text:
Natural areas encompass a wide range of environments and support a rich diversity of flora and fauna. From its tidal marshes of the coast to its boreal forests of the mountains, Virginia has been described as an ecological crossroads of national significance. Virginia's Department of Conservation and Recreation (DCR) acquires, dedicates and manages natural areas of statewide significance. The Natural Area Preserve System focuses on preserving lands so that rare natural communities and species may flourish. In addition, DCR advises other levels of government and private owners about managing natural areas. Following acquisition, DCR faces the even greater challenge of natural area stewardship. Stewardship is the long-term management of land to maintain its natural resources and inherent natural beauty. DCR stewardship is a combination of property and ecological management. On any natural area preserve, one may find staff and volunteers searching for rare plants, posting boundary signs, repairing trails or studying hydrology.
Ecological management is focused on maintaining and enhancing the natural values of land to conserve biological diversity. Land protection alone, however, does little to preserve the character of a natural area if impacts such as the introduction of invasive alien plants, or hydrologic disturbances are not also addressed. With continuing alteration of the land by human activity, many ecosystems have become fragmented or reduced to isolated islands surrounded by agricultural fields or developed areas. Ecological management is the key to successful stewardship and can be sub-divided into five general categories: conservation planning, restoration, prescribed management, research and monitoring.
Conservation planning is the analysis of the ecological, economic and social features of land which provides the scientific foundation for conservation of natural areas. Conservation planning starts well before a natural area is acquired. Planning boundaries are set which delineate ecologically sensitive areas where land-use activities should be carefully managed to ensure that they are compatible with conservation goals for natural heritage resources. Well designed natural area preserves encompass those ecological features necessary for the survival of native flora and fauna, and are planned to permit the best possible management by DCR stewards.
Restoration activities are implemented in an attempt to return disturbed land or vegetation to its original condition. Fundamental environmental processes critical to ecosystem functioning include water and nutrient cycling, erosion, herbivory, and natural disturbances such as floods and fire. Restoration techniques reinstate or replicate environmental processes to aid the return of an ecosystem to its original state.
Habitat restoration involves the return of specific habitat features to the environment, and the introduction of specific plants and animals to ensure habitation of the area by native species. Habitat restoration may also involve the removal of invasive or non-native species from the natural area.
Hydrologic restoration allows for the natural flow of water through a wetland or along a waterway. Maintaining or restoring the movement and chemistry of water encourages certain plants and animals to inhabit an area. Hydrologic restoration may involve the removal of obstructions to water flow, plugging of ditches, or remedial work to improve water quality.
Prescribed management maintains or enhances environmental conditions of an area. Through management activities such as prescribed burning and invasive species control, natural area stewards protect and rejuvenate natural vegetation. This enhances habitat conditions for many rare species and preserves the integrity of rare communities.
Prescribed burning is the carefully planned and controlled use of fire to accomplish a management goal. Many natural areas in Virginia such as longleaf pine - turkey oak sandhills and grassy savannahs contain plants that are dependent on or benefit from regular fires to enhance seed germination and make space and nutrients available for new growth.
Invasive species represent a serious threat to natural areas. Often these species have no natural enemies or controls to curb their growth and dispersal. They can easily outcompete native species for needed resources such as space, sunlight, and food. Once established in disturbed areas, they advance steadily into natural areas and can be difficult to remove. A variety of control methods, such as mechanical removal and the use of environmentally safe herbicides, are used by natural area stewards to control invasive species.
Research is important to the long-term preservation of a natural area for identifying the environmental conditions necessary to support a particular community or species of interest. Information to guide management of rare species or communities is often lacking. Research aimed at understanding the natural history, biology, and population dynamics of a rare species or how an ecosystem functions is essential for planning effective management.
Monitoring is a multi-faceted tool used by natural area stewards to assess the ecological condition of an area. It is used to document the trends of natural communities and rare species. It can also help determine if the natural processes essential to their continued existence are occurring. Monitoring is not limited to assessing only the condition of plant and animal species. Air, water, land, and pollution are other components of the environment that must be monitored for effective resource management. Monitoring activities also inform natural area stewards if management activities have been successful in fulfilling their goals. Information obtained through monitoring can be used to further refine and enhance current management practices.
Effective stewardship of Virginia's natural areas is dependent on the dedication of a variety of people. Land managers, resource experts, conservation planners, and private landowners all contribute to sound ecological management practices. Volunteers also contribute significantly to preserving natural areas through assistance with monitoring, prescribed management and restoration projects. If you are interested in learning more about Virginia's natural area preserves and ecological management programs, contact the Department of Conservation and Recreation at (804) 786-7951.


text:
My Ántonia
by Willa Cather
My Ántonia Memory and the Past Quotes
How we cite our quotes: Citations follow this format: (Book.Chapter.Paragraph)
Quote #1
I was ten years old then; I had lost both my father and mother within a year, and my Virginia relatives were sending me out to my grandparents, who lived in Nebraska. (1.1.1)
Because Jim has just been orphaned, an entirely new phase of his life begins as he heads out to live with his grandparents. Moving West to Nebraska represents a "journey" for him in more ways than one.
Quote #2
There was nothing but land: not a country at all, but the material out of which countries are made. (1.1.10)
The land is, like Jim, raw material out of which something must form. We see how appropriate the empty Nebraskan landscape is for a coming-of-age story. The country – or at least this part of the country – is coming of age along with Jim.
Quote #3
Once, while [Peter] was looking at Ántonia, he sighed and told us that if he had stayed at home in Russia perhaps by this time he would have had a pretty daughter of his own to cook and keep house for him. (1.5.9)
Jim isn't the only one hung up on nostalgia for the past. The other characters, too, share his idealistic, romanticized view of days and places gone by.

subset: commoncrawl


text:
Spring is full of new beginnings: Flowers are blooming, birds are chirping, and everything just seems fresh. It's also a prime time to discover some new music. "Get Lucky" had a good run at the top of your most-played list, but girl, you need to move on.
When you're getting dirty in the garden:
Nickel Creek's "Destination" from A Dotted Line, available now
- This is folksy bluegrass at its best: Tight harmonies, expertly played instruments, yearning vocals and just the right amount of twang. Following a multiyear hiatus, the three members still have a perfect blend that compels you to tap your foot and maybe even learn to play the mandolin. This album will make you smile as you plant flowers in the sunshine.
When you're running that 10K:
Kaiser Chiefs' "Bows & Arrows" from Education, Education, Education & War, available now
- The boisterous Brits are back with upbeat tracks to help you PR on the first race of the season. Their fifth album is full of the soaring singing and catchy guitars we've come to expect from the gents behind "I Predict A Riot." Lace up your sneaks, turn on your iPod, and power toward that finish line.
When you're spring cleaning:
Ingrid Michaelson's "Afterlife" from Lights Out, drops April 15
- The charming singer-songwriter can make any task seem fun — consider her your personal Mary Poppins. Her playful new songs invite you to sing or whistle along, which will make it considerably less painful to sort through your overstuffed closet. Need a break? The album also has some poignant love songs if you just want to relax and get lost in her melodies.
When you're feasting on Easter/Passover:
Kelis' "Rumble" from Food, drops April 22
- First her milkshake brought all the boys to the yard, and now Kelis is expanding her musical (and culinary) repertoire beyond frozen treats. The mellow, deep singing on the soulful single "Rumble" proves that she's no one-hit wonder. Another notable track is the retro-inspired "Jerk Ribs"–and unlike its eponymous dish, it'll actually make you want to get up and move.
When you're relaxing on Spring Break:
Rodrigo y Gabriela's "The Soundmaker" from 9 Dead Alive, drops April 28
- When you turn on the radio, you're bound to hear an assortment of electronic effects and the ever-present auto-tune. That's all great, but sometimes, we all need an audio detox. Rodrigo y Gabriela's crazy guitar-picking skills speak for themselves, without being encumbered by modern touches or even lyrics. Their sound is insanely complex, but also refreshingly simple. Time to say adios to your distractions.
- How to Pair Your Tunes With Your Wine
- There's Still Time: Last Month's Top Albums
- The Movies to Check Out This April
Image Credit: Courtesy of Nonesuch Records Inc.


text:
Take a sneak peek at the new NIST.gov and let us know what you think!
(Please note: some content may not be complete on the beta site.).
Our goal is to develop combinatorial library approaches for measuring and optimizing the effect of substrate chemical functionalization on the structure and performance of polymer thin film materials and devices. Fabricated via novel combinations of self-assembly, microfluidic, soft-lithography, and surface-initiated polymerization, our continuous gradient libraries are tools for designing advanced polymeric coatings and surface functional layers.
Additional Technical Details:
Free radical copolymerization is a valuable tool for tailoring properties of polymeric materials for a broad range of applications. For statistical copolymers, the monomer sequence distribution and compositional heterogeneity in and amongst the copolymer chains have a profound influence on the behavior and physical properties of the material. Measurement of monomer reactivity ratios, the key synthetic parameters for designing tailored copolymers, provides insight necessary to control monomer sequence; however, these parameters are time-consuming and difficult to measure.
In 2007, we successfully developed a new surface library approach for measuring monomer reactivity ratios using surface-initiated copolymerization (SIP) and X-ray photoelectron spectroscopy (XPS). Copolymerization of monomers from surface-bound initiators (see below) creates statistical copolymer brushes, where the arrangement of monomers within the tethered polymer chains is dictated by monomer reactivities.
Due to a lack of segmental rearrangement within the polymer layer, these copolymer brush surfaces express the statistical distribution of monomer constituents at the interface that reflects the distribution along the length of the tethered chains. Consequently, statistical copolymer brushes provide a platform for covalently "trapping" the copolymer composition on a surface, and thus allow determination of surface chemistry by quantitative surface spectroscopic methods such as XPS (see below). Knowledge of the surface chemistry expressed from a given monomer feed provides a straight-forward assessment of the kinetic parameters that dictate copolymer composition.
As a "proof of concept," we applied our approach to the well characterized system of styrene-methyl methacrylate copolymers and found that the reactivity ratios from SIP determined by XPS agree well with those under solution reaction conditions determined by nuclear magnetic resonance (NMR) spectroscopy (see below). In addition, our method eliminates several of the experimental complications of using traditional solution polymerizations to measure reactivity ratios including monomer drift and extensive purification protocols. Ultimately, this leads to higher degrees of accuracy and precision in the measurement of these key reactivity parameters. Furthermore, these experiments shed insight into the behavior of reactions at interfaces, and represent one of the few methods reported for quantifying polymerization behavior from a surface.
We reported this work via invited and contributed lectures at FY07 national meetings of the American Chemical Society, Materials Research Society, NSTI Nanotech, and at two NIST Combinatorial Methods Center industry member workshops. This work was also recognized with the Best Poster Award at the Polymers West Gordon Research Conference.
Major Accomplishments:
Selected Publications
Start Date:October 1, 2006
End Date:September 30, 2008
Lead Organizational Unit:mml
Facilities/Tools Used:
Michael Fasolka - Project Leader
Michael Fasolka


text:
The USDA approved a federal marketing order (FMO) for the pecan industry earlier this year, enabling the industry to collect mandatory dues that will go towards marketing and research efforts for US pecans. Last week, the industry started the nomination process for members of a new American Pecan Council, which will decide how the funds […] read more
NPSA hosts Pecan Chefs Summit – Beyond Pecan Pie in the June issue of Pecan South magazine. Enjoy recipes, nutrition and so much more. Happy reading! read more
It's easy to find pecans just about anywhere. Pecans are readily available at grocery stores, markets, etc. across the country.find locations
The National Pecan Shellers Association (NPSA), a non-profit trade association, is committed to educating culinary and health professionals, food technologists and the general public about the nutritional benefits, variety of uses and all around great taste of pecans.
Please note that the Heart-Check Food Certification does not apply to hyperlinks, recipes or research unless expressly stated. For more information, see the AHA nutrition guidelines here.
Copyright © 1997-2016 National Pecan Shellers Association - Site designed and maintained by Kellen Digital


text:
A relative utility curve is a simple method to evaluate risk prediction in a medical decision-making framework, according to a commentary published online October 20 in the Journal of the National Cancer Institute.
Risk prediction models that are based on medical history or the results of tests are becoming common in the cancer literature and are used to provide additional information to those who are involved in making treatment decisions on the basis of estimated risk.
In this commentary, Stuart G. Baker, ScD, of the National Cancer Institute in Bethesda, Md., elaborates on the relative utility curve as a method for evaluating risk prediction. He illustrates the application of relative utility curves in an analysis of previously published data involving the addition of breast density to a risk prediction model for invasive breast cancer.
"An important use of relative utility curves is to evaluate the addition of a risk factor to the risk prediction model," according to the author.
More information: jnci.oxfordjournals.org
Source: Journal of the National Cancer Institute (news : web)
Explore further: Largest review of its kind associates anti-inflammatory drugs with reduced breast cancer risk


text: Federal Reserve Chairman Ben S. Bernanke said the central bank still has tools to stimulate the economy without providing details or signalling when or whether policymakers might deploy them. "In addition to refining our forward guidance, the Federal Reserve has a range of tools that could be used to provide additional monetary stimulus," Bernanke said in a speech today to central bankers and economists gathered at an annual forum in Jackson Hole, Wyoming. He said a second day has been added to the next policy meeting in September to "allow a fuller discussion" of the economy and the Fed's possible response.


text:
Perry Visits FDNY
Thursday, 09.8.2011 / 1:04 PM PT / News
In tribute to all members of the FDNY and in memory of those lost on Sept. 11, 2001, Perry presented the firefighters with a framed jersey from the Ducks organization. Perry greeted the firefighters, signed autographs and was given a special tour of the firehouse. The firefighters took pride in showing Perry their personal version of the Stanley Cup (silver cooler with a silver cup on top) after capturing a recent victory. They presented Perry with a FDNY hat, t-shirt and patch.
Engine 34, Ladder 21 lost seven men on Sept. 11, 2001 in the attacks on the World Trade Center. While at the station, Perry listened to their personal accounts and offered his thanks for their service and dedication.


text:
Spanish Recession Probably Deepened in Second Quarter: Economy
Spain's recession deepened in the three months through June as the toughest budget cuts in the country's democratic history pushed the economy into a third consecutive quarter of contraction, the Bank of Spain said.
The euro area's fourth-largest economy shrank 0.4 percent from the first quarter, when gross domestic product fell 0.3 percent, the central bank said in an estimate in its monthly bulletin released in Madrid today. Domestic demand "fell more sharply than in the prior quarter," while exports showed a "moderate recovery," it said.
Prime Minister Mariano Rajoy last week announced his fourth round of tax increases and spending cuts since Dec. 30 as he struggles to convince investors that the nation won't need a second bailout. The planned budget cuts through 2014 now amount to more than 10 percent of annual GDP. Spain's 10-year note yields surged above 7.5 percent today, breaching a level that forced Ireland, Portugal and Greece to seek external aid.
"Confidence suffered further following the latest Spanish news over the past couple of days," said Christian Melzer, an economist at Dekabank in Frankfurt. "We don't see the breakup of the euro, but whether the euro region will still be the same in terms of members over the next two years is unclear. We don't expect Spain to leave; the latest austerity measures are definitely a positive step for the nation."
Benchmark Bond
The yield on Spain's 10-year benchmark bond surged 26 basis points to 7.57 percent today. The spread with similar German maturities widened to 6.42 percentage points.
The euro dropped for a fourth straight day against the U.S. dollar, trading at $1.2119 at 12:39 p.m. in Frankfurt and falling below its lifetime average against the dollar. The European currency has declined 3.9 percent over the past two months, reflecting investor concern about the worsening turmoil.
European leaders failed to stem the euro's decline with the approval of a 100 billion-euro ($122 billion) aid package for Spain last week. With Spain's regions confronting about 15 billion euros of debt redemptions in the second half of this year, Catalonia, Spain's most indebted region, followed Valencia in saying it will examine conditions of a central government aid mechanism.
Italian Prime Minister Mario Monti, whose country also is burdened with surging borrowing costs, said last week that unrest in Spain, where protesters opposed the government's new austerity package, added to euro concerns. In Greece, officials have been struggling to stand by obligations tied to 240 billion euros of rescue funding over the past two years.
Government Debt
Euro-area government debt increased to 88.2 percent of GDP in the first quarter from 87.2 percent in the previous three months, the European Union's statistics office in Luxembourg said today. That's the highest since the euro was introduced in 1999. At 132.4 percent of GDP, Greece had the highest debt burden, with Spain's debt increasing to 72.1 percent from 68.5 percent. Italy's debt was at 123.3 percent.
Spain's economy probably contracted 1 percent in the second quarter from a year earlier, today's report showed. Domestic demand declined 1.2 percent from the previous three months, when it fell 0.5 percent, the Bank of Spain said. As job losses continued, households ate into their savings and low disposable income reduced their ability to pay down debt, it said.
The decline in tax receipts pointed to the risk the government may miss its budget goals even as a 65-billion euro austerity package announced earlier this month should help it approach the new budget targets, the Bank of Spain said.
Austerity Package
Rajoy's fourth austerity package in seven months will raise the sales levy to 21 percent from 18 percent; scrap a tax rebate for home buyers; scale back unemployment benefits and study pension cuts; and eliminate the year-end bonus for public workers. The budget measures, covering the next two-and-a-half years, are about double those previously announced.
The Bank of Spain said today that the reduction in labor costs isn't enough to restore competitiveness even as net exports contributed more to the economy in the second quarter than in the previous three months.
"Given that most of the measures will take place at the end of the year, it shows that the worst is still to come," said Ricardo Santos, an economist at BNP Paribas SA in London.
Spain's economy may struggle to emerge from a slump as the euro area is edging toward a recession. The 17-nation bloc's services and manufacturing industries probably continued to shrink in July, a Bloomberg News survey shows ahead of tomorrow's release. In Germany, Europe's largest economy, investor confidence dropped for a third month in July.
Japan, China
The International Monetary Fund said earlier this month that the euro-area economy may shrink 0.3 percent this year before expanding 0.7 percent in 2013. That compares with the European Central Bank's June forecasts of a contraction of about 0.1 percent this year.
Elsewhere in the world, economies are also cooling. China's economic outlook was cut by Japan, its biggest Asian trading partner, as the Shanghai Composite Index fell to its lowest level in three years on concern about faltering domestic demand and export growth.
"The slowdown in the global economy is becoming more widespread," the Cabinet Office said in a monthly report in Tokyo today. Japan's government said the expansion in China is "slowing a bit," lowering its evaluation for a third month.
The European Commission is scheduled to publish an initial estimate for euro-area consumer confidence in July at 4 p.m. in Brussels today.


text:
Sufi sanctuary construction could start soon
The Sufism Reoriented Sanctuary could be under construction by this week or next, with the building permit for the 66,000-square-foot cluster of white dome-shaped buildings issued by the county Feb. 8.
While some nearby homeowners believed that Sufism Reoriented had to provide off-site parking spaces to meet Contra Costa County's conditions of approval, the building permit was granted before those spaces were secured.
County officials said last week that the building permit wasn't dependent on securing those extra parking spaces.
Parking, safety and landscaping elements of the plan have been contentious issues throughout the approval process for the Sufism center, with nearby homeowners claiming there wasn't enough required parking, relative to the size of the project.
Meher Schools had planned to let the affiliated Sufi sanctuary use a school parking lot to help meet their overflow parking requirement, but Lafayette school officials told county planners district property could not be subleased to a third party.
County Deputy Director of Community Development Aruna Bhat said that the overflow parking condition will be reviewed by county planners; if that isn't sufficient, Sufism Reoriented will have to provide an alternate site within two miles of the new sanctuary.
Library to host centennial event
The Walnut Creek Library downtown will host a Feb. 20 event celebrating the Contra Costa Library's centennial, as part of the library's ongoing "Bringing People and Ideas Together" events throughout the year.
This event begins at 6:30 p.m. in the Oak View Room of the new library, 1644 N. Broadway in Walnut Creek. Enjoy a glass of sparkling apple cider and the music of the Celtic and bluegrass group Extended Roots, an acoustic band comprising 13 women who play traditional music from the roots of America.
The event is free, but registration is required -- call 925-977-3340.
Contra Costa County's first library opened in 1913 in Walnut Creek. For a complete list of "Bringing People and Ideas Together" events, visit http://guides.ccclib.org/100thbirthday.
Next 'Spotlight' event highlights corp yard
Walnut Creek's next "Second Saturday Spotlight" program is March 9, "Keeping Things Running Smoothly," a behind-the-scenes look at the city's Public Services Maintenance Corp Yard.
It's the third in a planned series of "Spotlight" events that will also allow the public to go to the nerve center of the Lesher Center for the Arts and see what goes on at the Lindsay Wildlife Museum.
The "Spotlight" series in Mayor Cindy Silva's primary outreach program to Walnut Creek's residents, said Gayle Vassar, Walnut Creek's communications and outreach manager.
"This is the mayor's way to connect with the community for the year," Vassar said.
Future scheduled "Spotlight" programs and April 13, "Walnut Creek's Legacy of Open Space," led by the Walnut Creek Open Space Foundation
The city encourages people to register for each "Spotlight" ahead of time, so the city can best accommodate those who want to come. The online registration system is on the Spotlight web page. That said, drop-ins are welcome, too.
All "Spotlights" will take place the second Saturday of the month from 9 to 10:30 a.m., and will be very informal tours of a community/city gems. To register or for more information, go online to www.ci.walnut-creek.ca.us/spotlight. or call Vassar at 925-943-5895 or email her at firstname.lastname@example.com
Grand jury applicants sought
The Contra Costa grand jury is seeking applicants for the 2013-14 fiscal year to oversee city and county governments, and school and special districts.
Grand jury members must be 18 years or older, US citizens and have resided in Contra Costa County for at least one year before selection. They can't hold any elected positions within the county and must be able to be released from their jobs to perform jury duties, among other requirements.
Sixty applicants will be selected to be interviewed by the grand jury Selection Committee. A final panel of 19 will be chosen by random drawing on June 14.
Interested applicants should contact the Office of the Civil grand jury at 925-957-5638 or visit www.cc-courts.org/grand jury.
Rajan gives campaign money to school foundations
Former Walnut Creek City Councilman current director of the Governor's Office of Business and Economic Development (or GO-Biz) Kish Rajan delivered a $3,500 check to the Walnut Creek Education Foundation. That check, plus an earlier $3,500 donation check to the PEAK Education Foundation, will help benefit education in Walnut Creek schools.
"I am very proud to be making these sizable donations to support Walnut Creek's schools," said Rajan. "As a Walnut Creek native, resident and parent, I cannot think of a more important investment than in our kids."
In September when Rajan was appointed by Gov. Brown to lead the GO-Biz office, and decided to end his campaign for re-election to the Walnut Creek City Council, he made a pledge to donate 100 percent of the net proceeds of the campaign to Walnut Creek's two main education foundations.
Looking for love at the Lindsay museum
Love is in the air at the Lindsay Wildlife Museum from Valentine's Day through President's Day, with "Wild Valentines," a special, family-friendly presentation that explores how wild animals find mates, raise families and "love."
"Wild Valentines" will be presented today (Feb. 14) and Friday, Feb. 15 from noon to 5 p.m.; Feb.16 and 17 from 10 a.m. to 5 p.m.; and Feb. 18 from 10 a.m. to 5 p.m.
These presentations are free with the cost of standard Lindsay admission: $7 for adults and $5 for children (free for museum members). The museum is at 1931 First Ave., Walnut Creek, near Larkey Park. For more information, call 925-935 1978.
Paint collection sites established
Several paint collection sites have been set up as part of the California Paint Stewardship Program, which requires paint manufacturers to develop a system to retrieve leftover paint from household and commercial consumers.
The program will be funded by a "recovery fee" attached to the purchase price of paint sold in California. That money will go to PaintCare, a nonprofit organization created to administer the state paint disposal and recycling programs. These fees go up to $1.60 per one- to -five-gallon container of paint.
Some collection sites include Kelly Moore, 2700 N Main St. in Walnut Creek; Glidden Professional, 2260 Commerce Ave. in Concord; Kelly Moore, 5600 Imhoff Drive in Concord; Sherwin-Williams, 1241 Diamond Way in Concord; Dunn-Edwards, 555 Contra Costa Blvd. in Pleasant Hill; and Kelly Moore, 1725 Contra Costa Blvd. in Pleasant Hill.
For more information about the California Paint Stewardship Program visit www.paintcare.org
East Bay Women's Conference is March 4
The 2013 East Bay Women's Conference, with keynote speaker Marlo Thomas and featured speaker Lisa Kristine, takes place March 4, at the San Ramon Marriott.
Both women have had significant impact on the lives of women around the world and continue to act and speak out for positive change.
ABC 7 news anchor Dan Ashley will emcee the conference that blends keynote and featured speaker presentations; breakout sessions focused on contemporary issues; exhibitor booths; a fully stocked bookstore and author signings.
The conference is presented by the Walnut Creek Chamber of Commerce and Chevron Corporation. The $195 ticket price includes continental breakfast, lunch and afternoon reception.
Tickets for the conference, are available http://www.walnut-creek.com and click on the Women's Conference photo on the face page.
Changes planned for Encina Grande center
A relocation and expansion of the existing Walgreens store, facade improvements throughout the whole shopping center are all proposed for the Encina Grande shopping center, near the intersection of Ygnacio Valley and Oak Grove Roads.
The Planning Commission must approve the project, likely sometime in early 2013
-- Compiled by Sam Richards


text:
Life's A Beach: Eavesdropping In The Sand
"Sweetie, do you know what that is?" No response. "Look at that bird! You know what they call it?" Still no response. "It's a seagull!"
A terrible noise rousted me from a deep sleep the other night: the rumble of the furnace igniting for the first time this season.
I flung the covers off, staggered downstairs, raced to the thermostat and twisted the dial.
Luckily, my wife was on a trip to New Mexico for a few days or else I probably would have been told to let the damn heat come on because the house felt like an igloo, but since I was alone I could freeze if I wanted.
I had no intention of freezing, but I just can't bring myself to light the wood stove before Oct. 1 even if the temperature dips into the 40s. And the thought of burning precious heating oil also repelled me, so I grabbed a heavy quilt and burrowed back under the covers.
After all, on various occasions I've slept outside in a bivvy sack during a blizzard, spent a week as a winter hut caretaker in the White Mountains, mostly alone, when the indoor temperature rarely went above freezing, and had been trapped in a tent for days during a furious snowstorm at 19,000 feet in the Andes.
But the sound of the furnace reminded me that any day now I'll be firing up the stove and eating into my stores of firewood.
I'm probably more of a procrastinator than any 10 people except when it comes to wood, when I become a virtual Paul Bunyan.
I have two woodsheds, each holding about six cords. In a typical winter I will burn about five cords, and I rotate them so that I'm always burning wood that has been seasoned at least a year. If I were even more obsessive I'd build a third shed.
The shed that I plan to use this year has been filled since last spring, and during sporadic cutting and splitting this past summer I managed to fill about two-thirds of the shed I'll be drawing from next year. Summer is a miserable time to cut and split, what with the bugs and the heat, so I generally start in earnest in the fall and continue through the winter.
In addition, nothing splits better than a frozen log on frozen ground. And, to repeat Thoreau's famous dictum, when you heat with wood you heat twice: First when you cut it and then when you burn it. Once I get going I usually strip off all but one thin layer, even when the temperature dips into the teens.
I made one major improvement the other day that had been bugging me for years. The first step from one woodshed had dropped about 2 feet to an enormous boulder, and the next step was a flat but teetery rock that always threatened to send me sprawling when I lugged heavy log carriers.
Working alone with an assortment of pry bars, fulcrums, levers, cribbing and a mattock I managed to extricate the boulder, which measured about half the size of a refrigerator, and move if about 6 feet downhill. Next I had to reposition all the other stone steps from the house -- some lead to the other woodshed, some to the garden, some to the outdoor pizza oven, some to the fire pit where I boil sap to make maple syrup -- in order to link up with the newly configured stairway.
Finally, I had to build a set of wide-tread wooden stairs from the relocated boulder to the shed. My friend Bob, a skilled carpenter, offered valuable advice and moral support.
I finished the whole project in about 10 hours, and I'm pleased to report I can now haul wood from the shed to the house without fear of toppling into the small frog pond or bashing my knee on a rock.
I may one day devise a pulley system but that carries the risk of a runaway load that smashes through the sliding glass door on the side deck, so for the time being I'll stick to the stairs.
My wood operation already has gotten much easier since I started using a chainsaw a few years ago. Before then, when our son was still living at home, he and I did all our cutting with a two-man crosscut saw and bow saws. I have to admit I miss him but not the hours we spent bent over an 18-inch-thick hickory log.
Hickory is great for burning but is about as easy to cut as orthoclase.
I have more than enough trees already felled that have to be cut up, split and hauled to the sheds. I cut a number of them last year, mostly silver birch, a few dogwoods and one large maple, when I expanded the garden.
I also planted a couple hundred seedlings in the spring, and transplanted a couple hundred others from my makeshift nursery to various areas that I'd thinned. It's the arboreal version of the circle of life, reinforced by my use of raked leaves for mulch around the seedlings.
I've spent a wonderful, active summer, but now the days of swimming and carefree kayaking are drawing to a close.
I'm eager to get back to the saw and splitting maul.
You can never have too much firewood.
"Sweetie, do you know what that is?" No response. "Look at that bird! You know what they call it?" Still no response. "It's a seagull!"
All right, technically my buddy Spyros "Spy" Barres and I weren't hanging 10 toes off the end off boards while riding waves at Westerly's Fenway Beach on Thursday, but we were surfing.
All of us who have ventured atop mountains, out to sea, or simply into a nearby park have occasionally faced Mother Nature's wrath – a sudden thunderstorm, pounding blizzard, gale-force winds, locusts …
Some years ago, preparing to hike the Hundred Mile Wilderness – the final stretch of the fabled Appalachian Trail from Georgia to Maine, I stuffed my backpack with what I initially considered to be the absolute bare minimum for a week in...
When I was a kid, the Fourth of July was one of the year's high holy days, right up there with Halloween and the last day of school, because that was when my parents took my sister and me to the beach for the annual fireworks...
Many people I know share my passion for outdoor recreation but I also have a little secret: Between rounds of kayaking, hiking, gardening, wood-splitting and other activities I also savor the simple act of lounging quietly on a sunny day in a...
A refreshing breeze cooled me despite a blazing late-afternoon sun as I scrambled up the final rocky slope to the 4,121-foot summit of Maine's Saddleback Mountain earlier this week, but I paused for only a moment to gaze at the glorious,...
Anyone who has ever attempted to grow vegetables soon realizes it is a true labor of love, with particular emphasis on the labor.
During decades of traipsing through the wilderness I've slept, or attempted to sleep, in every conceivable indoor and outdoor quarters: in freshly dug snow caves; alongside bug-infested swamps; during thunderstorms with no tent; in the...
The awful story this week about a 2-year-old boy who witnesses said was pulled by an alligator into a lagoon near a Walt Disney World hotel in Orlando, Florida and later found dead serves as a reminder that danger lurks even in "The...
While kayaking the other morning I spotted a small, dark object poking above the lake surface 100 yards or so ahead, and I was pretty sure it was the head of a turtle until I drew closer and realized the sad truth: just another beer...
Shortly before the start of the late-great Rose Arts Road Race several years ago, a 10.47-mile running competition over the hills of Norwich considered one of New England's toughest courses, my friend Bob and I decided to jog a couple miles...
Hovercraft 'flying' travelers across Long Island and Fishers Island sounds
A/Z Corporation has grown from humble beginnings to industry leader
New London police, firefighters respond to report of man jumping in Thames River
Waterford soldier's remains come home after more than 60 years
Electric Boat delivers submarine Illinois early, below budget
Region still lagging in job gains, but future seen as 'bright'


text:
I catch up with the twenty-first century. My personal vignettes now come in bits'n'bytes courtesy of EPUB and PDF files. True, the PDF version was always an afterthought to the paperback but now it has 'Digital Rights Management'. I believe this is a good thing for me: it stops willy-nilly copying, not that any sort of copying is rife at the mo.
What does it all mean? I believe (again) it means that my fellow moderns with their Kindles and their iPhones and their miscellaneous electronic book-readers – in short, the ebook generation will have the inestimable pleasure of downloading my birding words. To celebrate this Great Leap Forward, the introductory price will be £4.
£4 did I say? No, no, no. £3.50 – nay, £3. The cost of a pint and with no risk of a hangover.


text:
UPDATE: "The Flash" Hasn't Cast Savitar, Says Berlanti
TV, Comic Books
Comics | Tammy Oler considers the roles of Captain Marvel and Ms. Marvel within a growing movement to make superhero comics more diverse: "The devoted fans in the Carol Corps and Kamala Korps view themselves as part of a movement for a bigger and more diverse comic book universe, and it seems like publishers might finally be starting to pay attention. Both Ms. Marvel and the rebooted Captain Marvel are part of Marvel NOW!, an effort by the publisher to attract new readers by providing a lot of accessible places for new readers to jump on board with ongoing series. (DC Comics has done something similar with its New 52 initiative.) Marvel and DC have also taken some steps to address their lack of superhero diversity, in part by launching some new female solo titles, including Black Widow, She-Hulk, and Elektra. Of course, there's a whole world of mainstream and indie publishers beyond Marvel and DC, but the big two still matter the most because they create the pantheon of superheroes that make it into movie theatres and onto the racks of Halloween costumes at Target." [Slate.com]
Creators | Newsday picks up the story of Al Plastino's original art for the John F. Kennedy comic that was canceled when the president was assassinated, and then published a few months later at the request of the Johnson administration. Plastino, now 91, had been told the artwork would be donated to the Kennedy Library, but last month at New York Comic Con he learned that a private individual had the art and was planning to sell it through Heritage Auctions, which now says it won't move forward until the ownership question is resolved. Copyright lawyer Dale Cendall, former DC Comics President Paul Levitz and artist Neal Adams weigh in on the case. [Newsday]
Kickstarter | In the wake of the successful Fantagraphics Kickstarter campaign, Rob Salkowitz looks at the evolution of the crowdfunding platform from a way for individual creators to connect with their audiences to a pre-sale mechanism that eliminates a lot of the risk for smaller publishers. [ICv2]
If you think that artists should work for free because your project will give them great exposure (and anyway, art isn't really work, because people like to do it) then stay away from Ryan Estrada's latest Twitter account, For Exposure, which mocks that attitude by posting real requests from the Internet. On the other hand, if you believe in paying people for their work and you need a good laugh, check it out. The tweeted material is presumably from aspiring comics writers, although they might think about paying an editor, as misspellings and grammatical errors are legion.
For good measure, he also presents a dramatic reading (below) of a letter requesting an artist work for free — actually, offering it as if it were a great opportunity.
Retailing | Diamond Comic Distributors runs the numbers on Free Comic Book Day: 1.2 million fans went to 2,000 participating comics shops and picked up 4.6 million free comics, generating $2.2 million worth of publicity along the way. And fans reported on their experience with more than 66,000 tweets with the FCBD hashtags. [ICv2]
Conventions | The Philadelphia Daily News previews this weekend's Wizard World Philadelphia, which marks the return of Marvel after a several-year absence. [Philadelphia Daily News]
… to look at any successful geek as Manifest Destiny rather than a crew lucky enough to have found an escape hatch seems … unhealthy. It just all seems so unhealthy. Worse, it seems like sales. And — who do people think PAYS those guys? Who do they think runs those guys's careers? Have you ever seen a movie executive? Have you ever been around AGENTS? (I don't recommend it). Do people think that the creative personnel are really running the game and calling shots? That's not true of nearly every creative enterprise I know, certainly not pre-internet at least. If you're not a person who can say No in their life, then I don't care who's lined up to kiss your ass. Heck, it's certainly not true now — this generation of nerds is churning out Star Wars movies and Marvel bullshit for corporations that keep nerds like pets.
– Abhay Khosla, poking holes in the popular notion that nerds and misfits will inherit the earth.
As he's wont to do, Khosla pokes a lot more holes than just the part I've quoted there, but I pulled that section out because it directly mentions comics. The Big Dream for comics creators used to be working for either Marvel or DC, but that's changed. It's still a dream for many and I'm not putting down anyone who's working for those companies or would like to, but it's no longer the dominant goal that it once was. More and more creators are jumping ship at the corporations to pursue their own projects with their own characters, at least partly for the reason Khosla mentions: they want to be able to run the game.
It was jarring to me. I respected and loved the work of all of them. I also liked them all on a personal but individual basis. But when I saw what the comic book industry was doing to them, I think I liked it a little less. Those men all deserved better.
– Mark Evanier, commenting on the observation by Howard Chaykin that Gil Kane, Joe Kubert, Carmine Infantino and other DC artists "regarded each other with distaste, frequently bordering on genuine loathing."
It's stuff like this that brings home to me how screwed up the comics industry was for so many years. I understand on an intellectual level that things were bad, but hearing how it inspired jealousy and soured relationships puts it into an emotional context that I hadn't felt before.
I'm not saying we have a utopia today, but creators do have more options if they want more than what they're getting from work-for-hire. Creator-owned comics are not only more welcomed than ever by readers, but they're also proving popular with people outside of comics, which can turn into real money. Again, I'm not saying we've reached the Promised Land yet, but I think it's fair to say we've at least left Egypt.
I'm reading Glen Weldon's Superman: The Unauthorized Biography, and I'm still in the chapters on the Golden Age. What's struck me was just how quickly Superman became a national phenomenon. Within a year of his first appearance in an anthology book (that he wouldn't be on the cover of for another five issues after the first), there was a syndicated newspaper strip about him. According to Weldon, Time magazine called the character "the No. 1 juvenile vogue in the U.S." Within two years, there was a radio show. Within three, Max Fleischer's studio was making animated short films. And then there were all the dolls, games, puzzles, and coloring books. That was a stunning amount of success in a very short amount of time.
Chuck Austen's advice to creators of lost OEL manga at the sorta-defunct Tokyopop is sound: Keep creating something new. That's really a great rule for everyone of every profession. The other aspect of his advice was to abandon what was created and lost to Tokyopop. Heidi MacDonald endorsed the approach, observing, "If you can only create one successful property in 40 years, maybe this wasn't the job choice for you." While I appreciate the tough love, I don't think that is necessarily a realistic position to take or a one-size-fits-all solution.
I prefer seeing new ideas, new concepts and new worlds from my favorite creators. However, I don't think the quality of a creator, or the validity of his comics career, should be judged on the quantity, but rather on the quality.
The creative mind manifests itself in endless ways. Some creative people are restless, constantly searching for a new story to tell. Some have a dedicated, obsessive drive to explore one thing, one world, for as long as there's something there that interests them. If publishers can crank out the same comics with the same characters year after year, why can't creators do likewise if they want? Erik Larsen has been putting out crazy Savage Dragon comics for years. Sure, he's done other stuff but at this point that will go down as his most significant work, and I don't think that makes him any less of a creator. Is Dave Sim any less of a brilliant cartoonist for not having created something for the history books after Cerebus? Are Charles Schulz and Bill Watterson sub-par for each only creating one significant comic strip?
I touched base with Chuck Austen a few weeks ago, when Tokyopop put a selection of its original English language (OEL) manga up for sale on its revamped website. At that point I checked in with a couple of former Tokyopop creators, and I ended up having a fascinating e-mail exchange with Austen in which he said he made more money on one of his prose novels simply by selling it on Kindle than he would have made from a movie option. That caught my attention, and I asked him if he would write a guest post for Robot 6. Here's what he had to say, and while all opinions are Chuck's own, I think at the heart of it is some good advice for everyone who has ever done something they regretted later.
Move On
My name is Chuck Austen. Many of you have probably heard of me, and very rarely in a good way. But that's one of the reasons I'm here.
Brigid asked me to address my fellow Tokyopop alums — people who created OEMs for that ill-fated company and, like me, watched their properties mistreated, ignored and ultimately thrown into ownership limbo, properties for which we will never retrieve our rights, worlds we imagined into being that we'll never be able to create additional stories for.
The reason my past history is important is because I am probably the most extreme example of someone who "lost everything" and so am uniquely qualified to tell you this:
Move on.
Don Rosa, who drew Disney's Scrooge McDuck and Donald Duck comics for many years has written a lengthy and fascinating piece on why he gave up creating comics.
Rosa, who started working on the series in early middle age, gave up making comics entirely in 2012 for a variety of reasons, including vision problems caused by a detached retina, depression, and frustration that the studio pays no royalties on his comics — a situation that he says is unique to the comics, as other Disney creators do get royalties. (One possible reason for this is that the Disney comics are produced by freelancers working for third-party companies, not for Disney itself.) That became particularly galling once Rosa was well enough known that the collections featured his name in the title — but he still didn't see a dime. His response was a clever one: He copyrighted his name so publishers would have to ask his permission to use it to promote the books.
Rosa also explains why he didn't make the switch to creator-owned comics:
Publishing | As the smoke settles around the turmoil at Platinum Studios, it appears that company founder and CEO Scott Rosenberg remains in his position following an attempt by President Chris Beall to unseat him — and it's Beall instead who's been voted out. According to Deadline, Beall stands by his claims that Rosenberg has mismanaged Platinum and transferred controlling interest in the company to a shell entity called RIP Media without the approval of shareholders. Rosenberg denies the accusations, including that he controls RIP. The Beat has background on the whole mess. [Deadline]
Passings | Cartoonist Chris Cassatt, one of the contributors to the comic strip Shoe, has passed away following a short illness. He was 66. Cassatt started out in 1993 as the assistant to Shoe creator Jeff MacNelly and worked with him until MacNelly's death in 2000. After that, he collaborated with Susie MacNelly and Gary Brookins on the strip. In earlier days he was a photographer for the Aspen Times in Colorado and also created a local comic featuring a character named Sal A. Mander whom he had run in actual local elections. "After candidate Sal A. Mander was thrown off the ballot in an Aspen mayoral election on the shaky (in Aspen, anyway) grounds that he was not a 'real person,' Cassatt legally changed his name to Sal A. Mander and ran for Colorado governor in 1978, finishing fifth in a six-candidate contest," the newspaper writes. The following year, he mounted a write-in campaign for Sal against an unpopular district attorney who was running unopposed. He lost, but the ridicule Cassatt's character heaped on the D.A. during the campaign took its toll, and he didn't stay in office for long. [Aspen Times]
"It's instructive to read something about a family wanting certain rights returned or better rewarded when most people really like what's been done with those rights as opposed to their either not caring or actively hating the result. One of the reasons a lot of our comics-related issue discussions remain unsophisticated is that we frequently choose to fight our battles along fundamental "I like it"/"I hate it" lines and then kind of furiously stare at the other issues involved until we can find a way to make them comply to our initial impression. It's no way to move forward."
– Tom Spurgeon, on Christopher Tolkien's dismay over the Lord of the Rings films
Spurgeon's observation is helpful, because the first step in solving the problem is acknowledging the problem.
[Bane co-creator] Graham [Nolan] and I both signed participation agreements, which are good in perpetuity. So it's not up to them whether they take care of us. We're taken care of. We've seen money from Bane all along – the Lego games and the little Bane-shaped piece in the Spaghettios. We always get a piece of what Bane makes. We'll see money from this movie. They have graphs and charts to figure out how much based on how many lines of dialogue he has and how much he's in the movie and how much impact he has on the story. We were part of it the last time when Bane was in the last [Joel] Schumacher film really briefly. We participated in that.
– Chuck Dixon, on the benefits of creating Bane for DC Comics
Creators | In the wake of the FunnyJunk/The Oatmeal legal dispute, Ian Pike talks to San Diego-based webcomics creators David King and Phil McAndrew about the problem of having their work re-posted without credit. "If I were to sit there and try to hunt down all the websites that re-post my comics without my name on them," McAndrew says, "I wouldn't have any time to draw new stuff. So most of the time I just shrug my shoulders and keep on drawing." One interesting sidelight is that Matthew Inman, the creator of The Oatmeal, has set up a site called BearFood where users can share their favorite webcomics with the appropriate links. [San Diego Reader]
Digital comics | Matt White surveys the digital-first landscape with a look at the strategies (or the lack thereof) from publishers ranging from DC Comics to Viz Media: "While the majority of digital comics are just digitized versions of print comics, available simultaneously (known as 'day-and-date') or after the physical version hits shelves, current digital-first offerings seem to represent an alternative, more specific market as publishers begin to treat digital more as a complement to print rather than a replacement." [Publishers Weekly]
If you're going to work for a big company, you're going to be exploited. But we were lucky, because the work was so much fun.
– Elliot S! Maggin, on his experiences writing for DC Comics in the '70s.
Creators' rights was a big topic at the '70s panel I attended a couple of weeks ago at Comic-Con International. Moderator Mark Evanier asked how Maggin and the other panelists had felt at the time about the previous generation of comics creators from a business standpoint. Steve Englehart shared that he'd come into the industry just as Jack Kirby was leaving Marvel for DC without any royalties. He said, "I remember saying, 'I'm not going to end up in a situation like that where I'm not getting paid for the stuff that I created.' As it turned out, I didn't listen to myself."
Englehart said it with a smile, though, and to my surprise, that was the most critical anyone on the panel ever got about their treatment by the big comics companies. Maggin's comment above came shortly after.
Charles Carreon, the attorney who sued cartoonist Matthew Inman (The Oatmeal), the crowd-funding site IndieGoGo, and two charities, has dropped his lawsuit and declared victory.
"The logical goals of the lawsuit were accomplished," Carreon told The Washington Post. "Inman aborted his 'publicity stunt' to photograph himself with the proceeds that were intended to go to charity, the court took cognizance of the issues and ordered Inman to deposit evidence of his disposition of the funds, and Inman deposited the evidence of payments made to the charities."
Of course, Inman intended to give the money to the charities all along, so Carreon suing him to do so is a bit like me suing the sun to force it to rise in the morning. It's worth noting that Carreon actually filed a motion that would have delayed turning over the money, presumably to prevent Inman from photographing it. In the end, Inman photographed himself with $200,000 of his own cash, which he could do because The Oatmeal pulled in about $500,000 last year.
Anyway, this story still has some legs. Carreon himself is now being sued (by a frivolous litigant, but hey, sauce for the goose), and his threats to sue a blogger who set up a parody site mocking him led the blogger to take the matter to court and ask for a declaratory judgment (basically, legalese for fish or cut bait). And read on for the strange parallel between the site he and his wife maintain and the busted pirate site HTMLComics.com.


text:
No Exit
by Jean-Paul Sartre
Analysis: Writing Style
Direct, clipped
That's right. There's no beating around the bush, for Sartre or for his characters. Of course we can't forget that we're dealing with a translation, but still, the majority of text is short, clipped dialogue, almost a Q and A form. In fact, check out the early exchanges between Garcin and the valet – these set the stylistic stage for the rest of the play. Because so much of the language is minimal, we sit up and pay attention when we come across The Big Fancy Passages. This is likely intentional; that which we're supposed to remember thematically is also memorable linguistically. It makes use of grander, more elaborate language and sentence structure. Compare your run-of-the-mill No Exit language to your Important Stuff style:
Most of No Exit:
VALET: Can't you see? The lights are on.
GARCIN: Ah, yes, I've got it. It's your daytime. And outside?
VALET: Outside?
GARCIN: Damn it, you know what I mean. Beyond that wall.
VALET: There's a passage.
GARCIN: And at the end of the passage?
VALET: There's more rooms, more passages, and stairs.
GARCIN: And what lies beyond them?
VALET: That's all.(32-40)
Important Stuff:
GARCIN: Open the door! Open, blast you! I'll endure anything, your red-hot tongs and molten lead, your racks and prongs and garrotes – all your fiendish gadgets, everything that burns and flays and tears – I'll put up with any torture you impose. Anything, anything would be better than this agony of mind, this creeping pain that gnaws and fumbles and caresses one and never hurts quite enough. Now will you open? (500)
Make sense?


text:
Timothy B. Schmit recently spoke with Rolling Stone about his feelings towards his former bandmate's death. Schmit had joined the Eagles in 1977 after the "Hotel California" tour. It was here his bond with the late Glenn Frey began to solidify. Schmit told Rolling Stone, "Everybody is still processing it. But part of processing it is carrying on."More »
David Crosby is set to go on tour in support of his new album, Lighthouse. The tour will begin in Atlanta, Georgia on November 11 and wrap up in Ithaca, NY December 16. Crosby's new album is comprised of acoustic tunes. He has given fans a taste of the album by releasing the song, "The City." The album, Lighthouse is scheduled for release on October 21.More »
Bruce Springsteen and the E Street Band gave his hometown fans a bang for their buck at two recent shows. The Boss played his two longest stateside performances on August 23 and 25. The two shows both took place in East Rutherford, New Jersey at the MetLife Stadium. The August 23 show broke his personal record for the longest U.S. show clocking in at three hours and 52 minutes.More »
Led Zeppelin's supposed lost track "Sunshine Woman," will finally get an official release. The song has previously been available on bootlegs and various music downloading sites, however never on a legitimate Led Zeppelin release. The song is now available for fan consumption on the band's Soundcloud. Zeppelin guitarist, Jimmy Page oversaw the release of the song.More »
David Crosby has paid tribute to New York with his new track "The City." The track was produced by Snarky Puppy producer David League and Crosby chatted with NPR about how the collaboration came about. "He said he wanted to write a song about 'New York as a woman,'" Crosby told NPR. "I said, 'Got it.' I lived there as a young hippie boy working in the Village."More »
David Bowie received a mysterious credit on Frank Ocean's new album Blonde and a press representative has clarified the situation. Bowie is credited on Blonde, alongside other big names including Kanye West, Jamie xx, the Beatles, Brian Eno, Pharrell Williams, Elliott Smith, James Blake, Yung Lean and more.More »
A Virginia man is facing criminal charges this week after he was arrested for attempting to sell forged Black Sabbath tickets. Shannon Michael Seeber was picked up by police in Bristow, Virginia and was also allegedly found with fake tickets for other artists including Barbra Streisand and Adele.More »
Paul McCartney reportedly was the person who convinced writers on The Simpsons to make Lisa a vegetarian. The legend has been a staunch animal rights advocate for years and Simpsons vet Hank Azaria revealed that Macca only agreed to appear on the show if they turned a character into a vegetarian.More »
Moody Blues have confirmed the dates and guest artists for their upcoming cruise event. The event will take place between January 2-7, 2018, and includes stops at Grand Cayman and Cozumel. They broke the new details of the event in an official press release. "It's such a great opportunity to have all the fans together," Moody Blues frontman Justin Hayward says in a news release.More »
David Bowie has been memorialized with a special plaque in Berlin, Germany. The memorial plaque is placed outside the building where Bowie lived from 1976 to 1978, which has been converted into a memorial since Bowie's death in January. Bowie lived in the city during the recording process of his albums Low, Heroes and Lodger.More »


text:
Definition of overstock in English:
verb[with object]
1Supply with more of something than is necessary or required: do not overstock the kitchen with food
More example sentences
- The retailer saved millions in distribution and warehousing costs as improved sales and order forecasts reduced the need to overstock in-house supplies.
- But it is not the interest of merchants and manufacturers… that the home market should be overstocked with their goods, an event which a bounty upon production might sometimes occasion.
- Sapient advised that there was no need to overstock commodity items like office supplies that can be obtained easily anywhere.
1.1Put more animals in (an area) than it is capable of supporting: (as noun overstocking) overstocking in the UK uplands
More example sentences
- People can go into farming with insufficient capital, skip investment in dams and water conservation, and overstock their farms, safe in the knowledge that the government will bail them out when there is a drought.
- The effect of the virus became especially acute in Britain when swine fever and restrictions on animal movement meant overstocking and overcrowding.
- Pepper could not sell his animals and that led to overstocking on the farm.
noun[mass noun]
A supply or quantity in excess of demand or requirement: factory overstock [count noun]: publishers' overstocks and remainders
More example sentences
- Far from speculating on a price rise when demand picks up in the future, our retailer will put his overstock on sale when demand is weak.
- Some 78 brand name stores offer overstock, out-of-season and even slightly faulty items at bargain prices.
- What it says there, in the 'model' contract between publisher and author, is that, one year after a book has appeared, the publisher shall have the right to dispose of copies as a remainder or overstock.
For editors and proofreaders
Line breaks: over|stock
Definition of overstock in:
What do you find interesting about this word or phrase?
Comments that don't adhere to our Community Guidelines may be moderated or removed.
= trending


text:
Newsletter: Read the latest issue
See the academic requirements for the College of Osteopathic Medicine
Find the information you need to conduct your research and academic studies
See KCU's beautiful campus
View abstracts and watch webcasts
Join us!
Oct. 22 | 5:30 p.m.
Union Station, Sprint Festival Plaza
Kansas City, Missouri
KCU cares about the environment and continually takes steps toward making the University and area communities more sustainable.
On-campus recycling bins and KCU's Cottonwood Café composting program provides ways reduce landfill waste. Learn what you can recycle and compost on campus, and where to drop off other items within Kansas City.
KCU's Community Park and Garden provides the University an opportunity to grow and share nutritious foods with underserved populations while reaffirming a commitment to promoting healthy lifestyles. Students and employees can join the gardening group or the Community Garden Compost Program.
Whether it's energy or resources, KCU aims to use only what it absolutely needs. By increasing the implementation of paperless systems, opting for products with less packaging and complying with LEED certification, we are diligently working toward diminishing our carbon footprint.
1750 Independence AvenueKansas City, Mo. 64106-14531-800-234-4847 | 816-654-7000


text:
Definition of Venetian window in English:
Venetian window
A window with three separate openings, the central one being arched and taller than the others; a Palladian window.
Example sentences
- A Venetian window on the east side of the quadrangle which had been previously filled in, has been restored with new columns.
- Next time you see a Venetian window, a triangular pediment, a coved gallery ceiling, or a Georgian terrace with lined stucco, remember who started it all.
- It faces the front and is lit by a large original Venetian window with leaded diamond panes topped by a plaster archway.
For editors and proofreaders
Line breaks: Ven|etian win¦dow
Definition of Venetian window in:
What do you find interesting about this word or phrase?
Comments that don't adhere to our Community Guidelines may be moderated or removed.
= trending


text:
Residency Training Terms and Conditions of Employment
Position Title
Duration of Training
Four years total; contract for continued employment is reviewed annually and is based on satisfactory completion of patient care responsibilities and demonstrated progression of knowledge and skills.
Stipend Levels – Fiscal Year 2015-2016
|PGY level
The following is a brief summary of the benefits that are available to trainees. A more detailed description of the benefits is available through the MD Anderson Benefits Office. Insurance benefits are available to persons holding educational appointments for a period of not less than four months and who receive a stipend.
Insurance benefits for residents are the same benefits as those available to classified employees. Monthly premiums are paid by the Physician's Referral Service, thereby relieving residents of this expense:
- Medical plan (PPO)
- Prescription drug coverage
- Choice of two dental plans
- Vision plan
- Life insurance
- Accidental death and dismemberment insurance
- Personal accident insurance
- Long term disability
- Long term care
- Flex account
A tax-free reimbursement account that may be used to pay eligible health care expenses and dependent care expense
Professional liability insurance is also provided by the institution to physicians in training at no cost to the trainee.
As a physician in training, the institution will assist you in applying to the Texas State Board of Medical Examiners for a basic post-graduate resident permit. This will allow you to practice within the institution only; you will be covered under an institutional DEA number. Trainees may elect, at their own expense, to obtain a Texas state medical license, and upon so doing must also apply for their own DEA number.
Duty Hours
As a resident, you will complete six clinical rotations of 8-9 weeks per year. There are nine clinical services, most of which you will rotate to twice during your training. Most services have a junior (first and second year) resident and a senior (third and fourth year) resident. You duties will vary based on the rotation; however, basic responsibilities for patient care are the same. You are expected to arrive at 8:00 a.m. to relieve the on-call physician. Your duties extend until 5:00 p.m. If patient care duties are ongoing, you may need to stay in order to complete your duties.
Call Responsibilities
Weekly call (Monday 8:00 a.m. - 8:00 a.m. Monday of following week) is covered by PGY 2 and PGY 3 residents, split equally among them. The resident on call is present in the hospital for the first scheduled treatment and is considered on call until 8:00 a.m., at which time staff and residents assume responsibility for their respective services. The resident on call then reassumes responsibility at 4:30 p.m., remaining in the hospital until the last patient is treated. The resident on call may then leave the hospital, keeping his/her pager on and accepting inpatient consults and outside telephone calls until the following morning. Weekend call is alternated between the two residents assigned to the gynecology service, who are in the hospital on Saturdays to round on their patients and remove brachytherapy systems. The resident on call is present is the hospital for the first scheduled treatment and handles treatment related issues, patient questions and in-treatment emergencies on Sunday morning until the last patient is treated.
You are entitled to 15 working days of vacation per year. A maximum of five vacation days may be taken during each rotation. However, 10 consecutive days of vacation may be taken at the end of one rotation and the beginning of the next rotation. Ten days of sick leave are granted each year and academic leave is given for attendance at professional and scientific conferences and interviews in the fourth/senior year.
Moonlighting call is not permitted anywhere outside the institution.
For more information and to answer additional questions you may have, please see the Trainee Manual (pdf) prepared by the Graduate Medical Education office.


text:
LANSING -- An exclusive News 10/EPIC-MRA poll shows Republican gubernatorial candidate Rick Snyder leading Democrat Virg Bernero by 20 percentage points ahead of their Nov. 2 election.
Forty percent of respondents said they'll vote for Snyder, another 9 percent leaning toward the Ann Arbor businessman. That's compared with 23 percent who would elect Bernero, and 6 percent who lean toward him.
A News 10 poll back in September had Snyder ahead 24 percentage points, meaning Lansing's mayor has made up ground.
Still, much work lies ahead for the underdog. Snyder leads by 13 points among union members (generally a staple for Bernero) and 34 points among independent voters.
He also edges Bernero among anti-abortion rights voters (Bernero leads by 8 points among pro-choice voters), holds a 23-points lead with men and a 16-points advantage among women.
Bernero's strenghts are voters voters in Wayne County and Detroit and young voters. He edges Snyder by 8 points among voters age 18 to 29. All other age groups favor Snyder.
Bernero did trail Rep. Andy Dillon in the Democratic primary before a comeback ahead of that August election cycle, but polls had hinted that he was a contender.
This time around, Bernero has just 23 days to close a very wide margin.


text:
Is your team in town for Presidents' Day Weekend? Don't miss out on this once in life time opportunity to practice with the LA Kings at Toyota Sports Center on Sunday, Feb. 17.
Your team will go through a practice run by the Kings Coaches, watch the Kings practice from the players' bench and have a private autograph session with the Kings at the end of the event. This is for one youth hockey team only. Photo Gallery
To get registered for this special practice, your team must:Purchase 50 Lower Level or 100 Upper Level Tickets to
Feb. 15 Kings vs. Calgary Flames
Feb. 18 Kings vs. Phoenix Coyotes
Practice with the Kings and see them in action at STAPLES Center.
For more information or to register, call the Kings Fan Development Department at 213.742.7215.


text:
Photo by Jill Bock, Staff
Missouri Delta Medical Center is now smoke free inside and out. Wednesday morning MDMC Plant Superintendent Chad Ledbetter boarded up the only remaining smoking area on the grounds and took down the signs. According to Sharon Urhahn with MDMC the building will be removed from the parking lot later this week and donated to a local church. "Missouri Delta has been working for almost a year on this transition to a smoke free campus. Removing the building is the culmination of a lot of hard work and determination on behalf of our staff," said Jason Schrumpf, MDMC President and CEO.
For more pictures and stories from the Standard Democrat, click here to log on to the electronic edition.


text:
Jonathan Marks PRO
User Stats
Profile Images
User Bio
I'm using Vimeo to store the videos I can share as part of my work as a writer, media anthropologist and digital storyteller. I do a lot of travelling because I believe you need to meet and understand people's achievements in their own surroundings. I focus on what problems people have solved. Have discovered the importance of embedding videos on other sites. So this is not everything I do, just the material I can share.
Critical Distance is the name of the company founded by media "insultant" Jonathan Marks in 2003 after more than 20 years in the traditional broadcasting business. He currently resides in The Netherlands, but travels the world.
For news on what I am doing today, including news and musings I would like to share, check out the Critical Distance Weblog. You can reach it via jonathanmarks.com. Please seize the opportunity to share your thoughts too.


text:
Please log in or register to manage your account
Model: PMLUX6 Item: ABAPMLUX6
Stylish combination of steel tubing and wood detail. Features six accessory hooks and four casters, two locking. Holds up to 36 hangers. Top and bottom shelves for storing hats and cases. Mounting: Stand Alone; Width: 45 3/5"; Depth: 22"; Height: 72".
Printerbazaar is a one-stop destination for all your office supplies. From highly durable branded printers to a plethora of accessories, you can get your suitable product at a competitive cost.
At Printerbazaar, we are committed to make your shopping experience hassle-free by conveying the best information. We understand that office related purchasing decisions are vital and thus the right comparisons are necessary before buying.
Alba Literature Floor Display Rack, Six Pocket, 12.8w x 18.4d x 36h, Black/Gray Steel
$245.84$16963 / each
Alba Literature Floor Display Rack, Eight Pocket, 22.2w x 18.4d x 36h, Black/Steel
$288.01$20737 / each
Alba Cubicle Garment Peg, 1 Hook, 1 1/5 x 1 3/8 x 4 3/10, Metallic Grey
$15.74$1023 / each


text:
Europe Dominates Global Student IT Challenge
Well done to teams from Ireland, France, Poland, Greece, Denmark and Romania for winning awards at the Microsoft Imagine Cup 2011—a world student technology competition.
Of the 124 teams in the New York final this week, more than half came from Europe, said Suzi Levine, a spokeswoman for Microsoft. The contest was aimed at solving the world's toughest problems using technology. Projects included malaria tracking, using Kinect for physiotherapy and assistive technologies for disabled users.
The Team from Ireland won the software design competition, beating groups from the U.S., China, Jordan, New Zealand and Romania in the final.
Aíne Conaghan, one of the team, said road traffic accidents are the biggest killer of 10-24 year olds in the world today. "The idea was to change driving behavior and save lives," she said.
The four students, three men and a woman all studying at the Institute of Technology, Sligo, designed a device that plugs into a car and monitors its telemetry systems using a mobile phone to relay the information, along with the car's location and road conditions, to a cloud based analysis system. It analyzes the data and provides instant feedback to both the driver and the car owner. If you are driving like a madman, an app running on the phone will sound an alert.
The system taps into mapping data, said James McNamara, taking a Masters in Computing at the institute, allowing it to know if you are doing 70mph down a motorway, or 70mph down a winding country road. "We measure the g-forces in the car. If you are driving very fast on a straight road that is one thing. If you are on a winding road there is a lot of g-force and we are able to analyze that and send a warning."
As the winner, the team receives $25,000 in prize money and support from Microsoft. They want to develop their system in conjunction with insurance companies which would offer a discount for customers who use it.
Ms. Conaghan denied their system was intrusive and a threat to privacy. "If people don't want to use it, they don't have to." In the light of recent embarrassing security breaches Mr. McNamara said security had been built in from the start. "All communications are encrypted and the data is stored in an encrypted form."
Worryingly for the IT industry, even though the number of female entrants had doubled from the previous year, only 65 women entered the contest out of 424 entrants.


text:
Toki Pona is a human language I invented in 2001. It was my attempt to understand the meaning of life in 120 words.
Read about it in Business Insider, The Guardian, Wikipedia or the Globe and Mail.
Look inside the Toki Pona book.
Read the Kindle edition on any device.
Contact Sonja Lang on Facebook or at


text:
Fantasia in Dorian Mode (Sweelinck, Jan Pieterszoon)
No files submitted.
For 4 Lutes (Höger)
Synthesized performance
*#244764 - 12.17MB - 10:34 min - (0) - - !N/!N/!N - 247x⇩
MP3 file (audio)
Anton Höger (2012/8/1)
computer synthesized audio
Anton Höger
Creative Commons Attribution Non-commercial 3.0 [tag/del]
Because most of my Intavolations are never heard before, I decided to make a simple computer synthesized audio file for hearing control
Sheet Music
Arrangements and Transcriptions
For 4 Lutes (Höger)
Lute score (tablature)
*#244751 - 0.14MB, 28 pp. - (1) - !N/!N/!N - 761x⇩
Lute 1 (tablature)
*#244752 - 0.07MB, 4 pp. - (0) - !N/!N/!N - 152x⇩
Lute 2 (tablature)
*#244753 - 0.08MB, 5 pp. - (0) - !N/!N/!N - 59x⇩
Lute 3 (tablature)
*#244754 - 0.07MB, 4 pp. - (0) - !N/!N/!N - 57x⇩
Lute 4 (tablature)
*#244755 - 0.07MB, 4 pp. - (1) - !N/!N/!N - 110x⇩
Anton Höger
Creative Commons Attribution Non-commercial 3.0 [tag/del]
Intavolation in french Lute-tabulatur for 4 lutes (d, a, g, D-lutes) with Diminuitions in the tradition of the great luteplayers of the 16. Century. By performances I would look forward about a small reference to my efforts.
General Information
|Work Title
|Fantasia (Dorian)
|Alternative Title
|Echo Fantasia (Fantasia auf die Manier eines Echo) No.1, for organ "Dorian"
|Sweelinck, Jan Pieterszoon
|Opus/Catalogue Number
|SwWV 260 ?
|First Publication
|Composer Time Period
|Piece Style
Misc. Comments
Sweelinck wrote at least two "Fantasias in Dorian mode" - the Fantasia chromatica SwWV 258 and the Echo Fantasia No.1 SwWV 260. May have been published by Simrock in 1871 - not sure. (They published several facsimile manuscripts of Sweelinck in 1871 including two of his four (or more?) "Fantasia auf die Manier eines Echo" (Echo Fantasias) (also works by Samuel Scheidt, with editorial commentary by Robert Eitner, or so I gather.) This work here seems to be SwWV 260 after comparing it to part of Woolley's recording of the latter for Chandos, but maybe someone could double-check that...


text:
Didn't get into the Marine Corps Marathon? Not to worry. Join the Back on My Feet FundRacing team and receive your guaranteed, free entry, personal fundraising page, access to Pacer's Training Program, BoMF gear, and other great benefits! Simply commit to raising $1,000 for Back on My Feet. With each step you take as a FundRacer you will be helping to move the lives' of those in the DC area experiencing homeless forward.
ACTIVE is the leader in online event registrations from 5k running races and marathons to softball leagues and local events. ACTIVE also makes it easy to learn and prepare for all the things you love to do with expert resources, training plans and fitness calculators.


text:
Toy Story Green Alien Papercraft
Who can resist the big ears and three eyes? This little alien will be so happy he's been chosen.
Print out the alien on regular paper or cardstock and cut out all of the pieces. Don't cut along the dashed lines, this is where you will fold the paper.
With the design facing you, take the alien's body and fold all of the tabs away from you. Fold the top of his head away from you.
Fold the dashed lines around his waist away from you and then fold the dashed lines around his neck towards you. Fold the dashed lines around his face (just above his lips) away from you. Finally, fold the dashed vertical lines in his body away from you (this will form the alien into a rectangle). You are now ready to start gluing the body together.
Glue the A tabs to the white side of the paper adjacent to it. You may need to manipulate the folds to get the pieces to line up. The alien's waist should bulge out a bit and his neck should crease in. Follow this same step for the B and C tabs.
Glue the D tabs to close the alien's body.
With the design facing you, fold the ear pieces away from you in half so they line up. Glue the ear, including the tab, together so the design is now two-sided. With the front of the ear facing you, fold the tab away from you. Repeat this step for the other ear.
With the design facing you, fold the left arm pieces away from you in half so they line up. Glue the arm together so that the design is now two-sided. Be careful to not glue the tabs together. Instead fold the tabs outward in opposite directions so it creates a base to attach the arm to the alien's body. Follow this step with the other arm and antennae.
Attach the alien's arms, ears, and antennae to its body with glue and you're finished!


text:
firstname.lastname@example.com wrote:
> Hello all,
> I'm trying to do an installation on an old AlphaServer 1000a with
> video card installed.
> When I turn it on, one can clearly see that the system performs its
> self tests thanks to the LCD on the front panel.
> Some moments later, the blue screen appears on the monitor and I see
> that the remaining tests -- including memory -- are completed
> successful. The ">>>" prompt appears.
> Then, about 1 min later, the screen goes dark.
> Any ideas?
My guess would be that some sort of screen saver kicked in.
Try typing a command; e.g. "HELP" or "BOOT".


text:
A former employee of Norton OBGYN Associates was arrested after police say she illegally acquired controlled substances.
According to the arrest report, Cherie Wood unlawfully acquired prescription blanks and forged the blanks for Dirasempan and Oxycodone.
Police say Wood filled prescriptions at various pharmacies in Jefferson County, and the physicians' office verified that none of the prescriptions were authorized.


text:
Utilizing control magic and a machine gun-equipped drone, the team was able to take out the roach spirits before being wiped out (but not before Frank was knocked unconscious and Artiste fell to gunshot wounds). Tasking their local Crimson Crush contacts with watching the former Universal Brotherhood structure, the team split up to prepare for a further exploration.
Artiste and Rose headed to Doc Rockett's clinic for some street-grade trauma care (and expired canine painkillers), while everyone else went back to the Underground to give King Willy an update and see if he could provide any assistance. It turned out that the Johnson had a history with insect spirits, and case full of capsule rounds and a few ink grenades all loaded with KE IV in case he ran into some again.
Ambulatory and heavily armed, the runners returned to the scene (there had been no activity at the orphanage as expected). Moving into the building, they found no more spirits, but an ominous hole in the basement. Climbing down, they entered a long earthen tunnel under the metroplex, with large side chambers irregularly spaced. This ultimately led to a massive chamber, filled with ant spirits, a human spellcaster (an insect shaman, one would assume), and three acolytes behind a barrier performing a ritual with some sort of artifact and Katarina's younger sister.
Dispatching the guards, Shifter used a CS gas grenade to take one of acolytes out of the ritual. This interruption appeared to have a fatal effect on the trio, their spirits ripped from their bodies to somewhere on the deep astral. Returning the girl to her family, the team then met with Willy to report the good news. (Some of the team also graciously refused to accept his payment for the run.) The ork talismonger left the insect tradition relic with them to sell as they would (which they did, to Laurent Nazaire, who is quickly becoming their go-to contact for selling magical items).
Everyone received 5,000 Y (each) as payment from King Willy (if they accepted it).
Everyone also received 6,250 Y (each) in exchange for the relic from the Atlantean Foundation.
All characters get 5 Karma.
Everyone gets 1 Street Cred for stopping the insect shaman ritual.
(I have noted Karma/Street Cred gains on your character pages.)
The runners also gain the following contacts at Loyalty 1 (+1 Loyalty if they previously had this contact, max Loyalty 4):
King Willy
Laurent Nazaire


text:
Announcing Actor/Groundlings teacher Tim Bagley & Literary Agent Paul Levine to teach at "The Message of You" Conference
If you're a comic, your story probably starts with all the funny humiliations of your life. Maybe your story starts with your birth - and your first words were,"Hey, how ya'll doing?"
If you're a survivor, your story might begin with making it through the darkest financial times for your business, or surviving with a triumphant win over an illness like cancer.
|Tim Bagley
Where you start is important - because there are our overall life stories that encapsulate everything in our life span, and then there are the stories within those, with moments where we learn something so valuable that it must be shared with others. But, when we look at everything, in the clutter of all the day to day, routine things that happen -- we can easily miss those key moments that are the most important - and the most interesting to others. It can be enormously helpful to have a trained ear sift through the broader story to identify those moments that hold the greatest value - and hone them into a compelling message.
I'm excited to announce that Tim Bagley and Paul Levine will be joining me in LA at The Message of You Conference, Oct 25-27 to teach you how to find the stories of your life, how to tell them in a compelling and funny way, and how to turn them into published books.
Tim is currently staring with Lisa Kudrow on Showtime's "Web Therapy." He is also a long time member of the famous "Groundlings" improv theater, and currently teaches there as a master teacher. He will be at the conference's story workshop on Friday helping you find your story and making it funny.
Mr. Levine opened the Paul S. Levine Literary Agency, specializing in the representation of book authors and the sale of motion picture and television rights in and to books. Since starting his literary agency, Mr. Levine has sold over 100 fiction and non-fiction books to at least 30 different publishers, and has had many books developed as movies-for-television and feature films. Mr. Levine will be listening to your messages and help you find which ones would be a marketable message.
Keep checking your email, as even more amazing teachers will be announced soon, and the early bird special is still going on. You could spend yearssitting at your desk, trying to figure out what you want to say in that book you've always been meaning to write -- or -- you could come to the "Message of You" conference -- and discover it in a weekend.
Where will you start telling your story? It's up to you. Sign up now for the early bird special and save while there's still time! More VIP guests to be announced next week.
Judy Carter


text:
Antica Perla4
Price FromView Rooms
This hotel doesn't have any reviews yet.
About the hotel
This hotel is located by the beautiful sandy beach of Lido Cannatello, in the Mediterranean western coast of Sicily. The Antica Perla hotel is approximately 4 km away from the UNESCO World Heritage archaeological site of the Valley of the Temples and minutes away from the historic centre of Agrigento. The hotel is family owned and operated, which ensures a great and detail-oriented service.
All the rooms and apartments feature their own kitchenette, so guests can enjoy their independence, which makes it a perfect destination for a family vacation. Guests can relax at the beach, sunbathe at the hotel's swimming pool and have a drink at the lounge area, enjoying the breathtaking panoramic views of the sunset. The hotel's snack bar is open all day and night and has a terrace overlooking the swimming pool and the sea. A breakfast buffet is served every morning.
Read MoreLess
Facilities Show/hide
- Hotel services
- 24 Hour Reception , 24 Hour Room Service
- In room facilities
- Safety Deposit Box
- Other
- Lift to all floors , Public Air Conditioning
- Dining
- Breakfast to go
Useful Info Show/hide
- From 14:00 hours
- Until 11:00 hours
- The price shown is based on the occupancy and dates you have searched for. Prices and availability are subject to change based on the arrival date, number of nights and occupancy searched for. All prices are inclusive of all local taxes.
- Pets are not allowed
Customer Reviews
Our reviews are from genuine LateRooms.com customers. We verify that the customer has stayed before leaving a review.
No reviews yet


text:
A generic disclosure implicitly encompassing two or more alternative embodiments cannot generally give rise to a right of priority in respect of one specific embodiment that is neither explicitly nor implicitly disclosed (T 61/85 and T 30/01).
In case T 77/97 two dependent claims 4 and 5 of a European application related to individual compounds which were part of the group defined by the generic formula of claim 1. Claim 3 of the priority document defined by means of a generic formula a group of four chemical compounds, including those according to claims 4 and 5 of the subsequent European application. The board acknowledged that the priority document contained sufficient information for a skilled person to obtain without difficulty the four chemical compounds according to the generic formula of claim 3. However, this could not automatically lead to the recognition of the priority for claims 4 and 5 of the subsequent application. It was not sufficient to establish that the compounds concerned fell within the scope of the claims of the previous application, and that they could be prepared without difficulty in accordance with the information contained in this application (T 409/90, OJ 1993, 40; see under point 2.1.3 above). The expression "the same invention" as used in Art. 87(1) EPC 1973 had to be interpreted in conformity with the requirements of Art. 88(2) to (4) EPC 1973. The applicant had claimed the right of priority not only in respect of the element which distinguished all the compounds claimed in all the claims of the European application from the prior art, but also in respect of the specific combination of individual substituents which precisely defined the actual chemical compounds. It was therefore necessary to examine whether these elements, this set of features, had been revealed precisely by the documents of the prior application, as required by Art. 88(4) EPC 1973. Although there was no doubt that the priority document described a very narrow group as being preferred, it did not, however, distinguish between the four compounds of this group, and neither did it specify that the formula of claim 3 had to be considered as an "abridged" formulation of a list or table indicating four individual chemical compounds. As a consequence, claims 4 and 5 could not be granted the claimed priority right (see also T 295/87).
The invention at issue in T 30/01 concerned an apparatus for optical imaging and measurement. The board rejected the appellant's argument relating to an implicit disclosure in the priority document of two possible implementations of the teaching of the document, noting that its description unmistakeably indicated the provision of the light steering means "in the sample arm". This precise disclosure deprived of support the appellant's construction of the disclosure as implicitly disclosing the provision of the light steering means in and outside the probe as two complementary alternative implementations - let alone as disclosing any specific one of these two alternatives by way of "implicit disclosure" by reference to common general knowledge (T 823/96, T 744/99 and T 818/00). The board also pointed out that the appellant's contention was at variance with the criterion consistently applied by the boards of appeal that a generic disclosure implicitly encompassing two or more alternative embodiments can generally not give rise to a right of priority in respect of a specific one of the embodiments that is neither explicitly nor implicitly disclosed (T 61/85) the latter criterion being a particular form of the "disclosure test" laid down in G 2/98 (OJ 2001, 413) and constituting the logical corollary of the established principle - confirmed in opinion G 2/98 (see also T 744/99) - that no right to priority can be acknowledged for an invention that is regarded as novel over the disclosure of the corresponding priority document.
T 788/01, T 899/04, T 70/05 and T 971/08 also saw the boards apply the principle that a generic disclosure cannot provide priority for a specific embodiment not disclosed in the priority document.
In T 903/05 the claims of the patent related to the use of a telomerase peptide consisting of the sequence of SEQ ID NOs: 2, 3, 4, 9 or 10 for the manufacture of a medicament for the treatment or prophylaxis of cancer, the treatment or prophylaxis comprising generating a T cell response. The priority document disclosed more generally the use of telomerase peptides for use in a method of treatment or prophylaxis of cancer, in which a T cell response is generated. Among the preferred peptides were those of SEQ ID NOs: 2, 3, 4, 9 and 10, which were also part of the list of peptides disclosed in Tables 1 and 2. The board recalled that, according to G 2/98 (OJ 2001, 413), if the invention claimed in a later European patent application constituted a selection invention in respect of the subject-matter disclosed in a first application whose priority was claimed, the criteria applied by the EPO with a view to assessing the novelty of selection inventions over the prior art had also to be considered carefully when assessing whether the claim in the European patent application was in respect of the same invention as the priority application within the meaning of Art. 87(1) EPC 1973. Such priority claims should not be acknowledged if the selection inventions in question were considered "novel" according to these criteria. The board considered that in the case before it the selection of specific peptides from the disclosure of the priority document did not result in novel subject-matter since the selection was made from only one list of entities, i.e. the preferred peptides specified in the claims and Tables 1 and 2, such that the claimed subject-matter was directly and unambiguously derivable from the priority document.
According to the board in case T 110/07, the priority document P1 failed to disclose the range in the feature of claim 1 of the subsequent European application "sodium diffusion barrier layer ... having a thickness of at least 10 nm". Nor, in view of G 2/98 (OJ 2001, 413), was either the claimed lower limit of 10 nm or the open-ended range of ≥10 nm directly and unambiguously derivable from P1. The board considered a "novelty test" based on the concept of overlapping ranges (as had been applied by the opposition division) to be inappropriate in view of G 2/98, because in this case there was no overlap but rather a generalisation of ranges. According to G 2/98 priority claims should not be acknowledged if the selection inventions in question are considered "novel" according to the criteria applied by the EPO in assessing novelty of selection inventions over the prior art. However, it did not automatically follow from this statement that priority claims should be acknowledged if the selection inventions in question were considered not "novel". The board drew attention to decisions T 1233/05, T 230/07 and T 1130/09, according to which the demonstration of a technical effect over a sub-range is not decisive for acknowledging novelty. A sub-range must be novel per se.


text:
APR 22, 2013 - E! Online
A Must Read - Share
Lesson learned? Don't call Gwyneth Paltrow a snob!
The actress gave Robert Downey Jr. a playful slap during a press conference in London for Iron Man 3 this past...
Editor's Picks
Hey you have no friends!!! Get to work and start inviting friends to help build your Comunitee. Click Here to invite friends.
© 2011 Comunitee, Inc.