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The 2nd Bird Flu Summit (2nd Bird Flu 2006)
Venue: TBA ( Most Pobably Hyatt Regency)
Location: Crystal City, Washington, District Of Columbia, United States
|Event Date/Time: Jun 28, 2006
|End Date/Time: Jun 29, 2006
|Early Registration Date: May 15, 2006
Topics Include:
Surveillance, Prevention & Control
Diagnosis & Vaccination
Vaccine Supply Issues & Strategic Vaccine Stockpile
Coordination: Hospitals, National Guard, Public Health Agencies & Law Enforcement Agencies
Homeland Security Issues
Maintenance of Essential Community Services
International Early Warning System
Animal Health & Food Safety
Economic Effects of a Pandemic
Antiviral Agents
Legal Considerations and Immunizing Vaccine
Previous Speakers Included:
Dr. David Nabarro, UN System Senior Coordinator for Avian and Human Influenza, United Nations Development Group
Koos van der Velden, Chairman, European Influenza Surveillance Scheme
Alex Thiermann, President, Terrestrial Animal Health Code Commission, World Organization for Animal Health (OIE)
Dr. Huseyin Avni Sahin, Chief Physician, Van Yuzuncu Yil Research Hospital, Turkey
Dr. Tom McGinn, Sector Specialist, Public Health, Food and Agriculture, Department of Homeland Security
Registered attendees are coming from:
Public Health Departments/Universities from both the US as well as the state level and from other cities/counties,
US Government Agencies,
International Attendees from Foreign Health ministries from more than 15 countries,
Non-Profit/NGO and International Relief Organizations,
International Health/ Regional Organizations,
Private Health Providers and responders from hospitals and organizations from across the nation as well as overseas,
Top pharmaceutical companies, research facilities & laboratories,
Other industries such as chemical solutions, IT solutions, insurance, etc.
Facilities will also be available for sponsor exhibits, media interviews, and contract conferences where your company can have the following opportunities:
Chair the conference (available to Platinum Sponsors only)
Make a presentation/speak in the main conference (please send bio of the speaker)
Have a platform where you can introduce, launch or further broadcast your expertise
Be provided with demonstration tables where you can set up an exhibit
Host the cocktail reception
Complimentary passes to the conference plus extra passes to the cocktail
Company banners to be displayed in the main conference auditorium
Acknowledgment in the conference documentation folder where you can also insert your company profile
Free copy of the confidential delegate list with full contact details
And other marketing exposure (your company logo on our website, brochure, conference materials, etc)
Whether your business development strategy is based on raising your corporate profile, showcasing product developments, or networking with key market participants, New-Fields will work with you to ensure that your corporate message is communicated to the senior level delegates in the event.
Please find attached the Summary of Sponsorship & Exhibit Opportunities for more details. You may also visit http://www.new-fields.com/birdflu2/index.asp for summit updates, confirmed speakers, agenda, and rates for the conference.
To confirm participation, kindly fill out the attached Sponsorship Sales Contract and fax it back ATTENTION : MARK NELSON at (202) 478-2989.
If you need further information or assistance, please do not hesitate to contact me. I look forward to work with you for a successful participation in this global effort to fight this threatening disease. Thank you
Best regards,
Mr. Mark Nelson
Events Coordinator
Direct Line: (202) 536 4999
Email: email@example.com
New-Fields Exhibitions, Inc.
1050 Seventeenth Street, NW
Suite 600
Washington, DC 20036
Tel no.: (202) 536 5000
Fax no: (202) 478 2989
Web: http://www.new-fields.com/


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A great way to start your grocery shopping is to "know before you go."
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subset: commoncrawl


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June 29, 2012
[First look] Psi*Run
In Psi*Run you are a bunch of Runners, amesiac with Psychic powers that try to run from the Chasers.
The game looked nice, with a really simple conflict resolution mechanic and a story-driven soul that I appreciated. The game never really went full speed, but the potential was there and I'm waiting to know something more about my silent Ivan.
Full review next month.
0 commenti Tags: First Look, indie RPG, Sci-Fi
June 26, 2012
[Review] Hellcats & Hockeysticks
0 commenti Tags: indie RPG, reviews
June 18, 2012
[Kickstarter] Durance
0 commenti Tags: indie RPG, kickstarter
June 14, 2012
[First look] Tephra RPG
0 commenti Tags: First Look, steampunk
June 13, 2012
[News] Hell on Earth: Reloaded
June 12, 2012
[Preview] Things to come
0 commenti Tags: First Look
June 11, 2012
[Kickstarter] Dungeon World
I love Apocalypse World. I love even more Monsterhearts. I can't wait to start playing Dungeon World. (Yeah, it's a big Apocalypse World Hack from what they have told me).
Dungeon World is a fantasy roleplaying game about exploring dungeons, fighting monsters and looting treasure. In Dungeon World you and your friends take up the role of classic character classes and undertake exciting adventures together. Through your triumphs and travails the world changes around you.
The Dungeon World rules are simple and elegant. They exist to help you create unpredictable adventures and fluid action - to move from battles to exploration to moments of magic and mystery with ease. Dungeon World's rules all tell you when to use them: every rule comes into effect just when it's needed and stays out of the way the rest of the time.
Dungeon World emerged from our love of two things—modern game design and old-school RPG action. We wanted to create a game with the wide-eyed excitement and wonder of your first time playing a fantasy RPG and rules that draw on a long history of innovation and creativity. The best of both worlds!
The text of the game is complete and we're working with an editor to polish and perfect it right now. The text of Dungeon World is available under a creative commons license and will remain that way whether we meet our Kickstarter goal or not (we wanted to make sure that everyone got a chance to play Dungeon World).
I know that you are fed up with Fanatsy RPGs and that D&DNext is just a downgraded version of 3.5 built just to avoid saying "Sorry, D&D4E is not selling enough, let's take a step back", but trust me, if you haven't already played one of the two games I mentioned earlier, you MUST try this.
0 commenti Tags: indie RPG, kickstarter
June 10, 2012
[Interview] Jake Richmond about The Magical Land of Yeld
I asked Jake Richmond for an interview and he agreed, so here we are!
He also agreed to show me (and you reader) some of the illustrations of the full fledged RPG The Magical Land of Yeld, so be thankful!
1) Let's talk about The Magical Land of Yeld: Mermaid Hunters. It's a 36 page game in the land of Yeld which is the setting of your RPG coming out in the summer. Releasing a standalone game and a full fledged RPG in just a bunch of months is an interesting choice. Do you want to boost the sales, using the Mermaid Hunters as a trial version, or do you address two different audiences?
Yeld is a fairly different tabletop rpg than most people are used to.
It plays a lot more like a Final Fantasy or Zelda game than Dungeons & Dragons or other traditional rpgs. We wanted to make sure that players had an easy way to try the game out and see most of the basic concepts that they'll interact with as players. So Mermaid Hunters is a tryout kit, and easy way to teach people how to play the game without asking for them to commit to buying and reading a larger and more expensive book.
Mermaid Hunters is also just the tip of the iceberg. Each of the systems introduced in that book are massively expanded on in Yeld. Mermaid Hunters gives you a taste of combat, magic, monsters and the Special dice system, but there's just so much more to show! Plus, Mermaid Hunters doesn't even touch on some of the really unique aspects of Yeld, like the map and calendar system, the rotating GM and the player quest. These ideas are just too big to fit into a small, single session tryout kit!
2) Normally RPGs try to simulate as best they can a coherent reality. Your game is very often bending the "reality approach" to the "console game logic" (respawn, no permadeath, loot/treasure mechanics, etc...). Why this choice? Is just for a nostalgia feeling you wanted or do you think that this kind of simplifications can change/make better/make easily approachable the gaming experience?
I grew up playing games like The legend of Zelda, Dragon Warrior and Secret of Mana. When I first tried a table top rpg in high school I was horribly disappointed. It was nothing like the console games I loved. Dungeons & Dragons felt stale and colorless next to Final Fantasy. We designed Yeld not so much with a sense of nostalgia, but with the idea the fantasy rpg's don't have to stick to the D&D/Tolkien traditions that we're all so familiar with. You mentioned a "coherent reality", but traditional style rpgs like Pathfinder and GURPS games are often as abstract as any console game.
3) Both The Magical Land of Yeld and the Mermaid Hunters standalone game are heavily tied to a fixed type of campaign (child gets trapped in a fantasy world and must defeat some evil bosses to return back home). This type of approach, a fixed narrative structure, is similar to the one chosen by the latest Marvel Heroic Roleplaying Basic Game. Why choose this approach and what are the benefits?
Again, this idea goes back to Yeld's console game roots. We want players to experience Yeld in the same way they experience the new Final Fantasy game or the new Tales game. You play Yeld like you'd play a video game, except instead of sitting in front of a TV you sit at a table with friends. You can beat the game,and you can share your experience with other players who have also beat the game and see what they did differently.In that way Yeld provides a fairly unique experience in gaming, a semi-fixed narrative structure, complete with milestones along the way, where the players fill out the details and ultimately decide what happens. Of course, players can and will use Yeld in any way they see fit, but the narrative we're providing is the structure that the entire game is built around. It provides players with a beginning, middle and end, and if they choose to use it instead of a typical, run of the mill dungeon slog.
Nick (Smith, the co-author. NdP&P) and I have done this with other games as well. Classroom Deathmatch, Ocean and GxB all have set narratives that guide play. The key to making this enjoyable is to provide plenty of details, but also leave all the choices in player hands. We'll gibe you a compelling premise, we'll provide you with a sketch of an interesting world that you can fill in and we'll create enough milestones that you can find your way through it, but following those milestones, exploring that world, expanding on that premise... that's all up to you.
4) Your games are deeply rooted in Japanese RPGs. Choose three of them that I have to play before playing The Magical Land of Yeld.
Final Fantasy Tactics: War of the Lions was the obvious inspiration for Yeld's combat system. It's a deep, complex game with rewarding game play, great characters and a kickass story. The Legen of Zelda: Link to the Past isn't an rpg, but it's model of an explorable world full of secrets and challenging dungeons leading to memorable boss fights is something I always wanted to see in a tabletop rpg. Secret of Mana was the first co-op rpg I ever played, and still one of my favorites.
5) This is not the first game you have done together. Do you want to talk about you previous collaborations and how this type of combined style of writing works for you?
We have a pretty simple design method. Generally we get together and throw ideas back and forth. I think all three of the games we've worked on together were spawned out of a single night of this kind of brainstorming. Once we have a basic text we decide what we want to add and divide op the writing. Nick will work on this bit and I'll work on that. generally it all goes pretty quick. The first draft of Yeld came together in about a week, and the next draft, based on playtesting, came about 2 months later. I think we created a total of 4 playtest drafts over about 14 months in 2008 and 2009. We took 2010 and most of 2011 off from Yeld to work on other projects. Nick produced The Tulip Academy's Society for Dangerous Gentlemen and I created Panty explosion Perfect and GxB. We've been working on the finished Yeld text since late in 2011, and at this point we're down to the fun stuff like designing the big boss dungeons and creating new monsters!
6) Now a question about another of your games: Sea Dracula. This game is about crazy animal lawyers who are prosecuting an important case in Animal City's highest court. Do you think that the RPG world need to take himself less seriously?
Maybe. RPG fans and publishers are pretty damn humorless, and rpgs that are designed to be funny are usually pretty awful. Sea Dracula, which was originally an adaptation of the Hugh Jackman van Helsing film, and later a hospital drama game, is really not so much about humor as humiliation and pride. It takes a lot of guts to get up in front of a room of 30 relative strangers at an game convention and give some other dude a lap dance. Or let some woman climb on your back and pretend to be a crab while she talks about how awesome ham is. It's impossible to play Sea Dracula without looking like you're on drugs, and Nick and I have got a lot of mileage out of watching our friends make total asses out of themselves over the years. And of course, if you can get over yourself it's actually a ton of fun to pretend you're a 7 foot tall beaver in a suit with a law degree and a lisp who has to do a sexy waltz with a woman pretending to be a raccoon in order to keep your city from being destroyed by some type of Godzilla.
7) Do you want to talk about your future projects?
I know Nick has a game that's right on the edge of being ready. My own next project, a very different kind of console style rpg called Leviathan Knight, probably won't be done for quite some time. After that... I have no idea!
0 commenti Tags: indie RPG, Interview


text: Pictureplane - Dimensional Rip 7: Thee Physical Remixes by DISmagazine published on 2012-01-11T02:56:05Z DIMENSIONAL RIP 7: THEE PHYSICAL REMIXES Pictureplane's "Thee Physical" was a conceptual work about how we, as humans, relate to our 3rd dimensional world by experiencing it physically through touch. and our experience of being human inside of physical bodies in a post-physical digital age. this collection of remixes is a continuation of these concepts, each remixer being hand selected by Pictureplane to work with the digital skeletons of each song, to carry out their own visions of what Thee Physical meant to them, and their physical forms. This remix double album, is the 7th Dimensional Rip. which is an ongoing conceptual art work by Travis Egedy (Pictureplane). Each Dimensional Rip is meant to be just that: a rip or tear within space and time. a way of putting something out into the universe that helps to alter perception and the very world that it exists in. past Dimensional Rips have been anything from group art exhibitions, a zine, a mix of slowed down happy hardcore, or a performance artwork inside of an art museum. the 7th Dimensional Rip is no different. Genre New Age


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Sometimes, Company, all it takes to reverse one's opinion of a subject, perhaps to make you think it is less insane and more of a great idea, is for one to have an experience with the subject. And it can spin your world on its ear. And that is what happened to me one day recently.
When Nissan and Toyota announced recently that they were thinking about adding SOUND to their electric and hybrid cars that are about to come out, I thought that was the stupidest thing that I had ever heard of. I have lived in cities and downtowns and high traffic areas and I know that cars are loud. New Yorkers wouldn't be able to tell you that because they hear it all the time, it is just part of the white noise and cityscape, but believe me you notice when you aren't around it all the time. Cars are just loud. So I always figured that nice quiet, fuel efficient hybrids and electric cars would be nice and help eliminate some of the din. But what the engineers at Nissan and Toyota discovered was that their alternative fuel cars were too quiet, and that pedestrians were doing crazy things like stepping out in front of them because they just didn't know that they were there.
I, of course, thought that was fucking retarded. But they had science to back them up. And now I have personal experience to back them up and change my mind. Not that I almost stepped in front of a hybrid car, but I was standing in a parking lot when one started up and drove away, and I didn't hear a thing.
Scared the shit out of me. One minute the thing was there, the guy was getting in, and the next moment and the thing was moving. No sound. No starting. No nothing. Just rest then motion. I couldn't hear anything, and I wasn't exactly looking. But I was standing next to it looking down and suddenly it was moving. If I wasn't paying attention and the driver wasn't paying attention, I would have been a pancake. A big, sexy, blogging pancake, but a pancake nonetheless. It was so quiet and so lethal.
So I have changed my mind a little bit. Maybe a little bit of noise would be a good thing. If I was in the car and wasn't paying attention I wouldn't know that it was on. And that would be dangerous. Maybe a little bit of a rumble, or at least some fake engine sounds. That would be nice. Something to driver and passenger and pedestrian knows that shit is going on. Not necessarily a clicking or a beeping or something, but engine sounds. Just like automotive engineers spend a lot of time worrying about how their car doors sound then they close, they should worry about the driving experience, and that includes being able to hear your engine. And that is all I have to say about that. Just another reason for me to dislike the Prius I suppose.


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Debian 9 User, new (but old) with linux and really first time with xfce (but, i admin. is great)
I've restart linux with mint+cinnamon. Then, virtualbox with debian and some desktop like mate, kde, xfce and... i love this for speed and many customization (eg, simply, different background for every workspace)
Anyway, i've some request. >>> (See here)
Thanks for this forum.
S.N. (laltroweb.it)
Last edited by laltroweb.it (2017-05-23 17:24:02)
Hello and welcome.
How To Ask For Help | FAQ | Release Info | Community | Contribute | Donate
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It's a coincidence that the San Diego Women's Week conference arrives just two months after the nationwide Women's March, which became the largest public protest in American history. But for two of the event's keynote speakers, these unexpectedly large public gatherings of women could become a positive force of change in a politically divided time.
Speakers Marlee Matlin, a 30-year activist for the deaf and hard of hearing, and Shiza Shahid, co-founder of The Malala Fund for women's education, say that 2017 could become a pivotal year for women's activism. They're both speaking at the Inspiration Conference on March 24, the finale of San Diego Women's Week events, which run March 20-24 at four North County locations. The event is organized by the North San Diego Business Chamber.
Matlin, 51, lost her hearing as a toddler and won an Oscar in 1988 playing a young deaf woman in "Children of a Lesser God." Ever since, she's actively campaigned for equality for the deaf and hard of hearing, including closed captioning for films and TV, more roles for deaf and disabled actors and accessible technology for all.
She was reluctantly pulled into last year's presidential campaign when allegations surfaced that then-host Donald Trump had called her "retarded" during filming of the 2011 season of "Celebrity Apprentice." She made it a teaching moment.
"I wanted to use the opportunity to state publicly that there are 35 to 45 million people who are deaf or hard of hearing, and using that word is not only wrong but abhorrent. I went further to say that as an American, I have a voice and my voice is my vote," said Matlin, who was interviewed by phone with the help of her ASL interpreter Jack Jason.
Matlin, a mother of four who lives in L.A. with her police officer husband, said Trump's misogynist comments and behavior have galvanized American women in a way that hasn't been seen since the 1970s. The recent protest marches aren't just a reaction to Trump but to the idea that women's rights — as well as those of minorities, immigrants and the LGBTQ community — could soon be rolled back.
"If somehow we seem to be going back in time, that there's an appearance that rights are being reduced, then we as people who live in a democracy have a right to speak up," Matlin said. "I'm familiar with barriers, I grew up with them … It's time for us to speak up. We did it in the '60s and '70s and were quiet for 20 or so years and now it's a cyclical time for us to speak up again."
Shahid, 27, left her job in 2014 to co-found The Malala Fund with Malala Yousafzai, the Nobel Prize-winning Pakistani teenager shot by the Taliban on her way to school. The international fund advocates for women's empowerment through education. Shahid recently left the Malala Fund to start her own company, Now Ventures, which will raise money for positive social and environmental startups.
She said women have more power than they realize to influence positive change, whether it's through education, work, politics or protest.
"More and more as demographics are shifting and diverse individuals and women are coming to the forefront, they are influencing outcomes in politics, business, investing and entrepreneurship," said Shahid, who splits her time between her office in San Francisco and the home she shares in L.A. with her new husband.
"There's a divide among women today but that's narrowing and bridging. More than ever, women are supporting one another and standing up for one another," Shahid said. "This is a unique moment in time and there's a lot of work to be done to get the progress we wish to see."
San Diego Women's Week was founded in 2010 by Debra Rosen, president and CEO of the North San Diego Business Chamber. At the time, Rosen said there was some resistance to a women's-only conference, but as the event's profile and popularity has risen, so has the growth of women's and diversity leadership groups at companies all over San Diego County.
More than 1,000 women are expected at Monday's free opening day program at the Del Mar Fairgrounds. From 300 to 400 women are registered for networking and health-themed events in Rancho Bernardo on March 22 and 23. And the daylong Inspiration Conference will draw 500 to the Harrah's Southern California resort in Valley Center.
This year's Women's Week has a tolerance, diversity and inclusion theme. Rosen is a strong advocate of equal rights for women, but she said that the empowering message of the 2017 Women's March on Jan. 21 could have had a greater impact if the message was delivered with more focus and less anger.
"Women want to be seen differently," Rosen said. "You want to be a leader, but you can do it in a manner that you're respected. There's a way to present who you are, what you want and and what you can offer in a less angry way and I think people will hear you."
"It comes down to how you present yourself and your advocacy," she said. "They can be passionate and polished at the same time."
Four days of events at four locations in North County. Organized by the North San Diego Business Chamber.
Monday, March 20: Opening Day
Features: Breakout sessions, makeovers, headshots, vendor village, resume reviews. Noon to 7 p.m. Wyland Center, Del Mar Fairgrounds, 2260 Jimmy Durante Blvd., Del Mar. Free admission.
Wednesday, March 22: Dare to Dream
Features: Inspirational speakers, networking, wine, beer and food tastings. 5:30-8:30 p.m. Sony Electronics, 16535 Via Esprillo, Rancho Bernardo. $69 (ages 21 and up only).
Thursday, March 23: Finding Your Life Balance
Features: Health and fitness speakers, stress reduction and meditation sessions, health screenings. 6-8 p.m. Sharp Rees-Stealy Rancho Bernardo, 16899 W. Bernardo Road, Rancho Bernardo. $35.
Friday, March 24: Inspiration Conference
Features: Full day of lectures and panel discussions. 8:30 a.m. to 4:30 p.m. Harrah's Southern California Resort, 777 Harrah's Rincon Way, Valley Center. $179
Registration and details: sdwomensweek.com


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Former Prince George's County, Md., schools Superintendent Andre J. Hornsby was sentenced Nov. 25 to six years of prison time in a federal corruption case that involved steering educational technology contracts to his district in return for personal kickbacks, reports the Baltimore Sun.?"I'm totally embarrassed by what situation I've put myself into," Hornsby told U.S. District Judge Peter J. Messite. "I understand the seriousness of my actions. … This has taken a toll on myself, my family, my friends, and my colleagues."?Messite also ordered Hornsby to serve three years of supervised release after he leaves prison and pay a $20,000 fine and $70,000 in restitution to the Prince George's schools. The FBI launched an investigation of Hornsby's activities in the fall of 2004 after the Sun reported that he had presided over a $1 million purchase of early-literacy technology from LeapFrog SchoolHouse without disclosing that his live-in girlfriend, Sienna Owens, was a saleswoman for the company.?In July, after four years of investigations and two trials, the 55-year-old Hornsby was convicted of three counts of wire fraud and one count each of evidence tampering, witness tampering, and obstruction of justice. Investigators concluded that he illegally steered contracts not only to LeapFrog but to E-Rate Manager, a shell company run by Hornsby's business partner, Cynthia Joffrion.?Hornsby covertly arranged to get thousands of dollars from the proceeds of the lucrative contracts he helped push through for both companies, according to the indictment.?Prosecutors said Hornsby also ordered school employees to destroy eMail messages that might have implicated him. One employee kept a copy of the eMail backup tapes, giving prosecutors a timeline for the deals…
Former schools chief gets 6 years in ed-tech corruption case
By eSchool News
November 26th, 2008


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The United States International Trade Commission (ITC) today determined that an industry in the United States is materially injured by reason of imports of certain stainless steel butt-weld pipe fittings from Italy, Malaysia, and the Philippines that the Department of Commerce has determined are sold in the United States at less than fair value.
Chairman Stephen Koplan, Vice Chairman Deanna Tanner Okun, and Commissioners Lynn M. Bragg, Marcia E. Miller, and Jennifer A. Hillman voted in the affirmative. Commissioner Dennis M. Devaney did not participate in these investigations.
As a result of the Commission's affirmative determinations, the U.S. Department of Commerce will direct the U.S. Customs Service to impose antidumping duties on imports of certain stainless steel butt-weld pipe fittings from Italy, Malaysia, and the Philippines.
The Commerce Department previously made affirmative critical circumstances determinations with regard to imports from Italy and the Philippines. Therefore, the Commissioners who made affirmative injury determinations concerning these countries today are required to determine whether those imports are likely to undermine seriously the remedial effect of the antidumping duty orders Commerce will issue. The Commission made a negative determination concerning critical circumstances with respect to these imports, with Chairman Koplan, Vice Chairman Okun, and Commissioners Miller and Hillman making negative determinations and Commissioner Bragg making an affirmative determination. As a result of the Commission's negative determination regarding critical circumstances, the antidumping duty orders concerning these imports will not apply to goods that entered the United States prior to August 2, 2000, the date of publication in the Federal Register of the Department of Commerce's affirmative preliminary determinations.
The Commission's public report Certain Stainless Steel Butt-weld Pipe Fittings from Italy, Malaysia, and the Philippines (Investigations Nos. 731-TA-865-867 (Final), USITC Publication 3387, January 2001) will contain the views of the Commission and information developed during the investigations.
Copies may be obtained after February 19, 2001, by calling 202-205-1809 or from the Office of the Secretary, 500 E Street SW, Washington, DC 20436. Requests may also be made by fax to 202- 205-2104.
Certain Stainless Steel Butt-Weld Pipe Fittings from Italy, Malaysia, and the Philippines
Investigations Nos. 731-TA-865-867 (Final)
Product Description: Certain stainless steel butt-weld pipe fittings are under 14 inches in outside diameter (based on nominal pipe size), whether finished or unfinished. The product encompasses all grades of stainless steel and "commodity" and "specialty" fittings. Specifically excluded from the definition are threaded, grooved, and bolted fittings, and fittings made from any material other than stainless steel. The fittings subject to these investigations are generally designated under specification ASTM A403/A403M, the standard specification for Wrought Austenitic Stainless Steel Piping Fittings, or its foreign equivalents (e.g., DIN or JIS specifications). This specification covers two general classes of fittings, WP and CR, of wrought austenitic stainless steel fittings of seamless and welded construction covered by the latest revisions of ANSI B16.9, ANSI B16.11, and ANSI B16.28. Pipe fittings manufactured to specification ASTM A774, or its foreign equivalents, are also covered by these investigations. These investigations do not apply to cast fittings. Cast austenitic stainless steel pipe fittings are covered by specifications A351/A351M, A743/743M, and A744/A744M. The stainless steel butt-weld pipe fittings subject to this investigation are currently classifiable under subheading 7307.23.0000 of the Harmonized Tariff Schedule of the United States (HTSUS). Although the HTSUS subheading is provided for convenience and customs purposes, Commerce's written description of the scope in these investigations is dispositive.
Status of Proceedings: 1. Type of investigations: Final antidumping. 2. Petitioners: Alloy Piping Products, Inc.; Flowline Division of Markovitz Enterprises, Inc.; Gerlin, Inc.; and Taylor Forge Stainless, Inc. 3. Investigations instituted by USITC: December 29, 1999. 4. Hearing: October 17, 2000. 5. USITC vote: January 18, 2001. 6. USITC determination to the U.S. Department of Commerce: January 29, 2001. U.S. Industry: 1. Number of producers in 1999: Twelve. 2. Location of producers' plants: California, Florida, Illinois, Kentucky, Louisiana, New Jersey, New York, North Carolina, Pennsylvania, South Carolina, Washington, and Wisconsin. 3. Employment of production and related workers in 1999: 445. 4. Apparent U.S. consumption in 1999: $104,862,000. 5. Ratio of the value of U.S. imports from all countries to apparent U.S. consumption in 1999: (1) U.S. Imports: 1. From subject countries in 1999: (1) 2. From other countries in 1999: (1) 3. From all countries in 1999: $47,827,000. __________________________
(1) Withheld to avoid disclosure of business proprietary information.


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The last month or so has been a bit sad when it comes to cooking and nutrition. Pregnancy nausea (because morning sickness is not a valid title when it is throughout the day) and food aversions have left me locked up in the bedroom with the door open while my husband cooks dinner – for himself.
I hesitate to call what I have been eating "cravings;" I see it more as non food aversions. It's not that I'm craving over-processed food, it's that these are the only foods that sound even remotely palatable and don't make me sick to eat or think about. It is usually only a couple items that don't make me sick and it changes every 1-3 days.
Here are a few foods I am ashamed to even have in my house, let alone consume:
- Graham crackers
- Frozen waffles
- French bread pizzas
- Corn dogs
- Frozen lasagna
- White bagels with strawberry cream cheese
- Poptarts
- White bread dinner rolls
If you remember, I was doing the Whole30 Paleo Challenge. That lasted 2 weeks; the week before my period was due, and the week after we found out I was pregnant. At approximately 6 weeks I no longer wanted vegetables, meat,eggs or nuts. Even thinking about these foods made me sick – and that was the majority of what I was eating! My diet these last 4-5 weeks has made the Primal/Weston A Price lifestyle in me cringe! At least I have been able to eat apples, oranges and bananas!
Luckily this last week my nausea and food aversions have subsided a bit and probably will be improving even more as time goes on. Although it's still not stellar, I was able to enjoy homemade green sauce chicken enchiladas last night for dinner and cinnamon toast for breakfast.
The other day I read Food Renegade's old post: Pregnancy Cravings Make No sense and all the notes and it made me feel a little better.
Hopefully I will be able to nutritionally redeem myself during the second and third trimester!


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Shivram Mahato of Madhubani in Bihar lost his right eye to insect injury in 2004. Eight years later, an unfortunate brush with a buffalo's tail caused a painful infection in his left eye rendering him sightless. Eye doctors in Darbhanga and Nepal could not help and he remained sightless for a year. A fellow villager working as a cook in Hyderabad told Shivram about LVPEI and soon enough, Ashindar - his son - brought Shivram over.
Shivram was treated free of cost under Dr Bhupesh Bagga; the father and son deciding to stayeratoplasty. Dr Bagga simultaneously performed a cataract removal surgery to replace Shivram's eye lens that had turned opaque soon after the injury.
Shivram joyously recalls the moment of wonderment when his vision was restored. Soon, he was walking around independently and relying less on his son. The father-son duo is of course immensely grateful to their Doctor-God.


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Web metadata is crucial for providing machine-understandable descriptions of Web resources, and has a number of applications such as discovery, qualification, and adaptation of Web contents. While metadata is often embedded into a target document, metadata can also be associated externally by means of an addressing scheme such as the XPath language. However, creation and modification of external metadata solely with a conventional editor is not easy because metadata authoring involves the maintenance and elaboration of addressing expressions as well as editing individual documents. The objective of this study is to advance extensibility in the design of annotation editors with particular emphasis on a visual approach to authoring XPath expressions. The key idea behind the XPath authoring process is to facilitate flexibility in the creation of XPath expressions as a result of the seamless integration of three authoring methods: instantaneous creation, context-constrained creation, and manual creation. In this paper, we briefly introduce a framework for external annotation first, and give a high-level overview of our annotation editor. The three XPath creation methods are then explained, showing examples of XPath expressions and the graphical user interface for visual authoring process. Finally, we present our annotation editor developed with the visual XPath authoring capability, and show how the annotation editor is customized for an annotation vocabulary at hand.
Keywords: XPath; Visualizing; Editing/Authoring; Metadata
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Web metadata is crucial for providing machine-understandable descriptions of Web resources, and has a number of applications such as discovery, qualification, and adaptation of Web contents [Lassila 1998]. A remark attached to a particular portion of a document is called an annotation, and covers a broad territory in the literature. Forms of annotations can be characterized by the dimensions: whether formal or informal, and whether tacit or explicit [Marshall 1998]. Metadata that follows structural specification resides at the most formal and explicit extreme. Regarding annotation in this restricted sense, "annotation" and "metadata" are used interchangeably in this paper.
While metadata is often embedded into a target document, metadata can also be associated externally by means of an addressing scheme such as the XPath language [XPath 1999]. However, creation and modification of external metadata solely with a conventional editor is not easy because metadata authoring involves the maintenance and elaboration of addressing expressions as well as editing individual documents. Configurations of annotation tools depend on the annotation scenario. Browser-based annotation tools [Denoue 2000] [Erdmann 2000] [Nagao 2001] [Sakairi 2001] are desirable when annotators are not allowed to edit target documents without document ownership. On the other hand, an annotation tool based on a WYSIWYG editor [Hori 2000b] is helpful when annotators are responsible not only for the creation of the annotations but also for the editing of the target documents. Regardless of the variety of emerging annotation tools, a significant limitation of the current annotation tools is the lack of extensibility, because the existing tools are developed solely for a particular annotation vocabulary, and provided with predefined views for the authoring.
In pursuit of Web content re-purposing, content adaptation systems that adopt annotations by using XPath expressions are emerging [Hori 2000a] [WTP 2000] [Asakawa 2001] [Nagao 2001]. Addressing using XPath may require following a hierarchy of document elements from the root to a focal element for the creation of an annotation, and it is also necessary for annotator to be able to navigate from an existing annotation to another portion of an annotated document designated by a corresponding XPath expression.
As a method for addressing parts of an XML document, a simple yet helpful support for XPath creation is to evaluate an XPath expression typed by a user and highlight the resulting node-set in a DOM-tree view [Fung 1999] [XPath Visualizer 2001]. Although such tools allow users to explore while finding the correct expression, the users need to have in-depth understanding of the XPath language, so that they can come up with alternative candidate expressions by themselves. The other extreme of tool support is to generate a particular type of XPath expression (such as /aaa/bbb/ccc and /html/body/ul[2]/li[2]) automatically from a selected node in a graphical user interface. XSLT stylesheet editors often rely on this kind of automatic yet inflexible support for the creation of XPath expressions.
The above two authoring methods are two extremes of XPath creation methods. The former provides full flexibility while requiring advanced understanding of the language syntax. On the other hand, the latter achieves ease of use while restricting the variety of expressions created. Besides these two methods, it would be substantially helpful for users to be provided with a method that is moderately flexible while requiring less knowledge of the expression language syntax. Since these three methods have complementary roles to each other, all three methods should be provided for an XPath authoring environment, so that full-fledged tool support can be realized for a broader range of users.
The objective of this study is to pursue extensibility in the design of annotation editors with particular emphasis on a visual approach to authoring XPath expressions. The key idea behind the XPath authoring process is to enhance flexibility in the creation of XPath expressions by seamlessly integrating three authoring methods: instantaneous creation, context-constrained creation, and manual creation. In the next section, we briefly introduce a framework for external annotation and give a high-level overview of our annotation editor. 3 explains each of the three XPath creation methods showing examples of XPath expressions and the graphical user interface for visual authoring process. Finally, we present an annotation editor developed with the XPath composer in 4, and show how the annotation editor can be customized for an individual annotation vocabulary.
This section introduces a framework for external annotation [Hori 2000a], and draws implications for the high-level design of annotation editors from the framework. The framework of external annotation prescribes a scheme for representing annotation files and a way of associating original documents with external annotations. The basic ideas behind this framework are twofold. One is that it should not be introduced new elements or attributes into the document type definitions of the target documents to be annotated. The other is that annotations need to be created for arbitrary parts of annotated documents.
Annotations can be embedded into a Web document as inline annotations. Inline annotations are often created as extra attributes of document elements. Most existing HTML browsers ignore unknown attributes added to HTML elements, without being bothered by the proprietary inline annotations. Because of its simplicity, inline annotation has been often adopted as a way of associating annotation with HTML documents [Mea 1996] [Rousseau 1999] [Erdmann 2000] [Heflin 2000]. An advantage of the inline approach is the ease of annotation maintenance without the bookkeeping task of associating annotations with their target document. The inline approach, however, requires annotators to have document ownership because annotated documents need to be modified whenever inline annotations are created or revised.
The external annotation approach, on the other hand, does not suffer from these issues related to document ownership. Moreover, the most important point of the external annotation approach is that it facilitates the sharing and reuse of annotations across Web documents. Since an external annotation points to a portion of a Web document, the annotation can be shared across Web documents that have the same document fragment. Furthermore, the mixing of content and metadata is not desirable according to the design guideline that content should be separated from presentation [Style 2001].
External annotation files contain metadata that refers to a part of a document to be annotated. XPath [XPath 1999] is used to associate annotated portions of a document with annotating descriptions. 1 illustrates a way of associating an external description with a portion of an existing document. An annotation file refers to portions of an annotated document. A reference may point to a single element (e.g., an IMG element), or a range of elements (e.g., an H2 element and the following paragraphs). For example, /HTML/BODY/P[3] points to the third P element of the BODY element of the annotated document. If a target element has an id attribute, the attribute can be used for direct addressing without the need for a long path expression.
When annotation files are stored in a repository, an appropriate annotation file for a Web document needs to be selected dynamically from the repository either implicitly by means of a structural analysis of the subject document, or explicitly by means of a reference contained in the subject document or some other association database. The explicit association, for example, can be done by using XLink [XLink 2000] or the link tag [HTML 1999]. An annotation framework in a broader sense needs to prescribe ways of storing and restoring annotations between the annotation repository and the authoring tool. However, the repository issue is outside the scope of this study because we are pursuing a framework for annotation editors that can be customized for different vocabularies and forms of annotations.
The framework for external annotation implies a high-level design of annotation editors. It is assumed here that the creation of an annotation document is a primary task of users, and the users are not allowed to modify a target document in parallel with the annotation document. In addition to the annotation document, the users need to create an addressing expression, namely, an XPath expression that points to a portion of the target document. Taking account of these assumptions, annotation editors would fundamentally consist of an annotation document editor, a target document viewer, and an XPath composer. The important point here is that the external association between documents is a constraint enforced by the annotation editor during the authoring process. Since the external annotation can be imported into a target document and stored as an internal annotation, the annotations in a repository do not necessarily have to be provided in an external form. This capability for importing external annotations is further explained in 4.
One annotation vocabulary would not fit for all the requirements of metadata representation. Moreover, it is also impractical to expect to provide a common basis for a generic portion covering all annotation vocabularies. This difficulty comes from the approach of defining document type specifications based on the grammatical aspects of specific vocabularies, because the same contents may be described with different grammars. Therefore, in order to clarify the edit-time constraints, it is important to characterize a class of annotation documents, without regard to rigorous grammatical definitions.
On the basis of the properties of well-formed XML documents defined in the XML Information Set [InfoSet 2001], this study assumes an information set for annotation documents, which has the following properties.
In the above properties, the terms in bold face are information items defined in the XML Information Set, and the terms in italic are proprietary to the annotation information set. The terms with underlines are property names. 3 shows an RDF graph [RDF 1999] for the above definition of annotation documents based on the XML Information Set elaborated from the primitives of RDF Schema [RDFS 2000]. The information set for annotation documents clarifies the assumption made by the annotation editor. Annotation editors can be designed, so that annotation vocabularies can be dealt with consistently as long as a vocabulary meets the edit-time constraints. The annotation editor presented in 4 incorporates the specifications of the annotation information set into an annotation profile. In the next section, the XPath composer is explained as one of the three components of the annotation editor (2), and the other two components will be briefly introduced in 4.
An overview of the XPath composer is shown in 4. The visual composer holds a visual presentation of a document, which is usually given as a tree view, but is not limited to a tree view as long as the view allows users to select a node or a set of nodes interactively. This section explains the features of the XPath composer on the basis of a tree view of a target document solely to simplify the explanation.
The composer provides three methods for the XPath authoring: instantaneous creation, context-constrained creation, and manual creation. 5 depicts the three authoring methods from the perspective of the user's operations, with indication on a screen copy of the XPath composer which is a part of the annotation editor. The easiest way of generating XPath expression is to just select a node or a set of nodes in a tree view [5(a)], and an XPath expression is created automatically according to a default expression pattern, and stored internally as the current expression. Some flexibility is given to users by means of the context-constrained creation method [5(b)], which allows users to select a pattern of XPath expressions with the associated parameters as required by using a cascading popup menu. Although the composition by the above two methods can be completed solely by selecting nodes or menu items, these methods cannot create arbitrary XPath expressions. For this reason, any XPath expression can be manually entered as a text string in the input field [5(c)].
Once the current expression has been determined by an authoring method, the text representation of the current expression appears in the edit field. Each node resulting from the expression is also listed in the list box beneath the edit field [6(a)], and also highlighted on the tree view in the left [6(b)]. This immediate visual feedback allows users to revise the current expression by either changing the selection in the tree view or editing the expression in the edit field. In this way, each of the three authoring methods can be employed in an arbitrary order in the composer. The three authoring methods are further explained in the following subsections.
This method allows users to create an XPath expression, solely by selecting a node or a set of nodes to be pointed at by the expression. For the use of this method, users do not have to know the syntax of the XPath language at all, and an expression is automatically generated on the basis of a default pattern [4(a)]. Therefore, XPath expressions created by this method will point to the same node set as indicated by the users' selection. Currently, the XPath composer provides two types of expressions that can be used as a default expression. One is to create an expression that points to elements of a target document using a sequence of child-position location steps (ChildPosSeq). Another is an expression that points to elements by means of a descendant position (DescendantPos). The composer allows setting one of these types of expressions as a default pattern.
A couple of expressions are given below as examples. A simple XML document is used as a target document, whose root element is "products", which includes five "item" elements (7). When a user selects a single element in the user interface of the XPath composer [5 (a)], one of the following expressions is generated on the basis of the setting for the default pattern, and the current XPath expression is set to the resulting expression. For example, as a result of selecting the second "item" element in 7, here are the XPath expressions that could be generated:
<products> <item category="business" platform="p1"> <name>pocket calculator</name> <price>349.99</price> <!-- on sale --> </item> <item category="business" platform="p2"> <name>abacus</name> <price>99.99</price> </item> <item category="graphics" platform="p1"> <name>photo</name> <price>100</price> <note>New!</note> <!-- not available --> </item> <item category="graphics" platform="p2"> <name>oil painting</name> <price>999</price> <note>New!</note> <!-- available --> </item> <item category="graphics" platform="p1"> <name>watercolor</name> <price>109.99</price> </item> </products>
The instantaneous creation method mentioned above does not require any knowledge about the XPath language, and an expression is automatically generated in accordance with the user's selection of elements in the document-tree view. However, this convenience is achieved by losing the flexibility of the XPath language. The second authoring method, namely, the context-constrained creation method is provided for alleviating this limitation, and give users access to the current choices for XPath expressions through a context-sensitive popup menu [5(b)]. The moderate flexibility of this method uses alternative predicate expressions and addressing in relation to an anchor node.
This kind of expression involves selecting any element that has a designated tag name and satisfies a predicate. This type of selection is expressed as "/descendant-or-self::node()/child::QName[Pred]", where QName is a qualified name given as a node test, and Pred is a predicate expression. This expression can be abbreviated as "//QName[Pred]", and this shorthand form is used by the composer. The composer currently supports two types of predicate expressions: one is to check a particular attribute value (AttrValueMatch), and another is to check the inclusion of a particular text string (StringTextInclusion). Examples of XPath expressions with this pattern are given below for each type of predicate expressions.
The sample XML document (7) is again taken as the target document. If a user moves the mouse cursor to the first "item" element and clicks the right mouse button, a popup menu appears (8). The popup menu includes menu items whose labels are "by child position sequence", "by descendant position", and "by attribute value". The first two items correspond respectively to ChildPosSeq and DescendantPos as mentioned above. Since the first "item" element has two attributes, the XPath composer displays an additional submenu if "by attribute value" is selected with a right mouse button click (8). The submenu shows the two pairs of attributes and values associated with the first "item" element. If the user selects the item "category=business" in the submenu, the following XPath expression is created by the composer, and becomes the current expression.
It must be noted here that the above expression points to every "item" element that has attribute "category" with value "business." Therefore, the node set resulting from the above expression consists of not only the first "item", which was initially selected, but also the second "item", which also has the same attribute-value pair in the sample document (see also 6, whose display corresponds to this situation). This is different from the instantaneous creation method that generates an XPath expression automatically without users' intervention. The instantaneous creation needs to come up with a node set that is exactly the same as the users' currently selected nodes in the document-tree view. The context-constrained creation method, on the other hand, is conducted more interactively relying on the user's decisions on the expression patterns. The visual feedback provided by the composer is thus crucial for the context-constrained creation and also for the manual creation method explained later in this section.
Besides attribute value matching, text string inclusion is the other type of predicate expression currently supported for the context-constrained creation method. For example, a user can select the text content "abacus" contained in the "name" element, whose parent is the second "item" element in the same document (7). By clicking the right mouse button, the user brings up a popup menu including the choice "by text string". Since the selected element does not have any attribute, the popup menu does not display the menu item "by attribute value" mentioned above. If the user chooses the "by text string" item, the following XPath expression is created.
Although the expression patterns introduced so far point directly to a node or a set of nodes, it is often useful for XPath expressions to refer to the surrounding context. For example, even if the location of a target element is not always stable, and often changes due to updates of the document, it is possible to create an XPath expression that relies on another element, which can be located reliably and is located near the target location. This type of selection can be expressed as "//AnchorExp/AxisName::QName[PosNum]", where AnchorExp is an anchor expression, AxisName is an axis name taken as a relative direction from an anchor node to the target node, QName is a qualified name of a target node, and PosNum is a position number that points to the target node along AxisName.
AnchorExp is an expression that needs to be created first, by either the instantaneous creation or the context-constrained creation method. It must be noted here that since the relative addressing is itself a type of the context-constrained creation, an XPath expression created by the relative addressing method can also recursively be the anchor expression of another relative addressing expression. Once a node is marked as an anchor, a small flag on the node icon indicates this status [9(a)].
Again using the sample document shown in 7, a user can select a comment node "<!-- not available -->", and create an expression //comment()[contains(., ' not available ')], by using the string text inclusion method. In order to use the relative addressing method, the comment node can be marked as an anchor node [9(a)], and then the user needs to select a target node, for example, the third "item" element can be selected as shown in 9(b). Clicking the right mouse button brings up the popup menu, and the user can select the menu item labeled "by relative addressing" [9(c)], which is a menu item that appears only when an anchor node is marked. If the user chooses the menu item "by relative addressing" from the popup menu, the following expression is generated on the basis of the anchor expression.
When the "by relative addressing" menu item is chosen, the XPath composer determines an axis name out of child, descendant, parent, ancestor, preceding-sibling, preceding, following-sibling and following. Note that the descendant, ancestor, preceding, and following axes are sufficient to cover all the possible node positions (except for attribute and namespace nodes) in relation to a current node. However, the child, parent, preceding-sibling, and following-sibling axes are also considered here because they effectively delimit the scope of the nodes and allow for providing robust position numbers that are less influenced by changes in the document structure.
The instantaneous and context-constrained creation methods provide tool support for the creation of XPath expressions. Although these methods do not cover all the syntactic variations of the XPath language, the manual creation method allows users to further customize the expressions created by the other methods. The manual creation method requires that users have knowledge of XPath syntax, and allows them to directly modify the expression in the edit field [5(c)].
For example, when a user creates an expression /products[1]/item[2] using the instantaneous creation method, the expression appears in the edit field. Although the expression only points to the "item" element that is the child of the first "products" element, the user can modify the predicate expression as follows, so that the entire expression can point to any "item" elements that is located at an odd position number.
/products[1]/item[position() mod 2 = 1]
As an another example, after a user creates the expression /products[1]/item[2]/price[1] using the instantaneous creation method, the user can modify the second location step and the last predicate expression as follows, so that the expression will point to all the "price" elements whose text content is a number less than 200.
/products[1]/item/price[number(text()) < 200]
As a complete integrated environment, the XPath composer provides an instantaneous creation method that does not require any knowledge about the XPath language, and context-constrained creation method that allows interactive composition of expressions without any typing. These two methods allows users to easily come up with many typical expressions. In addition, the manual creation method is available for the further customization of expressions created by the other two methods. Although manual creation requires understanding of the XPath syntax, this method can fully exploit the expressive power of the XPath language. To put it another way, the flexibility of this XPath authoring environment is realized as a result of the seamless integration of the three methods: the instantaneous creation, context-constrained creation, and manual creation.
A prototype of an annotation editor has been developed with Java (JDK 1.3) according to the high-level configuration shown in 2. In this section, the design of the annotation editor is introduced briefly, and how to use the editor is explained based on a scenario of creating an annotation document. 10 shows the constituents of the annotation editor, which are derived from the high-level configuration (2).
The core part of the annotation editor is independent of any particular views, and prescribes the internal document models and their relations. TargetDocument in the target document viewer and AnnotDocument in the annotation document viewer respectively corresponds to a DOM [DOM 1998] for each document. AnnotProfile in the annotation document editor is to prescribe an annotation profile, which is partly described as the annotation information set in 2. The XPath composer in 10 provides utility functions to be exploited for the visual composition explained in 3. In addition, the lower half of 10 provides customized views and an import procedure. This portion of the annotation editor depends on individual views and a particular annotation vocabulary.
11 shows a screen copy of the annotation editor. The main window is divided into two panels. The left pane [11(a)] is the area for the target document viewer, and also contains a target view and a source view in the tabbed pane. The right pane [11(b)] is for the annotation document editor containing a tree view. Note that the XPath viewer in the right tabbed pane was selected and brought up to the front while the XPath composer was explained in the previous section. When the target is an HTML document, users can employ the browser view [11(b)]. The browser view is not embedded in the split pane because it is often helpful for users to compare the selection between the target tree view and the browser view.
Before starting the creation of annotations, the annotation editor can be customized for a particular annotation vocabulary by selecting one of the annotation profiles provided with the editor. The profile selection dialog is shown in 12. When a profile is selected from the pull-down list, the dialog shows the definition of the current profile. An annotation profile includes the location of a DTD file, an annotation file type, the location of a data directory, and the names of the information items shown in 3. In the figure, the "EML Sample Annotation" profile is selected, and the annotation documents are characterized in terms of the root element name "annot", the annotation description name "description", and the XPath attribute name "target". The annotation editor assumes that a "target" attribute is owned by a "descriptions" element that is an immediate child of the root element (see also 3).
The annotation editor allows users to create annotations either from scratch or from an existing annotation file. In the tree view of a target document [11(a)], a check mark ('x') is added to the folder icon if there is at least one annotation description that points to the element. In the tree view of an annotation document [11(b)], if an annotation description does not have any annotating node in the current target document, a question mark ('?') is added to the folder icon of the description element. In addition, users can navigate by following the external associations made by XPath expressions. When a description element is selected in the annotation tree view, the user can click a button on the toolbar to highlight annotated nodes in the target tree view. In the same manner, when a node is selected in the target tree view, a user can click another button on the toolbar to highlight description elements that are annotating the selected node.
In order to create an annotation description, an XPath expression needs to be generated first using the XPath authoring methods explained earlier. Based on the current XPath expression created by the composer, the target nodes resulting from the expression are highlighted in the target tree view [13(a)]. If the user clicks the toolbar button for creating an annotation description [13(b)], a folder icon corresponding to the new description appears in the annotation tree view [13(c)].
If a user needs to revise an XPath expression for an existing annotation description, the folder icon of the description needs to be selected first in the annotation tree view. From that point, the steps for the XPath revision of an existing description are the same as for the XPath creation of a new description. For example, if a user selects the second description node with a question mark in the annotation tree view (13) and clicks the toolbar button for highlighting annotated nodes in the target tree view, the user can choose one of the alternative authoring methods from a popup menu, which appears after clicking on the highlighted target node. The XPath expression of the second description node is then changed when the user actually chooses a menu item from the popup menu (e.g., 8). As a result, the question mark on the second description disappears, because now the description actually has at least one annotating node in the target document.
In this way, the XPath composition capability of the annotation editor is realized on the basis of the annotation information set explained in 2. Therefore, the same XPath authoring methods can be exploited for all annotation vocabularies as long as they are compliant with the data model prescribed by the information set.
In addition to XPath composition, annotation authoring needs to be done on the contents of the description item. This part of authoring relies on a DTD given with a corresponding annotation profile (12). The contents of the description item can be edited in the same manner as with a DTD-based structure editor on a DOM-tree view. When a description node is selected in the annotation tree view, a popup menu can be brought up by clicking the right mouse button (14). The first popup menu is common to all annotation vocabularies, and provides menu items to add/remove an element, add/remove an attribute, and edit an attribute value. The second-level menus are derived from the DTD information of the current profile. 14 shows a popup menu that appears after choosing the "Add the first child element" item, and the valid elements such as "importance", "date", and "author" are given as candidates for the insertion as a child of the description node. When the user chooses the "author" item, a dialog appears with an edit field for typing the text content, namely, an author name.
When annotations have been created, the user can save the annotation document in two ways, either as an external annotation file or as an imported annotation file. The serialization as an external annotation file can be done by simply choosing "Save" menu item from "File" pull-down menu of the annotation document editor. For example, an excerpt of the above mentioned annotation descriptions would be stored as the following annotation document:
<annot version="1.0"> <description target="//TD[@align='middle']"> <author>Mari Abe</author> <role value="proper content"/> <date>2001/04/01</date> </description> <!-- The other descriptions are omitted --> </annot>
In addition, the created annotations can be imported into a target document, by choosing "Import" menu item from the "File" menu of the annotation document editor. The "Import" menu item is enabled only when an import procedure is given as an implementation of "AnnotImporter" Java interface. Availability of an import procedure is also specified in an annotation profile, although it is not shown in the profile selection dialog. Therefore, the methods of importing annotation descriptions into a target document can be defined according to the application-specific requirements. For example, comment sharing in a collaborative environment is being pursued in the Annotea project [Annotea 2001]. Annotations in Annotea are embedded in target documents, and XPointer [XPointer 2001] is used for locating the annotations in the annotated document.
If an importing procedure is implemented in accordance with the requirements of Annotea, the sample annotations created in the previous subsection could be imported into a part of the HTML document as follows.
<TD valign=top id="Mari Abe"> <SPAN attr="role" val="proper content"></SPAN> <SPAN attr="date" val="2001/04/01"></SPAN> <TABLE cellSpacing=0 cellPadding=0 width=210 border=0> <!-- The other table contents are left out --> </TABLE> </TD>
In the above document fragment, the elements and attributes embedded in the document are shown in bold. For example, an annotation reference in Annotea is done by using an XPointer expression xpointer(id("Mari Abe")/SPAN[2]), which points to the SPAN element that is the second child of the element uniquely identified by the id attribute value "Mari Abe". This is a case when annotation serialization is done in the form of an embedded annotation. However, it is important to note that the annotation authoring in itself is done on the basis of the external annotation framework, and the users can have the benefits of flexibility in the metadata authoring.
Annotations, especially the XPath expressions, need to be adjusted to the changes in target documents. However, it is often difficult to create XPath expressions that will correctly point at the same targets regardless of the revisions of the document. This is the issue related to robust positioning, which has been investigated through empirical studies [Phelps 2000] [Brush 2001]. However, little study has been done regarding the robustness of XPath expressions for pointing at nodes within Web documents. Therefore, we are going to investigate this issue further, taking account of real-life Web documents that develop over time, and draw practical implications to the usage and authoring process of XPath expressions.
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[Mea 1996] Mea, V. D., Beltrami, C. A., Roberto, V., and Brunato, D.: HTML generation and semantic markup for telepathology. Proceedings of the 5th International World Wide Web Conference (WWW5), pp. 1085-1094, Paris, France (1996).
[Nagao 2001] Nagao, K., Shirai, Y., and Kevin, S.: Semantic annotation and transcoding: making Web content more accessible. IEEE Multimedia, Vol. 8, No. 2, pp. 69-81 (2001).
[Phelps 2000] Phelps, T. A. and Wilensky, R.: Robust intra-document locations. Proceedings of the 9th International World Wide Web Conference (WWW9), pp. 105-118, Amsterdam, Netherlands (2000).
[RDF 1999] Resource Description Framework (RDF) Model and Syntax Specification. W3C Recommendation, http://www.w3.org/TR/REC-rdf-syntax/ (02/1999).
[RDFS 2000] Resource Description Framework (RDF) Schema Specification 1.0. W3C Candidate Recommendation, http://www.w3.org/TR/rdf-schema/ (03/2000).
[Rousseau 1999] Rousseau, F., Macias, J. A., de Lima, J. V., and Duda, A.: User adaptable multimedia presentations for the World Wide Web. Proceedings of the 8th International World Wide Web Conference (WWW8), pp. 195-212, Toronto, Canada (1999).
[Sakairi 2001] Sakairi, T. and Takagi, H.: An annotation editor for non-visual Web access. Proceedings of the 9th International Conference on Human-Computer Interaction (HCI International 2001), New Orleans, LA (to appear).
[Style 2001] Style Sheets Activity Statement. W3C User Interface Domain Activity Statement, http://www.w3.org/Style/Activity (2001).
[WTP 2000] IBM WebSphere Transcoding Publisher Version 3.5 Developer's Guide. IBM Corp. (2000).
[XLink 2000] XML Linking Language (XLink) Version 1.0. W3C Proposed Recommendation, http://www.w3.org/TR/xlink/ (2000).
[XPath 1999] XML Path Language (XPath) Version 1.0. W3C Recommendation, http://www.w3.org/TR/xpath (11/1999).
[XPath Visualizer 2001] The XPath Visualizer Version 1.3. VBXML, http://www.vbxml.com/xpathvisualizer (2001).
[XPointer 2001] XML Pointer Language (XPointer) Version 1.0. W3C Working Draft, http://www.w3.org/TR/xptr (01/2001).
[XSLT 1999] XSL Transformations (XSLT) Version 1.0. W3C Recommendation, http://www.w3.org/TR/xslt (11/1999).


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Finally I got the real camera out to capture Peter on camera. Poor little forth child…..
I know there are WAY too many pictures for one blog post here. But, I can't stand how much I love this little guy right now. I want to freeze every little expression and detail of him forever. I know I won't get around to making a baby book for him for years and years, so, I'm posting them all here. Scroll through quickly. You'll get a sense for his killer personality. He is a calm, happy soul. He makes us all really really happy.
I love how he has discovered his hands. He's always been a hand sucker (my first baby not to take a binkie) but just in the past few weeks he's really gotten into them…..staring at them, trying to use them, sucking on them, grabbing things.
What was our family like without this guy? He is delightful.


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I just sat and stared.
Sometimes I would sit quietly, trying to clear my mind and achieve a meditative calm.
Other times I would be quite loud, saying or shouting: "Just stop working, just stop!"
and there would be no answer
so then I'd say "Die, just die! Don't you know how pleasant it will be in the world to come when you don't have to work anymore? When you don't have to do anyone else's bidding? Just die!"
and there would still be no answer.
There was never an answer.
The dishwasher just sat there in its infinite yellow decrepitude and stared back at me, silently.


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He who seeks for applause only from without has all his happiness in another's keeping. (Quote by - Oliver Goldsmith)
When you know you are doing your very best within the circumstances of your existence, applaud yourself!. (Quote by - Rusty Berkus)
Give love and unconditional acceptance to those you encounter, and notice what happens. (Quote by - Wayne Dyer)
There is always a certain peace in being what one is, in being that completely. (Quote by - Ugo Betti)
She lacks confidence, she craves admiration insatiably. She lives on the reflections of herself in the eyes of others. She does not dare to be herself. (Quote by - Anais Nin)
The one self- knowledge worth having is to know one's own mind. (Quote by - Francis H. Bradley)
The fruit of self understanding is self acceptance. The fruit of self acceptance is self love. The fruit of self love is love for the world. The fruit of love for the world is service to the world. The fruit of service to the world is peace. (Quote by - Russell Rowe)
There is a proper balance between not asking enough of oneself and asking or expecting too much. (Quote by - May Sarton)
If I had influence with the good fairy who is supposed to preside over the christening of all children, I should ask that her gift to each child in the world be a sense of wonder so indestructible that it would last throughout life as an unfailing antidote against the boredom and disenchant ments of later years, the sterile preoccupation with things that are artificial, the alienation from the sources of our strength. (Quote by - Rachel Carson)
Let us not forget that among [women's] rights is the right to speak freely. (Quote by - Hillary Rodham Clinton)
To accept ourselves as we are means to value our imperfections as much as our perfections. (Quote by - Sandra Bierig)
A true man never frets about his place in the world, but just slides into it by the gravitation of his nature, and swings there as easily as a star. (Quote by - Edwin H. Chapin)
It is not easy to be a pioneer but oh, it is fascinating! I would not trade one moment, even the worst moment, for all the riches in the world. (Quote by - Elizabeth Blackwell)
Once we accept our limits, we go beyond them. (Quote by - Albert Einstein.)
Change occurs when one becomes what she is, not when she tries to become what she is not. (Quote by - Ruth P. Freedman)
The worst loneliness is not to be comfortable with yourself. (Quote by - Mark Twain)
I am what I am, so take me as I am!. (Quote by - Johann von Goethe)
The function of literature, through all its mutations, has been to make us aware of the particularity of selves, and the high authority of the self in its quarrel with its society and its culture. Literature is in that sense subversive. (Quote by - Lionel Trilling)
Acceptance and tolerance and forgiveness, those are life-altering lessons. (Quote by - Jessica Lange)
Nobody can be exactly like me. Sometimes even I have trouble doing it. (Quote by - Tallulah Bankhead)
As soon as you trust yourself, you will know how to live. (Quote by - Johann von Goethe)
The best effect of any book, is that it excites the reader to self- activity. (Quote by - Thomas Carlyle)
I am not belittling the brave pioneer men but the sunbonnet as well as the sombrero has helped to settle this glorious land of ours. (Quote by - Edna Ferber)
In order to be irreplaceable one must always be different. (Quote by - Coco Chanel)
If there are two hundred people in a room and one of them doesn't like me, I've got to get out. (Quote by - Marlon Brando)


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About us
Hi, we are floorplanner. We have made it our job to bring the power of architectural visualisations to everyone in the world that doesn't know (or doesn't want) to work with advanced 3D CAD software. We have built a platform based around a lightweight floorplan editor that runs in every browser and doesn't need any additional downloads or plug-ins and powerful cloud-based rendering so you can make beautiful images within minutes from any device simply via your browser.
Floorplanner was founded in 2007 by 3 architects and a civil engineer that strongly felt that 3D CAD software could be simpler, lighter and more accessible and with a small team we created our first version. Floorplanner was the first fully browser-based 2D & 3D planner for homes and since then over 20 million users worldwide have created an account at floorplanner to plan their homes or create floorplans for their businesses.
Floorplanner is based in Rotterdam (The Netherlands) were we work with a talented team of around 25 people on our product. We are self-funded and profitable and have been growing our revenues for 10 years in a row. This allows us to have a long term roadmap and make deep investments in our platform that will benefit all our users over time.
Floorplanner.com B.V.
Stationplein 45. A7.008
3001 GD Rotterdam
The Netherlands


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Mashkan-shapir was a typical Mesopotamian city, located about 20 miles from the Tigris River and connected to the river by a network of canals. Despite a flourishing civilization, Mashkan-shapir was abandoned within only 20 years of its settlement. What could have caused this rapid demise?
Poisoned fields: A contributor to collapse
Along with factors such as war and changes in the environment, scientists now believe irrigation techniques played an important role in Mashkan-shapir's collapse. The same process that allowed farming in this region also eventually made it impossible to farm. Irrigation has a Catch-22: if irrigation water is allowed to sit on the fields and evaporate, it leaves behind mineral salts; if attempts are made to drain off irrigation water and it flows through the soil too quickly, erosion becomes a problem. Scientists believe that Mashkan-shapir's collapse was caused in part by destruction of the fields by mineral salts. When mineral salts concentrate in the upper levels of the soil, it becomes poisonous for plants.
In Mesopotamia, irrigation was essential for crop production. The rivers were higher than the surrounding plain because of built-up silt in the river beds, so water for irrigation flowed into the fields by gravity. Once the water was on the fields, it could not readily drain away because the fields were lower than the river. As the water evaporated, it not only left its dissolved mineral salts behind, but also drew salts upward from lower levels of the soil. Over time, the soil became toxic and would no longer support crops. By about 2300 B.C., agricultural production in Mesopotamia was reduced to a tiny fraction of what it had been. Many fields were abandoned as essentially useless. Mesopotamian cuneiform tablets tell of crop damage due to salts.
Could this happen today?
In the United States, California's San Joaquin Valley faces irrigation problems that are similar to those faced by Mashkan-shapir. The irrigated soil is becoming increasingly salty, as is the water table. Without irrigation, abundant crop yields would have been impossible in this arid area. With irrigation, the land will very likely become impossible to farm.
Modern methods don't seem to be helping the San Joaquin Valley avoid this fate. Farmers have tried to cleanse the salts from the soil by flushing it with water and draining it into the sea. They have tried pouring the salty runoff from irrigation down drains dug deep into the ground. So far, these solutions have not worked, and the fields closest to the water table are becoming poisoned by salts. Right now, it looks as if the San Joaquin Valley is headed for the same fate as Mashkan-shapir.
How much can we learn from archaeological evidence? Find
out more in "Finding and Interpreting the Evidence."
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text:
- Description
The RetroSonic Compressor is an accurate reproduction of the famous gray Ross Compressor known for its smooth compression and attack response. The Ross design is updated with true bypass switching and the finest components, providing clean, smooth compression with low noise and incredible transparency.
An Attack control now allows you access to a full range of settings from Fast to Slow. You will notice note-to-note levels that are smoother and more consistent, chords and picking that is tighter and more focused, and when used with an overdriven amp, sustain that will last even longer. Notably, you will find minimal coloration to your guitar signal and fewer of the note-attack alterations so common with other lesser compressors. It also features a mini toggle switch that lets you have a tone option (bright, warm). The warm setting is the "Ross" Tone and the bright opens up the hi-end and makes it a bit more "spanky."
- Additional Information
Additional Information
Condition Used Manufacturer No Model retrosonic Weight (kg) No Weight (lbs) No EAN No UPC No
- Reviews
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The Great Harvest Bread Company makes an amazing treat called a scruffin. It is a "scone meets muffin" moist, deliciousness. These pumpkin scones remind me of a scruffin in texture. A wonderful fall or holiday treat! Recipe was inspired by and adapted from the Damn Delicious blog.
Pumpkin Scones
2 c Paula's Gluten Free Flour mixture (Recipe found below)
1 1/2 t xanthan gum
1/3 c brown sugar, packed
2 t baking powder
1/2 t baking soda
1 t cinnamon
1/2 t ground cloves
1/2 t ground ginger
1/2 t nutmeg
1/4 t salt
1/2 c chilled butter (one stick), cut into pieces ( To make dairy free: you could try using Spectrum Shortening)
1/2 c pumpkin puree
3 T milk (To make dairy free: substitute with a milk substitute, like Rice Milk
1 T ground flax, whisked with 3 T hot water to make flax gel
2 t vanilla
* Extra gluten free flour for dusting while rolling out.
1. Preheat oven to 400 degrees. Prepare work surface to roll dough on, with wax paper and extra gluten free flour for dusting. Line baking sheet with parchment paper.
2. In a large bowl, combine flour through salt, whisk together well. Cut in butter (or shortening) using a pastry blender or two forks until it resembles a coarse meal.
3. In a medium bowl, combine pumpkin through vanilla and mix well.
4. Add wet ingredients to dry ingredients, stir well with rubber spatula until a soft dough forms.
5. Place dough on lightly floured work surface. Roll into a rectangle shape about an inch thick. Cut into 8 triangles or 16 if you'd like smaller portions.
6. Transfer cut dough onto baking sheet, 1-2 inches apart. Bake 12-14 minutes or until a toothpick comes out clean. Cool on wire rack. Top with icing.
1 c powdered sugar
1 1/2 T milk (To make dairy free: substitute with a milk substitute, like Rice Milk)
Add 1 T milk to powdered sugar and stir together. If it is too dry then add more milk in small increments, until your desired consistency. Drizzle on cooled scones.
Paula's Gluten Free Flour Mix
1 1/2 c. millet flour
1 1/2 c. sorghum flour
1 c. tapioca flour
1 c. potato starch
1 c. arrowroot powder
Are you looking for more pumpkin recipes? Try out one of these...
This recipe has been shared at the following blog parties which a great resources for recipes from other bloggers:
Pumpkin Scones
1 1/2 c. millet flour
1 1/2 c. sorghum flour
1 c. tapioca flour
1 c. potato starch
1 c. arrowroot powder
Are you looking for more pumpkin recipes? Try out one of these...


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Click for details of PE Funding 2018
Sports Premium 2017-2018
Sports Premium Review 2017-2018
See video
1. In April 2013, the Government announced new funding of £150 million for physical education (PE) and sport. This funding should be used to improve the quality and breadth of PE and sport provision.
2. Funding will be allocated to all maintained and state-funded schools with primary phase pupils, including: primary, middle, special and non-maintained special schools, academies and pupil referral units from 1 September 2013. A typical primary school will receive about £9,250 annually in the academic years 2013/14 and 2014/15. We anticipate receiving £8845 in this academic year.
3. Schools are free to determine how best to use this funding to improve the quality and breadth of PE and sport provision, including increasing participation in PE and sport so that all pupils develop healthy lifestyles and reach the performance levels they are capable of.
How are we spending the money?
• Payment into the Teignmouth Primary Sport Partnership.
• Payment into the South Dartmoor School Sports Partnership.
• Continued professional development for staff.
• Participation in sports events for the children.
• Contributions to gifted and talented sports events.
• Transport to local events and competitions.
• Specialist sports teaching.
• Extra and new Sports Equipment for all pupils.
What outcomes are we working towards?
• Outstanding PE provision across the school.
• All children to have access to competitive competition.
• Identification of able and gifted children and established pathways to local clubs/coaching.
• Greater participation in school sporting clubs.
• Encouraging all pupils towards immediate and long-term participation in sport and physical activity
Academy Financial Year 2015-2016 (September 2015 – August 2016)


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New member profile: Legal counsel for Latin America at responsAbility Investments
Friday, 21 July 2017 (over a year ago) • Gwyneth Jones • Interviews and profiles
Lorena Barrenechea tells LACCA why not limiting your perspective to the purely legal side of operations is key in the in-house world.
LACCA membership is open to lawyers working in-house and directly employed at a company, who do not offer their services for a fee. Membership is free of charge. Find out more….
This content can only be accessed by LACCA members and subscribers
Become a member to access the latest news, features, member directory and receive a host of other benefits.
Alternatively, private practitioners can subscribe to news, features and surveys.
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text:
It's been 14 episodes since we first met the 17 chef'testants competing on the sixth season of Top Chef set in Las Vegas. Over the past months, we've watched them stir talent with creativity and fold in practiced cooking skills on their quest for the game-changing $100,000 check and the title of Top Chef. We've seen them flub pasta salads, serve TV dinners, deconstruct mole negro and create meals inspired by everything from fine wine to Circus Circus. Along the way, most have heard Padma's dreaded directive: "Please pack your knives and go."
This Wednesday, the three survivors, Kevin Gillespie and Bryan and Michael Voltaggio, will do battle in the finale, but before we see how Wynn Las Vegas' Director of Race & Sports Operations Johnny Avello has them ranked, let's look back at where the odds stood before and after the first week of competition…
Week 1: Having no real way of knowing the chef's skills and evaluating their chances, Avello's top five were Eve Aronoff (5/1), Preeti Mistry (6/1), Ron Duprat (7/1), Kevin Gillespie (8/1) and Mattin Noblia (10/1). So much for the power of largely uneducated guesses.
Week 2: After watching just a single episode of the culinary competition the season's strongest chefs were already evident and the lines were already impressively predictive. Based on a premiere that had Jennifer Carroll (5/1; sent home in part 1 of the finale) taking the Quickfire challenge and current favorite Kevin Gillespie (6/1) with an elimination challenge win under his belt, Avello ranked the top three chefs Michael V., Jennifer and Kevin. The only finalist missing from the top four was Michael's older brother, Bryan, stuck in the sixth spot at 12/1.
Week 15: Here were are at the finale episode in Napa Valley. Three great chefs. Three practiced palates. Three worthy competitors. Will the win go to Kevin's brand of flavorful comfort food simply prepared? Or will Bryan's delicate balance of flavor or Michael's wit and technique take the top prize? Avello's got his money on the red-bearded chef from Atlanta, and based on past precedent, I have to agree. In three out of the past five seasons the chef who won the first elimination challenge has gone on to win the title of Top Chef. Frankly, I like those odds.
|Opening Odds
|Last Week
|This Week
|Kevin Gillespie
|Michael Voltaggio
|Bryan Voltaggio


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There's not many theatrical productions that can claim to be upstaged by a general election, but just weeks into the launch of their ticket sales for this year's summer production, Thurgoland Thespians suddenly found themselves without a venue for their opening night, having been ousted by ballot boxes when Theresa May called a snap election.
For just as the first show of this new comedy production, The Deacon Posers, had been agreed, posters distributed and the first tickets sold for Thursday the 8th June, their booking for the venue, the Thurgoland Village Hall, was overruled as it's also the nominated polling station for the whole of the Thurgoland area.
Director, Nick Hibberd, said: "I don't suppose there are many productions that get ousted at the last minute for a major performance of this scale. I was going to write to the Prime Minister and ask if she would reconsider the election date to one that would suit us better, but in the end, recognised that it was possibly a small sacrifice to pay for the future of the whole of the Country.
"As a result, the group agreed to alter the opening night to Tuesday the 6th of June and the whole of the cast rearranged holiday dates and work rotas to enable the show to open two days early and then immediately break for a couple of days to fit in a bowling tournament as well as the general election.
"Tickets sold for the Thursday will automatically be transferred to the Tuesday and anyone who now cannot attend on that day, will be entitled to an alternative show or their money back by contacting the box office in advance," he added.
Coincidentally, The Deacon Posers is a comedy with a very current, political overtone that sits high on many of the parties manifestos - the aging population and local authority budgets. Set in an old people's hall of residence, the tenants find themselves on the brink of eviction as the council looks to close their home as part of a major £40 Million cost saving exercise.
Nick goes on to explain, "Not prepared to give up without a fight, a small number of the pensioners come up with a novel method of raising the £1 Million pounds needed to buy and run the home to stop them from being thrown out onto the street. The comical farce focuses on a small group or residents that come up with an audacious and somewhat farcical method of raising money for the 'Save Deacon Court' fund and fortunately one that doesn't involve them doing the 'Full Monty'.
"However, with less than eight months to save the home and money only trickling in, their finances enjoy an unexpected boost from a very two very unlikely sources, but not without major consequences," he added.
The play has been written in such a way as to take the audience through a roller coaster of emotions, hopefully leaving them exhilarated and upbeat at the end. It is refreshingly modern and reflects greatly on today's society, at the same time giving a more elderly perspective on today's 'fast paced' society.
Allocated tickets for the Tuesday night, Friday night and Saturday night performance are still available by calling the 'box office' on 0114 4535139, but spaces are limited so it is advisable to book in advance, especially for the Friday and Saturday shows.
"We would advise larger parties to book in advance if they want to be seated together as the venue is relatively small with less than 100 seats overall. With the annual pantomime we quite often find ourselves turning people away which is always disappointing," explained Nick.
The opening night is now Tuesday the 6th of June, followed by a two day break and then two subsequent shows on Friday the 9th and Saturday the 10th of June. Doors open at 7:00pm with curtain up at 7:30 prompt. All seats are just £5:00 and can be preordered by calling 0114 4535139 with some standby tickets available on the night.