge assets all the time, no matter where they might be working. Remote workers, not at one time considered "information workers", now interact regularly with technology to manage work, report progress and get access to real time, on the spot information designed to make their job easier and more accurate. They also have the capability to communicate with other employees to discuss work, ask questions, get assistance and share progress and experience knowledge / insight gained during an activity through many more channels than email or voice. With this new access and connectivity almost all workers are (or can be) information workers.
Many businesses are still today using a very hierarchical management model that is also a hangover from the industrial age. In that model controlling information created organizational power. Today, with all the communication channels and ways to share content and information available to employees it is naive to think that anyone can "control" information. Information simply flows around any attempts to block / control it. Some companies are starting to realize that sharing information and an increased level of transparency is not only the new organizational model, it is also inevitable, or at least it will be huge advantage to recruiting and keeping the best talent. Without that employee advantage it will at the least be a competitive disadvantage and at worst a contributor to the ultimate failure of a business.
Making better business decisions is tied to business networks that connect people to each other and to relevant data / information in real time and in the correct workflow context. I've talked about this as a part of a successful enterprise social network (ESN) for a few years now. This real time connectivity and access moves employees away from the old model of using historical data only to make decisions. The decision process is a real time process that is distributed throughout companies and across the entire employee base. There's an additional element in modern decision processes, the growing availability of assistive technology in the form of artificial intelligence (AI) and cognitive systems. These new computing aids can provide everything from memory aids to active suggestions and advice.
AI technology predates the newer cognitive systems, and provides the foundation of capabilities that can, in specific circumstances replace human actions / tasks. AI can be used for things like speech recognition or executing tasks like translations. On top of these basic compute functions, cognitive systems provide employees access to systems that learn and interact naturally, extending what both computing and employees could do individually. In other words cognitive computers can interface in normal language and learns from interactions and from unstructured data. These capabilities are far beyond the old "expert systems" that could only interact inside a strict rules based structure. This additional capability opens up a variety of use cases. These include:
- Companies and employees are dealing with a growing mountain of data or big data and trying to make sense and thus use of that data. While some is structured much of it is unstructured. Cognitive computers can help employees turn big data into smart data and ad the essential capabilities of sensing, predicting and inferring. That capability can make simple business decisions, relieving employees to focus on more complex and critical problems, but with the additional help of the cognitive computer.
- These cognitive capabilities in particular are very valuable in providing assistance to employees by providing a new, higher level expert system that can interact with the decision-maker.
- Cognitive computers can manage a huge amount of data. this could be used to asist in complex problem solving and diagnosis. In healthcare, for example, physicians must manage a large amount of sensor data, combined with test, discussion with the patient and the experiences of thousands of other physicians that are dealing with or have dealt with similar symptoms. Rather than trying to somehow track this data and analyze it as an individual the cognitive computer assists the physicial in the diagnosis, eliminating possibilities and tying together broad pictures that an individual simply couldn't possibly manage.
- Cognitive computers, using natural communications capabilities, can analyze massive amounts of visual and voice based data and provide back visualizations that make analysis by humans much more accurate in much less time (or even at all).
- For decision support cognitive computers add a wide variety of capabilities like the manupilation of a wide variety of data sources ranging from company databases to social web generated; complex model building and analysis; collaborate with employees in visual and language based interactions; and expert advice and analysis.
We're only scratching the surface of the capabilities offered by cognitive systems, as new applications emerge rapidly. The underlying benefit though, is providing real time assistance with decision-making that is more effective, more accurate and much more informed. Combine that with the network capability to identify and connect the "right" employees with the "right" data in real time and in the correct context and the new decision "system" is a serious competitive advantage as well as a productivity booster.
(Cross-posted @ Michael Fauscette)


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Welcome to WebmasterWorld Guest from 220.127.116.11
Forum Moderators: goodroi
Officials from Germany, Canada, France and seven other countries are raising privacy concerns about Google's mapping service and the company's fumbled foray into social networking.
Although the concerns they raise are not new, the officials said the online search leader "too often" forgets people's privacy rights as it rolls out new technologies.
The bulk of the complaints are over Buzz, which Google launched in February as part of its Gmail service. Buzz quickly came under fire for automatically creating public circles of friends for users, based on their most frequent e-mail contacts. After complaints, the company apologized and made changes to the service.
But in the letter sent Monday to Google CEO Eric Schmidt, privacy and data-protection officials from the 10 countries said they are still "extremely concerned about how a product with such significant privacy issues was launched in the first place."
they seem to actually care about privacy concerns
The officials called on Google to create default settings that protect users' privacy and to ensure that privacy control settings are prominent and easy to use.
Automatically opt all users in
Google's roving Street View spycam may blur your face, but it's got your number. The Street View service is under fire in Germany for scanning private WLAN networks, and recording users' unique Mac (Media Access Control) addresses, as the car trundles along.
Germany's Federal Commissioner for Data Protection Peter Schaar says he's "horrified" by the discovery.
"I am appalled� I call upon Google to delete previously unlawfully collected personal data on the wireless network immediately and stop the rides for Street View,"
Google CEO Eric Schmidt recently said internet users shouldn't worry about privacy unless they have something to hide. And when there's nowhere left to hide...?
joined:Jan 30, 2006
votes: 15


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AITS strives to provide services aimed at the highest availability to end users while maintaining reliable and stable applications.
AITS utilizes Sundays from 6:00 a.m. to 12:00 noon to apply critical updates, maintenance or upgrades to application services. This includes software upgrades, server patching, and other critical activities that keep the enterprise systems reliable and stable.
Some maintenance cannot be completed within the 6 hour time frame but will be completed within the 12 hour window. The number of these activities vary throughout year from 3-7 times per year, depending on the year. An example of an extended outage is Solaris/Linux Server maintenance, which is done 3 times per year, and takes 8-12 hours to complete.
In rare cases, an upgrade or other critical task cannot be completed within 12 hours. When that occurs, users are notified as soon as AITS staff know that the work cannot be completed within the 12 hour window. An example of a rare outage is a Banner upgrade which upgrades all Banner modules and might take longer than 12 hours to complete.
View scheduled maintenance activities on the AITS Status Page.
If you have questions about maintenance activities, contact the AITS Deployment Team.


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What are the pros and cons of buying a franchise?
min read
Opinions expressed by Entrepreneur contributors are their own.Let's cut right to the chase--the reason to buy a franchise is that if it is a good one it is a far safer strategy than starting an independent business on your own.
You pay fees, but in exchange you receive a complete system to operate the business successfully so you don't have to waste time and money guessing about what you should be doing in order to be successful.
The disadvantage of buying a good franchise is that there are going to be lots and lots of rules about how you need to run your business and you will be expected to follow these rules without exception.
If you are a true "fly by the seat of your pants" entrepreneur, this can be frustrating or restricting. Therefore the trade off is between more fees, structure and security versus more freedom and risk of your investment.
The real key to success is that you need to find a good franchise and they are not all good. The secret is that you'll need to do extensive research and talk to lots of existing franchisees so that you can verify a proven track record that shows that a new person like you can enter the system and follow the rules and have a very high probability of being successful.
If you can't verify that exact fact, look for a different franchise to buy.


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Self-Learning Enterprises Use Smart Data Recommendations
There has been a lot of discussion about Artificial Intelligence (AI), Machine Learning (ML) and Deep Learning (DL) as the next wave of productivity and efficiency for businesses. The context of machine learning needs to be applied to your specific business and industry, with a focused set of benefits for each business user's role in order for it to be useful, so it doesn't get labeled yet another data science project with limited value. This video presentation by Upwan Chachra, Principal Product Manager at Reltio, discusses how mastered data brought together with big data scale interactions and transactions, into a single environment, such as Apache Spark on demand, quickly enables agile, closed-loop insights and action to provide faster Time to Analytics (TTA), and more relevant and accurate information through best of breed machine learning tools and technologies.


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In The Federalist No. 22, Hamilton argues that one of the best reasons for ratifying the Constitution is that it will give the new government the United States "power to regulate commerce":
It is indeed evident, on the most superficial view, that there is no object, either as it respects the interests of trade or finance, that more strongly demands a federal superintendence.
And that was when Wall Street was just a street.


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Welcome to Fish & Frites – Anstruther
We are set to bring you the most delicious Fish & Frites freshly sourced from the East Neuk of Fife. We are aiming to be at the forefront of the current street food revolution in the UK, supplying takeaway fresh Fish & Frites to the locals of Anstruther, St Andrews and venturing further a field to Edinburgh, Dundee and Glasgow.
We aim to provide a unique experience for customers and bring the most popular UK takeaway straight to you with our mobile van "BRIAN" who is 6m in length and 2m width.
For Weddings, Private and Corporate Events we can also offer a bespoke menu to suit your needs. We offer a modern twist with our Fish suppers and take pride in being unique.


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Wednesday, July 25, 2012
Serial Killer Andrew Urdiales
5 comments:
Im so glad that he was caught, Cassie was my best friend Im so sorry for the familys that lost there loved one I hope he burns in HELL for what he done to my friend and what he done to the other seven women he killed he is right now paying for what he did,But really I think he should get death , And you no I think he should die just like my friend cassie did he should feel fear, Julie KlemoffReplyDelete
- AnonymousJune 18, 2015 at 8:54 PM
No words can explain the pain he has caused not only his victims but the families of the victims. His punishment goes undone and yet he lives to see another day. Lynn Huber had her problems and didn't deserve to die the way she did. She was a proud enrolled native american with a very kind heart and a very easy personality. She is deeply missed in this circle of life and is well remembered amongst her family. She was coming home before this happened and never to heal the mistakes of her life. This man destroyed several people's lives by killing the women he did and will pay sooner or later for what he did. This man needs to be sent to his maker for his judgements in life and see if he has the mercy he gave to those he took.ReplyDelete
Screw former Gov Ryan for commuting the death sentence. This man deserves to die.ReplyDeleteReplies


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I am quite happy with how my day went today, it was definitely interesting and different. As usual, I always drive around finding a place that I have never been before and I had explored two new places today, with reasons.
Flashback two days ago, I was confirmed for two interviews today. One was at 11am and another was at 2.30pm. I was surprised that they actually called me for an interview. Now you must be wondering what job was I applying for and where? I really don't want to release anything yet until I'm double confirm or triple confirm. So bear with me for a month or so regarding this mysterious job.
Sadly to say, I was late for the morning interview. I know, shame on me! It was in Jalan Burhanuddin Helmi, my first expression was 'HUH? Where in the world is that'. What makes it worse was that at the end of the address line written KL. I like to be adventurous but my skills in driving around KL area are still yet to be perfected. I never like driving around KL area, it is so complicated! Before my brain could actually explode, Thank God it was written 'opposite 1U'. Hallelujah, that is more like it! At least I know how to get to 1U and the directions given by the girl was pretty clear. Anyway, the interview went okay. No biggie and it was FAST! Like superman fast. It took me an hour to reach there due to the LDP road that constantly filled with cars and I only had to go through only about 15minutes of interview which was totally not horrifying or torturing at all.
So I had plenty of time to spare till my next interview which was in Puchong. I had already planned to go back to college just to google the area. I ended up getting permission from Miss See Ling to use the admin's internet because the library just had to close by the time I got there. Oh and I met Zhen Yang, pity all these architecture students, even Saturday they are busy with their models. I use google for everything, it is a life saver. Although, the google map is so outdated. Apparently, Jalan Bandar 19 in pusat Bandar puchong is new and it seems that google map has not updated anything since 2006. Obviously, I had some trouble looking for the damn Jalan bandar 19 on the map, the maximum I saw was 16 and that was it! Knowing me being me, I will still go looking for the place even though I seriously have no idea where it is. It was a suffer for the entire journey, thank God I had been to puchong area before during the times with Serene visiting Jia Sheng's house.
Can anyone tell me how can I U-turn to Tesco when tesco is on my right? That is where my challenge begin. Even now I am still scratching my heads. Oh, some random facts, the pet store that I drop by to ask for direction, stinks. Hahaha. I remembered well that once I stepped out, I told myself 'God it stinks'. Okay fine, I'm being judgmental as it is a pet store, so they are meant to stink for some reason.
Fortunately, I found the place ON TIME! hahaha. Maybe with my car time signals 2.30pm, in reality it is 10 minutes earlier. Anyway, with this place I had waited to 5pm before it was my turn and the interview session only took up probably 45 minutes. I wasn't the only one, so it was no big deal. I made some friends, hopefully will be able to work with them in the mere future. I shared food and drinks too! The weather was freaking hot and definitely, we did not had any portent that the air condition was not working very well. Since the place is new thus no water nor rubbish bin yet. Some of us got hungry and thirsty after waiting for a long time, coincidentally I bought some muffins and water earlier. Funnily we ate while waiting.
So practically I was out the whole day. Honestly, I was slightly over-prepared. It wasn't how I expected it to be but I'm gleeful overall.


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After two months of falling behind the Xbox One for U.S. sales, Sony's PlayStation 4 came out on top for January.
According to the NPD Group's statistics for last month, the PS4 led overall hardware sales, followed by the Xbox One. NPD did not reveal specific numbers.
Sony, too, does not report sales numbers. But PlayStation Marketing Senior Vice President Guy Longworth told video game reporter Geoff Keighley that the PS4 finished January with nearly double the sales of the Xbox One:
per @LuckyLongworth: PS4 was #1 in sales for next gen consoles in January, nearly doubling the nearest next gen competitor.
— Geoff Keighley (@geoffkeighley) February 13, 2014
We've reached out to Sony to see if the company has any information on PS4 sales for January and will update if we hear back.
Microsoft posted its Xbox One sales numbers for both November and December, but interestingly left that information out in today's blog post about its console's performance in the U.S.
Microsoft did note today that it sold 2.27 million Xbox 360 and Xbox One games in January for 47 percent of software market share, but did not include many more stats other than "740 million hours of fun," and "685 speech commands used to navigate Xbox One."
In December, the Xbox One sold 908,000 units in the U.S., ousting Sony's PS4, which sold somewhere between 643,000 and 908,000 units.
In January, Microsoft said it sold 3 million Xbox One's around the world, while Sony announced that it had sold 4.2 million PS4′s worldwide. Sony is selling its console in 52 countries, while Microsoft has stuck with its initial 13 launch markets.
The NPD also reported that video game hardware sales were up 17-percent from last January thanks to the next-generation consoles. However, software sales were down 25 percent, though the NPD does not account for digital purchases.


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Travel is fun and lots of people travel with the sole purpose of enjoyment. Most people associate travel with the idea of being on vacation, and most of all, with breaking routine and escaping from mundane daily life and living. For some travel's a dream that only comes true once a year for the annual vacation. For many, it is an appealing form of escape.
For me, the reason to travel is that I discover a lot about myself and discover new and different possibilities. To see different possibilities, the most effective way is to seek new experiences and blitz our brain with things it has never encountered before. Whenever I'm traveling I feel recharged and full of ideas and energy.
Travelling can provide us with a whole new perspective, a sense of adventure that allows us to grow our creative power and to think outside the box. All the unknown landscapes, objects, and people give us new inputs and stimulates our creativity. ..... Now I'm not talking about taking a vacation and sightseeing, or backpacking across continents, or sitting on the beach, or doing touristy activities. When I speak of travelling, I talk about having an opportunity for total immersion in a different culture, seeking out new experiences and breaking out of the familiar routines. New experiences release our perceptual activity from the boundaries of past experiences and stimulate the brain to see new possibilities and expand our awareness.
Travelling to foreign environments provides an opportunity for us to expand our awareness and help us unleash our creative process. It reinvigorates our brain because we are being undistracted by the petty drama of normal life. Epiphanies seldom occur in familiar environments. The more diverse our experience the more limber and nimble our perspective becomes and the more possibilities we can perceive. If our perspective is not so solid and fixed, we can find inspiration everywhere, even while we are waiting for our next fight at a very busy airport. Unfamiliarity forces the brain to discard its usual or conventional perception and create new ones. Fresh input triggers new awareness which leads to new ideas.
When we travel, we step out of our comfort zone, physically and mentally. When we are faced with alternative cultures that have a different way of doing, thinking and believing, we are breaking out of our familiar zone and we widen our perspective. It challenges our assumptions and makes us shift our way of looking at things. Sometimes a simple change of environment is enough to get us out of our comfort zone and enough to nudge the perceptual system out of familiar space. The natural shift in focus can often come on unexpectedly.
Visiting a foreign country opens our eyes to how the rest of the world lives. From my own experience, when I am on an overseas travel, my awareness opens up to different possibilities. Some of my most creative insights are the direct result of visiting unusual places beyond my usual boundaries and normality. I often return home with new ideas for my business while gaining a broader worldview in the process.


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I've got a complicated relationship with Lily Allen.
See, for the longest time, she was one of the most frustrating artists I've ever listened to, an act with very clear talent in instrumentation and songwriting, and I could tell she was genuinely clever and had a knack for incisive, biting songwriting. But every time I'd go back to that first album Alright, Still, I despised it more and more every single time. The rational part of my brain was telling me it wasn't a bad record, but for the life of me, I hated the framing of that album, overloaded with vapid, spiteful bitchiness that screamed of self-aware hypocrisy but didn't have the nuance or depth to really justify it. I'm told this is a British thing in how Lily Allen is supposed to be funny, but for me it was aggressively the opposite. My issue was always in the framing, which was trying to paint Lily Allen as at least a flawed protagonist figure who was skewering shallow mainstream culture, and while there was some self-awareness at how awful she came across, it was never enough to support her hollow justifications and I never felt her rather inert delivery was cute or charming or interesting enough to ignore it.
Thankfully, she seemed to clue into this problem in time for her second album It's Not Me It's You, which I liked a bit more in making Lily Allen a little more sympathetic and the framing a little more intelligent. But at the same time, the songwriting went broader in its portrayal of her newfound maturity, and her stabs at 'deeper' topics like religion and politics were shallow at best, almost cartoonish to the point of not being able to take seriously. On top of that, her instrumentation was even more of a mixed bag, displaying more influences and styles but some seriously obnoxious hooks. And the more I listened to the album, the more I got the impression that Lily Allen was never really trying or had her heart in her music - which she flat out admitted after the release of that album and then proceeded to take a five year hiatus.
But now she's back with an album titled Sheezus, a title modeled off of Kanye West's controversial and critically acclaimed album that came out last year. And honestly, I was intrigued where she was going with this, because there are recognizable similarities between both artists. For one, they both have a tendency to mix genres in unconventional ways, they both can be insightful and somewhat self-aware songwriters about how terrible they can come across, and yet they both have egos the size of the British Isles and can be overwhelmingly full of shit. So I figured even if the album sucked, it'd still be interesting, so I gave it a few listens - how did it turn out?
Well, I'll be blunt: this album is startlingly like Yeezus - not just that they share similar themes and elements and are both self-aware, but it also suffers from many, if not all of the same problems that album does. On the one hand, it sure as hell makes Sheezus by Lily Allen an interesting record to talk about, but at the same time, it's a frustrating, messy, and more than a little exasperating to listen through. And like with Yeezus, I won't say this album works - because I don't think it completely does - but at the same time, I get what it's trying to do. And while I am a little amazed Lily Allen was so uncannily able to replicate the experience of listening to Yeezus with her album and give it a unique taste, there's a certain lack of self-awareness to that recreation that hurts this album.
So first, for context, let's talk about Kanye West's Yeezus. Let me stress that I do mostly like the album, even so much to put 'Blood On The Leaves' as one of my favourite songs of 2013, but I know its flaws. It's unnecessarily hyperbolic, Kanye's rhymes are not close to great, it's rushed and messy, and it's very derivative instrumentally of other noise rap acts. But on another note, I get what Kanye was trying to do. Since the beginning of his career, Kanye's rapping has been characterized by one element that should have crippled his career: uncompromising honesty. It's the only reason the vulnerability of 808s and Heartbreaks works, it's the reason why the braggadocious elements of My Beautiful Dark Twisted Fantasy ring as intentionally hollow, and it's the reason he was able to channel his instability and knowing hypocrisy into Yeezus. My interpretation of that album is that Kanye knows what he's saying is hyperbolic, hypocritical bullshit on a deeper level, and since he's intensely aware and cares way too much what the world thinks of him, he makes the choice to epitomize every ludicrous stereotype of black male rappers of which he can think - because in his mind, that's what the world wants. That's the reason he uses such a bellicose delivery and outlandish production. But where Kanye fails here is that his commentary and attempted satire of said material is shoddy, poorly articulated, and mired in incoherence and redundancy - it's not like rappers haven't made the exact same commentary Kanye has made or have used this sort of production to do it.
So what does this have to do with Sheezus? Well, surprisingly a lot. Not only are there a surprising number of callbacks to Kanye's album, it also features the most rough, hard-edged, and electronic production that Lily Allen has ever used. I won't say it's great - most of it falls into conventional electronic pop with a trap-inspired hip-hop edge in the darker synths and hi-hats, but there are a few moments that reflect her older sound, like the chipper melody of 'Air Balloon', the funkier guitar on 'Insincerely Yours' and 'Life For Me', the muted, shimmering piano in 'Take My Place', the accordion-driven 'As Long As I Got You', and the snarled dubstep edge of 'URL Badman'. And while I do appreciate the more melodic focus and reasonably restrained production, I have no idea why anyone thought autotune on Lily Allen's voice was necessary. She already brings a very muted personality to her album, so why strip away some of the subtleties by throwing on a layer of Autotune other than to mimic some of Kanye's usage of the tool?
Unfortunately, unlike Kanye's shift to a harsher sound on Yeezus, the instrumentation and production on Sheezus is by far its least interesting factor - which is a shame considering Lily Allen used to at least have a greater breadth of flavour here - so let's move to lyrics and themes. Now I stand by the fact that Lily Allen is at least a clever songwriter, and she's got a gift for meter and wordplay I won't deny - although I will say this album hasn't exactly recovered the wit lost in going broader five years ago. And as with Kanye on Yeezus, Lily Allen is playing up the most irreverent parts of her persona: her bragging on 'Sheezus' and 'Hard Out Here', her anti-party party songs in 'Our Time' and 'Life For Me', and her smug detachment and dismissiveness on 'L8 CMMR', 'Insincerely Yours', and to a lesser extent on 'As Long As I Got You'. And I'll admit her satire is just as blunt and direct as Kanye's was, especially on the broad anti-troll track 'URL Badman'.
But here's where we run into the first problem: there are moments on this album where Lily Allen is opting for more sincere material and we're expected to buy into her emotional drama, and while her delivery mostly sells it, it's undercut by the veneer of self-aware irony slathered over most of the album. Plus, at least when Kanye created an exaggerated caricature on Yeezus, he had a deeper reason and it was always punctured by his own honesty. Lily Allen, however, sounds a lot less committed to that sort of exaggerated performance - even though the ego is definitely still there - and it means her execution comes across a lot more calculated and unconvincing, even on her more honest songs. It doesn't help her case when includes songs like 'Silver Spoon', which falls into the Vampire Weekend school of unwelcome privilege defensiveness where Lily Allen lashes out at people who have criticized her for her upbringing. At this point in her career, does anyone besides Lily Allen care about these sorts of comments - shouldn't her career stand for itself? The fact that Lily Allen placed the song on this album shows that, just like Kanye, she's far more concerned with the presumed 'haters' than they are with her possible delusions of grandeur, and feeding into it only makes it worse.
And then there's the biggest problem and the most ironic mirroring of Yeezus yet: the satirical points Lily Allen is trying to make through her lyrics and sound have been done before and done a lot better. That's not saying a song like 'URL Badman' isn't a good song, but it's nowhere near St. Vincent's 'Digital Witness', which covers the same ground a lot more effectively. All the heavily autotuned third-wave; feminist titillation in songs like 'Hard Out Here' might be revolutionary, except we live in a world where Kesha already covered this subject in comprehensive detail four years ago with songs like 'Grow A Pear' and 'Hungover' among others, and Natalia Kills hit on last year. Hell, songs like 'Our Time' talking about the emptiness of hard partying might work a little better in a world where Miley's 'We Can't Stop' had a strikingly similar sound, tempo and tone and played it all unironically. And that's when the framing is good! For me, the worst song of the album by far is 'Life For Me', a song where Lily Allen seems to miss the partying even though she acknowledges it was emptiness personified - even though by her own admission, her current life is complete and perfect, and the upbeat, satisfied tone of the song - and other songs across the album - agrees, which makes her commentary come across as condescension and I lose all sympathy for her pre-mid-life crisis instantaneously. She's not a part of the system making commentary on it, she's been outside the pop landscape for years now and is attempting to muscle her way in with cheap provocation. Even songs like 'Insincerely Yours' are covering ground Lily Allen has done before on previous albums in bashing vapid celebrity culture, image obsession, and even bad DJs - and since the framing places her outside of the situation, as much as I might agree with some of her points, her execution lacks tact and deeper nuance, and I can't sympathize.
So look, I don't think this is a bad album, in the same way I don't think Yeezus is a bad album. But it suffers the exact same problems that album did, and while Sheezus by Lily Allen might have better articulated points, it suffers from a lack of instrumental diversity, solid production, and Lily Allen sounding like she could give a shit. For me, I'm going to be generous and give it a 6/10, because like I said, she's a good technical songwriter and there are a few decent beats on here even if they feel a little recycled, but it's an album that's for the fans at this point, or as a case study of mimicry without complete self-awareness. And while it might be interesting to analyze, it's also a record - just like Yeezus - that adds up to a lot less than the sum of its parts.


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"Its okay. It will be okay. I know it." he squeezed her a hand a little tighter as he spoke and stood up.
Wednesday, April 21, 2010
Wednesdays Written Word: Guardian
"Its okay. It will be okay. I know it." he squeezed her a hand a little tighter as he spoke and stood up.
10 comments:
Beautiful. I wish I'd had a guardian like that. (Or maybe I did but just never realized it)ReplyDelete
Yeah, what Wendy said. :o)ReplyDelete
Champaigne fabric flutters against the glass-- lovely image!ReplyDelete
Happy warm and sunny Wednesday, too!ReplyDelete
I like that he looked like a leprechaun in her eyes. Cool!
Yeah, what Wendy and Lola said! Ha ha ha.ReplyDelete
I loved it, Courtney - the words just flow like water. :-)
What a great post/writing. You are one talented girl. :)ReplyDelete
Happy Wednesday to you, too. That was lovely. Thank you very much. :)ReplyDelete
I really enjoyed this - well written and well done!ReplyDelete
Love this exercise! Love that last image...ReplyDelete
You have a talent for drawing the reader, making him care and listening for the next clue to the future. Thanks for putting so much effort into making a delightful and entertaining blog, RolandReplyDelete