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This page is a historical archive and is no longer maintained.
For current information, please visit http://www.cdc.gov/media/
Press Release
For Immediate Release: May 26, 2000
Contact: CDC Media Relations (404) 639-3286
Invisible pool guests can cause kids to get sick
When it comes to water safety, most people are aware of diving injuries, drowning, and sunburn; few people think about getting ill from going swimming. The most common waterborne infections reported to CDC cause diarrhea. Most are reported during the summer swimming season - Memorial Day to Labor Day*.
Although swimming is a great deal of fun, remember that swimming is essentially communal bathing. Water gets contaminated when someone has a fecal accident, releasing microscopic germs. When this contaminated water is swallowed by other swimmers, they can get sick. Chlorine is the most common pool disinfectant used to kill germs, and while it works well against most germs, it doesn't kill all of them. Therefore the best way to avoid getting sick from swimming is to keep germs out of the pool in the first place and to remember not to swallow swimming water.
If you head for the water this Memorial Day weekend, follow these safety tips to protect yourself, your child, and others from getting sick.
Healthy Swimming Tips
- DO NOT enter the water if you have diarrhea. (People can spread germs in the water even without having an "accident.")
- DO NOT swallow the water! (Remember: it's everybody's bath water and chlorine does not kill all germs.)
- DO wash your hands and bottom thoroughly with soap and water after a bowel movement or changing diapers. (Germs on hands end up everywhere, including the water.)
- DO notify the lifeguard if you see fecal matter in the water or if you see persons changing diapers on tables and chairs.
Healthy Swimming Tips for Parents
- DO take your child to the toilet for bathroom breaks often. (Waiting to hear "I have to go" may mean it's too late.)
- DO change diapers in a bathroom, not near the pool or shore. (Germs can contaminate surfaces and objects around the water.)
- DO wash your child thoroughly (especially his or her bottom) with soap and water before swimming. (Everyone has invisible amounts of fecal matter on his or her bottom that ends up in the water.)
- DO NOT count on swim diapers or pants to keep fecal matter from leaking into the water. (These products are not leakproof. Remember to take your child to the toilet often.)
- DO keep an eye on your child at all times. (Remember, kids can drown in silence).
- DO protect your child against sunburn by using a sunscreen with at least SPF 15 and both UVA and UVB protection, and be sure to re-apply it after swimming. (Even a few serious sunburns can increase the risk of getting skin cancer.)
- DO NOT allow your child to chew gum or eat while swimming or playing in the water. (Chewing or eating while swimming could cause choking).
* For additional information on reported outbreaks of waterborne diseases see "Surveillance for Waterborne-disease Outbreaks, United States, 1997-1998" http://www2.cdc.gov/mmwr/mmwr_ss.html
(Note the report will be available online after 4 p.m. EST)
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- Admissions
- Academics
- Life at Temple
- Research
- Athletics
- About
Why Temple?
An education is one of the best investments you can make. We make it one that's manageable.
Our energy makes the bright lights in the big city shine even brighter.
Apply to Temple
Temple is home to a talented and diverse student community. If you're serious about academics and driven to turn opportunities into success, we want to hear from you.
Larry Atkins' book offers a guide to advocacy journalism and how to identify trustworthy sources of information.
Daniel W. Berman is currently chair of the Department of Greek and Roman Classics and director of the Intellectual Heritage program.
The project will expand classroom space and add a skywalk from Speakman Hall to 1810 Liacouras Walk.
Solomon Jones, KLN '97, has used the power of words to cement his status as a leading voice in the Philadelphia region.
With 160 projects big and small underway, parts of campus will have a new look come fall.
Meet Temple labor economist Douglas Webber, whose pioneering recent research sheds light on the economic value of a college degree.

subset: commoncrawl


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Publisher's Description+
From RedPrairie Corporation: Fuelculator is a simple, handy utility for estimating the cost of fuel of your next trip, based on distance travelled, fuel-economy (your vehicle's MPG), and the current cost of fuel (from US national averages, or as set by the user).
This application is free, from RedPrairie.
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This month he took a candid look at his track record and those of his equally and less famous peers. He wrote: "There is not a Bond King or a Stock King or an Investor Sovereign alive that can claim title to a throne. All of us, even the old guys like Buffett, Soros, Fuss, yeah – me too, have cut our teeth during perhaps a most advantageous period of time, the most attractive epoch, that an investor could experience.
"Since the early 1970s when the dollar was released from gold and credit began its incredible, liquefying, total return journey to the present day, an investor that took marginal risk, levered it wisely and was conveniently sheltered from periodic bouts of deleveraging or asset withdrawals could and, in some cases, was rewarded with the crown of 'greatness'.
"Perhaps," concluded Gross, "it was the epoch that made the man as opposed to the man that made the epoch."
There is no doubt the democratisation of credit that began in the '70s was a potent engine of growth, not just for the US but for every developed economy. They all share a common characteristic in that the share of national income going to wage and salary earners has fallen. In the US, it has dropped by nearly 15 per cent since the mid 1940s. However, most of that decline has occurred since 1980. The loss of income share by labour has largely gone to corporate profits, where it was either reinvested or paid to investors in dividends or interest on corporate bonds.
Prior to 1980, recessions were much more common. While there were fewer recessions in the post-1980 era, those that did occur recorded much greater contractions in income share than in the earlier period. The contraction in labour's share attributable to the global financial crisis has been more severe than was the case in the two other post-1980 recessions.
The late 1970s marked a historic inflection point for two particular reasons. The first was globalisation or, more precisely, the beginning of China's transformation from a communist system of economic management to a capitalist model.
In launching this reform in 1978,
China's rapid transformation to become the world's factory floor affected every corner of the planet. The prospect of a billion-plus customer base attracted corporations of every ilk. So long as they allowed China access to their technology, they were welcomed.
As China's manufacturing base grew, so too did its capacity to import jobs from developed economies. The US, with its large middle-class, blue-collar workforce, was priced out of its own market.
China insured its export-driven growth by underwriting the American economy, recycling the export earnings into Treasury bonds that enabled Washington to fund its ever-growing fiscal deficits.
The second key factor of the 1970s inflection was the transition of central banks. They went from being arms of elected governments to having independent control over monetary policy.
Again the US was at the forefront.
Volcker pushed the US into two recessions by tightening monetary policy and lifting interest rates to nosebleed levels. But he succeeded where the politicians had failed. He beat inflation.
His legacy was picked up by his successor,
Greenspan responded aggressively, stopping the bear stampede in its tracks. This was the first airing of the "Greenspan put" whereby the Fed was always ready to ride to the rescue of equity markets.
On Greenspan's watch, the volume of credit in the US expanded exponentially. He was the godfather of derivatives, many of which were to prove toxic when under pressure by the global financial crisis.
This tidal wave of credit enabled US households to maintain their standard of living, which would otherwise have been severely impaired by labour's contracting share of national income. Expanded public sector deficits also helped offset the effects of the rebalancing of income in favour of profits. Credit underwrote Bill Gross's epoch, but it was too much of a good thing.
Excessive credit proved to be a hyper-destructive explosive that threatened the financial systems of the many that followed the US down the easy credit path.
Despite that experience,
The fragility of this strategy was demonstrated this week when a modest shortfall in China's GDP result for the first quarter sent shock waves through all financial markets.
It's difficult to disagree with Bill Gross's conclusion that the party is now over.
The Australian Financial Review


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Moody's downgrades 15 major banks
Thursday's downgrade of 15 big global banks is just the latest stop on Moody's Investor Service's world tour of the financial sector.
Back in February, Moody's announced that it would review the credit ratings of 17 global investment banks. On May 14, it downgraded the credit ratings of Italian banks that included UniCredit and Intesa Sanpaolo (ISNPY -2.52%). On May 18 it downgraded 16 Spanish banks including Banco Santander (SAN -2.72%). June 6 brought downgrades to seven German and three Austrian banks.
Thursday, Moody's downgraded Bank of America, Barclays, BNP Paribas, Citigroup, Credit Agricole, Credit Suisse, Deutsche Bank, Goldman Sachs, HSBC, JP Morgan Chase, Morgan Stanley, Royal Bank of Canada, Royal Bank of Scotland Group, Societe Generale, and UBS. (Moody's had already downgraded Macquarie Group and Nomura Holdings on March 15.)
Bank stocks were hammered in anticipation of the downgrades. For example, shares of Bank of America (BAC) fell 3.93%, shares of HSBC (HBC) declined by 2.46%, and shares of JPMorgan Chase (JPM) dropped 2.58%. The drop in bank shares helped power Thursday's 2.23% fall in the Standard & Poor's 500 stock index.
Why does the downgrade matter? Because it costs banks money.


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LeBron James taking his talents to the NFL sounds far-fetched and, for sure, it is.
But with no NBA season in sight and lots of time on his hands, the Miami Heat star likely had a good time Tuesday hinting at giving the NFL a shot on his Twitter page. James asked ESPN NFL insider John Clayton "When is the deadline for a team to sign a free agent?"
He was apparently having fun with Clayton's earlier tweet that the NFL trading deadline is next Tuesday.
It's really much ado about nothing, just a star athlete craving a little attention. Maybe we should have seen this coming last week when James was dressed in full pads at a high school football practice?
James, of course, was a star football player in high school up until his sophomore year in Akron, Ohio, but the NFL is a much different level. Not to mention it's a dangerous sport and one that would definitely put his NBA career in jeopardy when it resumes.
Contact Terrance Harris at firstname.lastname@example.com or follow him on Twitter @Terranceharris
(Photo: Fort Worth Star-Telegram/MCT/Landov)


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This retelling of the life story of Jivaka, great physician to the Buddha, was unearthed in the archive library of Dr. Bharat Vaidya. Originally published in the Pali journal Health, a Publication of Prabhuram Anant Pharmacy for the Upheaval of Ayurved, this account was written in 1929 by Raj Vaidya Harjivan Ratnaji Bhatt (pictured right). This story is based on an original script of Jivaka's life, along with a record of Jivaka's prescriptions, preserved and presented by Rev Ch. Damodar Swami, a Sanskrit Professor from Sri Lanka. This account was translated from Pali to English by Dr. Vaidya on December 2, 20111 . It is my honor to present this story to English readers who may wish to deepen their connection to Jivaka, and broaden their understanding of his life. Herein, may these exciting details serve to illuminate the life and times of Jivaka, the great physician to the Buddha. It is my hope that the biographical details of his life may enliven our contemporary approach to Ayurveda. Jivaka's Early Life
Our allopathic friends are fond of referencing the great scientist Galen (130-200 CE) of Pergamum, the Greek physician who advanced the practice of medicine by integrating theory with observation and experience2, and William Harvey (1578-1657) who is credited with being the first western in the world to accurately describe the circulatory system and the role of the heart in pumping the blood3. What of Jivaka, the great Ayurved physician to the Buddha, who lived 2550 years ago?


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Rangel Fellows are committed to serving their country and promoting positive change globally. Individuals who have successfully completed the Rangel Program are now making a difference in countries throughout the world, including Colombia, Mexico, Panama, Venezuela, South Africa, Nigeria, Angola, China, Korea, Bangladesh, Spain and Ireland.
Currently serving in his first post as a Cultural Affairs Officer in Bangladesh, Calvin Hayes is excited about pursuing a career that allows him to make an impact on the world. He explains, "The Rangel Program and the Foreign Service give me the ability to represent my country while also showing the diversity of America abroad. I have a challenging yet rewarding opportunity to engage global audiences, provide critical resources to communities that need it the most, and implement programs that will have long-term impact."
Calvin Hayes 2011 Rangel Fellow Foreign Service Officer, Dhaka Bangladesh


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Bangalore, Sep 14: Virender Sehwag has relinquished Delhi Daredevils captaincy for next month's Champions League Twenty20 2012 (CLT20) to be held in South Africa.
Delhi have chosen Sri Lankan batsman Mahela Jayawardene as their new leader.
Sehwag, who was the skipper of the team in four editions of Indian Premier League (IPL), "sought to be relieved of captaincy", GMR Sports Head (Cricket) and Delhi Daredevils Team Mentor TA Sekar said on the team's official website.
"Viru told us a few months ago that he wanted to bat freely and suggested that we make Mahela the captain of the side," Sekar said.
Delhi are in Group A with Kolkata Knight Riders, Perth Scorchers, Titans and a qualifier.
The Qualifier will start on October 9 before the Group Stage kicks off on October 13. The Final will be played on October 23 in Johannesburg.
Delhi Daredevils squad for CLT20 2012: Aavishkar Salvi (replacement for Varun Aaron), Ajit Agarkar, Unmukt Chand, Mahela Jayawardene (captain), Morne Morkel, Pawan Negi, Naman Ojha, Irfan Pathan, Kevin Pietersen, Venugopal Rao, Andre Russell, Virender Sehwag, Ross Taylor, David Warner, Umesh Yadav


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Type of Document Dissertation Author Brooks, Li Zheng Author's Email Address email@example.com URN etd-11092011-081802 Title Auditor Tenure and Audit Quality Degree Doctor of Philosophy (Ph.D.) Department Accounting Advisory Committee
Advisor Name Title Cheng, Cheng-Shing Agnes Committee Chair Hollie, Dana Y Committee Member Legoria, Joseph Committee Member Paudel, Krishnan P Committee Member Reichelt, Ken J Committee Member Keywords
- auditor tenure
- audit quality
- audit firm rotation
Date of Defense 2011-10-21 Availability unrestricted AbstractI propose that audit quality is likely to increase with audit firm tenure due to a Learning Effect and decrease with audit firm tenure due to a Bonding Effect. The net impact of these two countervailing forces over audit firm tenure dictates whether the relationship between audit firm tenure and audit quality is a concave, convex, or linear function of audit firm tenure. When the Bonding Effect dominates the Learning Effect in the later (earlier) years of tenure, then audit quality is a concave (convex) function of audit firm tenure. Adopting the quadratic model to empirically estimate the audit firm tenure year when audit quality is likely to decline, I first find that the average point when audit quality optimizes is 12 years for a large sample of U.S. firms. Then I investigate how this turning point of audit quality is affected by auditor's incentives to counter the negative impact from the Bonding Effect. Consistent with the notion that the Bonding Effect is less severe for high quality auditors, I find that the turning point of audit quality is longer for firms with Big N auditors, specialist auditors, and auditors of high client importance. In the additional analyses, I further examine how the turning point of audit quality varies over time and across industries. I find that, since Sarbanes-Oxley Act of 2002 (SOX, hereafter) was enacted, the turning point gets longer, implying that SOX may have mitigated the Bonding Effect. Moreover, I find that the deterioration of audit quality for extended auditor tenure only exists in low-litigation industries but not in high-litigation industries, suggesting that the incentives argument rather than the cognitive bias argument prevails in explaining the Bonding Effect. My results have implications for the current debate on whether audit firm rotation should be mandatory for the U.S. companies. Files
Filename Size Approximate Download Time (Hours:Minutes:Seconds)
28.8 Modem 56K Modem ISDN (64 Kb) ISDN (128 Kb) Higher-speed Access AuditorTenureAndAuditQuality_LiBrooks.pdf 1.78 Mb 00:08:15 00:04:14 00:03:43 00:01:51 00:00:09
If you have questions or technical problems, please Contact LSU-ETD Support.


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Liberal blog site Daily Kos and the Service Employees International Union (SEIU) today announced a new partnership in public opinion polling. According to Roll Call, the groups plan to measure President Barack Obama's approval and favorable polling numbers each week.
The polling, conducted by Democratic firm Public Policy Polling, will be published each Tuesday on dailykos.com and feature testing on Congress, the generic Congressional ballot, Obama's re-election and the two major political parties. Polling on "key races" will also be conducted, according to a press release announcing the partnership.
"Daily Kos is committed to advancing a new generation of progressive activists across the country and partnering with the 2.2 million members of SEIU is a huge step forward for everyone," Kos publisher Markos Moulitsas said in a statement. "Rather than sit around and have know-nothing pundits and politicians in DC tell us what the American people think, we prefer to ask them directly. And this partnership will allow us to conduct significantly more polling than any other media organization in the country."


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This was supposed to be longer than it already is, but I decided it was too long for one chapter, so Chapter 4 will be a direct continuation of this one, just to let you know now. These two chapters should give you plenty, if not all, of the answers you were waiting for Enjoy:D
"Anyone whose name is written in this notebook will…die? Heh, what are the odds?"
I suppose anybody that found their self in my position would have thought the same thing, but only a cursed few would have done what I did next. I wasn't ready to believe it for a second, but, at the same time, I was never one to leave out any possibilities, no matter the odds. It's the reason I'm able to tell this story. But, if I was going to test this so-called "Death Note" on another human being, it would have to be a criminal, …someone this world would be better off without, anyways. It was the most humane option available to me at the time…and I already had a test subject in mind. However, before I could write his surname into the note, I stopped and thought about it once more.
"No. If I'm truly going to do this, I need to be as discreet as possible. I don't know anything about this guy, let alone his health conditions. If he's been perfectly healthy his whole life and then suddenly dies of a heart attack, there's bound to be at least one person that finds it too hard to believe it was a coincidence. And if they manage to find out he was the one who killed my parents, as well…yeah, it'll be best if I make his death accidental. Let's see, …a car crash should do the trick."
I quickly wrote down my thoughts and closed the notebook again. After placing my pen on my desk, I stood up and I walked over to my bedroom window. I remained there for what seemed like days before I finally took my cross pendant into my clenched fist and closed my eyes for a moment, opening them again when I had finished my prayer.
"God forgive me, …if this notebook turns out to be genuine."
I have to say, though, whether that Death Note was real or not, this would've certainly been the most interesting thing I had done in recent days. As I said before, my needs are limited. I rarely left my home outside of school hours and I don't exactly eat very much. In fact, my diet really only consisted of potato chips (preferably barbeque-flavored), any array of chocolates or sweets, gum (preferably spearmint-flavored), an occasional visit to a restaurant, and I also frequently make chocolate chip cookies, using the recipe my mother always used. And, of course, I also have the cherry-flavored lollipops that I adore so much. I actually found myself to be low on them later that day, while the rest of my supplies were well-stocked, but being that they were my only true necessity in life, I decided to make one of my occasional trips to the store. I was rather bored at the moment, anyways. Having been too lazy to strive for a license, I ended up selling my parents' cars for extra funds, so I walked everywhere I went. I might have ended up regretting going out this day, however. No more than four blocks outside my neighborhood, the sight that was now in front of my eyes would ultimately change the course of my life…for the worst.
"A car accident? What the hell…could it…? No, quit jumping to conclusions, Uric."
I had to find out who the victim was, …just to make sure. A police officer at the scene would be the best source of information available to me and I quickly spotted one. Lying on the ground next to him was a long, blue bag, the contents of which were easy to decipher. I couldn't just walk up to it and open it, so I went ahead and asked the officer.
"Excuse me, officer?"
The man was apparently troubled by the fact that he was brought to the scene of somebody's death, but he was kind enough to listen to my request.
"Would you be able to tell me…who that is over there?"
He stared at me for a second, but it was easy for me to guess what he was thinking about asking me. I answered him, promptly.
"Just checking to make sure that it's not somebody I know, officer."
He looked over at the bag and took a rather deep breath before looking back at me.
"Of course. Here, this card was found in this poor man's possession. You can just check his name and face on it and see for yourself."
The card already looked familiar as he held it in his hand, but the moment I checked its content, an almost painful chill ran down my spine. This wasn't a normal car accident…it was a murder.
"…Alright, that's a relief. Just checking to make sure. Thank you, officer."
"Anytime, son."
Aside from a few exchanges with store cashier, I made absolutely no noise on the way to my destination and the walk back to my house. Once I had made it home, I entered the password and scanned my thumbprint before opening the door. The moment both of my feet were inside the house, I shut the door behind me and dropped the grocery bag before falling to the floors in tears. To this day, my reasoning for these actions evades me. I showed absolutely no remorse when this man took away my family, but my own retaliation to his crimes managed to push me over the edge. Was it because I was now a murderer, a horrible sinner in the eyes of God, …or did I somehow know that I was no longer in his eyes at all? The tears fell for no less than ten minutes before I wiped the last of them from my eyes…and smiled.
"Good riddance."
It was an exceptionally dark night, as I recall. In fact, the five nights that had passed since I killed that man were all unusually dark…and I would soon know why. My music was on, echoing throughout my home, while I sat in my room and fiddled with the cross around my neck. The only light in my room was emitting from the lamp on my desk. In truth, I was just trying to enjoy the song that was playing, …something I haven't done in a while. After a while, I held the pendant in front of my face and pressed it against my lips. When I retracted it, though, I noticed something about it that I hadn't before…and it terrified me. I polished this cross every single day out of respect for the man on it, but at this moment, its shine was completely gone. And then, I heard his voice for the first time. I might have thought it was God had it not been so…sinister.
"Reminiscing on our actions, are we?"
I was frozen with fear, but I would never let this intruder know this, so I replied.
"…No, actually. I was just enjoying my music. Here, let me turn it down real quick."
I reached beside me for the remote to the audio speakers, while simultaneously, I dug into my pocket for my phone, which had a reflective screen. He must have seen this take place, as he gave me a warning about his…appearance.
"I recommend you take a nice, deep breath before you hold that phone up. You're not going to enjoy the sight very much, I'll tell you that."
He chuckled for a minute, while I let his words so far run through my mind.
"He must be the one that the Death Note belongs to. How else would he know I killed that man? But, …the notebook works…and there lies a problem. Where the hell would a human manage to obtain something with such…supernatural power? …Unless, …he's not human. But what, then? …Wait a minute, …he could be…"
Taking my guess, I lifted the phone up to gaze at his reflection…and I turned out to be correct. Had I not made an educated of his nature beforehand, I might have dived to the floor in fear, because he did have a truly frightening appearance. But, my composure was well-kept, something I still take pride in to this day.
"So, …you're a Shinigami, am I right?"
His facial expressions weren't exactly the most…varied of sorts, but I'm sure he would have shown his surprise, had he been able to.
"Hmmm…very good. Looks like we have a pretty smart one here, don't we?"
"You could say that…but, to me, it's just common sense. Once I factor it down, whom else could it be? So, …why are you here? For the Death Note…or for me?"
He chuckled again. Was it because I was right…or far from it?
"Heh heh heh heh, …well, at least not for now. Eventually, I'm going to have to write your name in my own Death Note, but for now, all I can do is sit around and wait until your time to die arrives. Hopefully, …you can entertain me in the meantime."
This was utterly confusing, but my desire for more information prompted me to ask more of him.
"…Well, if you're going to be around for a while, we might as well get to know one another. My name is Uric Atari-"
"Oh, don't worry about your name. I already know it."
It was so odd. Everything he said gave me more questions, …but I just had to know.
"What do you mean? How do you know it already when I haven't told you yet?"
"…Well, if you must know, …it's all in the eyes."
"…Your eyes? You're telling me you can see my name right now?"
"Very good. Your sharp wit continues to impress me…Uric."
I thought on this for a second. The idea of walking around and seeing the name of everyone I met floating over their heads sounded so, …for lack of a better word, mediocre. Why would a Shinigami need to know a person's name, anyways? Certainly, it would make killing a person all the easier, but what would he gain from doing that? That had to more to it than that…and I knew it.
"What else do you see?"
"Hmm? And what makes you think-?"
"Please, don't lie to me. We're going to be roommates for a while, so you might as well be honest with me now."
"This kid…ooh, he's a bright one, alright."
"What if I said I saw your remaining lifespan, as well?"
Well, it certainly took me by surprise, but it quickly began making sense to me…and all the other pieces of the puzzle soon began coming together shortly afterwards.
"Let me take another educated guess. The reason you need to know a person's lifespan…has something to do with your own, doesn't it?"
When he didn't respond right away, I further explained my hypothesis.
"Something tells me Shinigami aren't immortal…hmph, and they call you "Gods of death". No, the reason you need to know the lifespan of humans…is so you know how many years you'll get once you kill them before their time has come. …Well, am I right…or am I right?"
"Unbelievable. It's as if he knew all about Shinigami before he knew they even existed."
"Well done. I must say, your cleverness is so intriguing to watch, …I might actually enjoy the time we'll be spending together, Uric."
"Ah, that reminds me. I never got your name, did I? What is it?"
"You may call me…Shahim."
"Well, Shahim, I'll think we'll get along just fine. So, tell me, how long will we be living together?"
"Hehehehehe…until you die."
"Well, I already was informed of that. How long will that be, though?"
"Heh, as if I'd tell you. I may be here, Uric, but not of my own volition. The Shinigami code forces me to remain with the first human to touch the Death Note when it enters this world until they die, so I'm not here to give you all the answers you want…only those I'm required to."
"Oh? And what else are you required to tell me?"
He paused for a moment…I could swear that I saw his smile become slightly larger. Whatever he was about to tell me…would have been better to go unknown.
"I'm afraid you've already used your Death Note once, which means that you will now be subject to the pure terror known only to those who have also done so. Upon your time of death, …you will be banished to a realm of utter nothingness, unable to enter Heaven or Hell for the rest of time. …Well, that's all I have to say, so…any more questions you'd like to ask?"
Any joy I had ever felt in my life…now seemed to me as if it had never occurred at all. My parents were living peacefully in God's kingdom…and I would never be able to join them. I stood in silence for no more than thirty seconds…before I finally fell to the ground, tears erupting from my eyes as they never had before. Shahim obviously didn't comprehend my sorrow, a premise given to me by his next course of action.
"Hey, …what's the big deal? At least no-"
"SHUT UP, SHINIGAMI!! JUST SHUT THE HELL UP!! What the hell would you know about the way I feel right now!? Millions of murders are committed every year, murderers are saved by God every day, yet I'm banished from Heaven for doing it with a method completely different from the rest! …DO YOU HAVE ANY IDEA WHAT I JUST LOST!!?"
…No. Of course, he didn't. What could a Shinigami know about it? A being required to take life in order to extend its own would never know anything about love, …let alone losing it.
"Alright, my bad. Don't get angry with me, though. You should've known that there would be consequences for this, so blame yourself."
"It's your notebook, you dropped it here, …so you're to blame."
"And yet you picked it up, instead of tossing it away in belief that it was just a prank. You never had to use it. In fact, you knew who that man was, so why didn't you inform your police of it? Maybe, if you were lucky, they would've killed him for you."
"He wasn't theirs to kill! He held no connection to any of those policemen and, certainly not, the executioner! Why would I make yet another person guilty of killing a man he's never met!? ...No. He was my problem, he killed my parents, WHICH MADE HIM MINE TO JUDGE!!"
I fell completely silent as the final words left my mouth. ...I was wrong. Who was I to judge another human being? ...Yet, I did it, anyways. I had already disregarded God's judgement long before he placed it on me...and, as a result, I lost any and all access to His kingdom. It wasn't Shahim's fault, nor that man's. ...It was mine.
"I…I'm sorry, …Shahim."
As per usual, my remarks only worked to further confuse him.
"For what? …Oh, yeah. Eh, it doesn't matter. Just forget it."
I would've responded to this, but I decided to clear my mind and, hopefully, forget this ever happened. Once my tears had dried, I stood up and left the room.
"Hey, where are you going?"
"I need some comfort food."
- The End -


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Service-learning is a type of experiential education that combines and pursues both academic achievement and community service in a seamless weave, requiring the use of effective reflection exercises. The goal of service-learning, through linking academics to the community, is to develop the skills, sensitivities, and commitments necessary for effective citizenship in a democracy.
Discussion of key elements of this definition:
- Service-learning is a type of experiential education that when done properly enhances student learning and teacher effectiveness. It should be evaluated alongside other teaching techniques such as lecture, discussion, reading assignments, exercises, use of PowerPoint presentations, use of various media, and the like. As with any pedagogical method, it fits some instructors' teaching styles better than others and some courses better than others, and should be used where appropriate.
- Service-learning integrates academic achievement with community service. Both academic study and community service must be maintained in equal importance for service-learning efforts to be successful. The interests of the community must be served; students are not sent to placements merely for academic enhancement. The academic objectives of the course must also be enriched by the community service, otherwise the service-learning effort becomes irrelevant to the educational purposes of the course and may seem a disjointed, unrelated act of volunteerism, distracting to the course's educational purposes.
- Service-learning requires effective reflection. This point relates closely to the integration of academic achievement and community service. Studies have shown that for the community service to be effectively woven into the course and made educationally relevant for students, reflection exercises must play an important role in any service-learning project. Studies have shown that the community service, without reflection, often seems to students to be added work, lacking any relevance to the course and, thus, lacking value. Service done in such a context runs the risk of actually creating a backlash and solidifying prejudices and poor citizenship attitudes and practices.
- Service-learning has citizenship as its goal. There are many types of experiential education, each with its own learning objective in view. Service-learning is a type of experiential education that has citizenship as its goal. It seeks to contextualize academic subject matter within the greater society, highlighting for the students the role that the academic disciplines play in building a healthy community. Students should come away with a sense of connection with the democracy and with a greater commitment to serve the community through their careers and throughout their lives. Service-learning, then, recaptures in a focused way the civic purpose that Thomas Jefferson had envisioned for higher education.
- Faculty identify courses for which a service component is appropriate and the kinds of service experiences relevant to the particular courses.
- The CASL staff develops relationships with those kinds of service placements in the community. To meet the public affairs mission of Missouri State, those organizations and agencies designated as "Community Partners" are not-for-profit or governmental groups.
- The CASL Office, with the Community Partners, monitor the students' service work and certify to the instructors that the minimum requirement (40 hours) has been completed (or not).
- The faculty develop the kinds of assignments appropriate for evaluating the students' learning and issue the grade for the service component based on the student learning achieved through the integration of course work and service work.
- Requirements vary slightly for Integrated Service-Learning (ISL) courses.
The Citizenship and Service-Learning (CASL) program enables a student to earn an additional credit in selected courses in exchange for the learning acquired by completing 40 hours of service that is relevant to course content and benefits an external government or non-profit agency. Each department that offers service-learning provides a 300 or 500 level one credit service-learning component course. A student who wants the service-learning option will simultaneously register for the SL designated course and the SL component course.
The service-learning credit is awarded for the demonstration of learning that results from the service rather than the service itself. A reflection component is key to the critical thinking that a student will engage in during the hands-on experience with the community partner.
- This is a 1-credit course. It is in addition to the core course to which it is attached – a lab of sorts.
- For example: If you are enrolled in ANT-280 for 3 credits, you may also enroll in ANT-309 for 1 credit (this is the 40 hour service-learning attachment). The service-learning component is optional.
A stand-alone ISL course has all of the aspects of experiential education, reflection, and assessment integrated into the substance of the course. The community service experiences of the students are not just a side bar, but are an integral part of the course.
By integrating 15 hours per student of Service-Learning into the course, the professor develops lectures and discussion topics that give students additional insight and understanding of the course content based on their experiences. ISL is conceptualized as a pedagogical model that connects meaningful community service experiences with academic course learning.
When service-learning is integrated into an academic course, the course credit is assigned for both the customary academic learning as well as for a minimum of 15 hours of work with a governmental or not-for-profit organization. The student's grade is for the quality of learning as identified through reflection mechanisms determined by the course instructor.


text:
CARL Heeley still hopes to bolster his City strike-force before the Vanarama Conference North season kicks off next Saturday.
Worcester get their league campaign under way with a visit to Aggborough from Stalybridge Celtic and manager Heeley admits he is eager to bring in another goal-scorer.
However, despite having a few 'irons in the fire', no deal is imminent and he will name a familiar line-up for this afternoon's final pre-season friendly, which is at Barwell (3pm).
Heeley said: "Players often become available in the last week of pre-season – we have a few irons in the fire, but nothing definite.
"We have options, but if nothing happens, we are still comfortable with where we are.
"We will probably go with what we have had for the last couple of pre-season games and we will look to finalise our plans for the season at the end of today's game at Barwell.
"It is all about progressing as a side and we are much further ahead now, compared to where we were at a similar stage last season."
Heeley sees the main plus points of his preparations for the forthcoming campaign as being able to keep together the same resolute defence he had last term, plus the re-signing of targetman Mike Symons.
The City boss added: "We have more stability now and have kept a lot of last season's squad together, which is a bonus.
"The thing we did really well last year – and which helped us to move away from the relegation zone – was that we were difficult to beat and we didn't concede many goals.
"Retaining that defence and the goalkeeper was a big thing, while it was really important to add another keeper in Nathan Vaughan because we used so many different ones last year.
"Goal-scoring was a problem, but bringing big Mike Symons back was key because he is a target man who knows this league and holds the ball up well, which was something we missed last year."


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Curriculum Overview
The MBA degree at UIS is a general professional program intended to serve graduate students from a broad variety of occupations and with diverse professional aspirations. It includes twelve courses and a total of 36 credit hours.
- The core curriculum begins with the gateway course, BUS 501 Business Perspectives, and concludes with the capstone course, BUS 583 Business Strategy.
- There are six additional required courses that address the core responsibilities of contemporary managers and leaders.
- The curriculum also includes four elective courses. Students may choose from business administration, accounting, management, and MIS coursework. With permission, students may choose elective courses outside the College of Business and Management in, for instance, communication, computer science, etc.


text:
Gymnasts expect to be competitive
The return of the two leading all-around performers and six other performers from the Section 8A meet should make the Park Rapids-Nevis gymnastics team even more competitive this season.
Senior Emily Klingenberg and junior Jessi Andersen give the Panthers two solid all-around gymnasts and leaders. Both had all-around averages above 29.00 and shared Most Valuable Gymnast honors last season.
Also returning from last year's section team are sophomores Kayla Johnk and Savannah Gatewood; freshmen Sarena Kinkel and Amy Klein; and eighth graders Kayla Andersen and Sarah Harshman.
That group will be looking to improve on the Panthers' team average of 104.00 and averages of 32.18 in vault, 25.13 on balance beam, 24.66 in floor exercise and 22.04 on uneven parallel bars. Park Rapids' top team score last season was a 112.90 at the Mid-State Conference meet while the Panthers ended the season with a 109.125 for sixth place at the section meet. The Panthers' top event marks were 33.65 in vault, 29.50 on beam, 28.325 in floor and 24.55 on bars.
Klingenberg was the only gymnast to compete in all 12 meets last season and finished as the Panthers' No. 2 all-arounder with a 29.08 average, including a top all-around score of 30.40. At the section meet, Klingenberg finished 13th in vault, 20th on bars, 22nd on beam, 25th in floor and 18th in all-around. Klingenberg had the team's top averages on beam (7.26), in floor (6.91) and on bars (6.68) and shared the top average in vault (8.28). Klingenberg had the team's high scores in vault (8.50) and on beam (8.50) while adding season-high marks of 7.45 in floor and 6.90 on bars en route to earning all-conference honors.
Jessi Andersen led the Panthers with a 29.46 all-around average, including a high of 30.20. Andersen capped off the season by placing 17th in floor, 19th in vault, 20th on beam, 21st on bars and 14th in all-around at the section meet. Andersen led the Panthers in floor with a 7.44 average and a high of 8.05 and shared the team's high average in vault with an 8.28 and a high of 8.40. Andersen had the high mark on bars with a 7.70 and an average of 6.53 while posting a 7.21 average on beam with a high of 7.80. Andersen, who missed four meets with a wrist injury, earned all-conference honorable mention honors.
Johnk finished with averages of 7.63 in vault, 5.60 in floor, 4.13 on beam, 3.69 on bars and 21.15 in all-around in seven varsity meets. Johnk ended the season by placing 28th in vault and 32nd in floor at the section meet. Johnk had high marks of 7.90 in vault, 6.375 in floor, 4.75 on bars, 4.45 on beam and 22.25 in all-around.
Kinkel was a section competitor in three events, placing 27th in vault, 28th on beam and 29th on bars. In seven varsity meets, Kinkel compiled averages of 7.98 in vault with a high of 8.20, 6.13 on beam with a high of 6.25 and 4.28 on bars with a high of 5.20.
Kayla Andersen was also a section competitor in three events, placing 30th in floor, 32nd on beam and 32nd on bars. Andersen competed in at least one event in eight varsity meets and had highs of 7.70 in vault, 7.15 in floor, 5.85 on beam and 3.325 on bars with averages of 6.18 in floor and 4.93 on beam.
Gatewood placed 29th in floor at the section meet to finish the season with a 6.24 average and a high of 7.00 in eight meets in that event. Gatewood also had a 3.80 on beam in her only varsity appearance in that event.
Klein had a 3.75 on bars to finish 31st at the section meet in her only varsity appearance in that event. Klein also had high marks of 7.60 in vault, 6.05 in floor and 5.00 on beam in her only varsity appearances in those events.
Harshman rounded out the Panthers' section squad by placing 30th in vault. Harshman had a high of 7.85 with an average of 7.60 in vault in seven varsity meets.
Four other gymnasts return with some varsity experience. Junior Tiffeny Hansen posted averages of 6.18 (with a high of 6.625) in floor and a 3.78 average (with a high of 4.05) on bars in three varsity meets. Hansen also had a 4.25 on beam and a 7.60 in vault for a 21.90 all-around score. Sophomore Taylor Drury received a 4.05 in her only varsity appearance on bars. Freshman Kendra Anderson had a 5.35 in her only varsity appearance on beam. Freshman Kylee Roy had a 3.35 average with a high of 3.70 in two varsity meets on bars.
Starting the season on junior varsity will be junior Jordan Bynum; sophomore Samantha Harshman; freshmen Lindsey Girtz and Nicole Eischens; eighth graders Jordan Hochstatter and Talya Smith; and seventh grader Alexis Felt.
"I expect us to do better than last year," said Park Rapids head coach Wendi Hartig. "I look for us to be competitive and score in the 120s. I think we'll have a good season."


text: Hi Wesam I am also a newbie about TinyOS. As far as I understand the reason we use TinyOs for sensors is that the sensors have very limited memory and energy resources. So if you want to write code in C you can I guess but I think it would be difficult and consume more memory and energy resources. I think that is why it is called TinyOs :-) More over with TinyOs you can simulate sensors without having a real one. I hope this answers what you have asked. Good luck with your project. Regards Sabbir PS. if any one have any comment about this topic or I have said something incorrect plz reply or forward that to wesam. Your comments would be appreciated. Quoting wesam maher <wesamit at yahoo.com>: > > hi > > i am wesam maher > > student in faculty of engineering , ain shams university,egypt > > i have a question to you and hoping that u have time to answer on it > > i am in a project of sensor network and we will use cc2420 in our design and > i read a lot > > about tinyos but > > what is its benifet? > > cant i use a simple c code instead? > > in another word what will tinyos add to the project? > > thanks for reading > > waiting for reply, > > wesam maher > > > --------------------------------- > Do you Yahoo!? > Yahoo! Small Business - Try our new resources site! ------------------------------------------------- This mail sent through IMP: http://horde.org/imp/


text:
Griffiths, Frederick Augustus (DNB00)
From Wikisource
GRIFFITHS, FREDERICK AUGUSTUS (d. 1869), military writer, entered the army as an ensign in the royal artillery on 13 Dec. 1813. He was gazetted lieutenant 8 Oct. 1816, captain 19 Aug. 1835, and major 28 Nov. 1854. He died in 1869. Griffiths wrote: 1. The Artillerist's Manual and Compendium of Infantry Exercise,' Woolwich, 1840; 10th edition 1868. 2. 'Notes on Military Law,' Woolwich, 1841.[Hart's Annual Army List; Brit. Mus. Cat.]


text:
Choreography in Britney Spears' 'If U Seek Amy' music video is revealed through footage shot 'in the bedroom where one of the super hot scenes from the music video was filmed.'
What fans can expect from Britney Spears' music video for controversial single "If U Seek Amy" has been revealed through a behind-the-scenes video footage. It features the singer's backing dancers; Willie, Jay and Luke showing the choreography to be seen in the video.
"This video was shot in the bedroom where one of the super hot scenes from the music video was filmed," the statement in her official website read. "You'll have to wait for the video to premiere to see the whole routine, but this should whet your appetite for now."
A source previously revealed that Britney will play a sexy housewife in "If U Seek Amy" music video. On its plot sequence, the source said, "The video begins with Britney coming outside her house to hand the paparazzi an apple pie that she baked. She acts like she wants to hook up. The video is very provocative."
"If U Seek Amy" is the third single from Britney Spears' sixth studio album "Circus". It recently got a warning from the Parents Television Council (PTC) over its lyrics "If U Seek Amy", which sounds like "F*** Me" when sung quickly. The track was asked not to be played between 6 A.M. and 10 P.M. on radios due to "the broadcast indecency law."
Behind-the-scenes of Britney Spears' "If U Seek Amy" music video:


text:
Snappers Rally Late to Beat LumberKings
Four-run sixth inning, six-run eighth inning key comeback
By Chad Seely / Clinton LumberKings | June 15, 2013 7:07 PM ET
Beloit, WI - The Beloit Snappers used two big innings to beat the LumberKings, 10-3, on Saturday night at Pohlman Field.
Trailing 2-0 in the bottom of the sixth, Beloit got a two-run homer from Christopher Bostick to even the score and a two-run double from Matt Olson to take a 4-2 lead.
Clinton pulled within 4-3 in the top of the eighth on Jordy Lara's sacrifice fly. Snappers centerfielder Brett Vertigan made a diving catch to kill the Clinton rally.
Matt Vedo, who came on in the sixth for starter Anthony Vasquez, ran into trouble in the eighth with two outs. With Daniel Robertson at third and Renato Nunez at second, Vedo struck out Olson for the second out of the inning. Clinton elected to intentionally walk John Wooten to load the bases for Ryan Delgado.
The move backfired when Vedo walked Delgado to give Beloit at 5-3 lead. The next batter, Ryan Mathews, followed with a three-run double off the left-field wall. Then Bostick added his second two-run blast of the game to make it 10-3.
The LumberKings went quietly in the ninth and dropped to 33-35 on the year. With a win Sunday in the series finale, the Snappers can clinch the first-half Western division title.
Clinton sends right-hander David Holman (1-3, 3.98) to the mound against Beloit left-hander Brent Powers (3-2, 6.00) Sunday afternoon. First pitch is scheduled for 2:00 PM CT.
This story was not subject to the approval of the National Association of Professional Baseball Leagues or its clubs.View More


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Download the Game Design and Indie Game Marketing Freebook 07/19/17GameDev.net and CRC Press have teamed up to bring a free ebook of content curated from top titles published by CRC Press. The freebook, Practices of Game Design & Indie Game Marketing, includes chapters from The Art of Game Design: A Book of Lenses, A Practical Guide to Indie Game Marketing, and An Architectural Approach to Level Design. The GameDev.net FreeBook is relevant to game designers, developers, and those interested in learning more about the challenges in game development. We know game development can be a tough discipline and business, so we picked several chapters from CRC Press titles that we thought would be of interest to you, the GameDev.net audience, in your journey to design, develop, and market your next game. The free ebook is available through CRC Press by clicking here. The Curated Books The Art of Game Design: A Book of Lenses, Second Edition, by Jesse Schell Presents 100+ sets of questions, or different lenses, for viewing a game's design, encompassing diverse fields such as psychology, architecture, music, film, software engineering, theme park design, mathematics, anthropology, and more. Written by one of the world's top game designers, this book describes the deepest and most fundamental principles of game design, demonstrating how tactics used in board, card, and athletic games also work in video games. It provides practical instruction on creating world-class games that will be played again and again. View it here. A Practical Guide to Indie Game Marketing, by Joel Dreskin Marketing is an essential but too frequently overlooked or minimized component of the release plan for indie games. A Practical Guide to Indie Game Marketing provides you with the tools needed to build visibility and sell your indie games. With special focus on those developers with small budgets and limited staff and resources, this book is packed with tangible recommendations and techniques that you can put to use immediately. As a seasoned professional of the indie game arena, author Joel Dreskin gives you insight into practical, real-world experiences of marketing numerous successful games and also provides stories of the failures. View it here. An Architectural Approach to Level Design This is one of the first books to integrate architectural and spatial design theory with the field of level design. The book presents architectural techniques and theories for level designers to use in their own work. It connects architecture and level design in different ways that address the practical elements of how designers construct space and the experiential elements of how and why humans interact with this space. Throughout the text, readers learn skills for spatial layout, evoking emotion through gamespaces, and creating better levels through architectural theory. View it here. Learn more and download the ebook by clicking here. Did you know? GameDev.net and CRC Press also recently teamed up to bring GDNet+ Members up to a 20% discount on all CRC Press books. Learn more about this and other benefits here.
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About Michael Tanczos
Hello Sir,
I hope you're good.
So, I was basically planning to implement a simple 2d physics Game Engine in C++.
I have read many articles related to it and I had no problem in grasping the concepts of physics and maths but when it comes to implementation i badly fail at it, although, i have made a couple of games on c++ like Arkanoid and Pong but both of them don't use real physics. I just need to multiply the velocity by -1 to respond to collision.
It is further getting demotivating as no one around me can help me out in this.
So, I am using SFML and I am first planning to do very basic i.e, making a circle bounce in a window with perfect elasticity and no gravity.
I have covered topics of circle-rectangle collision detection etc.
I have covered collision response too but it's hard to implement in a program.
What would you suggest me to do so I can build a simple physics simulation?
Thank You
Michael Tanczos commented on khawk's blog entry in GameDev.net Staff BlogThat google transcript is hilarious.. honestly if I remember back Google was so different that it was hard to initially take seriously. The name was silly and the look was something straight out of a toy company. Man.. how things have changed. The site is looking great by the way. Getting it over to this version had to be a hell of an undertaking for one guy. Great work!
Michael Tanczos replied to alh420's topic in GDNet Comments, Suggestions, and IdeasNote that these ads are targeting mobile resolutions Kevin. Double check the Google setup for all leaderboard resolutions
Michael Tanczos replied to Lactose's topic in GDNet Comments, Suggestions, and IdeasRight now we have to trim back certain features in order to move to IPS version 4. We're in the process of discussing the path going forward but it looks like we will be moving the site more to focus on maintaining a public forum for discussion and making sure that our discussion software encompasses what people need the most. The monolithic version of gamedev.net that contained books, articles, etc etc is going to be trimmed back to favor community discussion.
Michael Tanczos replied to jpetrie's topic in GDNet Comments, Suggestions, and IdeasYeah it's crazy.. somebody is either doing a security test on the site or trying to hack the site. All these reports come from automated attempts to exploit SQL injection vulnerabilities. It's exhaustive but should be done now.. I'm not sure how many emails got sent out of the queue but it could be a bit.
Easton snow day with my boys
Michael Tanczos replied to Alpha_ProgDes's topic in GDNet Comments, Suggestions, and IdeasThey said the problem was on their end and fixed it so.. all good now!
Michael Tanczos replied to Alpha_ProgDes's topic in GDNet Comments, Suggestions, and IdeasWe're checking with Invision Power.. our license is up to date so this doesn't make sense.
Michael Tanczos replied to braindigitalis's topic in GDNet Comments, Suggestions, and IdeasI deleted that image. Right now we're in the process of figuring out just how the heck we're going to upgrade to new software. We're going to end up having to almost revamp the whole site and cut out a lot of cruft.
This should be hard to top.. Easton Area High School on national TV!
Michael Tanczos replied to ronan.thibaudau's topic in GDNet Comments, Suggestions, and IdeasI'm thinking it may actually be disk IO related. I removed about 80 GB of files from the server that were old and crusty and never accessed..
Michael Tanczos replied to fastcall22's topic in GDNet Comments, Suggestions, and IdeasMade some upgrades and cleaned up the server a bit.. time to see if it makes a difference.
Michael Tanczos replied to fastcall22's topic in GDNet Comments, Suggestions, and IdeasI'm working on it.. hopefully the malware issue is gone for good.
Michael Tanczos replied to Acharis's topic in GDNet Comments, Suggestions, and IdeasThe decision came down to an integrated suite of components more than anything (IP.Content for articles, the forums were quite good, blogs, etc). It provided a lot of flexibility and was more up-to-date than our old ASP technology. Migrating our custom database to this software took a ton of work figuring out what table was responsible for what. At some point Invisionpower switched over to use CKEditor, an example of an open source editor coming to the rescue in lieu of their own in-house editor. What a total nightmare that has been and CKEditor still continues to not behave as well with IPB as we'd like. They tossed it for the newest version of their software. To be honest, we looked for a total package rather than parts because cobbling together a system with a lot of parts that weren't originally intended to work together can get messy very very quickly. The editor is such a small example but the more parts you have that come from different vendors, the greater the potential problems that can creep up. There are certainly downsides to a single vendor (like when they completely rewrite the software from the ground up) however.. but the nice thing is that someone else goes through the tough job of making all the "stuff" work together.
Michael Tanczos replied to dmatter's topic in GDNet Comments, Suggestions, and IdeasYahoo Pipes discontinued their service, which is how we aggregated all the RSS feeds. We're going to need a new aggregator that provides a similar service. I'm looking into a replacement now. It's not a bad time to revisit the RSS feeds we aggregate as well.. what do you think we should include in the list? http://feeds.feedburner.com/GamasutraNews http://forums.indiegamemag.com/external.php?type=RSS2&forumids=75 http://www.gamesindustry.biz/rss/gamesindustry_news_feed.rss


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Bob MacDonald Named AquaSox Hitting Coach
Bob MacDonald Named AquaSox Hitting Coach
By Everett AquaSox | May 19, 2009 11:22 AM ET
MacDonald, 66, served as head baseball coach of the Huskies from 1977 to 1992 where he compiled a record of 422-322-7. He was a five-time Pac-10 Northern Division Coach of the Year (1979-1981, 1985, 1990 and 1992). In 1994, MacDonald was hired on as the head coach at Navy where he was 178-152-3 in seven seasons.
In 23 seasons, MacDonald's teams won six league titles and earned four NCAA Tournament berths. MacDonald excelled in football and baseball at Queen Anne High School in Seattle where he graduated in 1960. He went on to play baseball at the University of Washington. After graduation, MacDonald became a teacher and coached baseball at Cleveland High School in Seattle for seven years. After the 1973 season he joined the staff of Washington State Head Coach Bo Bo Brayton where he remained until accepting the head job at Washington.
Since his retirement from college coaching in 2000, MacDonald, who lives in Port Orchard, WA, has remained involved in baseball at the semipro and high school levels. He serves on the advisory board of the West Coast League and has been a batting practice pitcher for the Seattle Mariners.
The 2009 Northwest League season is scheduled to begin June 20. Season tickets and three different 10-game Power Packs are available now.
For information about ticket plans, planning a group outing or about the season schedule, the public is invited to visit the AquaSox stadium store at 3802 Broadway in Everett, call (425) 258-3673, or log onto aquasox.com.
This story was not subject to the approval of the National Association of Professional Baseball Leagues or its clubs.View More


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This article is an open access article distributed under the terms and conditions of the Creative Commons Attribution license (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0/).
This paper proposes a distributed method for cooperative target tracking in hierarchical wireless sensor networks. The concept of leader-based information processing is conducted to achieve object positioning, considering a cluster-based network topology. Random timers and local information are applied to adaptively select a sub-cluster for the localization task. The proposed energy-efficient tracking algorithm allows each sub-cluster member to locally estimate the target position with a Bayesian filtering framework and a neural networking model, and further performs estimation fusion in the leader node with the covariance intersection algorithm. This paper evaluates the merits and trade-offs of the protocol design towards developing more efficient and practical algorithms for object position estimation.
Giving the limited power and processing capability in a sensor mote, a critical challenge of target tracking is how to acquire suitable data and perform information processing at the local level through cooperative communication and networking in the vicinity of the target. Thus, scalability and the need to conserve energy lead to the idea of hierarchically organizing the sensors, which can represent the target state and incorporate statistical models for the sensing schedule and target positioning. This paper aims to develop a fully distributed method for cooperative target tracking in wireless sensor networks from two perspectives: (1) energy-balanced tracking and (2) improved estimation accuracy.
The first perspective is to build up an energy-balanced tracking network architecture. In this work, the concept of leader-based information processing is conducted to automatically achieve cooperative sensor scheduling with multiple tasking sensors in a cluster-based network topology based on sensor residual energy level, target information, and estimation quality. To avoid the ambiguity, the clusterhead and the cluster members refer to the original network topology, whereas the leader and the sub-cluster members refer to the sensor group for the tracking task. Random timers and local criteria are used to determine the tracking responsibility of the clusters. Afterwards, a sub-cluster of the corresponding cluster for the tracking task is formed by a leader, which can be a clusterhead or a cluster member in the original cluster-based network. The second perspective is to explore the behaviors/characteristics of a target such that supplementary information can be applied to improve estimation accuracy. Within the sub-cluster, the sensing nodes provide their measurements to the leader. Upon receiving the measurements, the leader fuses the local estimates from the sub-cluster members and reports it to the clusterhead. When the target moves out the region of the current active sub-cluster, the leader needs to trigger the leader handoff procedure (detailed in Section 3.4).
As shown in [
In Phases I and II, random timers and local information are applied to adaptively select a tasking leader and sub-cluster members for the localization task. In Phase III, the Bayesian particle filter [
The major contributions and key features of this paper are listed as follows. (1) We propose a novel cooperative positioning approach. (2) One of the main advantages of Bayesian framework is that the tasking sensor carries along a complete distribution of estimates of the target position. Thus, the distribution is inherently a measure of the accuracy of the positioning system. (3) Due to the characteristics of the cooperative information processing, the proposed estimation fusion approach owns adaptive flexibility when dealing with uncertainty in position estimation. (4) In practice, two basic approaches can be applied to conserve power in a sensor network, either by the power management for sensor sleeping or by the design of low-power operation hardware. Our scheme is actually a distributed scheduling strategy for target tracking. The concept of "power management for sensor sleeping" is applied to select a subset of sensors for exploring detailed target information. The selected sub-cluster members (active nodes) are performing the tracking task and the inactive nodes can go to the idle/sleep mode. (5) We compare and contrast the existing tracking approaches with the proposed scheme. (6) We outline the technical foundations of the tracking techniques and present the tradeoffs in the algorithm design.
The rest of the paper is organized as follows. Section 2 briefly reviews the literatures on target tracking. Section 3 formulates the problem, derives a distributed solution, and describes a neural networking refinement model for target positioning. Section 4 presents an estimation-theoretic analysis of the proposed mechanism to assess the achievable estimation accuracy. Then, Section 5 considers the energy consumption of the proposed tracking scheme. In Section 6, the feasibility of the proposed scheme is examined via simulation. The performance comparison between the proposed approach and the scheme with a hierarchical network topology in [
There are five major categories for the target tracking solutions [
Since the proposed approaches fall into the category of cluster-based tracking, we focus on the research results of this category. The following subsections briefly describe the current literature of target tracking with respect to the number of tasking sensors.
In the current literature, the general problem formation of target tracking is reformed to be a sensor selection problem with the uniform sampling interval and without incorporating the target dynamics,
In general, the localization problem can be solved by the joint time-of-arrival (TOA)/angle-of-arrival (AOA) positioning scheme using a single seed (
For the purpose of increasing estimation accuracy and reliability, multiple tasking sensors may be scheduled to track the target with detection uncertainties. In [
In [
Note that most of these design approaches are dynamic clustering protocols in a flat network. In contrast, the method in [
In this section, we present the proposed distributed cooperative target tracking system:
When sensors are first deployed, they may apply the CAWT [
Assume the initial value of the waiting time of sensor
Based on the claimed message sent from the leader and the cluster ID of the leader, the target will send a message to inform the active sensors about the corresponding cluster for the tracking task, which also notifies the active sensors with the same cluster ID to be the candidate sub-cluster members associated with the leader. To choose the members associated with a leader, instead of directly selecting the active sensors from the leader, the sensor selection may be determined based on the reporting order of target position estimates from the neighboring active sensors of the leader. Accordingly, a candidate sub-cluster member, say sensor
For those active sensors without receiving a
This phase presents a measurement mechanism to estimate the target position. The localization operation is performed in three phases: "initial geometrical positioning", "position estimation refinement", and "estimation fusion". For each sub-cluster member, the Bayesian particle filter is used to obtain an initial position estimate. Next, the localization adjustment problem can be solved by applying a neural networking model to refine the sample area and then redoing the particle filter to improve the positioning accuracy. Finally, estimation fusion is performed by the leader node in order to obtain a global estimate.
The Bayesian particle filter [
The idea in [
Since the AOA measurement quality highly depends on the communication environment, this subsection presents estimation refinement criteria based on noisy AOA information, TOA information, and an angle-of-arrival neural networking (ANN) model. The purpose of the ANN model is to coordinate the initial target position estimate, the initial sample space, and the measurement information in a scenario with multiple tasking sensors such that effectively adjustment of angle information and a better sample area for particle filtering can be provided.
The feed-forward backpropagation (FFBP) and cascade-forward backpropagation (CFBP) are supervised learning algorithms for artificial neural networks which most commonly used for prediction, pattern recognition, and nonlinear function fitting [
Assume that the network under consideration has a general architecture with three layers of neurons. In our case, input and output layer neurons are linear, whereas neurons in the hidden layer are tan-sigmoidal. Let the vector pairs in
In order to adjust angle information, the three-layer perceptron neural network is considered. Based on the proposed network architecture, the goal of training is to maximize the correlation
In order to improve positioning accuracy with particle filtering, one option is to determine an appropriate sample space for generating particles. As shown in
After importing the information of the defined rectangle and the tasking sub-cluster to the trained neural networking model, a reference angle information (RAI), (
For obtaining global estimates, we adopt covariance intersection to perform data fusion. The CI method of [
The distributed scheme is executed in two steps: (1) Group Estimation: local decisions are performed; (2) Estimation Fusion: a fusion rule is applied to combine the posterior density of the estimation from each member of the cooperative group in the leader sensor. Since the weight reflects the significance attached to the estimate, the next issue is to determine the weigh
This phase performs the sub-cluster member reselection and leader handoff task, which aims to maintain tracking stability. The conditions for initiating the leader handoff procedure are:
The distance between the reference location of the sub-cluster member Due to the movement of the target, the number of
The distance between the reference location of the sub-cluster member
Due to the movement of the target, the number of
For condition 1, ℜ =
Due to the cluster-based network topology, the handoff schemes can be further divided into two categories: (1) intra-cluster leader handoff and (2) inter-cluster leader handoff. Since the clusterhead collects the supplementary estimates and receives the estimate from the leader, it may monitor the
Referring to [
The measurements at the reference sensor can be modeled as
Given the above assumptions [
Thus, the Fisher information matrix yields
Accordingly, the best possible fused estimation for target localization may be determined by applying
This section considers the energy consumption of the proposed scheme in Section 3. It is often the case that inter-sensor communication costs are greater by orders of magnitude than local computation and sensing costs with respect to energy expenditures [
When the target broadcasts a message with
Afterward, the active sub-cluster members of the leader are selected according to the extra backoff time
As characterized in Phase IV, since the clusterhead has the capability of updating the sub-cluster members, a cluster member, say sensor
To evaluate the performance of the proposed approach, assume that the target moves within the
The target trajectory and measurements are generated based on
For the CFBP model,
In order to further explore the effectiveness of the proposed refinement scheme, four different information measurement scenarios are considered: (1) AOA information only; (2) AOA with neural network (ANN) refinement; (3) Joint TOA/AOA information only; (4) Joint TOA/AOA with ANN refinement.
To assess the tracking accuracy, the root mean square error is used for comparing the tracking accuracy of the distributed TCAT with that of [
As illustrated in
Notice that the above performance evaluation is based on AOA information only without executing estimation refinement.
Compared with
Given the variance of angle estimation
The simulation is performed with different density of nodes, considering the number of messages transmitted and received involved in clustering and target localization. In order to evaluate the network performance, several models for measuring the energy dissipation per transmitted bit have been proposed [
Observe that in
Because of the resource-constrained sensors, feasible wireless sensor-based tracking systems require more breakthroughs in terms of network architecture, system design, and data processing techniques. In order to achieve good tracking quality, the number of sensors chosen for target positioning may be dynamically adjusted based on the available target and sensor information. Thus, incorporating the target motion information into cooperative positioning schemes with multiple sensors may be a good strategy to improve the estimation accuracy. Future plans will involve generalizing the method to implement a prototype of the tracking system, evaluate the merits of different cooperative schemes, explore the characteristics of target mobility model, and further examine the impact of target motion information on cooperative estimation performance.
Illustration of block diagram for the TCAT method.
The cluster-based network topology and target movement with 25 time steps (
An example of obtaining the
The three-layer perception network architecture for analyzing the performance of the TCAT.
The initial sample area (
The deviation of RAI from the target (
The original RAI (
An example of adaptively updating the sub-cluster members with Δ
An example of leader handoff procedure.
The target localization error with
The performance analysis of the network (
The target localization error (
The comparison of target localization error with/without ANN refinement.
The comparison of target localization error with/without ANN refinement (
The performance comparison of TCAT with joint AOA/TOA and CRLB: X-axis (
The typical runs of sub-cluster formation (
The number of transmission/reception: the communication cost.
The comparison of accumulated network energy consumption.
The Particle Filtering Methodology.
Procedures of the TCAT model for target tracking.
Target broadcasts a message with
Determine the active sensors
and the leader
Find the sub-cluster members:
while( if((
. Send the position estimate to the leader or clusterhead. if(|
Send the position estimate to the leader or clusterhead.
Estimation Fusion:
Leader sends the global fused estimate The clusterhead disseminates the
Leader sends the global fused estimate
The clusterhead disseminates the
Perform leader handoff (renewing sub-cluster members):
if( if( if( while( if( if( Target broadcasts a message with Go to Step 4.
if( if(
while( if(
Target broadcasts a message with
Go to Step 4.
The Values of Simulation Parameters [
|50 nJ/bit
|10 pJ/bit/m2
|0.0013 pJ/bit/m4
|Transmission range
|Energy for data aggregation
|5 nJ/bit/signal
|Data packet size
|2048 bits


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[Date Index]
[Thread Index]
[Author Index]
Re: Sticky scaling? (for printing)
On Aug 11, 3:00 am, AES <sieg... at stanford.edu> wrote:
> Possible to set the default value for the Printing magnification for a
> given notebook so that this value will be 'sticky' and remain set for
> that particular notebook even after you close the notebook and/or quite
> Mathematica?
> [By "Printing magnification" I mean the value of whatever parameter it
> is that will function the same as does the "Scale: " value that you can
> set using the File >> Printing Settings >> Page Setup dialog box -- that
> is, magnify the size of type and graphics appearing on the printed
> pages, while keeping the page size the same, so that line breaks and
> page breaks are recalculated and come earlier than if you hadn't done
> this.
> If you magnify the printed output using this menu command, (a) it
> doesn't stick to the document, and (b) it affects the printing of all
> other notebooks also, which may not be what you want.]
SetOptions[EvaluationNotebook[], Magnification -> 2]


text:
Elisha Cuthbert looks for love on 'Happy Endings'
LOS ANGELES Elisha Cuthbert is looking for love.
"A lot of people loved to hate my character on 24," says the actress, who played Jack Bauer's rebellious, accident-prone daughter Kim on the long-running series. "I want to be the character people love to love."
So she signed on to star in the new ABC comedy series Happy Endings (tonight, 9:30 p.m. ET/PT).
It might take a few episodes for audiences to fall for her. When they first see her character, Alex, she's walking down the aisle in a wedding dress. A few minutes later she has a change of heart.
The wedding disaster is just a vivid way to introduce all the characters. "It shows who we are and where we're at," Cuthbert says. "I have some redeeming to do after leaving my fiancé at the altar. I have to win back the audience, but we don't dwell on that for too long."
Cuthbert herself has never exited so dramatically from a romance. "I've had pretty standard relationships that weren't too long-term," she says. "My relationship now (with Toronto Maple Leafs hockey player Dion Phaneuf) is the longest I've ever been in. I think that's good because it's keeping on track with my age (28). I'm getting older and wiser."
Cuthbert lives part-time in Los Angeles and part-time in Toronto. "I do believe that when you know better, you do better," she says. "You know what was wrong about the last relationship, and hopefully you will do better the next time."
Since becoming famous through 24, Cuthbert has tried with limited success to build a film career. She co-starred in Old School, Love Actually, The Girl Next Door and House of Wax, along with a few little-seen independent films. She also appeared in six episodes of Christian Slater's recent crime series The Forgotten.
Cuthbert decided to seek out TV comedy because, she says, "I want people to see a different side of me. I spent a lot of years trying to figure out plotlines and do the whole dramatic thing. It's been an awakening to not have to think too hard about anything and just have a good time. I'm trying to let go of any feelings of embarrassment."
Cuthbert says she's more like her character Alex than any other character she has played.
"Maybe it's because I was always afraid to be myself. I always thought the hard part about acting was creating another character, being someone you're not," she says.
After 17 years in the business, Cuthbert was ready to show people "a little bit more of me."
She says, "Alex is the heart of me. I'm a regular Canadian girl. I enjoy staying home. In the summer I've got a garden. I'm very much a homebody, a normal, family-oriented girl. But I do have this other incredible side of my life that involves acting and traveling."
If Happy Endings has any of the success of Friends, a show that it resembles, Cuthbert will completely lose her anonymity.
"We've been getting a lot of comparisons to Friends," she admits. "Of course we have some correlations. There's a part of Friends in every half-hour comedy." In fact, the first episode of Friends featured Rachel (Jennifer Aniston) arriving at a coffee shop to meet her pals after leaving her fiancé at the altar.
"Our show is about love," Cuthbert says, "love between a group of friends, love that doesn't necessarily always work out, the search for love."
Although there is still talk of a 24 movie, Cuthbert is skeptical of it happening any time soon.
"Kiefer (Sutherland) is in New York doing a play (That Championship Season)," she says. "I've heard the script is there, and then I've heard it's not there. I don't think that Kiefer would do anything not up to par."
Would she return as Kim? She was a regular cast member for three years and then popped up occasionally during the next five seasons. "My character is very particular, and her appearance needs to make sense in the plot," she says. "But if they wanted me, of course."
Posted | Updated


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|"We Should Kill Him First"
|(殺しておくべきだ, Koroshite Okubeki da, Viz: We Ought to Kill Him)
|Chapter Info
|I Love You (#71)
|"I Had The Same Dream As You"
|Naruto #684
|"Everything I Have Got…!!"
|Kaguya Ōtsutsuki Strikes
|Naruto Shippūden #470
Sakura realises that Obito was willing to die so easily because he was beyond saving but soon casts aside these thoughts when the Uchiha calls her, and Naruto's clone forth. Though Kaguya notes their presence, she pays little to no attention to them on the battlefield and instead opts to attack the real Naruto. As Naruto contemplates his next course of action, he settles on a combination of diversionary tactics and taijutsu. Kokuō lends Naruto support with its steam-based ninjutsu bolstering Naruto's physical attacks to monstrous levels. Shocked that she was being pressured in her own dimension, Kaguya emerges from the rubble to find herself surrounded by a barrage of shadow clones. Assaulted from all sides, Kaguya is forced to retreat to another dimension — an opportunity which Naruto and Obito take to invade her dimension. Sensing the invaders, Black Zetsu advises his mother to kill Naruto rather than give him the opportunity to reunite with Sasuke and seal her. Though hesitant at first, she ultimately agrees with this advise and uses her All-Killing Ash Bones technique which strikes Naruto and begins to disintegrate his body. Believing that now the clones would be gone as well, she returns to her ice-clad dimension to find the clones still there much to her shock. Meanwhile, Obito and Sakura invade her main dimension, intent on finding Sasuke.


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Time Schedule:
Denis Basic
Seattle Campus
Reading and discussion of selected works of major importance in interdisciplinary international studies. Restricted to majors in International Studies.
Class description
This is an advanced reading course in which we shall be exploring the phenomenon of "Holy War," primarily in Islamic and Christian (later to be Western) civilizations, but also in Judaism. We shall be examining historical roots of religious conflicts, as well as their implications on today's world.
Hence, we shall be scrutinizing the question whether the origins of the concept of Holy War for Jews, Christians, and Muslims can be traced back to their differing interpretations of scripture, or rather to sheer mundane reasons, like economic and political prestige, and eventually even to secular ideologies, like nationalism and imperialism, or to both - religious and worldly reasons.
To achieve this goal, we shall be researching original sources - Jewish, Christian, and Muslim ones - in English translation, besides studying the commentaries by prominent scholars in the fields of history, history of religion, and Near and Middle Easter Studies. To give some color to the written word, we shall also be watching some documentaries related to the subject.
Student learning goals
to master the concepts of Jihad and Crusade, and Holy War in general, through a historical prism;
to examine the relationship between the Medieval Crusades and Jihads and contemporary political events and violence;
to practice analytical and critical thinking while evaluating the strengths of different arguments based on authors' source selection and methods;
to explore the power of propaganda throughout centuries;
to examine the motives for violence by applying psycho-historical and socio-psychological, besides conventional scholarly apparati.
General method of instruction
This course is envisioned as a reading seminar. We shall be meeting once per week for two hours mainly to discuss the materials that we will be reading on our own. Besides working on written materials, we shall also be watching and discussing some documentary movies related to the main themes of the course.
Recommended preparation
Regular class attendance, reading in advance to be prepared for class discussions, timely submission of assignments, and early start on the term paper will guarantee a complete success in the course.
Class assignments and grading
• Ten reading logs based on pre-assigned readings. Reading logs are due in the beginning of the class every Thursday starting with week 2. The reading logs contain students reflections and comments on the readings assigned for the given week.
[Length: the minimum of three double-spaced pages (28 lines per page) in Times New Roman font, 12 pt. Bring a printed version of the reading log to class and e-mail the electronic version to the instructor. Instructor may or may not provide questions as guidelines for reading logs. Best reading logs will be posted on the website and will bring the student extra points.]
• Two Presentation - each student will give two short presentations in class based on the assigned readings. Students will be expected to present the materials and prepare questions for discussions based on weekly readings. Presenters need to prepare a PPP that will highlight the main points. The PPPs will be posted online. In addition to these two presentations, all students will briefly present the final findings of their term papers during the last class session.
• Term paper - The term paper needs to be based on a pre-approved topic and list of literature. It can be a review of one of the books from the list of secondary literature (see below), or a comparison of views by two or more authors on a specific subject from the lists of primary and secondary literature located below or from some other pre-approved sources.
[Technical specifications: 12 double-spaced pages, not including bibliography and cover page. Use the Chicago style. Main body of the text in Times New Roman font 12pt, footnotes in Times New Roman 10 pt.]
An outline of the paper is due on Thursday, October 17 in class. The outline of the paper needs to include the hypothesis/question considered, the first results of initial research, as well as the list of literature that the student plans to use in the paper.
The final version of the paper is due on the last day of instruction, Thursday, December 12, 2013.
• No formal final exam.
•Class attendance 10% •Participation in discussions 10% •Ten reading logs 50% (5% each) •Two Presentations 10% •Term paper 20 %


text:
Photo gallery: New Penn Hills police officers sworn in
Penn Hills Mayor Anthony DeLuca swore in four new police officers at the municipal council's Monday, Sept. 16, 2013, meeting. Officers Matthew Benick, Lindsay Johe, Adam Lawrence and Dennis Robl Jr. were welcomed to the PHPD by council members.
The new hires brings the total of Penn Hills police to 49. The department is budgeted for 50 positions, according to Chief Howard Burton.
Patrick Varine is an editor for Trib Total Media. He can be reached at 412-320-7845 or email@example.com.


text:
ACS Presents: ALICE and Why Progressives Should Take Back Statehouses, with Professor Joel Rogers
For nearly forty years, conservative-backed ALEC has secretively disseminated model laws to its network of more than 2,000 state legislators -- resulting in a weakened democracy and increased big-business dominance in American public life. Now, progressives are coming together to build the state and local political infrastructure necessary to support working families and the middle class, promote sustainability, and revitalize democracy. The American Legislative and Issue Campaign Exchange, or ALICE, is a small but vital piece of this infrastructure.
Joel Rogers is professor of law, political science, public affairs and sociology at the University of Wisconsin-Madison and director of COWS, the national strategy center for high road development and governance. He has written widely on American politics and democratic theory (e.g., On Democracy, Right Turn, Associations and Democracy, Metro Futures, Works Councils, Working Capital, What Workers Want, The Forgotten Majority), advised many politicians and governments, and helped found and operate several progressive NGOs (e.g., Center for a New Democracy, New Party, Economic Analysis Research Network, Apollo Alliance, Emerald Cities Collaborative, and, most recently, ALICE). A MacArthur Foundation fellow, Newsweek identifies him as one of the 100 living Americans most likely to shape U.S. politics and culture in the 21st century.
ALICE is an online public library of progressive state and local legislation written by citizens, including law students and professors at schools around the country. It brings together both "exemplary" laws (those introduced or enacted somewhere and worthy of replication) as well as "model" laws (those with suggested general language, ready to be tailored to a particular jurisdiction). There's also background research, talking points, and other aids for effective communication. ALICE founder and executive director Joel Rogers will speak on how students can help ALICE promote a progressive agenda for states and cities.


text:
Our Clients Comments
What an amazing adventure we've been on these last few months. We are so appreciative for all your help and support in finding our Montana dream home.
Scott and Kristen Bogan-11/15/2011
Rod and Christie were so helpful with our home sale. They are upbeat and always accessible. Easy to talk to, we never felt pressure with them. They were really looking out for our best interests.
Scott and Kristen Bogan-9/15/2011
Rod Freeman recently helped us purchase a property in the Bitterroot Valley. It was a complicated sale because there were two sellers, both were out of state, there were renters involved, my husband was out of state, and I was out of the country several time zones away. Rod took care of everything for us. He scheduled and attended every inspection, paid attention to all of the details, and kept every one on schedule. Things went surprisingly smoothly and we couldn't have been more pleased. We have purchased a number of properties over the years, in quite a few states, and Rod is unequivocally the best buyers' agent we have ever used. His customer service even continues long after the closing.
Susan Young -07/20/2011
Hi Rod & Christie
I want to thank the both of you for making us feel so welcome in Montana, you both went far beyond anything we expected, you found the perfect property for myself, Elizabeth and the boys. Your help was so appreciated as we had no real idea of the American home buying process you made it seem so simple. We have never experienced this level of professionalism in any way in England and your after sales service goes far beyond the call of duty you are dealing with all aspects of our home while we are in England we cannot thank you enough for this,we only hope we can repay you for your kindness when we eventually move out to Montana. All of us think of you as first ever American friends and hope to be for a long time to come.
The boys cant wait to get back out and see your horses. We can't wait to get back and start our new life in Montana.
If you ever need anyone to recommend your services please put my name forward and I will be more than happy to help.
Again a big thank you.
Kindest Regards
Paul, Elizabeth, Kieron & Cody-04/12/2011
Rod and Christie are exceptional! Awesome knowledge, availability and expertise, we have already recommended them and will continue to do so.
Howard and Kelly Polden-02/03/2011
Rod has been a valuable asset in knowing and understanding the local real estate market. I would recommend him to anyone interested in buying or selling real estate in the Bitterroot Valley or Western Montana.
Jason Joost -02/03/2011
Dear Rod and Christie,
Thank you so much for your help making our dream home purchase in Victor a reality. It's a great feeling to have professionals on your side, and you guys certainly fit the bill.
Your friends and clients for life,
Frank and Patricia Tinley - 01/26/2011
I just wanted you to know that we (Amy and I) are extremely thankful for all the effort and help that you and Rod did for us. Not knowing how things are going to turn out on this deal. I just wanted you both to know from the bottom of my heart I'm thankful and grateful for all your help and expertise. You have made this experience a delight. Even if this deal goes through, I hope that we can do alot more business in the near future. Have a great and wonderful day!
Aaron and Amy White
We were so happy when Rod Freeman developed a web site with a place for customer comments. Potential clients should know Rod Freeman, the real estate agent.
We came in contact with Rod Freeman a few years back when looking for a future real estate investment in Montana. We had a long list of properties we had downloaded off the internet. We only had a day to look, and Rod took the time to look over each one, giving us his input based on what we told him we were looking for. He wanted to make the most of the limited time we had. We immediately felt very comfortable with him and trusted his judgment regarding the properties that he felt didn't fit our criteria. He was very knowledgeable about the Montana area, and very honest and up front with questions that we had. Rod Freeman was not concerned with just making a sale. He was concerned with finding us the "perfect home". He encouraged us to return to Montana to look at properties with him when we had more time.
We cannot say enough about Rod. You will not find a more honest person than Rod Freeman. He is dedicated to his clients and making sure that he finds them the property that suits them perfectly. He is totally committed to them and works tirelessly to make them happy. His work ethics are second to none. I know, I have my own business and consider myself successful, not by the amount of money I make, but by the satisfied customers I have. This is the true measure of success...and it defines Rod Freeman.
We continue to enjoy trips to Montana to view properties with the plan to eventually buy a place, and each time includes a visit with Rod, someone we have come to know as a true friend.
You can define Rod Freeman in these simple, but powerful words: WARM, HONEST, CARING, DEDICATED.
Craig and Courtney Young
Vacaville, California
We bought our first home from Rod Freeman while on vacation five years ago. He was extremely knowledgeable and friendly as he introduced us to this beautiful valley. He showed us properties from Darby to Corvallis. When we looked at the east side, we knew we had discovered a wonderful place to live. Once we decided to sell the first house in order to buy the house of our dreams, we knew Rod would be the one to make sure the transactions went smoothly. We appreciated his honesty and integrity before, during, and after the process. Even after Rod took down our "sold" sign, his relationship with us continued. We now call him "Rod Freeman, our good friend."
Dean and Patty Jackson
Corvallis, Montana