text:
County's single school districts thrive
GENEVA TOWNSHIP--Next fall at Woods School in the town of Geneva, a fiber optic line that provides high-speed Internet service will be installed in the same building where kindergarteners play on the original wood floors in a wing of the structure that dates back to 1886.
That juxtaposition of high tech and history make schools like Woods, the single K-8 school that makes up Geneva Joint 4 District, in a class by themselves.
According to the Wisconsin Department of Public Instruction, there are 10 single-school union high school districts in the state and 46 underlying elementary K-8 districts that are feeder districts to the high schools. Three of those districts send students to more than one union district, said Debra Bougie, DPI's communications specialist.
Some of the K-8 districts are single school districts and others have more than one school building. And� some rural districts serve all K-12 students in one building, though they may call themselves separate elementary and high schools, Bougie noted, adding there are no requirements in state law that regulate the size of schools or school districts.
Here in Walworth County, single-school districts for K-8 schools include Woods, Traver School in Linn Joint 4, Reek School in Linn Joint 6, Fontana Elementary School in Fontana Joint 8, and Sharon Community School in Sharon Joint 11.�
Ed Brzinski, Woods principal and Geneva J4 superintendent, pointed out eight of the 10 unionized high school districts are in southeastern Wisconsin. Many have histories that stretch back, like Woods, founded as a one-room wooden schoolhouse in 1858. The school celebrated its 150th anniversary in 2008, making it the oldest continuous K-8 school district in Wisconsin, Brzinski said. The northeast corner of the school still sports the cream city brick fa�ade that was built in 1886.�
"In a sense, we are kind of a holdover from another time," Brzinski said.
Even 50 years ago, the schools of single-school districts often served as everything from polling places to social gathering sites in small, rural communities.�
"There's no downtown here, and I know back in the day this was more of a community center because it was probably the nicest community building in the area," said Craig Collins, of Traver School in Linn township, where he is the principal and Linn J4 administrator. "But people didn't drive wherever they wanted to go like they do now. We live in a very fluid society today."
Traver, located on Linton Road. is surrounded by farm fields, not a busy urban neighborhood. "We don't have that visibility of people driving by every day who say, 'Hey, there's a school here.' I think we're a little harder to find," Collins said. "But parents who want a small school or a K-8 school setting tend to find us as much as we find them."
Rooted in their communities, single school districts have drawn generations of hometown students. Lillian Henderson, district administrator for Sharon J11 and principal of Sharon Community School can� list Sharon graduates still in the area: a� police officer, current and future school board members, a school office worker and a teacher.�
What has changed the playing field for some single-school districts is open enrollment, the state program that allows students to attend public school in a district outside of the one where they reside. The number of open-enrollment applications has grown from 5,926 in 1998, when the program started, to 42, 194 in February of 2014, according to the DPI website.��
"Even the issue of transportation doesn't deter a lot of people," Collins said. "If you live somewhere in that state where the next school is 50 miles from here and you have to drive, well, that helps you make up your mind real quick. Whereas around here, look how many schools are within a 15-minute drive. That makes it easy for people to open enroll and get the education they want for their children."
At Woods, Brizinski said the current student population is 208, historically as high as it has ever been. Though the district is small—roughly six square miles—he estimated about half of the open enrollments come from the city of Lake Geneva.
Thanks in part to open enrollment students, Sharon Community School has not only maintained its music program, including instrumental and choral classes, and its interscholastic sports, but added a family consumer science and world language programs, Henderson said.
Fontana Elementary School records show 93 open enrollment students this year—close to one-third of the total student body.� Principal Sara Norton, who is also district administrator for Fontana J8, expects that number may rise to half the student population in a matter of years.
"Our open enrollees are from all different socio-economic groups across the board, not just one group," Norton said. "I don't think in that respect we're seen as 'back water.'"
Local K-8 single school districts offer classes even some bigger districts have eliminated. Fontana Elementary, for instance, has a band room and a music lab, complete with keyboards and a wall of guitars that students can learn to play. The school also gives older students time at an outdoor education camp in Lake Geneva to participate in hands-on environmental projects.
Such opportunities, however, need revenue streams to pay for them. It's a difficult proposition for schools limited by municipal tax levies and state aid.
Norton said Fontana Elementary has been fortunate. "Our entire state aid is $12,000, versus our neighbors who are pulling in a million dollars in state aid," she said "Just have that stable property base for taxes allows the budget here to stay stable."
But a sluggish economy that still hasn't totally rebounded after a 2008 downturn has wreaked havoc on small communities. A foundry where some parents of Sharon Community School students worked closed over two years ago, Henderson said. Since then, the free and reduced lunch count of students soared to 62 percent.
Sharon J11 received slightly over $2 million in state aid payments for the 2012-2013 school years, and Henderson conceded state aid makes up a major part of the budget.
The school operates its own food service program and operates its own school buses.
Sharon Community School also runs a licensed childcare center, taking children 6 weeks old and up from 6 a.m. to 6 p.m. year round that's drawn both parents of students and teachers. Additionally, the school offers space for a Head Start program.
In 2010, resident taxpayers approved a $5.8 million referendum to replace the school's heating system and roofs as well as upgrade its technology and security systems.
"The fact that the people in the community dug even deeper into their pockets—because we have a higher mill rate than most in the area—is gratifying," Henderson said. "These were things that absolutely had to happen, but we wouldn't have been able to do that through the general fund."
At Woods School, where space is at such a premium a storage closet is being turned into a reading classroom, a $5.5 million referendum for renovations was voted down in 2013, 208 votes to 70.
"It just means I have to do a better job of listening and explaining because we're still going to have to renovate," Brzinski said. "Part of our job is getting the message out to people who don't have children here now. We want to make sure that we're ready for the next 10 years because education is different now than it was in 1950 or 1970. We have to keep maintaining our technology, but we are being economically responsible for the community. I pay taxes here, too, and I want to be able to afford living here 10 to 15 years from now."
Brzinski said as an administrator, he's taken time to seek out opportunities to save money. Through a combination of e-rate applications that provide discounts for schools, a Time-Warner service agreement and state subsidies like Teach Wisconsin, he will bump the school's bandwidth up from 10 to 100 megabytes next year, saving the district roughly $60,000 over the next five years.
A former principal of Central-Denison Elementary School in Lake Geneva, Reek School Principal Samantha Polek, who is also Linn J6 district administrator, has found smaller schools mean smaller budgets spent frugally but creatively.
"I remember working with teachers with their orders and requisition for supplies and things, trying to get them down to $1,000. Here, every teacher is allowed $200, but they're used to it," she said. "That's just one great divide I saw with my own eyes—how much people in other places are accustomed to having and yet when you walk into the classrooms here, they're well-furnished. We have a Smartboard in every classroom. We have a one-to-one iPads."
Polek looks at digital technology in terms of cost-effective savings. A social studies teacher at Reek uses online educational sites, not textbooks,� in his course. IPads reduce printing, ink and paper supplies. "We're using the iPad minis, but they're still almost just under $500 a device. We consider them an investment. It puts learning in the kids' hands. They're excited," Polek said.
Pooling resources has also helped in everything from purchasing paper and textbook contracts to writing grants. In 2012, six school districts around Geneva Lake, including Geneva J4, Linn J4 and Linn J6, formed a health insurance consortium. Brzinski said Woods staff has seen no increase in the overall cost of the health insurance for the third year.��
For specialists like physical or occupational therapists, some schools contract with the county for services. Others share part-time teachers or support staff, be it a business manager or curriculum director.
At Sharon Community School, the Big Foot Recreation Department sponsors some extra-curricular programs at the school.
"We're fortunate because for many of our families, if you're a working person you can't pick up your child at three 'o'clock and drive them to the high school for a program," Henderson said. "The cost of gas is prohibitive, and it's not like there's public transportation here, so it's a little daunting for some people.
Sometimes, it's a matter of juggling. In the three years since Brzinski has been at Woods, the school's�� 4- and 5-year-old kindergarten programs went from half-day to a full-day 5-K and a full-day, three-day-a-week 4-K.
"We did that through increasing the enrollment numbers and canceling the half-day bus route," he said. "It took us three years to break even, but in order to do that, you have to think three years out."
Administrators say they also share each other's experience and expertise in dealing with issues and the job itself.
�"The dual role is the most difficult thing about being a single school district," Norton said. "If you think about it everything that is done in Madison or Milwaukee public school districts, we also have to do: the reporting, the data collection. The big may have three or four assistant superintendents or someone in their human resources department to handle if, but in a small district like this, there are a very limited number of people who can pick up those tasks, but they still have to be done."
"The roles are very intertwined, and I think that's probably my biggest challenge, said Polek. "(At Central-Denison) we had so many great resources. Now it's a K-8 school and it's just me, a secretary and a part-time business manager."
"One moment I may be sitting in with a kindergartener reading a book, and the next minute I may be figuring out a well issue," Brzinski said. "It's challenging, but I feel like I really make a big difference. I feel like I get to affect a lot of people here."
Tami Martin said it was the small class sizes and the reputation for a quality education that attracted her to Reek when she was looking for a school for her sons David, 13, and Jeff, 12.� But she discovered something more.�
"When we first chose Reek back when David was entering first grade, the fact when I walked in the doors I felt like it was a community. It felt like family," Martin said in an email. "The middle-school teachers knew my 3-year-old by name. The teachers rotated teaching assignments when different needs arose so they knew your kid before they were technically their homeroom student.
"I once watched the math teacher shovel the sidewalks. Every staff member just pitches in and does what is needed to get the job done. I wanted my kids in a place where the whole school community was involved in educating my children."
Martin, who is a teacher at East view Elementary and Central Denison schools in Lake Geneva, said she's more than just a name and face at Reek.
"I am valued as a parent and my questions and concerns are taken seriously. I am not sure if I feel like I have more input or just that my kids and myself are valued," she said. "I know all the teachers and staff whether or not my kids are in their class, and because I know the entire staff, I do feel more connected and more in touch."
That feeling is shared at other single-school districts. "There's no anonymity here. People get to know you very well," said Brzinski, a former Lake Geneva schools teacher for 21 years.
"What we find is that once students are done here, their level of adult interaction is so much greater than students who sometimes go through larger school systems, just because they know how to talk and interact very well," he said. Their interpersonal skills are very high. They're much more caring about their classmates and adults."
Norton said the structure of a small K-8 school single-school district can be insulating and isolating, especially for middle school students.
"Our kids right now have the same teacher for three years. If you have the same math teacher for three years, the benefit is that math teacher knows where those kids are, gets to know where that learning curve is every school year," she said. "The drawback is our kids get one teacher. They don't get the different ways of teaching. They don't get novelty, which is what middle school brains thrive on."
But Henderson pointed to research showing bigger cities, such as New York, turning back to a K-8 setting, saying that blend of ages may benefit older students.
"Middle school is kind of a rocky period and it's nice that many times the same person who taught you in kindergarten might wag her finger at you when you're a very bold eighth grader walking down the hall," Henderson said.�
"There is a leadership potential for middle school children in K-8. They are always role models for the little ones and they know that. The little ones think the older kids are like gods and goddesses," Polek said. "We talk about that a lot. 'Oh, my goodness, you're running in the halls? What if the first graders see you do that? They'll think it's acceptable.'"
Single-school district administrators do say that their small size helps them move forward without the usual red tape of a larger district. Norton said last year her teachers were quickly able to set up intervention classes for students who weren't meeting academic benchmarks. And a parent-teacher group was not only able to raise funds for new playground in five months, but even helped put up the equipment.��
From a local church providing breakfasts and lunches over spring break for students of low-income families to an area company donating iPads for classrooms, community support for single-school districts is common.�
Part of that is a deep-rooted affinity for the schoolds.Brzinski said it's not unusual to get alumni returning to Woods asking for a tour.
"I had one person stop by who lived down the road and was selling his farm," he remembered. "He brought in some baseball bases, saying students had used them for the baseball games played in the 1940s.� He was on one of the teams and wondered if we wanted them back. So we put them in the school trophy cases, the original bases from over 60 years ago."�
Henderson, who said her school's annual picnic even draws parents whose kids have long graduated, recalled a Sharon Community School graduate who'd moved to Iowa, but came back for a school reunion last summer.
"She told us in Iowa, they did way with some smaller, local schools and she felt that was the death knell for the little town she lived in. Once they lost their school, they lost their identity," Henderson said. "When our sign here says, 'We're the heart of the community,' we take it pretty seriously."


text:
The Killers, Edward Sharpe Lead LouFest Lineup
This year's music festival will be taking place on September 7th and 8th at Central Field in Forest Park in St. Louis, MO and for the first time will feature a third stage.
The event will also feature performances from Local Natives, Fitz and the Tantrums, Toro Y Moi, Twin Shadow, Trampled by Turtles, Walk The Moon, Ra Ra Riot, Court Yard Hounds and more.
LouFest 2013 Lineup:
Tool Album Will Be Out In 2018 Says Band Member
Alice Cooper To Star In Live 'Jesus Christ Superstar' On NBC
Robert Plant Joined By Chrissie Hynde At Recent Concert
Ghost Surprise Release 'Ceremony And Devotion' Album
Rolling Stones' Mick Jagger and Keith Richards Podcast Released
Simple Minds Announce New Album With Two Distinct 'Sides'
Myles Kennedy Releases 'Year Of The Tiger' Video
R.E.M.'s 'Automatic for the People' Anniversary Documentary Streaming
2017 hennemusic Rock News Awards Countdown Begins
Journey's Neal Schon Delivers Early Christmas Gift To Fans With EP
Dio Disciples' Guitarist Explains Goal Of Hologram Tour
Jimi Hendrix Both Sides Of The Sky Album Details Revealed
Eric Clapton Shares His View On The Future Of Guitar
Gregg Allman's Birthday Celebrated With 'Song for Adam' Video
Aerosmith's Steven Tyler Launches Shelter for Abused Women
Diddy And Beyonce Top Forbes' Annual Highest Paid 'Musicians' List
Ed Sheeran Tonight Show Performance And Niall Horan Story Go Online
Camila Cabello, Sugarland, Nick Jonas Set For New Year's Eve
Singled Out: Olive + Harrison's Can't Communicate
Louis Tomlinson Releases 'Miss You' Video
Cardi B And Offset Release Joint Track 'Um Yea'
Drake On New Trouble, Mike Will Made It Track 'Bring it Back'
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Meghan Trainor Reveals How Her Boyfriend Changed Her Life
Jay-Z Sends Kanye West 'Peace and Love' At Recent Show
Eminem Producer Talks The Rapper's 'Revival'
Liam Payne Streams Acoustic 'Bedroom Floor' Studio Performance
Chris Brown Gives His Daughter A Pet Monkey
Santa's Jukebox: Balsam Range, Sha Na Na and Jennifer Saran
Holiday Gift Guide: Jethro Tull - Songs from the Wood: The Country Set
Holiday Gift Guide: Queen - News of the World: 40th Anniversary Edition
Holiday Gift Guide: George Michael - Listen Without Prejudice Vol. 1/MTV Unplugged
Rock Reads: Beer Drinkers and Hell Raisers: The Rise of Motorhead
Rock Reads: Holiday Gift Guide Edition
Timothy B. Schmit - Leap of Faith
Bob Seger - I Knew You When (5 Star)
Root 66: Professor Louie and the Crowmatix - The Lost Band Tracks
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text:
Theories - Origin of Life
Discussion of everything related to the Theory of Evolution.
Moderator: BioTeam
Re: Theories - Origin of Life
Horizontal Gene Transfer and the Tree of Life
A common premise of all molecular phylogenetic methods is that genes are transmitted via vertical, lineal inheritance, i.e. from ancestor to descendant.
It was anticipated that this method would demonstrate the Darwinisn mechanism of common decent, and the universal tree of life would be vindicated.
However these molecular comparisons began producing some very contradictory results.
The hoped for Darwinian Tree of Life (TOL) simply has turned out to be more of a bush or even forest.
The largest biomedical research facility in the world is the National Institutes of Health with its subdivisions, National Center for Biotechnology Information, National Library of Medicine, at Bethesda, MD USA.
This is what Eugene Koonin it's Senior Investigator along with colleges presented in their paper in 2001
Horizontal Gene Transfer in Prokaryotes: Quantification and Classification
Eugene V. Koonin,1 Kira S. Makarova,1,2 and L. Aravind2.
Annu. Rev. Microbiol. 2001. 55:709 – 42.
Eight years later and as a result of more accumulated evidence Koonin and colleges present some more findings.
Search for a 'Tree of Life' in the thicket of the phylogenetic forest. (2009)
Puigbò P, Wolf YI, Koonin EV.
So lets try and bring this up to date.
A team of researchers has attempted to produce a new model of decent.
They have termed it the "Rooted Nest of Life".
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/article ... ool=pubmed
A Rooted Net of Life 2011
David Williams, #1 Gregory P Fournier, #2 Pascal Lapierre,3Kristen S Swithers,1 Anna G Green,1 Cheryl P Andam,1 and J Peter Gogarten 1
All papers are reviewed by expert reviewers before publication
Reviewer 1: W. Ford Doolittle, Dalhousie University Comments ( He is regarded as one of the foremost researchers in this field. Here is an extract of his comments.
There is a lot more but is this not enough to sum up the case against TOL.
But what about the "messy bit" Horizontal Gene Transfer.
Well lets keep that for the next post as this one is probably long enough.
Re: Theories - Origin of Life
The hypothesis of HGT militates against common decent and therefore the tree of life concept as posited by Darwin and also the neo Darwinian synthesis.
This is why there is such a vigorous debate between the opposing views within the evolutionary community, hence Koonin et al's observation that I quoted.
And HGT is the hypothesis that is intended to explain the reason why molecular phylogenetic trees produce such contradictory results.
HGT doesn't disprove any evolutionary process. It disproves the core Darwinian concept of decent from a universal common ancestor.
Please remember the phylogenetic tree was intended to prove common decent from a universal common ancestor and the tree of life diagram has been used to explain the common and vertical inheritance from that ancestor.
I hope I have explained that more clearly.
However the HGT has it's own difficulties as well as I hope to show next.
Re: Theories - Origin of Life
Few, if any, evolutionary biologists deny that HGT complicates the construction of prokaryotic trees. I doubt that any evolutionary biologist would consider this a problem for evolutionary theory. You contend that anything other than a simple, unambiguous, linear tree of life disproves evolution. No one educated in the biological sciences would make such a contention. When I looked at the parts of the quotes that you have put in bold in your posts, it became very clear that you do not understand what these people are saying. They are saying that evolutionary history is complex, not that it is wrong. As Jack has urged, please clarify why you think that HGT falsifies evolutionary theory. Specifically, please provide support that these authors, particularly Koonin, think evolution is bogus. You should thoroughly research something before misrepresenting quotes. Science, which you claim to admire, does not tolerate poor research.
Re: Theories - Origin of Life
wbla3335 » Sun Jan 15, 2012 5:15 am
Please read what I have actually said or have you not bothered to read my response to Jackbean's question.
You don't have to look very far, just 7 lines from the bottom of my last post.
Does that sound as if I am claiming HGT is falsifying evolutionary theory?
It is militating against the core Darwinian view of common ancestry.
Koonin actually goes further than I have. He includes the
Please argue against what I am actually saying.
Once again where have I stated that Koonin thinks evolution is bogus?
Are you not aware that I also acknowledge that evolution actually happens.
Change over time is a fact of life.
It is the Darwinian process of random mutation and speciation that I challenge, and I bring to bear the research of major figures and institutions of science in support.
So please when it comes to misrepresenting views it would be helpful to follow your own advice.
Re: Theories - Origin of Life
The conjunction of these two sentences belies your level of understanding. Evolution IS descent from common ancestors. You're suggesting that HGT disproves this. It doesn't. Are you suggesting that HGT is the dominant means of gene transfer? Are you suggesting that HGT somehow negates the consequences of vertical transfer?
You have done no such thing. You have misunderstood, quoted out of context, and promoted minority views while ignoring the overwhelming evidence that does not support your faith.
Re: Theories - Origin of Life
(1) Darwinism and neo Darwin or Modern synthesis IS decent from a Universal Common Ancester.(LUCA) not the rather loose description you appear to be trying to slide into.
Unless, -- if you are advancing your own private theory then please clearly state what that theory is so there can be no confusion.
(2) Doesn't disprove what? Your private theory or the neo Darwinist belief?
Koonin's view is
Is he wrong?
If so then may I suggest that you inform Koonin of that fact and perhaps demonstrate it by presenting your evidence in support. (so far you are simply making statements
Again No – vertical transfer is a fact of inheritance. Why would you think I was suggesting that?
Maybe when I actually get to the point of presenting the evidence relating to HGT that researchers are bringing to light you may understand the subject a little bit more.
Now finally
If I have done no such thing. Well then please explain what else you require in the way of evidence.
For example
When I refer to NASA's considered view that I reported in this post
by scottie » Fri Aug 19, 2011 12:31 pm
This is a minority view is it?
Or when I reported on the evidence of no precursor to the ribosome here
by scottie » Tue Sep 13, 2011 10:05 pm
This is something being taken out of context is it?
Or when I reported on the subject of cave animals here
by scottie » Sun Dec 25, 2011 1:01 pm
What just another minority view?
When I reported on isochores here
scottie » Tue Jan 03, 2012 12:15 pm
Of course another minority view. Why should anyone pay attention to the NIH?
If all this evidence is wrong then you should have no trouble in refuting them with your own evidence.
I don't understand why you are so reluctant.
Could the uncomfortable truth be that you are simply unable to.
That would be an explanation, would it not?
Re: Theories - Origin of Life
Because if no, there is no problem. For the vertebrates you can easily make a tree of life with only one ancestor. For previous life it will be little bit harder, since it's more like bush than tree, but it would lead to one single ancestor again.
Cis or trans? That's what matters.
Re: Theories - Origin of Life
Isn't that what I said?
What you were claiming it disproves.
Koonin knows exactly what he is saying (and why). You don't.
I've been interested in HGT since it first came to light. Do you really think your armchair understanding of anything biological surpasses that of biologists? Didn't you say you were some sort of engineer? I'm an armchair physicist and would never have the audacity to suggest that I know more than a real physicist. Get real.
It's not my part to educate you. The biologists on this forum enjoy answering legitimate questions, but we are not compelled to cater to deniers. When anti-evolutionists come onto an evolution forum, the onus is on them to convince us, not for us to convince you. You're not looking for answers. You're not making much progress here, partly because you're not presenting a coherent argument, and partly because you interpret your "evidence" through the filter of your faith. Science requires an open mind and a willingness to weigh ALL the evidence.
Re: Theories - Origin of Life
Here is a Primer in HGT
Now stick with this, it is not coming from an armchair biologist, you will find this journal helpful
http://www.landesbioscience.com/journal ... cle/18776/
What Nematode genomes tell us about the importance of horizontal gene transfers in the evolutionary history of animals
It continues
So what is the mechanism that effects this transfer?
It continues
How Were the Genes Transferred in Nematode Genomes?
So although HGT is being more and more recognised as having occurred in eukaryotes, the mechanism of this gene transfer is undetermined. The way HGT is recognised is by gene similarity.
The assumption being that this sort of similarity has come about by as yet some unknown evolutionary process.
So what would any evolutionary process have to take account of?
Again lets not speculate
Here is some interesting information of immune system response to gene alterations from the Stanford School of Medicine.
How does HGT invade a cell without the immune system responding to prevent?
http://med.stanford.edu/news_releases/2 ... quirt.html
This interesting article on sea squirts shows that Sea squirts only fuse with relatives (genetically similar). It rejects those that are not near relatives.
So, a reasonable question
How does HGT take place without immune response, especially in nature?
Has HGT ever been observed or is it just a hypothesis to explain gene similarity in different species.
What is research actually revealing?
Lets go to this paper
Lateral gene transfer and the nature of bacterial innovation
http://www2.yale.edu/ochman/Papers/Ochm ... re2000.pdf
Under the subheading
HGT therefore has to be a highly regulated process
So what is PhoP/PhoQ regulation?
Here is a good description of this regulation
The phoPQ operon is autogenously controlled, that is
Regulation of gene expression is by a product of the gene itself that either inhibits or enhances the gene's activity.
A bit more information from
Proceedings from The National Academy of sciences of the United States
Autogenous and nonautogenous control of response in a genetic network
Pay particular note to the acknowledgement of "fundamental design principles of cellular control"
Why is this control and regulation needed?
Well let the Institute of Science in Society answer that question
Recent Evidence Confirms Risks of Horizontal Gene Transfer
Also check out Gene therapy from Human Genome Project Site
http://www.ornl.gov/sci/techresources/H ... rapy.shtml
Now if you really want to believe that all this level of cellular control, (and here I have only touched on one little area of cellular organism,) is the product of random and undirected happenings, then your faith in miracles seems to have no bounds.
This is evidence of design at it's most exquisite, and even the proceedings from the National Academy of Sciences has no difficulty in openly acknowledging this.
So please, unless you can demonstrate how your random and undirected happenings can produce all of this, then you have no case to defend.
Richard Dawkin's get out of jail phrase is that "science is working on it"
Is that your answer?
Oh and by the way he (Dawkins) has recently announced that he has retired from the field of Public understanding of Science. Can't say I am surprised.
Re: Theories - Origin of Life
scottie, how does ANY of this disprove evolution (or common ancestry or whatever)?
Or even correct understanding of what is read for that matter.
You are reading that HGT in Salmonella is under PhoP/PhoQ regulation, when what the paper you are citing is sating that the expression of (some of) the genes that get transfered in plasmids are under that regulation. That is quite different.
And HGT is extremely widespread and use a plethora of mechanisms that are not all regulated the same way (if at all). But no more than sex does HGT invlid the idea of common descent.
And by the way, if you aim to discredit Darwin's explanation of the mechanism of evolution, you are wasting your time. Everybody knows he was wrong in the details (how else, he had no ideas about genes and such), but he is still right in the main idea (changes are generated and selected after generations).
And as a parting remark, your attacks against what you call philosophy are again underlining your lack of both understanding of science and selfawareness. Philosophy is essential to science, it is the reflection about our practices and how we go on about doing science. There is a lot of useless fluff, but a lot of it is useful. Just like the scientific method that you like to wrap yourself into. It is essentialy a philosophical description of what science is and how it should work.
Science has proof without any certainty. Creationists have certainty without
any proof. (Ashley Montague)
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text:
George W. Bush lies when he says that the U.S. doesn't torture people. The U.S. does torture people.
Ex-Guantanamo inmate finds distracted audience at US Congress
[May 21, 2008]
...spent nearly five years in prison before being released without charge.
Kurnaz spent several nightmarish weeks at the US base in Kandahar, Afghanistan before being transferred to the US "war on terror" camp at Guantanamo.
US authorities determined in 2002 that [Murat] Kurnaz had no terror links, but claimed that he remained a danger because one of his friends had committed a suicide attack — even though the friend in question is alive, and has never been found to have terror ties.
"I did nothing wrong and I was treated like a monster," he said, describing acts of torture such as being suspended by his wrists for hours on end, receiving electrical shocks and enduring simulated drowning.
"I know others have died from this kind of treatment," he said.
"I suffered from sleep deprivation, solitary confinement, religious and sexual humiliations. I was beaten multiple times," he said.
"There was no law in Guantanamo."
The following should appear at the end of every post:
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The unprecedented amount of cash the Federal Reserve has pumped into the financial system is proving more powerful for money-market rates than Chair Janet Yellen's signals she will start turning off the spigot.
At a time when Treasury bond yields are climbing on speculation that Yellen will raise interest rates sooner than expected, the three-month London interbank offered rate is going the other way. The cost of three-month loans in dollars between banks, or Libor, fell to 0.22810 percent yesterday, setting a record low for the second straight day, according to the ICE Benchmark Administration in London.
Libor, a benchmark for more than $3 trillion of global contracts and loans, has fallen about 0.02 percentage point since the end of last year despite the Fed pulling back on its bond purchases and Yellen signaling she may raise borrowing costs next year. While yields on debt that matures in 2016 or later have increased, the shortest-term rates are sliding as investors search for a place to park their record amounts of cash and reduce interest-rate risk.
"People have to put the money somewhere and in many respects interbank lending is safe now," said David Keeble, head of fixed-income strategy at Credit Agricole SA in New York. "So you have a supply of cash and a safe place to put it and this is just pushing everything lower."
Lending to banks is appealing as capital levels at financial institutions have improved since the 2008 financial crisis. The Fed said last week that the largest banks are better positioned to lend and meet their financial commitments, with its annual stress tests showing 29 of the 30 largest U.S. banks able to withstand a deep recession and still pay dividends.
The federal funds effective rate -- the average daily market rate on overnight loans between banks -- was 0.06 percent on March 31, compared with 0.16 percent on April 1, 2013. The Fed has held its target for the benchmark rate at zero to 0.25 percent since December 2008. Yellen said March 19 that policy makers may begin lifting their benchmark rate six months after they end their third round of bond buying.
While Yellen's remarks last month led traders to pull forward their bets for rising interest rates, the U.S. central bank is still adding to its stimulus and expanding the amount of cash in the financial system. The Fed's latest round of asset purchases pumped up its balance sheet to a record $4.23 trillion on March 26, up from $4.02 trillion on Jan. 1 and $2.3 trillion at the end of 2008.
Policy makers have cut their monthly debt buying by $10 billion increments at each of their last three meetings to $55 billion. They probably will continue with reductions at that pace and end the program in October, economists said in a Bloomberg News survey last month.
Growing Liquidity
The stimulus creates liquidity because the Fed buys securities from primary dealers, or brokers that are authorized to trade directly with the central bank, adding funds to their accounts and creating reserves at their clearing banks.
"Excess liquidity is just growing and growing," Keeble said. "It will keep marching higher probably until October, when the Fed finally stops its quantitative easing."
Money market mutual funds, which are among the primary users of short-term debt instruments, have seen assets rise over the last year as investors seek safer alternatives to stocks and bonds. Assets in prime money funds have climbed to $1.5 trillion as of March 25 from $1.46 trillion a year ago, according to data compiled by research firm iMoneyNet in Westborough, Massachusetts.
The U.S.'s successful introduction this year of floating-rate Treasury notes has shown investors' demand for alternative money-market securities to allocate their cash. The debt offers a way to hedge against higher interest rates, too.
The Treasury sold $13 billion of floaters on March 27 at a bid-to-cover ratio, which gauges demand by comparing the amount of bids with the amount of securities offered, of 4.67, higher than the 2.9 average of fixed-rate debt sold this year by the government. It was the third sale since the inaugural floating-rate auction on Jan. 29. The notes are considered an alternative to bills because they're benchmarked to a 13-week money market rate.
"We are seeing a lot of cash get parked into the front end of the markets," said Kenneth Silliman, head of U.S. short-term rates trading at Toronto-Dominion Bank's TD Securities unit in New York. "Now, with so much uncertainty about the Fed, you are seeing a lot of liquidity staying very, very short-term."
While regulators have been looking into the potential manipulation of Libor, the rate is still important to the market given the amount of debt and contracts tied to it, according to Stanley Sun, a New York-based strategist at Nomura Holdings Inc., one of the Fed's 22 primary dealers that bid at auctions. Libor has fallen by more than half from 0.58 percentage point in January 2012.
"Yes, people understand that Libor is not perfect," Sun said. "But it is a rate that the market still looks at."
Another short-term debt cost, the rate at which dealers borrow and lend securities in exchange for cash through repurchase agreements, has also declined this year. The average rate for borrowing and lending Treasuries for one day in the repo market has averaged 0.053 percent in 2014, down from 0.102 percent last year, according to an index provided on a one-day lag by the Depository Trust & Clearing Corp. Securities dealers use repos to finance holdings and increase leverage.
Money-market rates have dropped even as yields on two-year Treasuries have climbed on Yellen's comments. The two-year note yield rose to 0.44 percent today from 0.32 percent at the end of February. Last month, it reached 0.47 percent.
Record amounts of cash is also leading to an increase in money invested at the Fed overnight through its ongoing tests of a new fixed-rate reverse repo facility. About $242 billion was posted to the facility on March 31, the largest amount yet.
The repo facility currently offers a rate of 0.05 percent and is open to the Fed's tri-party reverse repo counterparties, which includes money-market mutual funds, government-sponsored entities, banks and the Fed's primary dealers. Money market funds, especially, have ramped up usage of the Fed facility at quarter-end, a time when dealers tend to step back from repo transactions as they shore up their balance sheets.
In a reverse repo, the Fed lends securities for a set period, temporarily draining cash from the banking system. At maturity, the securities are returned to the Fed, and the cash to its counterparties.
"The market remains flush with liquidity," said Lena Komileva, an economist at G Plus Economics Ltd. in London. "All is contributing to the collapse" in rates.
With assistance from Christopher Condon in Boston and John Glover in London.
Bloomberg News


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2010: A Good Year For Cheese
This has been a good year for cheese at Formaggio Kitchen. We were lucky enough to visit several producers — both old friends and new acquaintances — who are sending us some incredible cheeses. Throughout the holidays, as family and friends come to town, or as you pack for a trip of your own, be sure to have a good selection of cheese on hand for simple snacking or to create an elegant cheese course. For help finding just the right cheese, here are a few highlights from our recent trips.
New Cheeses of the Pyrénées
When Ihsan, Valerie and Julie left for the Pyrénées in October, everyone was optimistic they would make new connections with producers of traditional Basque sheep's milk cheeses. When they returned and unwrapped their cheese samples, our eyes opened wide as we gazed upon the treasure trove they discovered. Traveling the mountainous terrain between Pau and San Sebastián, they met with producers who work with only 15-20 shepherds. These shepherds still practice transhumance with their animals — the tradition of bringing sheep to graze at higher elevations during spring and summer. This winter, our first shipment of producer-direct sheep, cow and goat's milk cheeses arrived. By working directly with producers, we control every aspect of transport and storage as the cheeses make their way to our stores. This control ensures the clear, complex flavors of these cheeses are as evident in our stores as they were on our table in France.
Comté from Affineur Marcel Petite
Twice a year, we trek to Marcel Petite's Fort St. Antoine, a cheese aging facility high in the Jura Mountains of France, to select our wheels of this special cow's milk cheese. This fall, Kurt, Mary and David made the trip. In what is always an educational, but surprisingly arduous experience, they walked the aisles of towering cheese, tasting wheel after wheel, detecting the complex flavors in each sample. The lengthy aging process is carefully controlled and monitored by Claude, their head affineur and our indefatigable guide. The cheeses range from young and pliant with flavors of grass and herbs to dense and crunchy with notes of chocolate and onion. For full descriptions of our different Comté cheeses, click here.
Savoring the Savoie
On the same trip, Kurt, David and Mary visited the Paccard family, agers of various farmhouse cheeses from the Savoie. Our cheesemongers tasted several classic cheeses including the earthy Tomme de Savoie and Tomme Crayeuse, firm and nutty Abondance, and a few new cheeses made in the classic Reblochon style. All cheeses aged by the Paccards are "fermier," meaning they are made in small batches on the same farms where the animals are raised and milked. Visit the travelogue section of our website to see David's account of their trip.


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Men's Jordan clothing, sneakers, and sportswear to help you step up your game (and your style).
All of the latest designs from Jordan, fresh off the line.
Always rock the latest Jordan gear with our New Arrivals section.
Shop all things Jordan right here at Jimmy Jazz.
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Men's Jordan Shoes, Clothing, and Accessories
Men's Jordan clothing, sneakers, and sportswear to help you step up your game (and your style).
The right gear is essential for any athlete wanting to play his best. But while athletes have to consider performance, we know that everyone is thinking about quality, style, and comfort.
We believe every man deserves to experience the best of the best when it comes to sportswear and streetwear. That's why we carry one of the hottest selections of Jordan brand shoes and clothing available.
Whether you're an athlete, a collector, or are simply a man of good taste, you'll find one of the biggest online selections of Jordan footwear and apparel right here at Jimmy Jazz.
All of the latest designs from Jordan, fresh off the line.
We stock a full selection of Jordan brand clothing, including hats, hoodies, t-shirts, athletic shorts, and sweatpants. We also carry all of the hottest, most in-demand Jordan sneakers, including Jordan Flight 23, Flight 97, Spizike, Son Of Mars, Air Incline, Eclipse, and New School.
Be sure to check back often to catch the latest designs as soon as they're released. If you're looking for Nike men's clothing and footwear, we carry that too! See our selection of Nike brand shoes and clothing.
Always rock the latest Jordan gear with our New Arrivals section.
Our inventory is frequently re-stocked with the latest Jordan shoes and clothing you can stay ahead of the game. Check out our New Arrivals section to get the hottest gear as soon as it's available.
Shop all things Jordan right here at Jimmy Jazz.
We pride ourselves on providing our customers with one of the best selections of Jordan footwear and apparel available anywhere online.
Not only do we have the latest and greatest in Jordan footwear – we also carry a huge selection of shorts, sweatpants, jackets and hoodies. When you shop online at Jimmy Jazz, you're sure to find exactly what you need.


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IBO 2003 questions- please help me out
Discussion of all aspects of cellular structure, physiology and communication.
Moderator: BioTeam
10 posts • Page 1 of 1
IBO 2003 questions- please help me out
I could not solve these questions.
Can you please help me?
A: List the following proteins in the order of decreasing evolutionary conservativeness of their primary structure:
1. Somatotropin.
2. Catalytic subunit of a DNA – polymerase.
3. Histone H1.
4. Prolamines (storage proteins of cereals).
(A hint will do - how will i go about it?)
B: Nucleoside phosphates can be interphosphorylated enzymatically. Which one of the following reactions is impossible?
E. ADP + AMP = ATP + adenosine.
(I think it might be option A, because disproportionation among ADP sounds improbable)
Also, anyone got the solutions/ answer keys for IBO papers?
Last edited by tittu on Mon May 12, 2008 2:55 pm, edited 2 times in total.
Re: IBO 2003 questions- please help me out
The lactose operon of E.coli consists of three genes:
lacZ encodes β-galactosidase,
lacY encodes galactosidepermease which carries out lactose transport to the cell,
lacA encodes galactoside-transacetylase.
Lac operon is under the control of LacI (repressor), which is inactive in the presence of lactose (inductor). There is a wide diversity of the chemical lactose analogs, for example: Orthonitrophenyl-β-D-galactoside (ONPG) – is a substrate for β-galactosidase but not an inductor. The product of this reaction orthonitrophenol is toxic for a cell. Isopropyl-β-D-thiogalactoside (IPTG) - is an inductor but not a substrate for β-galactosidase. Phenyl-β-D-galactoside (PG) - is a substrate for β-galactosidase but not an inducer. The products of its hydrolysis are nontoxic for a cell.
Which cells will grow in the medium with PG as the only source of carbon and energy?
А. lacI −.
B. lacZ −.
C. lacy −.
D. lacZ − lacy −.
E. lacI − lacZ −.
Will these cells grow in the medium with ONPG?
A. Yes.
B. No.
Galactose is a toxic compound for the cells which have galE– mutation.
Which cells with this mutation will grow in the IPTG+PG medium (with arabinose as an additional source of carbon and energy available)?
А. lacI −.
B. lacZ −.
C. lacA −.
D. lacI − lacA −.
My choices are options A and B for the first two. Am I on the right track?
Re: IBO 2003 questions- please help me out
To answer the first question quantitatively you need to compare the rates at which mutations are accepted for these proteins over their evolutionary histories. I don't know of any good place to send you for that information. So if your instructor or your textbook hasn't compiled it for you I don't know exactly what you're supposed to do. You can make some educated guesses based on the functions of the proteins in question. The more crucial the function to a wide variety of organisms, the more likely it is to be highly conserved. Somatotropin is the formal name for growth hormone. It is a peptide hormone made in the pituitary gland. DNA polymerase comes in a variety of flavors, but the major eukaryotic DNA polymerase is involved with replication of genomic DNA. Viruses, bacteria, and plants all have DNA polymerases with distinct properties. Histones are important for packing chromosomal DNA into nucleosomes and may be important regulators of cytosine methylation. The function of seed storage proteins is to act as a deterrant to dehydration prior to germination, and after germination, to act as a source of amino acids for protein synthesis until the sprout can supply its own nutrients.
Not sure about part B. My guess is E. AMP goes to Adenosine + Pi in the catabolism of purines. It is essentially the hydrolysis of AMP and most certainly doesn't generate a high-energy source like ATP. All the other reactions are possible via nucleotide and dinucleotide kinases. These kinase reactions are reversible.
2. Catalytic subunit of DNA polymerase(very important, it's the subunit that actually does the work, so maintaining its structure is important).
3. Histone H1(although not known what it actually does, it's present in all EK with small variations in structure, so I bet it's important.
1. Somatotropin(only present in higher vertebrates, but it's structure is very important as it is a hormone, it needs to fit in the receptor)
4. Prolamines(they just store stuff, doesn't really matter what they look like).
B. Agreed with blcr11
Which cells will grow in the medium with PG as the only source of carbon and energy?
А. lacI −.
B. lacZ −.
C. lacy −.
D. lacZ − lacy −.
E. lacI − lacZ −.
The answer is A: PG is not an inductor, so it will not be able to inactivate the repressor. Therefore, only a bacterium that lacks a repressor can live in such a medium. E is obviously wrong, as it needs to have the enzyme to break down the stuff.
Will these cells grow in the medium with ONPG?
A. Yes.
B. No.
The answer is B. They will break down the stuff, unleash it's toxic metabolites upon the cell => DOOM.
Galactose is a toxic compound for the cells which have galE– mutation.
Which cells with this mutation will grow in the IPTG+PG medium (with arabinose as an additional source of carbon and energy available)?
А. lacI −.
B. lacZ −.
C. lacA −.
D. lacI − lacA −.
I have no idea what transacetylase does, but B is correct anyway. You have both an inducer and a substrate for the enzyme, but no enzyme, and therefore no galactose present. Ergo the cell lives.
"As a biologist, I firmly believe that when you're dead, you're dead. Except for what you live behind in history. That's the only afterlife" - J. Craig Venter
Re: IBO 2003 questions- please help me out
I hadn't meant to suggest that the order I listed the protein functions was the order I thought was most to least conserved. I just followed the order in the question. My private guess had been 1. Histone, 2. DNA Polymerase subunit, 3. Somatotropin, 4. Prolamine. My intuitive argument was that Histones are small and perform a specific, but absolutely crucial function for everything that has distinct chromosomes. There aren't very many places on a histone that can accept mutations. Almost the entire molecule is either binding to DNA or interacting with another histone or other protein. Both DNA polymerase and somatotropin are proteins; polymerase is an enzyme, somatotropin is a growth factor. The 3D-structure needs to be maintained for both, but there are crucial residues that are either active-site or binding-site residues, and these are surrounded by residues that are needed "only" to ensure proper folding—and there are more pure structural residues than there are critical ones. Not that proper folding is a trivial thing, but there are many ways for a protein to attain the same overall fold, while only a few of those sequences would properly align the catalytic- or receptor-binding residues. I guessed that DNA polymerase is the more critical of the two so my order places a DNA polymerase subunit as more conserved than somatoropin, but without data I think it's a tossup. I don't think there's any argument about where the seed storage protein belongs—namely, least conserved of all.
I don't have any good source that shows the mutations of these proteins over evolutionary time. As a rough check I went to the Expasy proteomics site and did a quick BLAST on each of the first three proteins and looked at just the %identity for proteins that were, as best as I could find, equally distant from a human protein. Here's what I found.:
Histone H1 (Human) is 72% identical to Xenopus (frog) H1 and 54% identical to Sea Urchin H1
DNA Polymerase A (Human) is 67% identical to Xenopus Polym A and 37% identical to Arabadopsis (a plant)—I didn't see a sea urchin entry, but there were a lot of polymerases, so I could have missed it.
Somatotropin (Human) is 41% identical to RANA (another frog) and 32% identical to carp; I think somatotropin is likely only to be found in vertebrates.
Prolamine—I didn't check.
So my best guess is 1. Histone, 2. DNA Polymerase, 3. Somatotropin, 4. plant seed storage protein, though you might be able to argue about the order of 2 and 3. Nor would I consider my argument definitive.
I found a tool at Expasy http://www.expasy.org/tools/ called ConSurf http://consurf.tau.ac.il/ whose job was "Projection of evolutionary conservation scores of residues on protein structures "
running polymerase and histone H1 (the DNA linker in nucleosome model outside octamer), , i got the following degree of conservancy scores:
(1. 56 Variable) [2. 25] [3. 22 ] [4. 33 ] [5. 49] [ 6. 48] [7. 50] [8. 55] [9. 28 Conserved]
[1. 11 Variable ] [2. 3][ 3. 0] [4. 0] [ 5. 2] [ 6. 7 ] [ 7. 15] [ 8. 6 ] [9. 9 Conserved ]
the numbers denote no of amino acids of each conservancy grade, 1 variable to 9 conserved.
the other two didnt run, because, they didnt have the pdb file (1bst) for somatotropin and prolamine had 4 BLAST homologue site, while it needed 5 to calculate.
A weighted mead comparison of this would tell the answer, but you dont get to use expasy tools at IBO, do you? there must be an "easier" logic
the results sites are at,
http://consurf.tau.ac.il/fgij/fg.htm?mo ... 0_pipe.pdb
http://consurf.tau.ac.il/fgij/fg.htm?mo ... 6_pipe.pdb
Re: IBO 2003 questions- please help me out
So for close homologues there isn't a huge difference in % conserved residues for polymerase vs H1. There seems to be a slight tendency toward fewer category 1 and more category 9 residues for H1, but I don't know if those numbers are significant or not, and the mid-range type percentages look virtually identical to me. I haven't used ConSurf that much. I'm not used to its output. I guess you'll have to decide what your criterion for conservation is going to be and then make your best argument.
OK, guys, you are way overthinking. In the olympiad, you have about half a minute to think about a question. Now, obviously you are not supposed to know how each of them evolved and you are NOT supposed to do any research. You ARE supposed to reason through the question, and then guess. Actually, there are a lot of questions where you're supposed to guess. Some are even formulated like "What is probably the way...?"
So it's between catalytic subunit and H1.
"As a biologist, I firmly believe that when you're dead, you're dead. Except for what you live behind in history. That's the only afterlife" - J. Craig Venter
Re: IBO 2003 questions- please help me out
I just saw this, regarding question B, ADP+ADP=ATP+AMP really happens in muscles, catalyzed by adenylyl kinase.
Talk about eating words...... Probably blcr11 is correct.
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It's perfectly acceptable to judge a potential purchase based solely on its appearance through a Macy's store window, however, as the retail chain recently found out, judging customers in a similar fashion is not so acceptable. On Aug 20, the New York Attorney General's office announced a $650,000 settlement with Macy's that seeks to correct the company's alleged use of racial profiling against customers.
The AG's office began investigation into Macy's security policies following over a dozen complaints of wrongful detention and racial profiling, all of which occurred at the company's flagship store in New York City. According to reports, Macy's loss prevention team detained African-American customers traveling between floors with merchandise and repeatedly denied non-English speaking customers phone calls or interpreters in the event of credit card issues, making allegations of fraud instead.
During a winter 2013 probe, the AG's Civil Rights Bureau found that Macy's failed to take the proper steps to address profiling issues and discriminatory practices. The company also lacked a standardized record keeping policies and did not collect proper information in the incidents that prompted complaints.
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Barneys New York to hire consultant to prevent racial profiling practices by security
In 2005, the company entered a consent decree with the AG's office to address similar issues related to asset protection and handcuffing policies. Sitting AG Eric Schneiderman's office acknowledge that the decree had aided in the reduction of complaints, but that once it had elapsed in 2008, the company fell back on its bad habits.
In addition to the $650,000 fine, Macy's has agreed to hire outside help to ensure profiling is discouraged throughout its stores; it will also post a list of customer rights in Spanish and English in highly visible locations and implement a new record-keeping solution. A full list of the terms has been posted on the AG's website.
AG Schneiderman said in a release accompanying the announcement that, "It is absolutely unacceptable — and it's illegal — for anyone in New York to be treated like a criminal simply because of the color of their skin. Recent allegations of racial profiling at some of New York's most famous stores stand as a stark reminder that the protections afforded by the Civil Rights Act of 1964 are still needed today."
A similar settlement with Barneys New York makes this the second of such deals in August. In addition to agreeing to hire outside help to squash profiling practices, Barneys agreed to pay $525,000. The two incidents act as a reminder to retail security teams, let the customers do the eyeballing.


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Re: $ $ $ $ $ CARVERaudio INTERCONNECT ROADSHOW $ $ $ $ $
if so, then i would say that two cables are needed for a fair comparison as most will have a pre to amp as well as the cd to pre. then one would be more informed on how the cables affect the system. just a thought.


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Yoshida in Japan: Fujitsu-Panasonic SoC JV deal makes no sense
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The proposed joint venture between Fujitsu and Panasonic's SoC businesses will not save Japan's semiconductor industry or improve its standing in SoCs.
TOKYO--The merger of two ailing semiconductor businesses at Fujitsu and Panasonic, reported but not confirmed last week, will be a nonstarter. It will neither save Japans semiconductor industry nor improve Japans standing in system-on-chips (SoCs), which outside of Japan is virtually nil.
"Negative one plus negative one makes negative three," Takashi Yunogami, a director of Fine Processing Institute, dryly said in an interview with EE Times here Monday (Feb. 4). Yunogami was critical of Japanese bureaucrats and corporate executives who have been busy in recent years structuring mergers among struggling Japanese companies and calling it synergy.
Yunogami, formerly an engineering expert in dry etching at Hitachi, is now author of books on the Japanese semiconductor industry and a lecturer at several universities.
There is mounting evidence to support Yunogamis argument.
Back in 2000, Japan had five separate chip companies--excluding captives. They were: Toshiba, Hitachi, NEC, Fujitsu and Mitsubishi. Hitachi spun off its semiconductor division, which became Renesas Electronics through subsequent mergers--first with Mitsubishi and then with NEC Electronics. Fujitsu also spun out its chip operation--now Fujitsu Semiconductor. Toshiba is the only company that neither separated its semiconductor business as an independent company nor forged a merger with another Japanese chip company. Twelve years later, Renesas revenue is continuing a spectacular downward spiral and Fujitsus chip business is beginning to slip. Only Toshiba remains on a growth track.
In any culture, mergers are never easy. But its clear that the prolonged process of merging chip operations at Hitachi, Mitsubishi and NEC sucked the life out of Renesas. No "synergy" is evident.
So, if you muttered "Not again," when you heard about the latest speculation about a Fujitsu-Panasonic deal, you are not alone.
This time around, though, the intriguing feature about the report was the absence of Renesas from the current round of rumor. The originally envisioned joint venture was supposed to be a three-way merger among SoC businesses at Fujitsu, Panasonic and Renesas.
As late as last June, Fujitsu President Masami Yamamoto was quoted in the Japanese media saying that Fujitsu still wants a system chip merger with Renesas and Panasonic. Yamamoto said in his interview with the Asahi newspaper that such a merger would only be considered if Renesas carries out an aggressive turnaround plan.
The absence of Renesas in the latest speculation implies two things: 1) Renesas is still far from actually completing its turnaround plan, with no additional bandwidth left to save its already feeble SoC business; 2) Renesas Mobile, Renesass mobile SoC subsidiary, sees no advantage in merging with either Fujitsu or Panasonic.


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As a leading labor and employment practice in the United States, Littler Mendelson PC maintains a unique perspective on developments in the space and connections that provide context to broader trends. In this year's Executive Employer Survey Report, the firm tapped those connections in an effort to learn more about what's top of mind in the workplace, especially as it relates to employee satisfaction and predilection to sue. Littler found some surprising changes from last year's survey.
Among the information gleaned from the survey, the team at Littler learned how current economic conditions impacted the workforce. While the recession undoubtedly affected workers, as the United States increasingly distances itself from the events of the financial meltdown, worker disenchantment appears to be paradoxically increasing.
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When asked about how current economic conditions are impacting lawsuits or claims from disenchanted employees, respondents indicated that they've seen an increase from 23 percent in 2013 48 percent in 2014.
As the survey point out, "This is a troubling finding for employers as this type of litigation, regardless of whether the claims are frivolous, is often costly and time-consuming to defend."
While the report did not postulate what the increase was predicated on, legislative stagnation, the growing gap between the salaries of workers and executives andhigher competition for high-paying jobs likely played a part.
Barry Hartstein, co-chair of Littler Mendelson's EEO and Diversity Practice, says that the situation is likely the result of a harsh job markets impact on two active employee populations.
"You've got two groups of workers that in some respects are aligned in an unusual matter. You have baby boomers, many of whom want to retire, that can't, and may have a difficult time getting better jobs because of their age. Then you look at our young people, who also have difficulty finding good paying jobs, which may have forced them to move back in with their parents, and deal with student debt. They're rightly frustrated. Individuals on both sides likely think, 'it can't be me, it must be my age, or my ethnicity,' and those are the sorts of challenges that employers then have to deal with," Hartstein says.
The survey also found that unhappy workers appear to be less wary about remaining in their current positions due to an inability to find employment elsewhere. This figure fell from 85 percent in 2012 to 79 percent in 2013 to 66 percent in 2014.
Related Stories:
Presidential executive order solidifies rights for LGBT individuals
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In addition to issues surrounding the disenchanted employee's predilection to sue, respondents to the survey also indicated what issues lawsuits are most likely to pertain to. Discrimination and harassment was the most frequent source of employee lawsuits and class actions during the past year, with 40 percent saying they were most common, wrongful termination claims and wage and hour lawsuits following close behind at 36 percent.
While it would be easy to attempt to draw a causal relationship between the increasing number of lawsuits brought by disenchanted employees and discrimination and wage being the most frequent type of lawsuit, based on the information provided it would not be possible to do so.
While many of the complaints filed by employees could be settled before they go to the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC,) Hartstein points out that the EEOC has actually decreased the number of suits it filed over the last several years.
"If you actually look at EEOC stats, the gist of it has been that the numbers of lawsuits have dramatically decreased. In 2005 they filed 381, the last two years they've filed 122 and 131 respectively, so on the one hand we've seen a decrease. They're filing fewer cases but bigger cases. While there may be fewer lawsuits, the ramifications are going to be larger," he says.
Still the figures are something that employers will want to keep an eye on as they prepare their legal strategies for the future.


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For several years, Treasury & Risk has covered the impending Single Euro Payments Area (SEPA). We've explained the technical details of how systems need to change to accommodate SEPA credit transfers and SEPA direct debits. We've discussed ways in which some companies are leveraging their compliance efforts to improve payment processes across Europe and beyond. We covered fears last fall that businesses would be unprepared to comply by the February 1, 2014 deadline. And then, of course, we covered the extension of the deadline to August of this year.
Now that we're six weeks past the original SEPA compliance deadline, we thought it would be a good time to take the pulse on how large corporates are faring. To what degree are European credit transfers and direct debits SEPA-compliant today? And to what degree have organizations taken the extra step of improving accounts receivable (A/R) or accounts payable (A/P) processes as they've revamped their technology infrastructure to meet SEPA requirements? To find out, we sat down with Ad van der Poel, the Bank of America Merrill Lynch product executive for payments and receivables global transaction services for Europe, the Middle East, and Africa (EMEA).
T&R: First of all, what is the status of SEPA readiness at companies across Europe right now?
Ad van der Poel: If you look at the market numbers from February, at that point 94 percent of credit transfers in the Eurozone were SEPA-compliant, as were 80 percent of direct debits. And my guess is both of those numbers will rise substantially over the coming months. At Bank of America Merrill Lynch, we are almost at full migration for our clients. We don't serve the SME [small to midsize enterprise] market in Europe—only large corporates—and almost all of our clients are now SEPA-ready.
The main reason the direct debits number isn't close to 100 percent is that some larger corporates shifted their approach to SEPA compliance slightly when the European Commission announced the six-month transition period. By that time, they were all in the middle of their projects, which by now most of them have finished. But for companies that have multiple entities across a number of countries, the transition period provided a little breathing room. Their original intention was to go live with their SEPA system in a big bang, with all their entities at the same time. But with the announcement of the transition period, they figured they don't need to take that risk. They decided to roll out their SEPA-compliant system entity by entity.
So suppose a multinational went live first in Belgium, where it has smaller volumes; it is now using the remaining time until August 1 to learn from its experience in Belgium, then it will go live consecutively in the Netherlands, Germany, France, Spain, and so on. A company like this is essentially SEPA-ready today, but it hasn't migrated all its transaction volumes yet, so the EC numbers wouldn't reflect it as fully SEPA-compliant.
T&R: OK. It sounds like the transition is mostly complete.
AP: I would say so. The biggest challenge is in the SME market. Among large corporates, an extremely high percentage is already SEPA-compliant.
T&R: Have you seen a lot of these large corporates leverage the SEPA compliance project as an opportunity to centralize and standardize payments or receivables? Has that been widespread?
AP: No, it hasn't been widespread; however, we are now talking to almost all our clients about it. We have some corporate clients that have taken the opportunity to start centralizing processes and rationalizing bank accounts, but these are the companies that started their SEPA compliance efforts more than a year ago. For those that started late in the game, the push has been about compliance.
Consider a corporate that has entities in five countries. Each of those entities uses one or more domestic banks and has multiple accounts with those institutions. So across the five countries, the company might have 50 bank accounts. A typical company in this situation has been working so far to make sure all the infrastructure for those 50 bank accounts is SEPA-compliant. The next step is for management to look at how they can centralize and rationalize the number of bank accounts they use. We see a lot of those conversations starting now, but only after the company has become compliant.
T&R: Are there still any obstacles to centralization and standardization once a company is using SEPA-compliant systems and processes in different countries?
AP: Yes. The biggest issue is that SEPA has variations in different regions. The devil is in the detail, and as we've all come to realize, it's not really a single payment area where everything is the same. In the next two to three years, the industry will be fine-tuning SEPA and hopefully will get rid of most of the variations.
T&R: What are some examples of variations?
AP: Well, there are many. The obvious one is the use of the XML format for sending and receiving files. The SEPA XML standard is part of the regulation, but there are countries that have made slight variations to it. Germany, for example, has added two data elements, two fields, to the format. Some other countries have done that as well, while others have not. Now, that may sound like a small thing. But if you're a corporate and you're active in multiple countries and you're trying to standardize across them, then you aren't going to be able to use just one file format; you're going to need to support multiple formats. That reduces the degree to which you can standardize your databases and automated processes.
Another example of a variation that can cause problems are SEPA rejection codes. A certain number of direct debit collections are rejected, for one reason or another. When that happens, the customer's bank sends back a rejection code that comes into the corporate's systems. Based on that rejection code, the company knows what its next step should be.
Think about a large mobile telephone company that does monthly direct debits in several countries. It might like to centralize, but it has automated processes for dealing with payment rejections. Hypothetically, let's say rejection code 1 corresponds to 'insufficient funds' and rejection code 2 corresponds to 'reason unknown.' The company might have a policy of dealing with rejection code 1 by giving the individual two more days. So rather than informing customers that they don't have enough funds in their account, the company might wait two days and try again. That will work in some countries, but in others, for privacy reasons, banks don't tell vendors when a payment rejection is caused by insufficient funds. A problem that would receive rejection code 1 in some countries will receive code 2, 'reason unknown,' in others. So if the mobile-phone company were to merge all its direct debits into a single system, this discrepancy would seriously complicate its automated handling of rejection notices.
T&R: Do these variations generally stem from national regulations, or from differences between banks?
AP: Some are caused by privacy concerns that are triggered by national regulation. But there are also implementations on the bank side that differ just because of choices the banks have made themselves.
T&R: Do you anticipate that governments and banks will get these variations sorted out in a few years, so they will all handle rejection codes in the same way and will use the same XML fields—and so companies will be able to centralize and more fully automate their A/R and A/P processes?
AP: Yes. I should make clear that they can automate these processes now. We're helping our clients with that. But they have to understand that rejection code 1 might mean something different in the Netherlands than it means in Germany. As long as they understand what it means in each country, they can automate it.
T&R: Well, but some banks handle things differently, even within the same country, right? So would a company have to build into its automated system the knowledge of how each customer's bank handles rejection codes?
AP: Exactly. It gets more and more complex as you start reasoning through this. I do expect the financial services industry to get together and start addressing these variations. Whether we'll be able to resolve them 100 percent, I don't know. But they are becoming a priority, even for the European Central Bank and the European Commission, because they want to make doing business in Europe as easy as possible.
T&R: And you think companies will start to reap the benefits of standardization in the near future?
AP: Absolutely. We are starting to have discussions with our clients around all the things that have been put forward as the benefits of SEPA. Companies are looking into automation and standardization, not only of file formats, but of processes as well. As a result of that, they have the opportunity to centralize their processes and their receivables organization. And they can also rationalize their bank accounts and their number of banks. When we start talking about these types of initiatives, we're really getting into the benefits of SEPA.
There's also a lot of talk right now about receivables factories. Receivables always used to be very localized, but now with SEPA direct debit, collections activities are the same in all the Eurozone countries. On-behalf-of is a big deal as well. If you centralize receivables or payables, then a centralized location will be acting on behalf of the local entity, and technically SEPA can capture this information in an 'on-behalf-of' XML field. That option supports setting up a payments or receivables factory. Legal and tax analyses are needed to determine whether a company can do on-behalf-of in a different country, so we always advise our clients to work with their legal and tax advisers as well as with us when considering such arrangements.
T&R: So, what do you expect to be the long-term ramifications of SEPA for large companies operating in Europe?
AP: For corporates that work in multiple countries, it's enormous. Long-term, we'll see increased centralization, maybe even for midsize corporates that are active in multiple countries.
Companies are also going to have the opportunity to dramatically improve efficiency throughout their value chain. This will be driven by the XML file format, and SEPA is really the first application of that. Think about the value chain of a corporate that orders raw materials and then uses those materials to produce a product. They sell the product, they send an invoice, and only then does actual payment take place. SEPA covers the payment portion, so that piece of the chain now has an XML standard. But imagine that the invoice was sent out in the same XML standard. Those two steps of the value chain could be much more integrated. And then think about how the whole value chain could start becoming XML—a company could have the exact same data from purchase order to collections. It could automate a lot more, and its processes could be far more integrated.
This type of transformation would have an enormous impact on timelines and efficiency, and as a result on accounts receivable and accounts payable—and that means working capital. That's much more XML than SEPA, but SEPA is the start of that XML implementation. This will be a 10-year, maybe even a 20-year, process. But that is where I think we're heading.


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Molecules entering the bloodstream from skin absorption
Human Anatomy, Physiology, and Medicine. Anything human!
Moderator: BioTeam
3 posts • Page 1 of 1
Molecules entering the bloodstream from skin absorption
I can not seem to find good answers for these questions on the internet or books from the library. I cannot find any references to the subject that is supported by actual scientific research or even scientific knowledge.
My specific questions are about the molecules in essential oils,
Are essential oil molecules small enough by molecular weight or mass to pass through the skin and enter the bloodstream? I have read that most essential oils molecular weight or mass is less that 500 daltons?
One article I read said that 500 daltons was the number for a molecule to pass through the lipid matrix of the dead cells on the surface of the skin. Another says 700 daltons. To me this is a big difference since most essential oils have a molecular mass of 500 and some carrier oils used like coconut and jojoba oils are between 500 and 700. Are either really absorbed into the layers of the skin and ultimately picked up into the bloodstream?
And even if the are absorbed do they pass into the blood stream through the capillary ends in dermis layer (is that where they are?)?
What happens when you mix essential oils with heavier molecular weight molecules in cold pressed vegetable and nut oils?
Do they adhere to the fat molecules and then become to heavy to be absorbed by the skin and thus never enter the blood stream?
Do essential oils molecules seek out and attach themselves to fat molecules? Then they would be stuck in that lipid layer of dead cells in the skin with all the fat content. Is that even a correct assumption?
There is so much conflicting information in aromatherapy that seems to never be backed up by simple biology and chemistry of the body. It is widely taught in aromatherapy classes and books that the pores on the feet are larger than any other part of your body and that when you put essential oils on the soles of your feet you are able to get to the bloodstream the fastest (second only to inhalation). I just don't see the Biological or Chemical proof for this theory. It is often stated as fact. I only see from basic anatomy that the sole of the foot has five layers of skin no hair and the largest amount of sweat pores so yeah if you want the essential oils in your sweat glands? I just can't find any medical or biochemistry knowledge to support this theory.
I hope someone who has a better knowledge of the skin absorption and molecules can help me understand if these aromatherapy claims are true or not. Medicine is delivered in skin patches so seems if the molecules are small enough in essential oils it would work but I have never heard of putting a nicotine patch on the sole of your foot for quick absorption!
Re: Molecules entering the bloodstream from skin absorption
Hydrophobic substance does get through skin, that how a lot of medications work, Eg, Nicotine, and Nitroglycerin for heart attacks, Similarity a lot of toxins work the same way (seen them in action thrillers) , Does that help?
Re: Molecules entering the bloodstream from skin absorption
I've been trying to research the exact same thing. I am getting very curious about a number of emerging medical trials involving essential oils for things like cancer treatment, as well as their antimicrobial properties, etc. And I've found a surprising amount of actual, scientific evidence that essential oils are effective in treating a variety of maladies, not just through aromatherapy applications, but also when ingested or applied directly to the skin. But yeah, I can't find anything that talks about absorption through the soles of the feet that has any scientific backing.
I found this discussion:
which discusses skin patches as a way to dispense medicine. And it talks about the sweat glands being a one of the main structures medicine would use to pass through the epidermis. So maybe this is why the feet might be a good area for the application of essential oils? Maybe through trial and error it just so happens that essential oils prefer sweat glands as a path into the body? I'd love to see this backed by research.
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Snappers split doubleheader, spoil Foss' moment
BELOIT--The Beloit Snappers spoiled Trevor Foss' homecoming.
The 2008 Janesville Craig graduate made his season debut for the Class-A Burlington Bees at Pohlman Field in the second game of a doubleheader on Saturday. Foss threw 2 1/3 innings but saw a potential win slip away when Beloit scored twice in the bottom of the seventh for a 4-3 victory.
Burlington won the opener of the doubleheader—created when Friday's game was postponed—3-1.
Foss, who was drafted by the Anaheim Angels last year, came on in the fifth inning of the second game with his team trailing 2-1. The Bees rallied to take a 3-2 lead in the sixth as Foss pitched two solid innings.
But the Snappers ruined the moment in the seventh. Tyler Marincov led off with a double and advanced to third on a sacrifice, and Melvin Mercedes singled Marincov home to tie the game. Mercedes advanced to third on a single, Foss loaded the bases on an intentional walk, and then Mercedes came home on a wild pitch to end it.
In the first game, the Bees got a two-out, two-run home run from Chad Hinshaw in the third inning, and that was about all they needed.
The Snappers mustered just four hits in the seven-inning game.
Harrison Cooney picked up the win in relief for the Bees, and Joey Krehbiel pitched the seventh for the save. Lou Trivino gave up three earned runs in 4 2/3 innings with four strikeouts and no walks to take the loss for the Snappers.
The two teams wrap up their four-game season-opening series at 2 p.m. today at Pohlman Field.


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JANESVILLE—A man and woman who once lived together in Janesville are charged in Rock County Court with possession of child pornography.
The couple, who had a child together but now are separated, both are charged with 18 counts of child porn possession, all videos downloaded from the Internet, according to the criminal complaint.
Charged are Elijah P. Trotter, 26, of 1021 Sixth St., Beloit, and Sarah K. Reed, 26, of 805 Rollin St., Edgerton.
An investigation apparently began Feb. 13 when Reed told Beloit police her ex-boyfriend had child porn on his computer, the criminal complaint indicates.
Trotter told police he had a problem with child porn and that he had been downloading child porn since he was about 11 years old, but he had never hurt anyone, the criminal complaint states.
Police had two computers searched, one of which had been in the possession of both Reed and Trotter. Together, the computers contained more than 1,300 images and 58 videos of child porn, the complaint states.
A Rock County Child Protective Services worker who interviewed Trotter and Reed told police the couple viewed child porn while they were having sex, and Trotter said Reed helped him download the videos, the complaint states.
Reed told police they had been a couple since they graduated from high school in 2005 and separated in 2010. Their child is now 3. They moved into an apartment in Janesville in May 2010 and broke up that fall. They had lived with their respective parents before that, according to the complaint.
Reed said she did not like the porn but agreed to have it on during sex at Trotter's urging. Trotter described Reed as an enthusiastic participant, the complaint states.
Both of the accused are free on $9,000 signature bonds. A preliminary hearing for Trotter is scheduled for Monday. A motion hearing in Reed's case is set for April 9.


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