text:
SAMA: from crises to cleansing (to crescendo?)
Recent crises have thrown the South African Medical Association (SAMA) into turmoil. What have these been, and what are the solutions?
But first a glace at what history tells us. Historically the Medical Association is well acquainted with schisms. Hardly had the South African Medical Association been established in 1883 when certain geographical groups, Grahamstown, Frontier and Kimberley, decided to secede on the grounds that they received insufficient benefit from the connection to warrant their subscription fees.1 Repeated attempts to unify the splinter groups were complicated by many becoming branches of the British Medical Association. Language differences have also played their part, this factor proving to be both unifying and at times divisive. Commencing with Louis Leipoldt's editorship of the South African Medical Journal, Afrikaans enjoyed equal status with English in the journal. The first translation of the journal title was Die Suid Afrikaanse Tydskrif vir Geneeskunde, becoming the SA Mediese Tydskrif in 1970. I well remember the orchestrated opposition to the next change to SA Mediese Joernaal (sharing the acronym SAMJ), despite the support of deans of the Afrikaans medical schools.
Deep political divisions followed Biko's death in detention, leading to the formation of an opposition group, the National Medical and Dental Association (NAMDA) and the formation of further groups with differing interests. These came together as 'partners' in a 50:50 union with the Medical Association of South Africa (MASA) in 1998 to form the new South African Medical Association (SAMA). Acrimony over how these more recent historical groupings should be represented at the National Council and its standing committees continued despite increasing numbers of new graduates whose only experience and allegiance was to SAMA.
Some years ago when repeated personal misfortunes were my lot I had an expression that I repeated to friends that was intended to bring humour and perspective: 'Cheer up, things could be worse and sure enough things got worse!' The same could be said of SAMA's recent travails.
The most critical problem was a crisis of leadership that resulted in SAMA taking its eye off the main issues. The former chairman, Kgosi Letlapi, and the former Secretary-General, Aquina Thulare, are outstanding people, and the good things that they have done for the Association and elsewhere have been documented. However, personal and/or ideological agendas that were at odds with the requirements of the Association resulted in increasing divisions to the detriment of much-needed teamwork by the organisation. Kgosi resigned when it became apparent that he no longer had the support of the Board, and Aquina's contract was not renewed. Denise White, who had been vice-chair, stepped in as chairperson and in due course Trevor Terblanche, who had been active, experienced and respected in SAMA affairs, was appointed as the new Secretary-General. The leadership (SAMA owes them all a great deal!) was catapulted into major crises affecting the public and private sectors of the Association, which was organisationally split and in disrepair.]]> The OSD (Occupational-Specific Dispensation), i.e. salaries for doctors in the public sector, had been grossly mishandled by a National Health Department that was in even greater disarray a legacy of Manto Tshbalala-Msimang's notorious reign. The reactions of doctors were a long time in coming, but their intensity, including strikes and picketing, surprised all. The private specialists also broke away, citing lack of support for their causes. On top of all of this is the looming NHI (National Health Insurance), which has massive implications for health care in South Africa.
Mistrust and threats were much in evidence at the start to SAMA's Annual General Meeting. But once over that hurdle the election of chairpersons and members of SAMA committees saw many new faces, especially of the younger members, and no longer an emphasis on the old 'partner' and 'MASA' groups.
A new sense of direction and commitment is evident. Membership numbers have increased and there is clearly a feeling of common purpose. The public and private sectors are equally important to SAMA, and much thought has already gone into how to define and strengthen union activities of the public sector members, and how the private sector should be provided with appropriate support and assisted in its tasks, such as setting fees again.
The speech of the Minister of Health, Dr Aaron Motsoaledi, at the awards dinner was another major cause for optimism. He acknowledged many lost years in health care in South Africa, and displayed a clear understanding of the problems and a willingness to engage and work with health professionals to jointly address South Africa's immense health problems.
History has shown that crises have resulted in re-appraisal, resulting in a stronger and more representative medical association. From the debates and elections at the recent SAMA AGM, one can reasonably conclude that the association is poised to move from its crises to a new crescendo, with younger members much in evidence.
J P de V van Niekerk
Managing Editor
1. Burrows EH. A History of Medicine in South Africa. Cape Town: AA Balkema, 1958. [ Links ]]]>


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i came across a set of photos on flickr belonging to the museum of modern art (ny), it's called marina abramović: the artist is present – portraits. naturally i was intrigued as to why there were over 1,300 photos of all these different people, some crying, and who is marina abramović? turns out she is a performance artist who is currently performing a piece called the artist is present. she sits in the museum during opening hours (7 hours a day), and you as a visitor are allowed to sit across from her in silence … for as long as you can hold out it seems. this is who you're up against:
… and this is what might happen:
(after 29 minutes) note: this guy sat with her 14+ times.
over at nymag i read that the queues to sit opposite marina can yield up to an eight hour wait, and that celebrities like björk, james franco, marisa tomei, sharon stone and rufus wainwright sat with her.
my favourite has to be alan rickman, i don't think anything can make this man cry…
i decided to do a bit more googling and discovered a tumblr called marina abramović made me cry which chronicles all the people who started crying and how long they managed to sit there.
(86 min)
(45 min)
(18 min)
(14 min)
(12 min)
(10 min)
(3 min)
personally i think i would just start giggling right away. it makes me think of that episode in sex and the city where carrie and charlotte go see the performance artist who neither eats nor sleeps.
all images from moma

subset: commoncrawl


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|Results from a project by MSP students.
J. Windsor et al. (2016): Volatile Organic Compounds:
A Detailed Account of Identity, Origin,
Activity and Pathways. Figshare.
There were many interesting talks, around various data initiatives, adverse outcome pathways (AOPs) and their links to molecular initiating events (MIEs), and ontologies (like the AOP ontology talk by ). In fact, I quite enjoyed the discussion with Chris Grulke about ontologies during the panel discussion. Central was, where is the border between data and ontological concepts. Some slides are available via Lanyrd.
During the Emerging Methods and Practice session hosted by Ola Spjuth, I presented the work at the BiGCaT department into identifier mapping and the use of ontologies for linking data sets.
The presentation integrates a lot of things I have been working on in the last few years, and please note the second slide with all people I have worked with on things presented in these slides.


text:
A Celebrity cruise is the perfect family vacation, featuring special children's programs for ages 3 - 17. Along with activities and play areas just for children - all closely supervised - Celebrity offers programs for the entire family. Celebrity's children's programs are available year-round and activities take place daily. During the summer and holidays a full program is offered for four age groups: Ship Mates (ages 3-5), Cadets (ages 6-8), Ensigns (ages 9-11), and Admiral T's (ages 12-14 and 15-17). A limited program is offered during other sailings.Staffing
Youth activities are directed and organized by a special staff of youth counselors. Youth Counselors have a formal education in recreation, education, child development or related fields. In addition, Youth Counselors have experience working with large groups of children, 3-17 years of age, in school/community sponsored youth programs or summer camps. Youth Counselors hold certifications in CPR and some speak Spanish, French, German, Italian, or Portuguese.
All Celebrity ships carry a minimum of three Youth Counselors plus one manager (Century and Millennium Class) and four Youth Counselors plus one manager (Solstice Class) year round. During holiday sailings, Celebrity ships carry 8-12 Youth Counselors (this number varies).Celebrity's Four-Tier Family Program
Ship Mates (ages 3-5)
Activities Include:
Celebrity Cadets (ages 6-8)
Activities Include:
Ensigns (ages 9-11)
Activities Include:
Admiral T's (ages 12-17 During regular season / 12-14 & 15-17 during peak season)
Activities Include:
Age Restrictions:
The Celebrity X-Club Youth Program provides activities for children and teens 3 to 17. Children must be a minimum age of 3 years old to participate in organized and counselor supervised activities. Proof of age may be requested. At the discretion of the Youth Program Manager, parents may accompany their toddlers to utilize the Fun Factory and participate in Shipmate activities.
Health Restrictions:
*Children participating in the Celebrity X-Club Youth Program organized and counselor supervised activities without a parent, must be completely toilet trained and diaper/pull-up free.
*Children with Disabilities:
Any child over the age of 3 who must wear diapers or pull ups due to a disability may participate in the Youth Program as long as the parent submits a signed copy of the ADA XClub Accommodation Request Form.
The Celebrity Youth Program is available year round with a full, four-tier age group program during President's Week, Easter, Summer, Thanksgiving, and Christmas sailings. On all other sailings, a combined age group program is offered.
Program Hours:
The Children's Playroom / Fun Factory is open daily from 9:00 A.M. - 10:00 P.M. each day. Slumber Party from 10:00pm - Midnight is offered each night on a sign up basis for a fee of $6 per child, per hour. Children ages 3-12 years old who wish to participate in various sitting services offered by the X-Club Youth Program; Afternoon Party from 12:00 P.M. - 2:00 P.M. and Dinner Party from 5:00pm - 7:00pm
On the last evening of the cruise, the Celebrity Youth Program hosts a "Parent's Night Out" in which children participate in a Pizza Party, evening activities, and complimentary Slumber Party, while their parents enjoy their last evening of fine dining and world class entertainment. Ensign (9-11 years) and Teen (12-17 years) activities are hosted by the Youth Staff. Ensigns and Teens are free to enter and leave activities as they please.
Parent Responsibility:
Children ages 3-8 must be signed-in and signed-out of the Celebrity Youth Program by their parents, who must present their Celebrity Signature Card for identification. Children and teens ages 9-17 are free to come and go as they please from activities hosted by the Celebrity Youth Program, but are required to follow the basic rules of the ship for those under 18 years old. After 10PM, Ensigns require an adult to sign them out of activities. Due to the liberty afforded to Ensigns, please tell your children never to enter someone else's stateroom and to always let someone know where they will be. When outside of the Celebrity Youth Program, parents are responsible for the supervision of their children. Celebrity also asks that you refrain from allowing your children to utilize the pool or jacuzzi without your supervision.
Babysitting (Youth Program)
For a nominal fee of $6.00 per hour per child, children participating in the Celebrity Youth Program, ages 3-12 years old, can participate in the Afternoon Party from 12 noon-2PM on port days and/or the evening Slumber Party from 10PM-1AM daily. Children participating in the Celebrity Youth Program Afternoon and Slumber Parties must be a minimum age of 3 years old and completely toilet trained (diaper/pull-up free). Celebrity Youth Program Afternoon and Slumber Parties are available on all Celebrity ships year-round (except Celebrity FloraSM & Celebrity Xpedition®).
Babysitting (In-Suite Services- Available to Suite Guests Only)
In-Suite babysitting is available upon request for Suite Guests only. For a nominal fee of $30.00 per hour for up to three children within the same family, parents can arrange for a private, In-Suite babysitter. Two sitters will be assigned per In-Suite. Children must be twelve months old or older to be eligible for In-Suite sitting. Babysitting services are available through Camp at Sea, Guest Relations, Retreat Lounge and with the Butlers onboard all Celebrity ships (except Celebrity FloraSM & Celebrity Xpedition®). Parents are asked to make all private, in-Suite babysitting requests 24 hours in advance. Private, in-Suite babysitting is subject to personnel availability.
Toddler Time (Children under 3):
Parents can now accompany their toddlers to a special event held only for toddlers and their parents. Youth Staff will provide toddler appropriate toys and equipment for these junior cruisers to feel like part of the fun. Celebrity has also provided changing tables and baby wipes in either the Fun Factory lavatory or the washroom closest to the Toddler Time venue.
Celebrity Youth Program Behavioral Policy:
Inappropriate behavior will not be permitted during Celebrity Youth Program activities. Youth demonstrating inappropriate behavior will first receive a verbal warning, second receive an age appropriate time out for continued inappropriate behavior and third, parent notification and dismissal from the Celebrity Youth Program activities.
Celebrity would like to offer pagers to use while onboard should they have a child with disabilities, special needs, allergies or in the event you wish to participate in their fun filled youth activities. Pagers are first come-first serve and have limited availability. (Not available on Celebrity Century & Celebrity Mercury).


text:
Scotland Yard officers arrested a 28-year-old man this morning on suspicion of computer hacking relating to the identification of a previously anonymous blogger in 2009.
The Met said the suspect is a journalist and that he was cuffed as part of the force's Operation Tuleta investigation into alleged computer hacking by newspapers.
The man was collared in north London for suspected offences under the Computer Misuse Act 1990 and suspected conspiracy to pervert the court of justice, contrary to the Criminal Law Act 1977, police said.
Scotland Yard did not reveal the name of the journo being questioned. It also kept the aforementioned one-time anonymous blogger's identity secret in its statement.
However, the BBC is reporting that the journalist in question is ex-Times scribe Patrick Foster, who outed an anonymous police officer blogger known as NightJack in the Rupert Murdoch-owned newspaper back in 2009. Foster left the paper in 2011 to write for the Guardian and the Daily Telegraph. ®


text:
I've got to head for work, so I can only make a few comments. My first would be to remove exclamation marks- I don't think they're appropriate for this kind of writing. It's an admission essay, so should be more formal.
The opening seems to chatty to me- a world without diseases would, indeed, be great, but I'd focus purely on your goal, which is to help with the elimination of one disease. Also, in the first paragraph, do we 'furnish' cures? I'd use something like find/discover.


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I am trying to place a combo-box in the top of my web application which will search an internal WFS from Geoserver. I am using the combo-box so I can have the "type ahead" functionality which I think will help then narrow down the site they are looking for. Then once I solve this issue I will have a listener which will get the info and zoom to the location on selection.
I am working of a test at then moment to see if I can implement it in an existing site, but I am running into some trouble. The combo-box doesn't filter the data store, it just returns a full list of the datastore regardless of what i type (see picture at bottom of post).
The code I have used is below, unfortunately I don't have an external facing site to show.
I originally was hoping to set my WFS output format to JSON and just load that into a JSON data store but I kept getting errors that I was unable to decipher.
var queryLayer = "dam";
var protocol= OpenLayers.Protocol.WFS({
url: "/geoserver/ows",
featureType: queryLayer,
featureNS: "www.awebsite.com.au", //Just for SE proper featureNS website used in application
version: "1.0.0",
srsName: "EPSG:4283"
var assetStore = new GeoExt.data.FeatureStore({
fields: [
{name: "name", type: "string"}
//{name: "type", type: "string"}
proxy: new GeoExt.data.ProtocolProxy({
protocol: protocol
new Ext.Viewport({
layout: "border",
items: [{
region: "center",
id: "mappanel",
//title: "Map",
xtype: "gx_mappanel",
map: map,
xtype: 'combo',
fieldLabel: 'Search for an asset:',
store: assetStore,
displayField: 'name',
forceSelection: true,
triggerAction: 'all',
minChars: 1,
displayField: 'name'
layers: [layer],
extent: extent,
split: true
Edit This is the query that is getting sent to the server, its not passing the name from the combo box to the query so I assume that why everything is being returned. Is there a configOption I am missing here??
<wfs:GetFeature xmlns:wfs="http://www.opengis.net/wfs" service="WFS" version="1.0.0" xsi:schemaLocation="http://www.opengis.net/wfs http://schemas.opengis.net/wfs/1.0.0/WFS-transaction.xsd" xmlns:xsi="http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema-instance"><wfs:Query typeName="feature:dam" xmlns:feature="www.mywebsite.com.au"/></wfs:GetFeature>


text:
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text:
Senate passes bill legalizing casino
Bill would allow one casino with slots, table games
The New Hampshire Senate approved a bill Thursday legalizing the construction of a high-end casino, but the bill's fate in the House is uncertain.
The bill was expected to pass the Senate by a decent margin, and it was approved 16-8. Similar bills have failed in the House in the past.
"We have to act," said Sen. David Watters, D-Dover. "We have to break the gridlock on revenues, and we have to deliver on our promises."
Sen. Jeff Woodburn, D-Dalton, said the millions of dollars a casino in southern New Hampshire could potentially bring in can't be passed up.
"This is a good deal for New Hampshire, it's a good deal for the North Country, and not every good deal feels good," Woodburn said.
Sen. Chuck Morse, R-Salem, said a casino is needed to prevent the loss of gambling dollars to Massachusetts, which has approved expanded gambling.
"Unless one of you has a mystery revenue source, then what are we going to do?" Morse said.
Some opposition came from Sen. Martha Fuller Clark, D-Dover, who warned that the casino will not be the revenue savior some supporters have made it out to be.
"It has not been the revenue panacea that so many hope for, and it will not be so in our state," she said.
Like previous gaming bills, the new bill may have a tough time passing the House, but some senators warned that defeat would have a big effect on the state budget.
"You have to reduce spending by $80 million, and there are a lot of social entities that suffer dramatically if we don't get this money," said Sen. Lou D'Allesandro, D-Manchester.
Before a full House vote on the bill, a committee will consider possible changes to it.


text:
| 4.5°C Belfast
A have-a-go hero wrestled an axe-wielding robber to the ground after a smash and grab raid near Buckingham Palace.
The bystander intervened as police were called H Stain jewellers on Victoria Street, central London shortly before 1pm today
Four suspects - two on a moped and two on a motorcycle - had pulled up to the shop and used axes and sledgehammers to smash windows and grab items on display.
As the robbers made their getaway the intrepid member of the public wrestled the moped rider to the ground by tugging on his hoodie and then handed him over to police.
The rider, a man aged 18, was arrested on suspicion of robbery and taken into custody at a central London police station.
His pillion passenger was able to flee on foot into Lower Grosvenor Place, where he hailed a black cab outside the Robin Hotel and left the scene.
The other two suspects got away on a green Triumph motorbike which was later found abandoned in Eaton Square, Belgravia.
They are believed to have hailed a taxi near Eccleston Mews not long after 1pm, and Flying Squad detectives said they were particularly keen to speak to cab drivers who may have picked the suspects up.
The bystander, who asked not to be identified, told the Daily Telegraph it was "like watching a scene from a Guy Ritchie movie".
He said: "These guys screamed up on the scooters and two of the pillion passengers jumped off and tried to smash their way into the displays with yellow axes. I think they grabbed a few watches.
"I waited for a second because I wasn't sure they had guns and when they tried to zoom off I grabbed one who was driving by the hoodie.
"Not putting his hoodie up was a fatal mistake as it gave me something to get hold of.
"He swore at me and I managed to yank him off his machine. I thought 'this is my bloody city - why should thugs like this get away with it?'
"I hope the police manage to get the rest of them."
Scotland Yard said it had no detailed descriptions of the three suspects who managed to get away , but added that they are all believed to be male and were wearing helmets and motorcycle clothing.
Any witnesses or anyone that could assist police are asked call on 101 or call Crimestoppers anonymously on 0800 555 111.


text:
- Fonds
- 1938-2002, predominant 1969-2001
Fonds consists of records pertaining primarily to the professional activities of Elisabeth Mann Borgese, focusing on major organizations and projects with which she was affiliated from the beginning of her North American career in the 1940s. The collection includes correspondence, publications and drafts, administrative records, conference materials, sound and video recordings, research materials, photographs, and other materials.
Borgese, Elisabeth Mann