text: Excerpts from newspaper editorials with our comments:Kansas City Star: This financial crisis plus the huge liabilities it is hanging around taxpayers' necks come at a particularly bad time.Average Americans are struggling with a tough economy and heavy losses in their retirement funds. The official federal debt is at a record $9.6 trillion, and that figure will rise rapidly if the economy deteriorates further.The government also faces tens of trillions of dollars in other liabilities, and national security concerns are likely to boost defense spending in the years ahead.All this points toward significant tax increases in the not-too-distant future.Politicians may pretend otherwise during the fall campaign, and the costs of the corporate bailouts may be obscured for a while.But that won't change the fiscal reality; taxpayers can expect to get hit hard. The least they should expect in return is some decent financial regulation.Jerusalem Post: Paradoxically, Israelis have little to worry about. Israel has no subprime mortgage market, and so is largely immune to the kind of crisis that has hit the U.S. ... That said, Israel is part of the global economy; if it slows down, so will ours.China Daily News, Hong Kong: Besides being disastrous for the U.S., the U.S. subprime mortgage crisis has also adversely affected China's economy. However, it also presents an opportunity for Americans to gain a more sober understanding of China.American financial institutions sold the subprime mortgages through mortgage-backed securities and collateralized debt obligations to their European, Japanese, Canadian, Chinese and Indian counterparts. The confirmed losses worldwide have reached $395.8 billion, while estimated losses stand at about $995 billion.Our comments: The financial crisis in the United States rippled throughout the world.In fact, Japan went through a similar crisis in the 1990s.It lasted about 10 years. Conventional wisdom is that bold moves to rehabilitate lending are needed.Also, the basis for the crisis is a housing asset problem. Some middle ground that protects lenders and borrowers is needed.Massive foreclosures are bad for everyone.


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Traffic management is important for the safety, security of the pedestrians, heavy and light vehicles. At the various traffic junctions, led traffic indicators and them together with automated traffic controllers facilitate the smooth movement of the traffic across the roads. The modern day traffic controlling systems have self-adjust systems to prevent delay to the flow of road traffic movement. There are businesses which offer to sell the control systems to prospective customers. Businesses also sell traffic lights which find use at the signaling points at different road networks.
Mini traffic Light
Such light uses a 3 LED electronic circuits. Many retail shops, e-stores sell these products to potential customers. Some of the salient features pertaining to the mini traffic light are as follows:-
These LED lights are meant for traffic purposes and used at the intersection points.
Many e-commerce websites offer such products to prospective customers till their stocks last. Many of the portals offer free shipment of the items. The e-stores also sell battery operated traffic lights. These lights, too are LED operated and are displayed along with images, prices. Many businesses offer attractive discounts on the sale of these items. The miniature traffic lights and the LED traffic signs, displayed in the various e-stores often have free shipment options.
There are available a variety of traffic signs and signals. Online businesses sell traffic signal equipment like alternating flasher type, pedestrian controller type, 3 light controllers on their websites. The businesses highlight the product along with their prices. There is a huge demand for energy saving low-cost traffic lights LED. The web space has a listing of the service providers who offer cost effective, energy efficient traffic signal LED lights to interested customers.
Traffic management is important to avert any untoward road incidents, accidents. The professional services of traffic controllers often prove to be immensely helpful in regulating, monitoring the traffic movement. The activities of the traffic controllers are outdoor based. Modern road networks are constructed keeping in consideration the population of the region. The 6-way lanes offer greater movement of traffic through them and therefore it becomes all the more necessary for the traffic managers to keep a close vigil on what is flowing through the roads. Modern traffic management system incorporates the activities of the traffic controllers, traffic controlling systems as well as close circuit cameras to keep a close vigil on the traffic plying on the roads.

subset: commoncrawl


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Bahasa Indonesia
The Bahasa Indonesia language courses of the University of Groningen Language Centre focus mainly on speaking and understanding the Indonesian language. Reading and writing skills will also be dealt with. Grammar is not a goal in itself in this course; however, it is used to support the language acquisition. A great deal of attention will be paid to acquiring a basic vocabulary. Participants are expected to demonstrate a high degree of independence when doing homework or independent study.
Language of Instruction
The target language is the language of instruction as much as possible: Bahasa Indonesia. When necessary, the course is taught in Dutch and/or English.
Intake interview
Tailor-made courses are designed according to your personal wishes and your precise objectives. All this will be discussed during an intake interview, no strings attached.
After the preliminary intake interview, we will provide you with a clear offer.
Contact us
Request more information or set up a meeting, without any obligations. Your tailor-made training can start as soon as the offer is signed.
|Last modified:
|22 May 2020 11.04 a.m.


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Surge of immigrant families rivals numbers of 2014 in South Texas
MCALLEN — In late October, volunteers at a respite center for immigrant families near the bus station here raised a new tent to accommodate the increasing numbers of tired, scared Central Americans being dropped off by the Border Patrol.
A new trailer with showers arrived and a mobile medical clinic parked behind Sacred Heart Catholic Church's parish hall, bringing the total capacity at the makeshift shelter to 400 — the most it's had since 2014's massive influx of families and unaccompanied children crossing the border in South Texas and requesting asylum.
Last month was the busiest October for the Border Patrol since 2008, and the numbers of unaccompanied children and families detained by agents rivaled all but the busiest months in the spring and summer of 2014.
The number of families and children caught at the border has increased in other parts of Texas as well. This month, the Border Patrol opened a processing center for children and families in Tornillo, near El Paso.
Those numbers, however, pale in comparison with apprehensions in the Rio Grande Valley. To deal with the large numbers of families and children surrendering to agents near McAllen, the Border Patrol this month sent 150 agents from other sectors here to perform administrative duties and keep local agents in the field.
The sudden increase, which is unusual for this time of year, has raised questions about whether the presidential election is encouraging people to hurry across the border.
"We have been told by quite a few people, at least up to the election, and this is from the people we caught, if Hillary (Clinton) gets in, there will be some kind of amnesty, so we need to get in. And on the flip side, if Trump gets in, there will be some kind of wall," said Chris Cabrera, a Border Patrol agent and vice president of the Rio Grande Valley branch of the union representing agents.
But most of the immigrants at the shelter this week told stories similar to those who have been passing through its doors for more than two years. They said they're fleeing extreme violence and abject poverty in Guatemala, Honduras and El Salvador, the so-called Northern Triangle countries that now account for nearly half of all illegal immigration to the U.S.
"They know he's going to put in place tougher laws," José Ramírez, a 36-year-old Salvadoran, said of Trump. On Tuesday, the bearded and tattooed Ramírez had donned a volunteer's vest and was hauling donated mattresses and bags of clothes into the church. "It's not just this. In my case, I had other reasons."
Ramírez said he lived most of his life in San Salvador, the capital of El Salvador, but moved to the east of the country on the border with Honduras last year. There he found more gangsters and less work, so he brought his 12-year-old son to the U.S. He said they were going to join his sister in Miami.
Verónica Alvarenga, 24, said she had no choice but to flee El Salvador. The father of her son was forced to join the street gangs that are the de facto rulers in the area of San Salvador where she lived. After he was killed in 2013, she moved to a neighborhood controlled by another criminal group, but that was dangerous, Alvarenga said.
"They were looking for me because I fled to a rival's area," she said. "It was very dangerous. They called it a treason."
Alvarenga and her 4-year-old son were trying to make it to Los Angeles, where her new husband, a lawful permanent resident, lives. They spent two days packed into a trailer with more than 100 other immigrants for the 1,500-mile drive from Villahermosa in southern Mexico to Reynosa on the border.
"There's little air," she said. "You can't move. It's incredibly uncomfortable. For the children, it's very difficult."
Seeking asylum
On Tuesday, many of those in the center were fathers traveling with their children, but Sister Norma Pimentel, the executive director of Catholic Charities for the Rio Grande Valley, said about 90 percent of the adults who come through the center are women.
After more than two years of working with the families, she said the respite center, which provides showers, clean clothes, food and helps arranging transportation to their destination, can easily handle increases in families like the one this fall. The families are released by the Border Patrol with notices to appear in immigration court, which allow them to travel past the immigration checkpoints on U.S. highways.
"I think that sometimes people may not understand why these families are here," Pimentel said. "They're here because they fled their country, because they feared for the lives of their children and they need care and they need due process to figure out whether they have a right to be here or not."
Cabrera, the Border Patrol agent and union official, said word has gotten out on social media that adults with children are less likely to be detained than single adults.
"People know the loophole, what they need to say to get through," he said. "They know if they speak of some kind of asylum, they'll be given a court date and released into the country."
The U.S. is spending hundreds of millions of dollars on economic development in the Northern Triangle. It has also launched a pair of initiatives to encourage families and children to apply for legal status in the United States before leaving Central America. Those efforts have been criticized for being slow moving.
Edgar Carrillo, 29, said he left his wife and two youngest children with family members in rural Guatemala after fleeing the country's capital. Carrillo said he worked as a taxi driver and was forced to pay 300 quetzals, about $40, a week in extortion money to organized crime. That was more than half his take-home pay, he said.
"If you don't pay, they start killing," he said. "They kill someone in your family first to make you pay. And if you still don't pay, they kill you."
He paid the extortion for years until the gangsters approached his wife, who had a tortilleria, Carrillo said. They wanted 20,000 quetzals, about $2,600, as an upfront payment, plus the weekly cuota. The family didn't have the money and were subjected to harassment by the gangs. Earlier this year, gunmen came to his 9-year-old son's school.
After saying goodbye to his wife and younger children, Carrillo took his oldest son on the journey to the United States.
In Veracruz, Mexico, they were kidnapped by the Zetas drug gang and were held with other immigrants. The hoodlums would choose teenage girls and rape them in front of the other captives, Carrillo said.
Once again, he was faced with paying an extortion or death. They were freed after family members in New Jersey wired $400 to the Zetas, Carrillo said.
Fueling the debate
The recent increase in families crossing the border has thrown fuel on an already contentious debate over border security. That makes McAllen Mayor Jim Darling, who's seeing his town once again overrun with national media, cringe.
Darling said crime stats show McAllen is one of the safest cities in the state and that large groups of women and children who surrender to Border Patrol agents on the riverbanks without trying to cross the border fence that sits on levees across the Valley hardly constitute a security threat.
"A crisis on the border about women and children coming over gets interpreted in Michigan and other states as 'we can't protect the border,'" Darling said. "The reality is (the Border Patrol is) swamped processing women and children."
He'd like to see McAllen be reimbursed for the money it has spent dealing with the families who, until the respite center opened in 2014, were being left at the city's central bus station by the Border Patrol.
McAllen initially provided large tents for sleeping and trailers that have showers and bathrooms, intended for hurricane relief, when the shelter opened. The need had dwindled in 2015 and some of the equipment had been put in storage. When the numbers went up last month, faith groups like the Rio Grande Valley Baptist Association brought in another shower trailer and the mobile clinic.
City personnel are still involved in supporting the center, and the police department provides security. McAllen estimates it's spent more than $400,000, while Hidalgo County and nearby municipalities have spent more than $300,000.
Meanwhile, Catholic Charities is building a new shelter nearby so Sacred Heart can have its parish hall back. Pimentel said it will have a capacity similar to the existing shelter and will have its own showers and medical facilities.
It's unclear what a new president can do about the situation here. Since 2014, the Obama administration has gone from having fewer than 100 beds to detain families to more than 3,000 at two controversial detention centers near San Antonio.
Rulings by federal judges have repudiated the administration's efforts to hold families for extended periods of time, and both U.S. and international law guarantees due process for asylum seekers, said Jonathan Ryan, executive director of the Refugee and Immigrant Center for Education and Legal Services in San Antonio.
"President Obama has been in no way lenient on Central Americans … throughout his eight-year tenure," Ryan said. "To do anything more to discourage, frustrate and deter refugees and immigrants, the president would have to turn to the Congress to make changes and rollbacks of long-standing bipartisan law or request billions, if not tens of billions, of dollars from the Congress to carry out the proposed programs."
One proposal Cabrera, from the Border Patrol union, has is to move large numbers of immigration judges to the border to quickly hear asylum cases.
"Right now, we don't have the judges to see these cases," he said. "If we brought them down here to make these decisions in a few days, word would get out."
Twitter: @jlbuch


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In March 2018, YWCA Glendale distributed a 23-question survey to the Glendale community in order to
better understand our community's current viewpoints and experiences related to domestic violence. We
assessed knowledge of domestic violence, attitudes/biases towards domestic violence, violence
exposure, bystander efficacy, and community involvement. 76 people responded.
Click here to view or download the results.


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Boomtown Strategic Brand Agency celebrates 25 years
February 1st marks 25 years since Neil Hart founded one of South Africa's leading independent agencies, but Boomtown is celebrating by looking to the future.
While the agency is taking a brief look back at its history, via a timeline, and sharing quotes and photos from the archives, the majority of the agency's 25th anniversary will be squarely focused on the next 25 years.
Boomtown Managing Director, Andrew MacKenzie remarks on the milestone saying: "Boomtown is uniquely positioned as one of the South Africa's oldest agencies, we have seen how the consumer has evolved, experienced tech change how we communicate and we have helped brands enter the South African market and cross borders to enter new territories. But the future's exciting and we want to celebrate 25 years with a future-focussed approach. We've had an amazing quarter century. But what's next?"
Our team are the industry's future leaders, so who better else to ask about the next 25 years? "We invited our employees to make predictions about the future of the industry," adds MacKenzie.
"Our people are our most important asset and we're invested in them, so we were interested in their opinion."
Products compete against each other via algorithms to gain traction into the market, and AI w reduces the amount of clutter in the market. But stories haven't lost their allure and when choices are made by individuals for products of desire it's the story that makes or breaks brands. - Anthony Heim, Creative
In 2044 computers are consumers, in the form of robots, home concierge systems and brain-implanted chips. The latter helps consumers concentrate on more creative pursuits instead of deciding which washing powder to purchase. And, most of the decision-making is influenced by the information technology systems that surround us. - Hilton Mashonga, Creative director
2044 is a paperless world, print companies have reinvented themselves. And the working environment has changed, freelancers are the workforce, a team who o quickly adapt to change, and bulk up talent on demand. - Simon Browne, Client services
People are smart but computers are smarter and the world is systematic with computer generated versions of us doing everything. Our every move is influenced by an algorithm, our best friend, and our daily tasks are automated. - Meagan Viljoen, Creative
There's no digital agencies or advertising agencies, the skills and services required will have evolved to such an extent that a new type of business has emerged. It's a business that's an amalgamation and extension of things that we were only at the tipping point of in 2019.
We don't learn from the 'greats of our industry' for the way forward, we turn to the Gen Z's and Gen Alphas. The pace at which the world is changing is too rapid to keep looking too far back… instead innovative thinking, agility and most importantly, a growth mindset keeps us relevant. - Lara-Anne Derbyshire, Strategy
As we have seen in the previous 25 years and the changes that technology has had on consumers, the economy and how we interact and engage with one another. "We're planning our future right now, we're always planning for tomorrow," MacKenzie added.
"The entire approach, structure and transformation strategy is all about ensuring our survival. And, the best way to predict the future is to create it ourselves."
25 years of possibility at Boomtown Strategic Brand Agency
Boomtown was founded in 1994 in the rural Eastern Cape through the sale of two cows to purchase its first computer. The agency and its team have never forgotten its humble beginnings, it keeps us grounded. As a proudly independent agency, we utilise our unique combination of cultural relevance, creativity and commerce to connect with consumers' hearts and help build iconic South African brands.
Possibility for Boomtown is about 25 years of growth from one small, brave decision to having a significant impact across the continent. It's about continually asking What's next? What's next for you, your brand, your market, your consumer?
Possibility is about adapting to change. About being agile enough to be constantly innovating as markets move and our country transforms.
Boomtown has realised the possibilities for many brands from:
- Growing SA's most iconic coffee brand to achieving its highest market share in history.
- Year-on-year double digit growth of an iconic SA beer brand through a bi-modal strategy.
- Making the 183-year legacy of a global cement company relevant in Southern Africa.
- Contextualising a perceived men's footwear brand for an emerging woman's market
- Recruiting doctors to Africa through a world-first creative solution.
Image: Karl Schoemaker
Follow more RNEWS articles, subscribe to our YouTube channel and for breaking news LIKE us on Facebook. For news on the Western Cape click here.
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Factors To Consider When Choosing The Best Steak Restaurant.
Going to s steak restaurant is usually a feeling that comes into the mind of an individual at some time. Varieties of the steak restaurants are all over, and individuals should be aware. Choosing the best steak restaurant thus become a challenge to an individual. Steak restaurants that can offer quality services to the customers is always what the individual will aim at.
So that one can come up with the best steak restaurant; there is a need to ensure that one takes his time. With this in mind, there are various factors that can be used by individuals to assist them in the selection of the right steak restaurant. The first thing that an individual need to look into is the general environment around the place where the restaurant is located. With the food involved, it will be essential for an individual top ensure that there is cleanliness around the restaurant. Individuals should always go to the steak restaurant that is well maintained as well as that one which can accommodate a lot of people.
Individuals should have in mind the services that the customers are offered in the steak restaurant. So that the customers may not be strangers, there is a need for them to be provided with good customer service. One will know more about a restaurant by observing how the customers are handled by the clients. Remember, the customers are the reason as to why there is a growth in your business. There will be no business if there will not be having the customers. Care and respect are the two things that need to be observed when treating the customers.
With the services offered being satisfied; a client will be happy. Customers will always be coming back if there are good services. Friends will accompany them when coming to the restaurant. It will be the role of the owners to ensure that the customers are handle with care. There is a need to consider the quantity of the steak in the restaurant. One will feel disappointed if he is told that there is no steak in a restaurant.
The selected restaurant should at all the time have the steak. Your happiness is when your friend join you to a steak restaurant, and she gets enough of the steak. Remember the moment a customer fails to get the steak in the restaurant, he will always have an assumption that there is no steak in that restaurant at all the time. The next step is to look for a restaurant that he will get enough steak. Considering the factors will result in an individual not regretting about the selected steak restaurant.


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To achieve a sustainable external position, Portugal needs a real depreciation of its exchange rate of 35 per cent, Greece one of 30 per cent, Spain one of 20 per cent and Italy one of 10-15 per cent, while Ireland is now competitive. Such adjustments imply offsetting appreciation in core countries. Moreover, with average inflation of 2 per cent in the eurozone and, say, zero inflation in currently uncompetitive countries, adjustment would take Portugal and Greece 15 years, Spain 10 years and Italy 5-10 years. Moreover, that would also imply 4 per cent annual inflation in the rest of the eurozone.But the danger is that even if the required inflation environments can be sustained for long periods, the austerity policies being followed by these economies could choke off any growth and push them down a contractionary spiral. Spain's targeted fiscal correction by 5.5% of GDP over two years, with 3.2% adjustment proposed for 2012, from its fiscal deficit of 8.5% of GDP for 2011, is one of the biggest fiscal adjustments ever attempted by a large industrial country. Such severe austerity threatens economies with large unmeployment rates, debt-ridden banks, and fiscally constrained governments. Predictably, as with the case of Spain, the markets have reacted with alarm driving up Spanish bond yields and CDS spreads.
Tuesday, April 17, 2012
Eurozone's rebalancing challenge
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Riders always ask, "what can I ride on my hardtail MTB? Dirt jumps? Enduro? Freeride? Downhill? Is it only good for XC?" Well, they've been listening, so here's GMBN to demonstrate exactly what a hardtail can do!
Note that these are aggressive hardtails, not the ones we got introduced to 20-30 years ago. Head angles are slack, very slack and dropper posts are highly desired. The upside is cost and simplicity. These hardtails cost about a half or third of what comparable full suspension bikes will set you back. $1000 will get you going and $3000 will get you a very nice rig. The entry point to a nice full suspension rig is considerably higher.
The other upside is simplicity. Choices are simpler without a having to understand leverage ratios, axle paths, and kinematics. The buying experience is simpler and so is the setup and riding experience. And finally, maintenance and clean up is quite a bit simpler as well so there's more time to focus on the ride.
Skill is required as well since the bike is not there to cover one's mistakes. And the body needs to be honed in to take the beating and live to tell the tale. The body and joints can act as suspension so the rider has to be in the ready and neutral position to take on the hits and keep on ticking.
Here are some tips on how to ride aggressively. Master these tricks and it'll help you ride your capable full suspension bike as well since all these hardtail skills transfer over to bikes with front and rear shocks.


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Are you seeking a break from your traditional New Year's Eve routine? Make this year's celebrations unforgettable – welcome 2017 in style and spend New Year under the sunny, blue skies of the French Riviera.
In the Cote d'Azur, the last day of the year is celebrated with a feast very similar to a British Christmas dinner – goose, turkey, chicken, smoked salmon, oysters, foie gras and obviously, champagne!
The Christmas Markets in Nice, Antibes and Cannes run until 1st Jan, so grab a glass of mulled wine and enjoy the last of the festive season – maybe even buy some decorations for Christmas 2017! The French Riviera is very popular over the festive season, so if you're eating out in any of the fantastic restaurants, be sure to book!
New Year's events can be found all over the French Riviera, but if it's fireworks you're looking for, Cannes offers the most spectacular, colourful display to make your New Year memorable.
Wherever you are and however you are spending the festivities this year, Joyeux Noel et Bonne Année from Bruce International Properties.


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Download Death Shooter 3D for PC Windows
Death Shooter 3D for PC Windows is bound to hold immense attraction for all the lovers of shooting games with its mindboggling graphics and realistic gameplay. This game provides all the players with two vastly enjoyable and challenging modes – the Counter Strike Mode, and the Zombie War Mode. Each of these modes comes with their own set of challenges and a very different look and feel from one another. Therefore, players are able to enjoy blasting off the undead in the zombie mode while carrying out silent assassinations in the other mode to suit their preferences.
Death Shooter 3D for PC Windows provides its players with a vast range of equipments to choose from and strategize their plan of action to complete a mission with utmost efficiency. Players get to earn in-game money, which is essential for making various upgrades to their equipments, and become a more lethal force to deal with. Players can earn more quickly by playing the Zombie War Mode, and use it to upgrade their equipments while they can also increase the HP level with upgraded levels.
Players can experience the real pleasure of handling ultimate weapons while playing this game. This game can provide the ideal doze of thrill and chill to its players, and is available at the bluestack app player.


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We've seen a huge number of ground-breaking updates in the news recently… Boris Johnson is the new PM; the weather is the warmest it has probably ever been in the UK; there will be two series of Love Island next year.
I know, it's a big deal.
Now, whatever your thoughts might be on BoJo or Love Island, what is clear is that there's an increasing demand for change, and this demand is ever-present for shoppers and the traditional associations between shopper and retailer.
Last year, shoppers turned to supermarkets in droves, in a bid to celebrate what was a fantastic summer of sport and great weather across the UK. It was always going to be difficult for retailers to match up with year-on-year sales of alcohol and ice cream without the same scale of events taking place. So, it should come as no surprise that Kantar have announced that grocery sales have declined this year for the first time since June 2016.
All major grocers have recorded a fall in sales, with Morrisons recording the biggest drop as sales fell 2.6% during the 12 weeks to 14th July, despite offering more extensive promotional offerings.
To put this in perspective amidst cooler temperatures, UK shoppers spent £75m less on alcohol and £55m less on ice cream compared to last year.
In contrast to the Big Four, online retailer, Ocado saw an increase of 11.9% in sales while boosting its customer numbers by 6%.
So, what has Ocado done differently?
Well, nothing really. Their online business model has helped to shield the effects of shoppers cutting back on unplanned trips to the supermarket and shoppers are buying more frequently online than last year.
Good news for Ocado.
But how can the Big Four combat the decline in footfall to brick and mortar stores?
Sainsbury's have an idea, and that idea involves Deliveroo.
Sainsbury's have recently begun to trial a partnership with Deliveroo, allowing customers to order hot takeaways from their local Sainsbury's counter via the food delivery platform. There will be nearly 50 Sainsbury's products available including sourdough pizzas (the dream!), soft drinks, snacks, sides, the works; with a view to add wider products to the range during the trial.
The UK's food delivery market is currently worth £8.1bn and is expected to grow to £9.8bn by 2021, so it feels like a no-brainer that grocery stores would like to cut themselves a slice.
And it's not only Sainsbury's who want to broaden their sourdough pizza reach, Morrisons have hinted that they been holding similar talks with companies in the same bracket as Just Eat and Uber.
By thinking of creative solutions to make stores and products more accessible to shoppers, not only are we on the verge of witnessing a shift in shopper behaviour, we may also be on the verge of witnessing a combative effort from retailers against declining footfall in store.


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| Back
Friday, August 6, 2004
An evening of contemporary Cuban cinema, featuring a screening of the film, Nada Mas [Nothing More], Dir. Juan Carlos Cremata Malberti, Cuba, 2001. Duration: 93 minutes. Color. In Spanish with English subtitles.
While dreaming of a better life with her parents who have migrated to the U.S., Carla a post office worker begins to intercept letters and rewrite them to brighten the lives of their addressees, and of course, her own. She compensates for her own personal dissatisfaction by the pleasure she takes in helping those around her. The film takes a sharp look at Cuban bureaucracy, and the issues of migration and separation specific to Cubans.
Awards: Winner, Coral (Cuba) and Cuban Press Association Award for Best First Work in 2003; Nominated, Goya (Spain) Best Spanish Language Foreign Film 2003; Nominated, Best Film at the 2003 Festival de Cartagena; Nominated to the Ariel Award (Mexico) for Best Latin American Film.


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I'm just going to be up front with all of you: Managing a page on Google+ is both an art and a skill that takes a lot of time and a lot of energy. It's not about simply broadcasting a message and then going about your day as planned. No. Google+ page management is about engagement, finding those who appreciate your content and interacting with them regularly. People love following and interacting with other people and many times are willing to take a chance on a person just to see if they drum up some interesting content. Pages are not so lucky.
People have gained over the years a certain expectation of brands… And I can tell you as a page manager, it's not a good one. This isn't to discourage you from managing a page. It's to prepare you for the environment you're entering and to give a context as to why my "dos and don'ts" of page management consist of what they do. Just know that every engager you get as a page means that you have potentially changed one more mind about the authenticity and humanness of brands everywhere, but more importantly you have changed one more mind about your brand.
As I mentioned, people like to talk to other people more than they like to talk to brands. Therefore, make it very clear on a regular basis who is behind the brand. Most of the people who follow SEOWiSE are well aware that I am the one posting on behalf of the brand. In fact, many of the SEOWiSE followers have come from first interaction with me as a person and then have moved to interacting with the brand page. Be open with your audience who they are talking to. You'll build trust faster and your openness will invite the audience in.
Brands over the years have come to be known as broadcasters… A.K.A. brands are known to send out messages, not listen to them. The more listening you do (to potential customers and your biggest competitors) the more you'll understand how to best send your own message. The first step to creating a message is understanding your audience. To understand your audience you must first listen.
You don't have to share an original post every day (unless you're in the blogging industry then you may want to consider it). But you should show a presence every day. If you don't find a post you'd like to share, then comment on the posts of others and plus posts you find interesting that still fit into your brand's objectives. Note: Always follow up on responses to your comments! Which leads me to…
The best way to humanize a brand is to stop broadcasting and start conversing. Sure, feel free to share your blog posts but make sure to stimulate conversation around them. When you don't have a blogpost of your own to share, share posts of others or comment on their posts to have a discussion as the brand. If someone responds to your comments, respond back as you would with any regular conversation.
As a brand people are going to expect you to be obsessed with follower counts, not the individual behind the follower. Show people that you care about your followers. In the NOD3x Community for example, John Dietrich makes it a point to recognize the new members every few weeks to make them each feel welcome and show appreciation for their interest in NOD3x. Show each person that to your brand they're important, even if they are just one person.
It's amazing how much easier your audience is to find when you join relevant communities. But don't just join the communities, participate in them. And I am not saying drop all of your posts into a community. Engage on other community posts first, get a feel for the community, and then begin sharing your community relevant content.
Do as you like with your personal profile but do not get negative on your brand page. That's exactly what people want you to do. If you're dealing with a spammer then delete their comment and send them a private message as to why their comment was deleted. If you're dealing with a negative Nancy I like to probe them publicly as to why they feel such negativity toward the post, ideas, or brand itself. They usually don't have an answer for me (but always be prepared for one just in case). Sometimes having an intelligent conversation with someone who initially openly hates your brand (an upset customer, someone who just hates you for your brand name, someone who dislikes your marketing tactics) can end up not only converting that individual but is a fantastic trust builder for those others who see the conversation.
A great recent example of this is Hootsuite's use of negative feedback to make a hilarious video introducing their new User Interface. They took the format of Jimmy Kimmel's "Mean Tweets" segment and made an engaging video that showed both a sense of humor AND that they're listening to ALL forms of feedback.
I realize we're all extremely busy but any time you or your brand can lend a helping hand to others, you'll better solidify a relationship. SEOWiSE has worked numerous times with BIG FUN Education because we believe in what they do and what they stand for. Establishing relationships with nonprofits that align with your brand is a win-win-win: The nonprofit gets the help it needs, you feel good about what you're doing, and your brand gets more positive exposure.
Stop reading this blogpost and get out there and try it! I can't tell you all the secrets because as with any communication, there are going to be differences for each and every brand. There are huge differences between the pages I manage, each requiring a slightly unique approach. So make mistakes… It's okay! I went through, and still continue to go through a ton of trial and error to figure out what works for our brand and what doesn't. People actually appreciate seeing my mistakes as long as I share with them what I've learned.
So stop reading, start doing!


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Enjoy Lip-Smacking Persian Delicacies This Nowruz At Dinshaw's Xpress Café, Oshiwara
Celebrations are about to begin and excitements are at the peak, since Nowruz is right around the corner! With this holy festival of Nowruz comes prosperity, remittance of sins, positivity with lots of love, and peaceful vibes. But you know what else comes along? Great food! Parsees are known for their sweet nature and delicious Parsi cuisine, and to give the best of the Parsi traditional dishes, Dinshaw's Xpress Café at Oshiwara has come up with special Parsi thalis!
Take a look at the yummiest food these thalis on their menu include:
Veg Thali – Patata Cheese Balls, Veg Dhansak, Rice, Lagan Nu Custard/Parsi Kulfi, Pallonji Drink (Raspberry Ginger /Lemon/ Masala Soda)
Chicken Thali – Chicken Farcha, Chicken Dhansak/Salli Marghi (Salli Chicken) Berry Pulao/Hot Buttered Pao, Lagan Nu Custard/Parsi Kulfi, Pallonji Drink (Raspberry/Ginger/Lemon/ Masala Soda)
Mutton Thali – Kheema Kebab, Mutton Dhansak/Salli BotiBerry Pulao/Hot Buttered Pao, Lagan Nu Custard/Parsi Kulfi, Pallonji Drink (Raspberry/Ginger/Lemon/Masala Soda)
Special Batliwala Thali - Kheema Kebab, Patra Ni Machchi (Ravas), Kid Ghosht, Berry Pulao
Dinshaw's Xpress Café offers meals at prices starting from Rs. 399 (vegetarian) and Rs. 599 (non-vegetarians). Gear up to have an amazing time this festive season with scrumptious Persian delicacies!
Deets Here:
What: Special Parsi Thali For Nowruz
When: Monday, 13th August – Sunday, 31st August 2018
Where: Dinshaw's Xpress Café – 6, Windermere, Off Oshiwara link road, Andheri West
Contact: 90045 30507
Price: Rs. 399 onwards


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Just an hours drive from Munich is the start of the Bavarian Alps, a relatively small alpine area in comparison to Austria, Switzerland or Italy but always worth the effort to enjoy with many beautiful villages, great sporting possibilities & some impressive views from the Zugspitze in Garmisch-Partenkirchen.
A trip to the Bavarian Alps was just what the doctor ordered. Extreme mild temperatures just before Christmas couldn't hold me back to venture down to Garmisch-Partenkirchen once more to stand "On Top of Germany".
As we moved to Munich eight years ago I couldn't get enough of the fresh air & beauty of the Bavarian Alps as they were just down the road from where I live. Well, 60km is just down the road especially if you have a car. I got to see a lot of the area in those days & when I wasn't out in the car I was often in Munich at the weekends & often even in the evenings after work & that in the middle of winter when the temperatures were well below zero. My wife said I was fanatical, I suppose she was right but after a while you realize that you start repeating yourself for lack of new challenges. These days I seldom go into town to shoot material without an idea or plan. I have lost a little bit of the spontaneity probably due to the fact that after a while you tend to think "Been there, seen it, shot it" syndrome. I do realize that every time you return there will always be something different, a small twist to the situation, be it from weather, light or time of year but it just doesn't convince me to get up early or stay out late these days. Being a hobby I shouldn't see it as being a duty or responsibility but the fact is, I do miss it sometimes.
The weather has been gorgeous the last couple of days & very mild too for the middle of December. I am on holiday for the next three weeks due to the forced reduction of overtime from the past year & Christmas holidays to boot. I still have lots to do with the websites & the processing of images never stops. Many reasons preventing me from writing my blog articles too I'm afraid.
I enjoy this view often as I go to work in the morning.
Photograph by Douglas Stevens Photoviewz
Anyway, I decided to take my chances with the weather & get my ass out of bed early, walk to the S-Bahn station in Unterhaching & catch the train to Munich, from there a train to Garmisch-Partenkirchen on the Bavarian/Austrian border & once there catch the funicular to the Eibsee, a beautiful lake surrounded by woodland situated direct in front of the Zugspitze, Germanys highest peak at 2,962m. From there I hoped to hop on the cable car that shoots up to the summit & shoot the sun going down before taking the last cable car back down, catch the funicular back to the railway station in Garmisch, hop on a train back to Munich, jump on the S-Bahn back to Unterhaching & then walk the last 15 minutes back home, carrying a backpack with around 6 kilos, plus a tripod.
Now as I describe all this it sounds even quite mad to me & to be honest such day trips aren't for the faint of hearted. Getting up so early is for me the hardest part. I generally go to bed very late & don't have to rise before 8:00am for work during the week. Once outside though, the fresh air wakes me up & I'm on my way with thoughts & expectations of the ongoing self assignment.
"For a moment the wind let up and the sun was just about to disappear behind the horizon. I couldn't believe my luck, this was to be my reward for the effort of getting up this morning."
I arrived at Munichs central station at around 9:00am to see my train waiting. I had 10 minutes to buy a Bayern ticket & hop on. My hopes were dashed as there was a queue at the ticket kiosk, not many but you all know that train tickets always take a while. Today was no exception & add to this a middle aged Italian couple that couldn't speak any German then you can well imagine my frustration as my train said toodle pip & departed without me. The next train was in 35 minutes which was at short notice dropped from the schedule due to a technical defect. I could have spent this time sleeping & worse still it was robbing time from a very tight programme that I had in mind. Travelling always has it's surprises & today was to be no exception.
It was 10:15am before we left Munich & 11:45am as we arrived in Garmisch. Luckily the Zugspitzbahn (funicular railway) is only a stones throw from the station. This is where I received my next shock, the next train was at 12:15pm. Holy shit, this is not my day I thought, another 25 minute wait, oh well, time for a coffee & a bite to eat. This was a good idea as I later realized as I had no more time to waste after this.
Cold morning air and a view for the Gods.
Photograph by Douglas Stevens Photoviewz
A frozen Frillensee directly in front of the Zugspitze mountain range.
Photograph by Douglas Stevens Photoviewz
The ride to the Eibsee takes about 25 minutes with a couple of stops along the way. From the station at Eibsee it's a walk of about 10 minutes to the shores of the lake where the large Eibsee Hotel is situated. The path was covered in a compacted snow making it pretty slippery going but the view more than compensated for this little annoyance. It was so tranquil, no people & no wind making for almost perfect mirrored reflections of the peaks in the water from the opposite side of the lake. The peaks aren't particularly high with little snow capping them but just enough for a couple of nice shots.
A little further on I arrived at Frillensee, this is basically a pond separated from the Eibsee on it's southern shore. What makes Frillensee so special is it's vertical backdrop of the Zugspitze massive, it's pretty awesome. The pond in summer is crystal clear but full of dead trees, in winter it's frozen over, surrounded by a large, dense Pine forest. I got to work shooting some material taking care with a panorama of the impressive vista before heading back to the cable car station. I didn't have to wait long before we headed on up. The gondola was empty other than one other photographer & the attendant who was controlling the ascent. He sighted some mountain goats that were just a couple of black dots on the snow covered outcrops, it took me some time before I caught a glimpse of them before the stone walls & trees obscured the view. The cable car route is breathtaking & a real feat of modern engineering, it must have been very dangerous building these massive pylons that help hold the 4 thick, heavy cables. It takes about 10 minutes to reach the summit from 1000m to 2960m. Then it was up 3 floors of restaurant & museum stairs before the doors slid open & the sun & wind hits you straight in the face. The air is noticeably thinner at this elevation but was quickly forgotten as I caught my first glimpse of that alpine panorama, a sight that never fails to give me goose pimples.
A birds eye view into the Höllental (Hells Valley).
Photograph by Douglas Stevens Photoviewz
A last shot before the sun sets behind the weather station and Münchenerhaus.
Photograph by Douglas Stevens Photoviewz
I didn't have much time & so got to work, the wind was ice cold feeling like -5°C at least, my hands were feeling the pinch already after 10 minutes & holding the heavy 70-200mm zooms metal housing didn't help matters a lot. It got unbearable & the wind didn't let up, I had to go inside & get warmed up. After a while I was back outside, the light was changing quickly, I had to make the most out of the next hour. My hands started burning again, I could hardly feel the shutter release let alone use the zoom properly, I decided to take shelter once more. Thoughts started to race through my mind; is this really what one would call fun what I'm doing? Is this worth the pain & stress? Of course it is & went back out onto the Austrian side of the viewing platform. Bloody hell, the wind was even worse on this side & I was shooting into the sun. I had to bracket a number of shots.
I noticed movement to my left & couldn't believe what I was witnessing, on a large mast in front of the restaurant building a man was carrying out repairs to some cables hanging to the side fully exposed to the elements. Of course I had to take this opportunity & raced through the corridor separating the Austrian from the German side of the platform & was almost blown back by a strong wind boa. I could hardly hold my camera straight & had to pump the ISO value up to 400 to get a reasonably high shutter speed. After 10 shots or so I retreated back inside to warm my freezing hands. I checked the previous shots & knew again why I was going through this torture, the results looked promising.
Unbelievable array of warm tones shortly before the sun diminishes.
Photograph by Douglas Stevens Photoviewz
The sun was going down, I had to get back out, I only had another 20 minutes before the last gondola leaves at 16:40pm. For a moment the wind let up & the sun was just about to disappear behind the horizon. I couldn't believe my luck, this was to be my reward for the effort of getting up this morning. I have been on the Zugspitze a number of times but the sunset has always eluded me because the last gondola always left before the sun set. Today was my chance and I used it shooting away like a lunatic until I was told to leave as the last gondola was to depart in the next 10 minutes. The sun was gone leaving the platform abruptly in shadow, it was getting colder and the sky changed to a muddy grey with a band of pink on the horizon, that was it I thought, grabbed my backpack and made my way downstairs to the gondola. My hands were burning from the cold, my ears too but I didn't care, main thing was that the pictures are good.
At this point all I wanted to do was get back to Unterhaching as quickly as possible to enjoy my catch from the day in my study on my monitor, unfortunately this must wait a while. We descended to the cable car station swiftly, outside the last residues of sunset colours diminished revealing a black carpet of forest around the barely visible Eibsee below us.
The sun was overpowering and that by -5°C.
Photograph by Douglas Stevens Photoviewz
Looks like someone lost the toss of a coin today.
Photograph by Douglas Stevens Photoviewz
The last funicular took the remaining guests back to the railway station, I could hear people discussing the magnificant sunset they had witnessed, a sense of content was not to be overseen. Some were pretty exhausted, the thin air and the rampaging wind takes up a lot of energy. Some had fallen asleep, I too nodded off a couple of times before we arrived at the station. My thoughts were just on getting home, hoping that I didn't have to wait too long for the train back to Munich. I was in luck, in 10 minutes the next train from Innsbruck was due.
The last embers of daylight diminish leaving the Zugspitze summit drift slowly into darkness.
Photograph by Douglas Stevens Photoviewz
I'm not a religious guy but I do believe to a certain degree in fate and on this evening as I sat myself opposite an elderly gentleman who was tampering with a laptop fate struck. The man, obviously from the area due to his accent asked me if I was a photographer, I replied that this was my way of relaxing from my work in the advertising branch. His eyes broadened and he asked whether I was familiar with Adobe Photoshop. I laughed and explained that this was probably the only software that I know well. He started to banter about being a former photographer who in the analogue days developed techniques using colour processing in the darkroom for a reprographic company working as a freelancer. Of course there was no shortage of discussion material here, we got on like a house on fire. To cut a long story short this guy is using Photoshop today producing abstract art, some examples of which he showed me on his laptop combining photo material and painting techniques. Unfortunately we had to part our ways in Murnau but if there was one thing that sticks in my mind is the fact that this man was still full of creative enthusiasm and this at the mature age of eighty.
It was well past 20:00pm as I arrived back home to the warmth of our cosy appartment and judging by the delicious aroma coming from the kitchen my wife was cooking the evening meal, I couldn't have timed it better. I still had time to open a beer, turn on my computer and transfer the days swag to one of my hard drives still thinking of the elderly man in the train. Eighty years old and still at it I thought, unbelievable.
There is hope for me yet. :-)


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I am getting rid of that cold, metallic taste in my mouth. That taste we all live with. That taste we all, almost ignore. That taste that abates over weekends, and vacations, and long public holidays…
I am getting rid of that cold, metallic taste in my mouth. That taste that comes with being bound by a timepiece.
I have been a time oriented creature for so, so long. I have always had a good wristwatch that I wore night and day. The gold, tuning fork number that made a high-pitched whine. The very nice Omega I eventually gave away in favor of the old Rolex…
… Given to me by Rolf Nowak. Rolf has lived on Choiseul, near Choiseul Bay, for 40-some years. His is a long story. He bought his Rolex in 1955 and sailed from Vancouver into the Pacific. His are colorful stories. Life and death adventures on the high seas in a small boat. Rolf is still alive. I must pay him a visit soon.
He gave me his encrusted, old Rolex in 1991. I spent a small fortune getting Rolex in Geneva to clean it up. I have worn it night and day since then. And paid for subsequent repairs. I have considered it a talisman. A potent charm. It is older than I, has seen much more of the world than I, and was a gift from a powerful human.
I recently spent more money to get it completely refurbished.
Once, the Rolex Customer Service Manager stated, in a communication discussing the cost of repairing my much worn watch, "…you obviously wear your Rolex with enthusiasm…"
No matter what people say do not believe that an expensive watch is a good investment. It is a wonderful timepiece often a nice bit of jewelry… that requires a lot of attention. A Timex keeps as good or better time, and is much cheaper. But an old Rolex sure does have charm.
It has become a family tradition to gift a Rolex on big, big occasions.
SO: After repairing Rolf's Rolex this last time (note: there is a very cool story here about Jim Robinson, the old Watchmaker in Melbourne who keeps our Rolex collection alive.) I decided to give it away.
The mountains helped a lot.
When I last flew to the States my watch was with Jim so I went without. And the mountains allowed me to understand that taste in my mouth.
You sure as hell don't need a time piece when you are trout fish'n.


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5 Reasons to be Your Own Boss – Kids Party Franchises
Owning a children's party franchise is an amazing way step into the world of flexible, self-employed work.
Having 3 kids and working a corporate job was a big juggle and life was stressful, I was not getting to spend quality time with my children. I decided that there had to be a better way, which is when All in All Parties was born. I created a structure that was flexible and allowed me the freedom to live. It has been an amazing journey, which I now want to share with others looking for their own freedom. Here are my top 5 benefits to being your own boss.
Work that makes you smile
Life is what you make it, so why not make each aspect of your life as fun as you possibly can? If you don't enjoy what you're doing during your office hours, that's going to spill over into your home life and take its toll.
When you are your own boss you can shape your days the way you want to. You can pick and choose when you work, how you work, where you work and focus on what makes you smile.
Flexible work locations
The beauty of modern technology is that if you have your laptop and smartphone, your office is wherever there's wifi.
Flexible work locations
The beauty of modern technology is that if you have your laptop and smartphone, your office is wherever there's wifi.
Flexible work hours
When you're working for someone else, your work hours are at their discretion. When you work for yourself, you have the freedom to control your own hours and work around your life.
This is especially great for people with families – you can start work early so you have time to get to your kid's soccer game or take a weekday off to go on a field trip.
Love what you do
When you're the boss, you know the hopes and dreams that go into building a business. You also know the hard work that went into building your dream.
Since you know exactly what goes into starting and growing your business, you won't take a single day of work for granted. You'll know that what you're doing is meaningful, impactful, and fulfilling. Each day will reinvigorate your motivation and commitment to growing your business. You are building something that's truly yours.
Be your own destiny
You can control how many hours you work, how much money you want to make and who will work for you.
Being your own boss comes with some risks, but it also offers some pretty terrific rewards. Many of us have dreamt about it, but few of us really take the leap. Isn't it time you started your own company and controlled your own professional destiny?
Beyond these 5 benefits, I love being the person that inspires my kids. If you're interested in joining me on this journey, click HERE to find out more about franchising opportunities.


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Natural Language Processing (NLP) is a hot topic in healthcare.
At this year's AMIA Annual Symposium, in Washington DC, we brought the discussion on clinical NLP to a roundtable held on Monday lunchtime and were also invited to the AMIA NLP workgroup to present some real-life use cases in clinical NLP.
However, as much as we like sharing what we're doing, we were keen to know what other people think when it comes to how NLP can transform patient care, today and in the future.
So that's what we did – we asked peers at the AMIA conference that question (How can NLP transform patient care?) as part of a contest with an incentive of an iPad Mini and $50 Starbucks voucher for 1st and 2nd place respectively.
More than a third of entries identified mining the unstructured, free text narrative of a medical record to be crucial to the transformation of patient care. Unsurprising really, if you consider that around 80% of data in an electronic health record is unstructured and the only real way to get this information into a useable format is using NLP.
But what was interesting was the difference in how to use this data. Ideas included; for better patient information, for using the extracted coded concepts in clinical decision support and to retrieve full patient cohorts.
It was a tough contest to judge but the winning entry came from Edgar Chou at Drexel University College of Medicine. He had a few ideas but the one we thought was most interesting, with the potential to have the greatest impact on patient care was to around the payer care mix.
"Use NLP to extract textual data to supplement existing structured data for more accurate reporting to payers, increasing dollars assigned to all patients due to more accurate capture of diagnoses."
After all, better diagnoses and more money are decisive factors in the ability to provide better patient care.
The funniest and, probably, most creative entry (though not quite so "on topic") was the NLP list poem:
Nobody Likes Problems
New Learning Possible
Natural Language Processing
Now Let's Purchase
New Linguamatics Product
No Lost Physicians
Normally Living Patients
Written by: NL-P (Netherlands Person)
But unless we count purchasing "new Linguamatics product" as transforming patient care (we can't be biased now!), then it doesn't quite fulfil the criteria.
Our runner up entry from Tyler Tippetts, University of Utah, was creative and puts patients at the heart of their own care. The idea of using NLP on patient-generated data: imagine if patients linked their Facebook and Twitter accounts, for example, to their EHR or PHR and let it be processed to detect symptoms - letting patients potentially help themselves.
A significant challenge for Meaningful Use 2 is patient engagement, integrating EHR with social media could be a key way for NLP to impact patient engagement, providing issues of Protected Health Information are properly addressed.
Certainly, the mining and mapping of tweets for disease control and understanding has been used in the past and maybe this is a future use of social media. It could be particularly useful in understanding mental health and state of mind.
The competition is now closed but if you have any comments or other ideas you'd like to share on how NLP can transform patient care please do let us know via this blog, on Twitter @Linguamatics, Facebook, LinkedIn or Google+.
We thank everyone who took part in the competition and look forward to running another one again soon.


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Lecti Sunflats offers quality apartments for rent in the town of Varna at the picturesque Bulgarian Black Sea coast.
Using our services is an easy, affordable and safe way to make your stay in Varna more pleasant.
Please read our Conditions.
Find out more about how to reach Varna.
You get full support in English and German. We answer quickly.
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Rear-Ending Lessons in Savoring Life
It has been an….interesting week. I ended last week by getting rear-ended. Again. For the third time in two years. My poor car is getting rather tired of getting beat up. And I'm rather tired of dealing with the hassle and time spent of getting


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MIND Planner Set ( x 1 )
A better life starts with the MIND.
Customizable planner designed for your growth and success.
Did you know that 80% of our success and results in life lies in our psychology?
MIND Planner is a simple daily framework based off mindset science, helping you create mindset habits that empower your future and best self.
Customization and Flexibility
The unique modular planner system allows you to easily customize its content according to your own needs. Build your own personal growth, productivity and lifestyle system, suited for you. Refill, remove, interchange planners, whenever you want, wherever you want.
Included Items (Each MIND Planner Set)
- 1 Leather Planner Cover (Cruelty-Free)
- 1 Planner Bag
- 1 Planner Box for Storage
- 6 MIND Planners (6 mos)
- 1 Weekly Planner (6 mos)
- 1 Monthly Planer (12 mos)
- 1 Dotted Planner
- 1 Lined Planner
- 1 Blank Planner
Size Specifications
- Paper Planners: B5 Size: 6.9 (H) x 9.8 (W) inches
- Cover Planners: 10.2 (H) x 7.71 (W) inches
What is MIND Planner?
Shipping and Delivery
Our MIND Planner set comes with 11 planners - it weighs over 5 lbs and comes in a beautiful storage box so shipping costs will be higher than most other planner products which is just one planner.
As we are new and just finished Indiegogo, manufacturing for physical planners (including trial planners) will finish 5 December. It's expected shipping may start between 8-10 December.
If your country is currently not listed on here, you can just check out. We will contact you for shipping adjustments to confirm before we confirm your order.
SHIPPING COSTS (as of 17 Nov)
Trial Planners
Flat Rate Worldwide $ 5
USA, Canada, Europe
1 Planner $ 20
2 Planners $ 40
4 Planners $ 80
Southeast Asia (excludes India, Japan, Korea)
1 Planner $ 5
2 Planners $10
4 Planners $15
1 Planner $ 30
2 Planners $ 60
4 Planners $ 100
Digital Planners
Digital Planners will be ready after 1 December 2019. You will receive the digital planner to your email within 3 days upon ordering after this date.
Physical Planners & Trial Planners
As we are new and just finished Indiegogo, manufacturing for physical planners (including trial planners) will finish 5 December. It's expected shipping may start between 8-10 December.
Orders will be processed 1-3 days upon ordering. After ordering, expect the estimated delivery times to your country.
If you are in a rush or need the planner for Christmas or as gift, please contact us to let us know and we will see what we can do: firstname.lastname@example.com
Canada & U.S 6-15 days
United Kingdom 5-12 days
Southeast Asia 2-10 days
Australia 8-14 days
New Zealand 6-12 days
Netherlands 6-14 days
South Africa 5-12 days
United Arab 15-30 days
Japan, Korea 15-25 days v


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18.3. Single Variable Calculus¶
In Section 2.4, we saw the basic elements of differential calculus. This section takes a deeper dive into the fundamentals of calculus and how we can understand and apply it in the context of machine learning.
18.3.1. Differential Calculus¶
Differential calculus is fundamentally the study of how functions behave under small changes. To see why this is so core to deep learning, let us consider an example.
Suppose that we have a deep neural network where the weights are, for convenience, concatenated into a single vector \(\mathbf{w} = (w_1, \ldots, w_n)\). Given a training dataset, we consider the loss of our neural network on this dataset, which we will write as \(\mathcal{L}(\mathbf{w})\).
This function is extraordinarily complex, encoding the performance of all possible models of the given architecture on this dataset, so it is nearly impossible to tell what set of weights \(\mathbf{w}\) will minimize the loss. Thus, in practice, we often start by initializing our weights randomly, and then iteratively take small steps in the direction which makes the loss decrease as rapidly as possible.
The question then becomes something that on the surface is no easier: how do we find the direction which makes the weights decrease as quickly as possible? To dig into this, let us first examine the case with only a single weight: \(L(\mathbf{w}) = L(x)\) for a single real value \(x\).
Let us take \(x\) and try to understand what happens when we change it by a small amount to \(x + \epsilon\). If you wish to be concrete, think a number like \(\epsilon = 0.0000001\). To help us visualize what happens, let us graph an example function, \(f(x) = \sin(x^x)\), over the \([0, 3]\).
%matplotlib inline
from d2l import mxnet as d2l
from IPython import display
from mxnet import np, npx
# Plot a function in a normal range
x_big = np.arange(0.01, 3.01, 0.01)
ys = np.sin(x_big**x_big)
d2l.plot(x_big, ys, 'x', 'f(x)')
%matplotlib inline
from d2l import torch as d2l
from IPython import display
import torch
torch.pi = torch.acos(torch.zeros(1)).item() * 2 # Define pi in torch
# Plot a function in a normal range
x_big = torch.arange(0.01, 3.01, 0.01)
ys = torch.sin(x_big**x_big)
d2l.plot(x_big, ys, 'x', 'f(x)')
At this large scale, the function's behavior is not simple. However, if we reduce our range to something smaller like \([1.75,2.25]\), we see that the graph becomes much simpler.
# Plot a the same function in a tiny range
x_med = np.arange(1.75, 2.25, 0.001)
ys = np.sin(x_med**x_med)
d2l.plot(x_med, ys, 'x', 'f(x)')
# Plot a the same function in a tiny range
x_med = torch.arange(1.75, 2.25, 0.001)
ys = torch.sin(x_med**x_med)
d2l.plot(x_med, ys, 'x', 'f(x)')
Taking this to an extreme, if we zoom into a tiny segment, the behavior becomes far simpler: it is just a straight line.
# Plot a the same function in a tiny range
x_small = np.arange(2.0, 2.01, 0.0001)
ys = np.sin(x_small**x_small)
d2l.plot(x_small, ys, 'x', 'f(x)')
# Plot a the same function in a tiny range
x_small = torch.arange(2.0, 2.01, 0.0001)
ys = torch.sin(x_small**x_small)
d2l.plot(x_small, ys, 'x', 'f(x)')
This is the key observation of single variable calculus: the behavior of familiar functions can be modeled by a line in a small enough range. This means that for most functions, it is reasonable to expect that as we shift the \(x\) value of the function by a little bit, the output \(f(x)\) will also be shifted by a little bit. The only question we need to answer is, "How large is the change in the output compared to the change in the input? Is it half as large? Twice as large?"
Thus, we can consider the ratio of the change in the output of a function for a small change in the input of the function. We can write this formally as
This is already enough to start to play around with in code. For instance, suppose that we know that \(L(x) = x^{2} + 1701(x-4)^3\), then we can see how large this value is at the point \(x = 4\) as follows.
# Define our function
def L(x):
return x**2 + 1701*(x-4)**3
# Print the difference divided by epsilon for several epsilon
for epsilon in [0.1, 0.001, 0.0001, 0.00001]:
print(f'epsilon = {epsilon:.5f} -> {(L(4+epsilon) - L(4)) / epsilon:.5f}')
epsilon = 0.10000 -> 25.11000
epsilon = 0.00100 -> 8.00270
epsilon = 0.00010 -> 8.00012
epsilon = 0.00001 -> 8.00001
# Define our function
def L(x):
return x**2 + 1701*(x-4)**3
# Print the difference divided by epsilon for several epsilon
for epsilon in [0.1, 0.001, 0.0001, 0.00001]:
print(f'epsilon = {epsilon:.5f} -> {(L(4+epsilon) - L(4)) / epsilon:.5f}')
epsilon = 0.10000 -> 25.11000
epsilon = 0.00100 -> 8.00270
epsilon = 0.00010 -> 8.00012
epsilon = 0.00001 -> 8.00001
Now, if we are observant, we will notice that the output of this number is suspiciously close to \(8\). Indeed, if we decrease \(\epsilon\), we will see value becomes progressively closer to \(8\). Thus we may conclude, correctly, that the value we seek (the degree a change in the input changes the output) should be \(8\) at the point \(x=4\). The way that a mathematician encodes this fact is
As a bit of a historical digression: in the first few decades of neural network research, scientists used this algorithm (the method of finite differences) to evaluate how a loss function changed under small perturbation: just change the weights and see how the loss changed. This is computationally inefficient, requiring two evaluations of the loss function to see how a single change of one variable influenced the loss. If we tried to do this with even a paltry few thousand parameters, it would require several thousand evaluations of the network over the entire dataset! It was not solved until 1986 that the backpropagation algorithm introduced in [Rumelhart et al., 1988] provided a way to calculate how any change of the weights together would change the loss in the same computation time as a single prediction of the network over the dataset.
Back in our example, this value \(8\) is different for different values of \(x\), so it makes sense to define it as a function of \(x\). More formally, this value dependent rate of change is referred to as the derivative which is written as
Different texts will use different notations for the derivative. For instance, all of the below notations indicate the same thing:
Most authors will pick a single notation and stick with it, however even that is not guaranteed. It is best to be familiar with all of these. We will use the notation \(\frac{df}{dx}\) throughout this text, unless we want to take the derivative of a complex expression, in which case we will use \(\frac{d}{dx}f\) to write expressions like
Oftentimes, it is intuitively useful to unravel the definition of derivative (18.3.3) again to see how a function changes when we make a small change of \(x\):
The last equation is worth explicitly calling out. It tells us that if you take any function and change the input by a small amount, the output would change by that small amount scaled by the derivative.
In this way, we can understand the derivative as the scaling factor that tells us how large of change we get in the output from a change in the input.
18.3.2. Rules of Calculus¶
We now turn to the task of understanding how to compute the derivative of an explicit function. A full formal treatment of calculus would derive everything from first principles. We will not indulge in this temptation here, but rather provide an understanding of the common rules encountered.
18.104.22.168. Common Derivatives¶
As was seen in Section 2.4, when computing derivatives one can oftentimes use a series of rules to reduce the computation to a few core functions. We repeat them here for ease of reference.
Derivative of constants. \(\frac{d}{dx}c = 0\).
Derivative of linear functions. \(\frac{d}{dx}(ax) = a\).
Power rule. \(\frac{d}{dx}x^n = nx^{n-1}\).
Derivative of exponentials. \(\frac{d}{dx}e^x = e^x\).
Derivative of the logarithm. \(\frac{d}{dx}\log(x) = \frac{1}{x}\).
22.214.171.124. Derivative Rules¶
If every derivative needed to be separately computed and stored in a table, differential calculus would be near impossible. It is a gift of mathematics that we can generalize the above derivatives and compute more complex derivatives like finding the derivative of \(f(x) = \log\left(1+(x-1)^{10}\right)\). As was mentioned in Section 2.4, the key to doing so is to codify what happens when we take functions and combine them in various ways, most importantly: sums, products, and compositions.
Sum rule. \(\frac{d}{dx}\left(g(x) + h(x)\right) = \frac{dg}{dx}(x) + \frac{dh}{dx}(x)\).
Product rule. \(\frac{d}{dx}\left(g(x)\cdot h(x)\right) = g(x)\frac{dh}{dx}(x) + \frac{dg}{dx}(x)h(x)\).
Chain rule. \(\frac{d}{dx}g(h(x)) = \frac{dg}{dh}(h(x))\cdot \frac{dh}{dx}(x)\).
Let us see how we may use (18.3.6) to understand these rules. For the sum rule, consider following chain of reasoning:
By comparing this result with the fact that \(f(x+\epsilon) \approx f(x) + \epsilon \frac{df}{dx}(x)\), we see that \(\frac{df}{dx}(x) = \frac{dg}{dx}(x) + \frac{dh}{dx}(x)\) as desired. The intuition here is: when we change the input \(x\), \(g\) and \(h\) jointly contribute to the change of the output by \(\frac{dg}{dx}(x)\) and \(\frac{dh}{dx}(x)\).
The product is more subtle, and will require a new observation about how to work with these expressions. We will begin as before using (18.3.6):
This resembles the computation done above, and indeed we see our answer (\(\frac{df}{dx}(x) = g(x)\frac{dh}{dx}(x) + \frac{dg}{dx}(x)h(x)\)) sitting next to \(\epsilon\), but there is the issue of that term of size \(\epsilon^{2}\). We will refer to this as a higher-order term, since the power of \(\epsilon^2\) is higher than the power of \(\epsilon^1\). We will see in a later section that we will sometimes want to keep track of these, however for now observe that if \(\epsilon = 0.0000001\), then \(\epsilon^{2}= 0.0000000000001\), which is vastly smaller. As we send \(\epsilon \rightarrow 0\), we may safely ignore the higher order terms. As a general convention in this appendix, we will use "\(\approx\)" to denote that the two terms are equal up to higher order terms. However, if we wish to be more formal we may examine the difference quotient
and see that as we send \(\epsilon \rightarrow 0\), the right hand term goes to zero as well.
Finally, with the chain rule, we can again progress as before using (18.3.6) and see that
where in the second line we view the function \(g\) as having its input (\(h(x)\)) shifted by the tiny quantity \(\epsilon \frac{dh}{dx}(x)\).
These rule provide us with a flexible set of tools to compute essentially any expression desired. For instance,
Where each line has used the following rules:
The chain rule and derivative of logarithm.
The sum rule.
The derivative of constants, chain rule, and power rule.
The sum rule, derivative of linear functions, derivative of constants.
Two things should be clear after doing this example:
Any function we can write down using sums, products, constants, powers, exponentials, and logarithms can have its derivate computed mechanically by following these rules.
Having a human follow these rules can be tedious and error prone!
Thankfully, these two facts together hint towards a way forward: this is a perfect candidate for mechanization! Indeed backpropagation, which we will revisit later in this section, is exactly that.
22.214.171.124. Linear Approximation¶
When working with derivatives, it is often useful to geometrically interpret the approximation used above. In particular, note that the equation
approximates the value of \(f\) by a line which passes through the point \((x, f(x))\) and has slope \(\frac{df}{dx}(x)\). In this way we say that the derivative gives a linear approximation to the function \(f\), as illustrated below:
# Compute sin
xs = np.arange(-np.pi, np.pi, 0.01)
plots = [np.sin(xs)]
# Compute some linear approximations. Use d(sin(x)) / dx = cos(x)
for x0 in [-1.5, 0, 2]:
plots.append(np.sin(x0) + (xs - x0) * np.cos(x0))
d2l.plot(xs, plots, 'x', 'f(x)', ylim=[-1.5, 1.5])
# Compute sin
xs = torch.arange(-torch.pi, torch.pi, 0.01)
plots = [torch.sin(xs)]
# Compute some linear approximations. Use d(sin(x))/dx = cos(x)
for x0 in [-1.5, 0.0, 2.0]:
plots.append(torch.sin(torch.tensor(x0)) + (xs - x0) *
d2l.plot(xs, plots, 'x', 'f(x)', ylim=[-1.5, 1.5])
126.96.36.199. Higher Order Derivatives¶
Let us now do something that may on the surface seem strange. Take a function \(f\) and compute the derivative \(\frac{df}{dx}\). This gives us the rate of change of \(f\) at any point.
However, the derivative, \(\frac{df}{dx}\), can be viewed as a function itself, so nothing stops us from computing the derivative of \(\frac{df}{dx}\) to get \(\frac{d^2f}{dx^2} = \frac{df}{dx}\left(\frac{df}{dx}\right)\). We will call this the second derivative of \(f\). This function is the rate of change of the rate of change of \(f\), or in other words, how the rate of change is changing. We may apply the derivative any number of times to obtain what is called the \(n\)-th derivative. To keep the notation clean, we will denote the \(n\)-th derivative as
Let us try to understand why this is a useful notion. Below, we visualize \(f^{(2)}(x)\), \(f^{(1)}(x)\), and \(f(x)\).
First, consider the case that the second derivative \(f^{(2)}(x)\) is a positive constant. This means that the slope of the first derivative is positive. As a result, the first derivative \(f^{(1)}(x)\) may start out negative, becomes zero at a point, and then becomes positive in the end. This tells us the slope of our original function \(f\) and therefore, the function \(f\) itself decreases, flattens out, then increases. In other words, the function \(f\) curves up, and has a single minimum as is shown in Fig. 18.3.1.
Second, if the second derivative is a negative constant, that means that the first derivative is decreasing. This implies the first derivative may start out positive, becomes zero at a point, and then becomes negative. Hence, the function \(f\) itself increases, flattens out, then decreases. In other words, the function \(f\) curves down, and has a single maximum as is shown in Fig. 18.3.2.
Third, if the second derivative is a always zero, then the first derivative will never change—it is constant! This means that \(f\) increases (or decreases) at a fixed rate, and \(f\) is itself a straight line as is shown in Fig. 18.3.3.
To summarize, the second derivative can be interpreted as describing the way that the function \(f\) curves. A positive second derivative leads to a upwards curve, while a negative second derivative means that \(f\) curves downwards, and a zero second derivative means that \(f\) does not curve at all.
Let us take this one step further. Consider the function \(g(x) = ax^{2}+ bx + c\). We can then compute that
If we have some original function \(f(x)\) in mind, we may compute the first two derivatives and find the values for \(a, b\), and \(c\) that make them match this computation. Similarly to the previous section where we saw that the first derivative gave the best approximation with a straight line, this construction provides the best approximation by a quadratic. Let us visualize this for \(f(x) = \sin(x)\).
# Compute sin
xs = np.arange(-np.pi, np.pi, 0.01)
plots = [np.sin(xs)]
# Compute some quadratic approximations. Use d(sin(x)) / dx = cos(x)
for x0 in [-1.5, 0, 2]:
plots.append(np.sin(x0) + (xs - x0) * np.cos(x0) -
(xs - x0)**2 * np.sin(x0) / 2)
d2l.plot(xs, plots, 'x', 'f(x)', ylim=[-1.5, 1.5])
# Compute sin
xs = torch.arange(-torch.pi, torch.pi, 0.01)
plots = [torch.sin(xs)]
# Compute some quadratic approximations. Use d(sin(x)) / dx = cos(x)
for x0 in [-1.5, 0.0, 2.0]:
plots.append(torch.sin(torch.tensor(x0)) + (xs - x0) *
torch.cos(torch.tensor(x0)) - (xs - x0)**2 *
torch.sin(torch.tensor(x0)) / 2)
d2l.plot(xs, plots, 'x', 'f(x)', ylim=[-1.5, 1.5])
We will extend this idea to the idea of a Taylor series in the next section.
22.214.171.124. Taylor Series¶
The Taylor series provides a method to approximate the function \(f(x)\) if we are given values for the first \(n\) derivatives at a point \(x_0\), i.e., \(\left\{ f(x_0), f^{(1)}(x_0), f^{(2)}(x_0), \ldots, f^{(n)}(x_0) \right\}\). The idea will be to find a degree \(n\) polynomial that matches all the given derivatives at \(x_0\).
We saw the case of \(n=2\) in the previous section and a little algebra shows this is
As we can see above, the denominator of \(2\) is there to cancel out the \(2\) we get when we take two derivatives of \(x^2\), while the other terms are all zero. Same logic applies for the first derivative and the value itself.
If we push the logic further to \(n=3\), we will conclude that
where the \(6 = 3 \times 2 = 3!\) comes from the constant we get in front if we take three derivatives of \(x^3\).
Furthermore, we can get a degree \(n\) polynomial by
where the notation
Indeed, \(P_n(x)\) can be viewed as the best \(n\)-th degree polynomial approximation to our function \(f(x)\).
While we are not going to dive all the way into the error of the above approximations, it is worth mentioning the infinite limit. In this case, for well behaved functions (known as real analytic functions) like \(\cos(x)\) or \(e^{x}\), we can write out the infinite number of terms and approximate the exactly same function
Take \(f(x) = e^{x}\) as am example. Since \(e^{x}\) is its own derivative, we know that \(f^{(n)}(x) = e^{x}\). Therefore, \(e^{x}\) can be reconstructed by taking the Taylor series at \(x_0 = 0\), i.e.,
Let us see how this works in code and observe how increasing the degree of the Taylor approximation brings us closer to the desired function \(e^x\).
# Compute the exponential function
xs = np.arange(0, 3, 0.01)
ys = np.exp(xs)
# Compute a few Taylor series approximations
P1 = 1 + xs
P2 = 1 + xs + xs**2 / 2
P5 = 1 + xs + xs**2 / 2 + xs**3 / 6 + xs**4 / 24 + xs**5 / 120
d2l.plot(xs, [ys, P1, P2, P5], 'x', 'f(x)', legend=[
"Exponential", "Degree 1 Taylor Series", "Degree 2 Taylor Series",
"Degree 5 Taylor Series"])
# Compute the exponential function
xs = torch.arange(0, 3, 0.01)
ys = torch.exp(xs)
# Compute a few Taylor series approximations
P1 = 1 + xs
P2 = 1 + xs + xs**2 / 2
P5 = 1 + xs + xs**2 / 2 + xs**3 / 6 + xs**4 / 24 + xs**5 / 120
d2l.plot(xs, [ys, P1, P2, P5], 'x', 'f(x)', legend=[
"Exponential", "Degree 1 Taylor Series", "Degree 2 Taylor Series",
"Degree 5 Taylor Series"])
Taylor series have two primary applications:
Theoretical applications: Often when we try to understand a too complex function, using Taylor series enables we turn it into a polynomial that we can work with directly.
Numerical applications: Some functions like \(e^{x}\) or \(\cos(x)\) are difficult for machines to compute. They can store tables of values at a fixed precision (and this is often done), but it still leaves open questions like "What is the 1000-th digit of \(\cos(1)\)?" Taylor series are often helpful to answer such questions.
18.3.3. Summary¶
Derivatives can be used to express how functions change when we change the input by a small amount.
Elementary derivatives can be combined using derivative rules to create arbitrarily complex derivatives.
Derivatives can be iterated to get second or higher order derivatives. Each increase in order provides more fine grained information on the behavior of the function.
Using information in the derivatives of a single data point, we can approximate well behaved functions by polynomials obtained from the Taylor series.
18.3.4. Exercises¶
What is the derivative of \(x^3-4x+1\)?
What is the derivative of \(\log(\frac{1}{x})\)?
True or False: If \(f'(x) = 0\) then \(f\) has a maximum or minimum at \(x\)?
Where is the minimum of \(f(x) = x\log(x)\) for \(x\ge0\) (where we assume that \(f\) takes the limiting value of \(0\) at \(f(0)\))?


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Obituaries » Cheryl L. Schmidt
Cheryl L. Schmidt
December 16, 2018
Burial Date: December 20, 2018
Dobbling Muehlenkamp-Erschell Funeral Home 241 Fairfield Avenue Bellevue, KY Dec. 20, 7 p.m.
Schmidt, Cheryl Lee (nee Faecher)
Devoted mother of Chris (Robyn) Cox, Jeremy (Connie) Cox and Amber Schmidt. Loving grandmother of Erik, Ethan, Devon and Mason Cox, Kelsey and Tiffany Cox, Brennen Williams and Landon Schmidt. Dear sister of Jean (late Larry) Lacally, Carol (Paul) Koeninger, Joy (John) Cortes and Larry (Helen) Faecher. Preceded in death by his parents, Frederick and Irene (nee Burke) Faecher. Cheryl enjoyed gardening, playing bingo but most importantly cherished her time spent with her grandchildren. She passed away peacefully surrounded by her family on Sunday, December 16, 2018, age 65. Visitation on Thursday (Dec. 20) from 5:00 pm until time of service at 7:00 pm at Dobbling, Muehlenkamp-Erschell Funeral Home, 241 Fairfield Ave., Bellevue.


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| 12.2°C Dublin
Last week, this column looked at an overview of the National Framework of Qualifications (NFQ) and why it is important for students and their parents to understand it, in order to assist them in making decisions about course applications to the CAO and elsewhere.
This week, we will look at two levels in more detail.
Level 8
A Level 8 degree is also known as an honours degree. This is what many people think of when they think of a traditional university degree. They are generally four years in duration, with some notable exceptions. Medicine, for example, is five or six years and arts degrees are often three years. Students mainly apply for these courses through the CAO, with some private colleges offering Level 8 courses outside of the CAO system.
Leaving Cert. students are required to meet the minimum entry requirements, in terms of grades and subjects, for these courses, and then compete with other students on CAO points to win a place.
In previous years, the minimum requirements for all Level 8 courses were two higher level C3 grades (HC3) and four ordinary level D3 (0D3) grades, with the exception of Trinity College Dublin, which required three higher level C3s and three ordinary level D3s.
This year, there are new Leaving Cert. grading and points systems. Students will still be required to present at least six subjects to the CAO. Under the new system, these must include two H5 grades (minimum 50pc) and four O6/H7 grades (minimum 40pc at ordinary level or 30pc and above at higher level). Trinity will continue to require three H5 grades and minumum grades of O6/H7 in three other subjects.
CAO points for Level 8 courses in 2016 were as high as 595 depending on supply and demand. Level 8 degrees are offered at universities, institutes of technology, private colleges and training colleges.
Level 7
Level 7 degrees are known as ordinary degrees. They are generally three years in duration and students mainly apply for these courses through the CAO, while some private colleges offer Level 7 courses outside of the CAO system.
Once again, Leaving Cert students are required to meet the minimum entry requirements in terms of grades and essential subjects, and then compete for places on CAO points. Many institutions require a student to achieve five O6/H7 grades for entry to Level 7, although there are some exceptions.
Essential subject requirements are also lower for Level 7 courses. For example, a student wishing to study engineering at Level 8 in DIT will require a H4 in maths, while engineering courses at Level 7 in DIT require an O4/H7 in maths.
Level 7 degrees are offered at universities, institutes of technology and private colleges. CAO points last year ranged from AQA to 460. The majority of Level 7 degree courses contain an option of an add-on year. This makes it possible for students to complete one extra year and receive a Level 8 qualification.
In order to identify if a Level 7 course offers an add-on year to achieve a Level 8, students can check the CAO handbook. If the course offers an add-on year, the third column of the handbook will contain the letters 'DG+HD'. DG indicates that the course is a degree while +HD indicates that an add-on year is available to achieve an honours degree.
CAO applicants should bear in mind that with the changes this year to the Leaving Certificate grading and CAO points systems, it is impossible to predict the cut-off points for any CAO courses in 2017.
Aoife Walsh is a guidance counsellor at Malahide Community School, Co Dublin
Q. Under the new Leaving Cert grading/points systems, will there still be a Foundation Level and will points be awarded?
A Maths and Irish will continue to be available at foundation level. Many colleges may accept foundation maths if there is no ordinary or higher level maths requirement for a particular course, but most do not award points — one example is DIT. A small number award points for certain courses. Applicants should check the arrangements in each college. One that does award points for foundation level maths for Level 7/6 courses is Dundalk IT.
Students who achieve an F2 (over 80pc) will be awarded 12 points and an F1 grade (over 90pc) will attract 20 points. Students should aim to take the highest level possible in every subject. This is particularly true for maths, as many colleges require it for entry. However, a student at risk of failing ordinary level maths may find themselves with more opportunities from achieving a high grade at foundation level than failing ordinary level.
Ahead Better Options fair - O'Brien Centre UCD
Mature Student Evening - Cork IT
Open Evening - Griffith College Cork
Open Day - Griffith College Dublin and Limerick
Open Evening - ICHAS
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UCD Agri/Food Science Info Evening - Newpark Hotel, Kilkenny
CMETB Career Event - Monaghan Educ. Campus
Info Evening - Colaiste Dhulaigh
Portfolio Clinic - DIT
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Architecture Open Day - UCC
November 25
Open Day (2 Days) - Athlone IT
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Open Day - GMIT Letterfrack
Open Day - IT Carlow (Wexford Campus)
Open Day -Letterkenny IT
LMETD Adult CAO Workshop - Navan Alpha Student Hub
Open Day (2 Days) - Maynooth University
Open Day (2 Days) - Pontifical College Maynooth
November 26
Drop in Day - Cavan Institute
Geology Workshop - UCD
November 29
Open Day/Evening - IT Blanchardstown
EUNICAS - Fota Island Resort Hotel Cork
Parents Info Evening UCC - Brandon Hotel Tralee
Maths and BAFS Open Night - UCD
November 30
Open Day -NCAD
UCD Agri/Food Science Info Evening - Clarion Hotel Cork
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Robert Earl Hughes was a tall, wall-eyed country boy who grew up in Missouri who became the heaviest human being alive, tipping the scales at over 1,041 pounds—that is, until July 10, 1958, when he was laid low by the… Continue Reading →
Robert Earl Hughes (4 June 1926 – 10 July 1958) was, during his lifetime, the heaviest human being recorded in the history of the world at over 1041 pounds. How was Bremen involved? Robert Hughes died here in Bremen. Recently,… Continue Reading →
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