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Data Science with R
Learn how to tap the potential of your data in our R-training courses.
Welcome to our modular training program for R that deals with the various possibilities of the free programming language in a comprehensive and practice-oriented way. The training offer ranges from beginner courses to courses for advanced R users and from data management to the visualization of results.
Our R trainings for companies, universities and graduate centers are evaluated regularly and rated very highly. More than 1,500 satisfied participants speak for the quality of our training program. You too can profit from the high-quality course material and the ideal learning environment in small groups with a maximum of eight participants.
On-site in your company or university – with us you can be sure to obtain the right know-how for achieving the maximum benefit of using R. Our on-site trainings can be assembled according to individual requirements and adjusted to your needs.
Become an R expert with the eoda R Academy.
Our Courses
Inside R
R is one of the best means for analyzing and visualizing data, for data mining and business intelligence. R achieves a level of functionality, quality and actuality that has never been accomplished before.
This course is an introduction to R and its basic functions and will facilitate the access to R with practical tips and exercises. This basic course serves R beginners as a starting point for the further application of R in individual usage scenarios.
- First steps into R
- Concept and philosophy of R
- Types of variables and their properties
- Importing data
- Data management
- Evaluations with R
- Generating basic graphics
The foundation of any data analysis is good data management. The major effort of the analyzing process arises from the preparation of the raw data.
The course Data Management with R teaches efficient methods for preparing differently structured data by means of practical examples.
The course focuses especially on working with the packages dplyr, tidyr and data.table.
Course Contents:
- data.table (memory-efficient editing and reading of large data sets)
- dplyr (easy and performant syntax for manipulating data frames)
- tidyr (transformation of data sets – from long to wide table and vice versa)
- Dealing with special types of data (editing date variables and string variables)
The combination of extensive statistics libraries and established programming concepts makes R a powerful programming language for any task in the field of data mining, predictive analytics and more. The usage of statistics and graphics functions with programming elements allows for an elegant and efficient automatization of regularly recurring script parts.
Participants will learn to use programming elements by means of practical examples. The aim of this course is to enable participants to apply what they have learned to their individual usage scenarios.
- Loops and control elements/ conditionals
- Vector oriented programming
- Apply family
- Defining own functions
- Environments and scoping
- Object oriented programming/ R class systems
- Exceptions/ error handling
- Package creation
- Debugging
With R, data sources like Excel files and data bases can be transformed into appealing reports. The data is read and evaluated in R and then the contents are published as website or pdf document via an interface between R and html or Latex.
The objects emerging from the analysis such as source code, text, data, formulas, tables and graphics can be combined elegantly within one report. With the on top processes, R creates the dynamic reports at the touch of a button. Modified data are taken into account without the need for manual adjustments.
In this course, participants will get to know the strengths of R in the automatized report creation and learn how to use them. Afterwards the participants should be able to create individual and automatized reports. The contents will be communicated practically based on a theoretical introduction, specific cases and exercises.
Course Contents
- The user interface R Studio
- The packages Sweave and knitR
- Brief introduction to Latex, Markdown and HTML
- Formatting R outputs with Chunk options
- Producing statistical report templates in different output formats such as pdf and html
- Dynamic reports and automatized adjustments
Data mining means the hypothesis-free extraction of information from data. Statistical and mathematical procedures are applied to data bases in order to identify existing patterns and connections. Data mining procedures usually impose low requirements on the level of measurement of data (categorical, ordinal, metric) and are able to identify complex, non-linear connections.In this course, you will learn how to apply data mining procedures by means of practical training data sets. Those examples show you the central steps such as the preparatory data management, the training of algorithms as well as the creation and validation of forecasts and how to directly implement them in R. In the course you will generate R scripts which can serve the participants as a template for their own data mining applications.
Course Contents
Introduction to data mining
Model evaluation (forecast vs. observation, error matrix, ROC, Cut-off-value, AUC, sensitivity, precision, lift, risk analysis, risk chart, ensemble modeling)
Data mining algorithms (decision and regression trees, boosting, random forest, neural networks, Naive Bayes, support vector machine; theory, parameter tuning, model and forecast creation)
Ensemble modeling (techniques and methods, bagging of different models, bagging of an algorithm, SuperLearner package)
Deep learning with H2O
In this course you will get to know analysis methods that will enable you to identify statistical correlations and patterns in your data. The focus is on three classic procedures of multivariate statistics: regression analysis, cluster analysis and factor analysis.
The linear regression analysis enables you to model correlations and influences of different factors on a certain target value. How does the weather affect my number of sales? Which distribution channels are the most successful ones?
The cluster analysis can identify hidden similarities between observations. One classic use case is customer segmentation.
The factor analysis can condense information from different measured values. This can be relevant for the field of anomaly detection for example.
This course can be regarded as an application-oriented introduction to the three analysis procedures with a focus on the use of R. It addresses users who already have a basic knowledge of R and statistics.
Course Contents:
Regression analysis:
- Introduction to linear regression analysis
- Interpretation
- Model diagnostics
- Advanced modelling
- Other
Cluster analysis:
- Basic concepts of cluster analysis
- Determining similarities
- Hierarchically agglomerative merge algorithms
- Partitioned merge algorithms
- Interpretation and visualization
Factor analysis:
- Basic idea of the factor analysis
- Process of factor analysis
- Interpretation and evaluation
The aim of the time series analysis is to identify structures and patterns in data with time components, to describe these patterns and derive forecasts from this knowledge. The first type of time series analysis with R is about the handling of date variables and the extraction of calendar information. With this you can discover trends or seasonality in a time series.
A special type of analysis is the so-called survival analysis. It calculates the probability of an event at a certain point in time and is used for churn analyses, predictive maintenance and others.
The aim of this course is to introduce participants to the area of time series analysis and teach them the terminology and methods. Afterwards participants should be able to perform time series analyses with R on their own and use them for their individual use case.
Course contents
- Introduction to time series methods
- Date variables in R
- Visualizing time series
- Decomposition
- Exponential smoothing
- Testing methods
- ARIMA models
R is a statistical programming language and therefore perfectly suited for visualizing data. In this course you will get to know the standard graphic system of R and the underlying concepts. The second part of the course deals with the graphic package ggplot2, which is a popular alternative to the standard graphic system. Even complex graphics can be created quickly and easily.
Apart from basic graphic functions, the focus is also on different possibilities of adaptation which can be used to change the appearance of a graphic. The aim is to enable participants to create statistical graphics and adjust them according to their individual requirements.
Course contents
base graphic system:
- Simple one and two dimensional graphics
- Adjustment of graphics with individual elements
- Adjustment of the appearance
- Export of graphics
- Introduction to the Grammar of Graphics
- Basics of ggplot2
- Different types of graphics with ggplot2
- Adjustment of ggplot2 graphics
- Complex graphics
Interactive graphics are a flexible and efficient way to analyze data and to present analysis results. Interactive graphic applications offer queries, selections, highlighting or the modification of graphics parameters. In the environment of R, there are various concepts that provide the possibility to create interactive graphics and applications directly out of R. The course presents an overview of the creation of interactive graphics with R and provides the tools to independently implement interactive visualizations in R.
Course contents:
- ggvis: ggvis is similar to the popular graphic package ggplot2 with regard to syntax and extends its functionalities by interactive effects.
- htmlwidgets: htmlwidgets offers an R interface for popular javascript graphic libraries, for example leaflet for visualizing geographical data or visjs for illustrating network graphics.
Being a discipline of data mining, text mining comprises algorithm-based analysis procedures for identifying structures and information in texts with statistical and linguistic means. One exemplary field of application is web mining, which can be used to determine trends and customer needs on websites and social media platforms. Text mining is also used for forecasts of price developments or stock prices based on the news.
This course focuses on the computer-linguistic preparation and cleaning of documents. For this, the common and proven R packages in the natural language processing environment will be introduced and applied. The aim is to produce a text body and edit in such a way as to turn it into a structure that can be analyzed with (multivariate) statistical and data mining procedures.
Course Contents
- Overview of text mining with R
- Reading unstructured data, web scraping
- String manipulation with regular expressions
- Feature enrichment (synonymity/polysemy, text correction, abbreviations, part-of-speech-tagging)
- Pre-processing (tokenization/sentence splitting: splitting into units, stemming, stop word removal: reduction of useless units)
- Feature extraction (N-grams, bag-of-words model)
- Simple content analyses and association analyses
- Introduction to the classification of documents via clustering and Latent Dirichlet allocation (LDA)
- Prospect of applying monitored training algorithms for classifying documents
R in practice
R in live systems addresses companies which want to transfer R from the experimental stage to live systems. There the requirements on R scripts, self-written functions and software infrastructure are higher. Aspects such as maintainability, long-term executability, performance and robustness are also becoming more important. Especially when the code is not monitored by a data scientist every time it is executed, but is embedded in automatized processes.
This course covers all relevant aspects that have to be regarded when introducing and running R in live systems. The target group comprises R developers who want to write codes ready for production.


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Filed Under (Honda) by admin on 05-11-2011
identify the key components that complete our brake line kit: You should have eleven (11) hoses, one (1) double banjo bolt, fourteen (14) single banjo bolts, (1) Installation CD. There are also a total of Thirty Six (36) washers and two (2) "olive" conic inversors two (2) c-clips. Thirty Two (32) washers will be used, and two olives. The rest are spares. Step 2: Familiarize yourself with the brake lines, which are labeled for application. Lettered brake hoses A, B, C, D, E, F, G, H, K, I are installed on the front of the motorcycle, while brake hoses (J and K) are installed on the rear. Each label will reference a different drawing, which will show you the location of each brake line. Step 3: To ensure no paint damage from brake fluid, completely cover the bike. This process can be messy, and brake fluid WILL drip! Step 3: Dry out (bleed) your OEM hoses, and take note of how the stock system is installed. You may want to take a
couple pictures, in case you need to re-install. Step 4: Remove the stock hoses on the front of the motorcycle, and replace with Galfer hoses labeled A,B,C,D,E,F,G,H,K,I. Locate lline A. this hose will run from the master cylinder down to the Galfer t-block
joining line B to the right caliper upper mounting point. Line C will travel across the fender down to the left caliper upper mounting point. Line D will run from the (DELAY VALVE) up through the C-CLIP to the right side upper frame O.E.M tubing. The female fitting will thread onto the male with a (OLIVE). This O.E.M tubing travels to the rear master cylinder. Line E Travels from the lower delay valve down to the right caliper lower mounting point. Line F will run from the (SECONDARY MASTER CYLINDER) up through the C-CLIP to the left upper frame O.E.M tubing. The female fitting will thread onto the male with a (OLIVE).This tubing travels tothe rear delay vale

subset: commoncrawl


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The ex-Beatles set to play in the European Capital of Culture 2008
[b]Paul McCartney[/b] and [b]Ringo Starr[/b] are set to perform at a set of special concerts to mark [b]Liverpool[/b]'s status as the [b]European Capital of Culture 2008[/b].
[b]McCartney[/b] and his band will headline [b]"The Liverpool Sound"[/b], a concert to be held at [b]Anfield Football Stadium[/b] on June 1, featuring other "global superstars" yet to be announced.
[b]Starr[/b] will participate in [b]"Liverpool The Musical"[/b], a one-off performance on January 12, held as part of the city's three-day opening celebrations.
The production will feature famous songs from [b]Liverpool[/b]'s history rearranged by the [b]Liverpool Philharmonic Orchestra[/b], and stars [b]Echo And The Bunnymen[/b], [b]Ian Broudie[/b], [b]Pete Wylie[/b] and [b]Dave Stewart[/b] alongside the ex-[b]Beatle[/b].
Other events will focus on the visual and performing arts and architecture. More information can be found at Liverpool08.com.


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Product 30/51
Ankle length.Fabric:Silk brocade.Washing Instruction: Dry clean.Color available: Pink with Blue
Preparation Time: 3-4 working days traditional one piece dresses
Please tell us your Height. Hips,Bust and Waist.please take your measurements in centimeters. 1inch=2.54cm
This product was added to our catalog on Thursday 01 September, 2011.
Copyright © 2011 www.zen-cart.cn. Powered by Zen Cart


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One on One Mentoring for Students with Potential
The program to reduce secondary school drop-outs is designed to assist the learning process of those students, identified by the partner independent school districts, who are determined to be at-risk of dropping out of school before obtaining their high school diploma
The S.A.F.E. Program, Safe Apartment living For Everyone, is a program designed to educate apartment residents on the risks to safety, vandalism, crime, etc. within the apartment complexes and within the individual apartment residences.
The WE
WE is a program designed to address the problem of obesity among, primarily mothers of school aged children and of Hispanic descent.
Immigration and Integration with Education
It is a fact: there are eight million Legal Residents in The United States; over 30,000 new Legal Residents in Houston/Harris County on average per year. Bonding Against Adversity assists Legal Permanent Residents to become US Citizens. We provide one-on-one legal assistance, we offer presentations on current immigration issues, and work with Community Service Organizations, offering assistance with Form N400 preparation, and we bring local attorneys and immigration specialist to assist with the best preparation..


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Located in: San Antonio, TX
An unbeatable business center with spectacular views of San Antonio with a prime prestigious business address right on the Riverwalk with a beautiful riverfront courtyard. Easy access to restaurants, shopping, hotels the Alamo and several other Riverwalk attractions. Located just minutes from the San Antonio International Airport and Alamo Quarry Market, this is what business is all about!


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Washington, Nov 11 – Rhode Island Rep. Jim Langevin, a Democratic member of congress for more than 20 years, won the re-election for Rhode Island's 2nd congressional district, holding off Republican Rhue Reis.
Langevin completed the #PwDsVote Disability Questionnaire for the presidential, senate and gubernatorial candidates, that was written by RespectAbility, a nonpartisan, nonprofit organization working to end stigmas and advance opportunities for people with disabilities. Reis did not respond to the questionnaire.


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Starry Night Lights
UL9317, Ultralights
Regular price $375.00
This metal wall light light is suitable for indoor or outdoor use and is 17.75" H x 9.5" W x 4.5" D. Shown in the smoked silver finish, this wall light is available in several finishes (see images). When configured with the closed top, this fixture complies with all known Dark Sky and Turtle Friendly codes. Fixture is UL listed and comes with mounting hardware and instructions. Uses one 60W maximum medium base bulb (not included). LED and CFL bulbs can be used. Ships from the factory in three to four weeks.


text: What fuel is being used to generate the electricity that powers our Teslas? This topic is often discussed and I have found an informative web page that shows the hour-by-hour mix for folks in the PJM generation region. This region includes Delaware, Maryland, New Jersey, Ohio, Pennsylvania, Virginia, West Virginia and the District of Columbia. It also include parts of Illinois (Chicago), Indiana, Michigan, Kentucky, North Carolina and Tennessee. PJM - Markets & Operations May 7, 2016


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Ispaze is one of the leading web hosting provider offering quality service with premium support. Our servers are built using the latest technology and our company is passionate about hosting and we strive to deliver an excellent level of service to each customer.
Ispaze is a privately owned company that was formed in 2015 to provide web hosting services that are often overpriced at affordable prices for individuals and businesses around the world. Unlike most newer web hosts we do not hide who we are, when we were formed, or what we have to offer to our clients. We may be small but we are growing since day one, listening to our client suggestions and making the service better each day.
Award Winning Support !
Our highly-trained support staff are ready to assist you with all manner of issues related to your hosting experience. We are a knowledgeable and insightful bunch, excited to resolve any issue or answer any questions that you may have.
Ask us about additional services that may compliment your current hosting solution, or let us assist you with seamlessly upgrading your current plan. No issue is too big, or too small; we are here to help!
Our Chat Response Time
Normal Hours : Less than two minutes
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Our Ticket Response Time
Minimum Time : 15 Minutes
Maximum Time : 3 Hours (During Holidays and Weeekends)
Price Promise
We are confident that our hosting services are the best on the market. In the unlikely event that another Hosting provider offers the same service for less, we will match their cost like-for-like.
If you've found a comparable hosting service cheaper elsewhere, please contact us and we'll see what we can do!
Speed & Security
Experience the super fast hosting from ispaze powered by SSD Drives and Litespeed to maximize performance and speed.LiteSpeed is 9X faster than Apache web hosting, processes PHP 50% faster, and 3X faster than SSL Apache Hosting.
Ispaze Control Panel has Virus scanning and leech protection security services to help protect your mail recipients and website visitors from potentially harmful threats and viruses. Simply activate it from your control panel – it's maintenance free with no code , activate and relax
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If you wish to cancel your account at anytime within the first 30 days of your service, we will provide a full refund. No questions asked.
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When moving from another web host, our technical support representatives will be more than happy to help you transfer your website content over to us. We will transfer over your website, databases and even your domain name. All provided at no cost to you.
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Receive up to 50% off for life on all hosting account orders by hosting all of your domains and accounts through us. Simply order the accounts through our order process and you'll see the automated discounts add up as you add more accounts. Also, receive 10% off per shared hosting account just for linking to us from your webpage.
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All fees are represented clearly on our website. You can be sure that there will be no extra charges or fees for hosting your domain name with us.
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Once all billing information is confirmed by the system and our staff, your virtual hosting account will be setup automatically. Returning customers will have their website up in five minutes or less. In case of dedicated servers, we will have your server setup and ready for you as quickly as possible depending on the chosen settings!


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Kirna Zabête is an essential fashion destination founded by two college best friends in 1999 and now owned by Beth Buccini.
We use cookies to provide you with the best possible experience on our website. This includes third party cookies and personalised content. If you continue we'll assume you're happy to receive all cookies. However, you can change your mind at any time. Read more


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MONTREAL—Dubbed the most powerful man in Montreal, he was placed at the heart of city corruption, but former politician Frank Zampino said in a spirited defence Wednesday that he was too busy with official duties to rig contracts, collect illegal political donations or cavort with the Mafia.
Zampino's arrival at the witness stand of Quebec's Charbonneau commission had been eagerly anticipated. Previous witnesses have told how he accepted kickbacks and ensured that associates in the construction industry got rich off of city projects. He is facing criminal fraud charges for arranging to sell city land to a property developer at a fraction of its full value.
But in a feisty day of questions and answers, the former president of Montreal's executive committee — backed by three personal lawyers — conceded nothing to inquiry lawyers as they attempted to probe his ties to the Mafia, his role in awarding city work to companies and the role he played in raising money for former mayor Gerald Tremblay's Union Montreal party.
Zampino's testimony is certain to last several days, and it will be a tougher fight to have him admit any wrongdoing as a host of other witnesses have done since the televised hearings began last fall.
The first day of the clash between Zampino, who quit politics under a cloud in 2008, and inquiry lawyer Sonia Lebel only touched on some of the issues they are likely to explore concerning events going back more than two decades.
Those events include his attendance, while mayor of the city's St-Leonard arrondissement, at the wedding of the children of prominent mobsters Frank Cotroni and Joe Di Maulo in July 1991.
On Wednesday, Zampino claimed ignorance about their criminal backgrounds though he conceded that, in hindsight, "it was not the most brilliant idea" to go to their children's weddings.
There were references to photos of Zampino with Mafia kingpin Vito Rizzuto, and lawyers will be certain to hone in on his friendship with allegedly crooked construction magnate Tony Accurso.
But the bulk of the questioning focused on the power Zampino yielded as Tremblay's right-hand man at city hall. He denied any special influence, saying "the City of Montreal is not the business of one man." But he did go on to explain how he was solicited by a prominent engineer, who has admitted to illegal donations, to meet privately with a man who would, five weeks later, become Montreal's top bureaucrat.
There was no privileged information shared at the meeting, he said in his defence, nor was there a conspiracy to put a yes man in a top city job.
"The decision to hire him was not made at that dinner," Zampino said. "Not at all."
Zampino also denied having any hand in the occult political financing schemes that played out over most of the past decade. He was required to attend $500-a-head events at which most guests were from construction, engineering and law firms that had or sought business with the city but said he only shook hands, listened to complaints and passed them on to his overworked staff to investigate and respond to.
"We have to listen to the people who invest in our city. That's the role of an elected official," he said. "It's our fundamental role."


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- Home
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- A Bad Case of Stripes
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- Beekle
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- I Need My Monster
- Juan Verdades – The Man Who Couldn't Tell a Lie
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- The Cats of Krasinski Square
- The Day the Crayons Quit
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- What Do You Do With An Idea?
- 11 Experiments That Failed
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- A Crooked Kind of Perfect
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- From the Mixed-up Files of Mrs. Basil E. Frankweiler
- Harry Potter and The Sorcerer's Stone
- Inside Out & Back Again
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- Out of the Dust
- Pizza, Pigs, and Poetry – How to Write a Poem
- Project Mulberry
- Rules for Stealing Stars
- Running Out of Time
- Stella By Starlight
- The Arrival
- The Cabinet of Earths
- The Evolution of Calpurnia Tate
- The Healing Spell
- The Missing Series – Book 1 Found
- The Mysterious Benedict Society
- The Name of This Book is Secret
- The One and Only Ivan
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Author Archives: Christy Buckner
Writing is just like life…even when it's fiction
Late last night I finished reading the novel, Okay for Now by Gary D. Schmidt. It was better than amazing and it inspired me to get on the ball and write about something I teach to all my writing students, … Continue reading
You Have the Right to Write
A couple of years ago, I had the privilege of being on a school district's committee that was reviewing textbooks to purchase for the upcoming year. Although I don't teach full time anymore, I still guest teach writing, and I … Continue reading
Posted in Uncategorized 2 Comments
Author Extraordinaire – Tim J. Myers
I love the way nonfiction writing has changed over the years from strictly factual to entertaining while educating, and Tim J. Myers, author of the new book Rude Dude's Book of Food, is a master at it! I was lucky … Continue reading
Part Two: Manholes, tow trucks, and lonely silverware…
Okay, so I chose to tell you about my quirks not just because of characterization, but because there happen to be three of them and they happen to go nicely explaining the rule of three in stories (a coincidence, but … Continue reading
Part One: Manholes, tow trucks, and lonely silverware…
I love the title of this post because it highlights the true strangeness of my irrational quirks and it also makes me want to go read a Rick Riordan book. Mr. Riordan's books make me happy even if I only … Continue reading
The death of a genius, and a lingering question…
When I was young, I never really thought about what careers or jobs I wanted to have when I grew up. At least if I did, I don't remember any of them. I thought more about experiences I would like … Continue reading
Posted in Uncategorized 4 Comments
May 19th came and went, and I must assure you that I have not forgotten the winners!! While I didn't post the winners here (until now), I met with all the contestants and announced the winners in person. The imagination … Continue reading
Entries are in!
I have had such a wonderful experience putting this contest out there and working with writers! Thank you so much to all the students who entered. I have already begun reading the entries and plan to post the winners by … Continue reading
Posted in Uncategorized 2 Comments
Contest Time!
Hello writers! It is contest time and I am very excited! (Contest rules are at the end of this post.) Last month, I went to a writer's conference and was very inspired by one of our speakers, Tricia Lawrence. She … Continue reading
Wish Chips and Shooting Stars
What you believe in makes all the difference. As I said in the About Me section of this site, I think that saying wishes out loud gives them a greater chance of coming true, and I really do believe that. … Continue reading


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Open House is a social group for the over 60s.
They meeting meet each Tuesday in the Church lounge at 10am, with lunch on the second and fourth Tuesdays of the month. It is a very friendly group who enjoy a programme of games, crafts, quizzes, talks and slide shows


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Cary News: Sports
Apex's Duncan clinches Tri-9 title
Athletes often talk about leaving footprints, but senior Graham Duncan has been trying to walk in Wesley Barrett's footsteps. Such is Duncan's respect for his former Apex teammate.
Two years ago, Barrett, now playing his sophomore season at Old Dominion University, won the Tri-Nine Conference boys singles title and followed up with an NCHSAA 4A state championship. Barrett's victim in the 2010 Tri-Nine final was Duncan, then an Apex sophomore.
The path to a state title left an impression on Duncan, even though he took his junior year off from high school tennis in 2011 to focus on earning a college scholarship to Wofford College.
Duncan's return to Apex's lineup now includes the 2012 Tri-Nine singles title as he defeated Panther Creek senior Eric Nagy 6-3, 6-2 Wednesday at the Cary Tennis Center.
"This means a lot to me," Duncan said. "The last time I was in the conference finals I lost (6-3, 6-3 to Barrett). It's good to come back and follow his footsteps. Next I want to play well in the regionals and state."
The Tri-Nine doubles bracket was an all-Green Hope final as Matt Hammond and Kyle Burns won their second straight Tri-Nine title by defeating Green Hope teammates Michael Neighbors and Mark Wicklegren 6-3, 6-4. All four Falcons are juniors.
"We were hoping we could make it two in a row and now we're looking forward to next year and trying to get a triple crown," said Burns.
In all, Duncan will lead six Apex players in singles and doubles into the 4A Regionals Friday and Saturday at Millbrook Exchange Park in Raleigh.
In the Tri-Nine tournament, the four semifinalists earn automatic berths and two more at-large berths are awarded to the winners of play-in matches.
In the singles semifinals, Duncan defeated Green Hope's Kelly Patch 6-2, 6-2 and Nagy edged Middle Creek's Matt Stachowiak 6-2, 2-6, 10-8.
The two singles play-in berths were claimed by Apex's Shivam Desai and Athens Drive's Kelvin Menezes.
In the doubles semifinals, Hammond and Burns defeated Holly Springs' Matt James and Chase Andries 6-3, 6-2. Neighbors and Wicklegren beat Middle Creek's Justin Panepinto and Mihnea Tomos 6-1, 6-4.
The other four Apex players to advance to the regionals were a pair of double teams that won play-in matches. Taylor Scheiss and Erik Aldareguia won the fifth berth and Cole Bowser and Will Ostrom the sixth.
Duncan went 16-1 in Tri-Nine play this year – 12-1 in the regular season and 4-0 in the tournament. He was 3-0 against Nagy with his lone loss a split of regular-season matches with Stachowiak.
"(North Carolina tennis) is a good challenge and Graham is a very good player," said Nagy, a transfer from San Antonio. "I'd say Texas is deeper, but the top players here are very good."
Stachowiak and Nagy split their regular-season matches before Nagy edged him in the semifinals. Stachowiak was the Tri-Nine runner-up last year when he lost 6-2, 6-2 in the final to Athens Drive's Roman Cacha, who now plays as a freshman at West Point.


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Actually the idea to apply more and more microtherapeutic methods in addition to classical procedures such as chemotherapy or surgery seems to be quite promising. The show-stopper: The physician uses imaging techniques to bring finest tools into the body of the patient and place them directly in the tumor. There the tools develop their effects – for example direct radiotherapy or atrophy by heat. Due to the pinpoint accuracy of microtherapeutic operations, the surrounding tissue is mainly spared from damage. Not really new – but tested.
Highly precise cancer surgery
The other day in Magdeburg it was about a whole lot more. Because the completely new type of MRI-device provides the necessary free access to the patient during operation – and thus paves the way for synergistic working. "Due to its open construction it gives us physicians free access to the patient we need for a successful surgery", as Jens Ricke, Director at the Klinik für Radiologie und Nuklearmedizin at the University Hospital Magdeburg explains the principle.
What exactly the surgeon will expect in the future was shown live. Using the example of the image-controlled, formerly CT-controlled brachytherapy, the docs demonstrated the true power for this super machine. With remarkable results: The method is capable of destroying tumors and metastases on the spot.
The so-called interstitial brachytherapy is used in Magdeburg as radiotherapy by a radio source the size of a capsule and entered percutaneously. Mainly for atrophy of metastases in liver, lung or lymphatic glands, physicians of the Clinic for Radiology and the Clinic for Radiotherapy join to apply the method. "More studies show promising results for application on primary liver cell-, bile duct- and kidney cell tumors as well", as we heard from Magdeburg the other day and: Instead of the common CT, the MRI might be the future eye of the surgeon.
We are talking precision finishing here
To begin with, the radiologist places catheters at defined positions in the tumor aided by local anesthesia and image control. After thorough dosimetric planning by the radiotherapist, capsules loaded with radioactive Iridium 192 are entered into the body via those catheters. After the exact placing and planning, the Iridium 192 will deliver an exactly defined, highly dosed irradition in the tumor for a few minutes. And – this is the novelty – all this due to the exact view into the body: The high precision of the irradiation spares most of the surrounding tissue from damage. The method would be similarly applicable without MRI – but by far not as precisely and under additional radiation exposure for the patient.
Only as of recently and worldwide for the very first time at the University Hospital of Magdeburg, this type of operation is controlled by the aid of the now officially presented open Upright Magnetic Resonance Imaging Device (MRI). It just seems a question of time to the people in Magdeburg, when new fields of operations will be pushed in addition to the use of the established microtherapeutic methods of today as becoming obvious during the development project co-operation between the Clinic for Radiology and Nuclear Medicine and Philips, the manufacturer of the MR-scanner.


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With an office of 28 nationalities everyone wanted to be with their loved ones during the holidays, The same for people arround the world. That's why we opened 15 minute slots of virtual holiday dinner time.
You were able to have a virtual Christmas dinner with friends and family. By moving your head in Skype you can control the robots at the table. Over three days 156 people from 6 continents gathered to have a holiday dinner together, screen to screen. From families separated to strangers meeting for the first time, we all toasted to this season of togetherness.
The website allewed you to have a "dinner party" of up to five people simply using Skype. Guests can call into the dinner, and their faces will be shown on screens attached to dolls. On our side we had build a custom eye-tracking system that so you can move around and look around simply by moving your head, cheering with auntie and ignoring the drunken uncle as usual.
The edges of innovation and social coherence during holiday season made this small idea travel around the globe, making headlines and starting copycats for years to follow.
Wieden + Kennedy Amsterdam
Concept, creative technologist, host
R-Nul, Arnaud Ronquillo, Thiago
Simone Moessinger


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Studio Time, originally uploaded by maybeemily.
While I had been drawing in sketchbooks and making prints and working in resin for a long time before, I had never really tried to express my ideas through paint. I was so pleased with the results of these little tags!
My favorite is on the far left. The title is "A Chaste Landscape." I had read that exposed arms were symbolic of chastity in a book I had of Christian symbolism in art. (After learning about the hidden symbolism in old master's paintings and prints, I became a little obsessed with finding the hidden meanings in EVERYTHING!)
The tags have several layers of paint and resin on them, and are a little less than 1/8" thick. I love the way the resin creates a warm depth to the images. I wish I could make it a little less unruly, however - the backs have lots of drips and dribbles on them!


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Wedding Weekends
Florida is a Destination Location. Friends and business associates that you haven't seen in years often decide to attend the event - and enjoy the sunny weather! No Worries!! We often put together wedding weekend packages that handle the Friday Rehearsal Dinner, the Saturday Wedding, and even the Sunday Brunch.
That way, your friends and family can come in for the whole weekend and NOT rent a car (which can get expensive since Florida heavily taxes rental cars). When guests can count on the trolley for both nights of festivities, it relieves their stress and makes a more enjoyable event/weekend.
Also, discounts are offered for Multiple Day events. (Ask your sales associate!)


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Learning Outcomes
- Achieve world-class manufacturing standards
- Organize production operations to meet customer needs
- Reduce lead and cycle times
- "Build" products that can be effectively scheduled in varying environments
- Build an information infrastructure that smoothly converts to your manufacturing management systems
- Develop an understanding of the strategic importance of production resource planning on the supply chains and how resources planning can provide a competitive advantage in the marketplace
- Design and plan for production, and manage the shop-floor with optimum costs and productive maintenance
- Learn methods of forecasting to manage capacities and plan production
- Work through the tools and techniques of cost effective production planning
- Recognize the significance of purchasing and materials management for continued operations at minimal costs
- Understand the importance of quality planning and management
Who Must Attend
Course Details
- What is Production Resource Planning and Control?
- Holistic Approach to Production Resources Planning and Control
- The Customer-Supplier Chain – Functional Performance and Inter phases on the Chain
- Order Management and Engineering Change Control
- Enterprise Resource Planning (with Materials Resource Planning)
- Material requirements planning (MRP)
- Production Capacity Requirements Planning and Control
- Process & Performance Design, Planning and Control
- Production Layout and Work-Flow – Efficiency & Effectiveness
- Equipment Planning & Commissioning
- Human Capital & Capability Management (incl. Work Study, Job Design and Competency Needs Analysis)
- Production & Process Controls (incl. Time and Motion Study)
- Shop Floor Control
- Shop floor data collection
- Standard Costing and Cost Control
- Cost Management and Reporting
- Total Productive Maintenance and Tool Management
- Sales analysis and forecasting in the supply chain
- Production forecasting techniques
- Selecting suitable forecasting methods
- Calculating optimal production capacity
- Monitoring production capacity utilization
- Master production schedule (MPS)
- Item master data (technical data)
- Bill of materials (BOM) (technical data)
- Lot traceability
- Lean Manufacturing, JIT & Operational Efficiency
- Finite capacity scheduling (FCS) & Bottleneck (Constraint) Management
- Production & Process Controls (incl. Time & Motion Study)
- Purchasing Management - Sourcing, Purchasing, Procurement
- Inventories & Orders Control - Warehousing, Stock Planning & Control
- Sales Order Management & Distribution Requirements Planning (DRP)
- Packaging, Finished Goods & Warehouse Management
- Automated warehouse management
- Logistics Planning & Control
- Planning the Quality
- Quality Management & TQM
- Quality, Speed, Dependability, Flexibility, Cost Trade-offs
- Quality of conformance and performance
- Quality of features and aesthetics
- Quality of reliability and durability
- Aesthetics and perceived quality
- Common quality control tools
- Common quality management tools
Course Leader
View Barrak on Youtube: https://youtu.be/4UmgxRJa9iM
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|Sign up 1 pax
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|Early Bird
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|Pay 14 days before course starts
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(Fee inclusive of Buffet Lunch, Refreshment, Welcome Pack, Training Materials & Certificate of Achievement)
Payment mode:
1. ONLINE PAYMENT by Credit card: You can opt to register and pay online with our latest payment integration system through our website.
Bank in and then scan the Bank-in slip and email to us before the course commence to confirm your seat.
Courier your cheque payment to our Finance HQ.
*Note that we DO NOT take any payments during the event.
3. BANK IN CASH: You can also pay by cash through bank-in our company bank account.
4. Telegraphic Transfer- You can also opt to use GIRO or telegraphic transfer of payment via international banks.


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Auto and Truck Dealerships
RLH has an extensive history of working with auto, truck and equipment dealerships. Dependence on car manufacturers, competition for services, periodic skilled labor shortages, and the changing roles for local dealers are just a few of the challenges you face. Here at RLH, we view challenges as opportunities. We would welcome the opportunity to become your trusted business advisor. The services we provide to our dealership clients include:
For more information about how we can help your dealership, please complete the form below. Someone will contact you as soon as possible to discuss your needs. We look forward to working with you!


text: LINGUIST List: Vol-12-2114. Mon Aug 27 2001. ISSN: 1068-4875. Subject: 12.2114, Review: Street, Literacy and Development Moderators: Anthony Aristar, Wayne State U.<aristar at linguistlist.org> Helen Dry, Eastern Michigan U. <hdry at linguistlist.org> Andrew Carnie, U. of Arizona <carnie at linguistlist.org> Reviews (reviews at linguistlist.org): Simin Karimi, U. of Arizona Terence Langendoen, U. of Arizona Editors (linguist at linguistlist.org): Karen Milligan, WSU Naomi Ogasawara, EMU Lydia Grebenyova, EMU Jody Huellmantel, WSU James Yuells, WSU Michael Appleby, EMU Marie Klopfenstein, WSU Ljuba Veselinova, Stockholm U. Heather Taylor-Loring, EMU Dina Kapetangianni, EMU Software: John Remmers, E. Michigan U. <remmers at emunix.emich.edu> Gayathri Sriram, E. Michigan U. <gayatri at linguistlist.org> Home Page: http://linguistlist.org/ The LINGUIST List is funded by Eastern Michigan University, Wayne State University, and donations from subscribers and publishers. Editor for this issue: Terence Langendoen <terry at linguistlist.org> ========================================================================== What follows is another discussion note contributed to our Book Discussion Forum. We expect these discussions to be informal and interactive; and the author of the book discussed is cordially invited to join in. If you are interested in leading a book discussion, look for books announced on LINGUIST as "available for discussion." (This means that the publisher has sent us a review copy.) Then contact Simin Karimi at simin at linguistlist.org or Terry Langendoen at terry at linguistlist.org. =================================Directory================================= 1) Date: Mon, 27 Aug 2001 15:05:03 -0500 From: Dennis Malone <dennis_malone at sil.org> Subject: Review of Street, ed., Literacy and Development -------------------------------- Message 1 ------------------------------- Date: Mon, 27 Aug 2001 15:05:03 -0500 From: Dennis Malone <dennis_malone at sil.org> Subject: Review of Street, ed., Literacy and Development Street, Brian V., ed. (2001) Literacy and Development: Ethnographic Perspectives. Routledge, paperback ISBN 0-415-23451-4, hardcover ISBN 0-415-23450-6, x+228pp. Dennis L. Malone, Ph.D., International Literacy Consultant, SIL International PURPOSE Brian Street, the editor of this volume, has played a critical role in the development of literacy studies that problematize the traditional view of literacy as a necessary and pivotal ingredient in a society's intellectual, social, economic and political development (cf. Goody & Watt, 1968, Olson, 1977, Ong 1982). In his 1984 publication, "Literacy in Theory and Practice," Street developed the "autonomous" and "ideological" models of literacy. Countering the conception of literacy as a neutral set of communicative technological skills and attitudes that "automatically" lead to development, Street contended that in reality, literacy is a social practice that differs significantly from society to society, and even among social classes within the same society. In Street's conception (frequently cited by the ten authors in this collection), "Literacy" (big-L literacy, in Street's phrase), when defined as a single set of skills, cannot account adequately for the multiplicity of literacy practices that can be identified in ostensibly "illiterate" communities. Street refers to these practices as "multiple literacies" or "local literacies" (cf. Street, 1993) In one sense the current volume can be considered a sequel to his 1993 set of studies, albeit refocused toward the linkages among literacy, development and ethnographic research. As Street asserts, ethnographic research is "more concerned with attempting to understand what actually happens than with trying to prove the success of a particular intervention or 'sell' a particular methodology for teaching or management" (p. 1). In this volume, ethnographic research shares equal billing with literacy and development. SUMMARY OF CONTENT The book begins with an Introduction by Street. This is followed by the ethnographic studies that are divided into two sections: "I. Literacy and development: ethnographic perspectives on schooling and adult education" and "II. Literacy and development: local literacies and development agendas." Each of the two sections is preceded by its own "Introduction" which serves as a friendly review of the articles in that section. The volume concludes with an "Afterword: problematising literacy and development" by Alan Rogers. In his Introduction to the volume (pp. 1-17), Street sets out the main themes that unite this collection of 10 ethnographic views of literacy uses and practices in Africa (Namibia, Eritrea, and Ghana), Asia (India, twice, Nepal, Bangladesh, China and Pakistan) and South America (Peru). He argues that only an ethnographic approach can focus on the local meanings of literacy/literacies while addressing the larger issues raised by what are called the "New Orders" and the "New Literacy Studies" His editorial aim is "to operationalise these approaches as a basis both for research purposes and for practical applications" (p. 6, 10-11). Section I includes four studies. (1) Dyer & Choksi (pp. 27-39) present a thoughtful and engaging account of a "failed" literacy intervention with the nomadic Rabari of India. Reminiscent of Hornberger's (1987) account of "Bilingual Education Success, but Policy Failure" in Peru, the authors discover that an innovative nomadic literacy program is quite possible but not congruent with the understanding and aspirations of the Rabari with respect to formal education. The Rabari see the latter ideologically as a door opening into the modern world in which they have access to alternative and more viable ways of living or at least to the economic, cultural and symbolic "capital" that leads to them (p. 37). (2) Although disclaiming any evaluative intent, Papen (pp. 40-60) presents a critique of the National Literacy Programme in Namibia (NLPN) and its claim to providing Namibians with their "key for a better future". The author's detailed account of the NLPN and a "Literacy Day" event provides her with ample opportunities to apply the theoretical concepts of the "New Literacy Studies" to problematize the motivation and implementation of the NLPN. (3) Wright (pp. 61-77) provides readers with a detailed account of the change in her perception of the "chanting" pedagogy typical of primary education in Eritrea. She finds that what seems on the surface to be mindless and monotonous rote instruction actually connects in meaningful and effective ways with the cultural background of the learners. (4) Chopra (pp. 78-91) narrates an introspective ("reflexive") account of her interpersonal relationships as an ethnographic literacy researcher among participants in a literacy center in a north Indian village. She analyzes her interactions with research subjects in a previous fieldwork site, which she renames her "homework" site (pp. 79-80). The account suffers a bit in lack of clarity from that type of word play but does offer the reader an insider's view of the ethical dilemmas facing ethnographers of the "new literacy". In Section II the studies are more focused on the relationships between literacy and development. (5) Aikman, (pp. 103-120) presents an historically contextualized account of "self-development" in the Harakmbut language community in Amazonian Peru. She parries concepts of development from a missionary and governmental perspective with the concepts of Harakmbut self-development as revealed through the activities of a local community organization. (6) Herbert and Robinson (pp. 121-136) provide an account of the relationship between languages and literacies in northern Ghana, pointing out the ways that different community literacy practices often involve--in some cases, require--different languages. They raise and respond to a significant question: Do the differences observed among the various literacies in northern Ghana "depend on language" (p. 134)? (7) Maddox (pp. 137-151) describes economic uses of literacy among peasants in Bangladesh, where "poor" and "illiterate" are considered synonymous. The author considers the practical uses of literacy and numeracy among the peasant population of northwestern Bangladesh "to be undervalued by politicians and development planners" (p. 149) when they should be the foundation on which effective adult education programs are built. (8) Robinson-Pant (pp. 152-170) provides an insightful and probing account of the problematic relationship between ethnographer and development agency with respect to research undertaken for a Western NGO in Nepal. She raises a significant issue when she questions "how far ethnographic research can be packaged and sold as a product to the developers" (p. 152). (9) Stites (pp. 171-187) provides readers with detailed descriptions of the literacy uses and practices he discovered during visits and interviews in 100 households in southeastern China. He seeks to understand the disparate literacy rates between men and women in three rural communities, as well as the apparent disjunction between the national adult literacy curriculum and the home environments in which most women, who comprise the majority of learners, use literacy. (10) Zubair (pp. 188-204) contributes an account of the power issues involved in the acquisition of literacy and formal education by women in a rural Pakistani community. Although she includes the "voices" of the research participants themselves, her conclusions are the least convincing of this group of articles, partially because they are generalized far beyond the small and localized research community, and partially because the author is not clear about which language(s) was(were) used in the collection of data (cp. Robinson-Pant). Alan Roger's "Afterword" (pp. 205-221) provides a critique of the ethnographic points of view presented in the volume in terms of the degree to which they have increased our understanding of the linkages of literacy to development. As Rogers points out, the purpose of this volume is to provide literacy and development practitioners with useful insights into what actually is--and is not--happening in literacy and development interventions. Rogers is nevertheless left with an unquiet sense of what he calls "unfinished business": "Time and again, I was tempted to ask at the end of a chapter, 'So what?'" (p. 217). Rogers goes on to assess the "missing practical implication" (pp. 220-221). (See below for reviewer comment.) A CRITICAL EVALUATION Brian Street is to be commended for providing this collection of ethnographic studies of literacy and development in diverse contexts. Unlike his 1993 collection of studies, these are all informed by recent research and possess a unity of perspective not apparent in the previous volume. Street is also to be commended for including Alan Roger's insightful review and critique of the collection. Having made rather extensive notes of each article as I reviewed the book, I was personally impressed at how many of my questions and concerns were raised by Rogers in the "Afterword". >>From my point of view as an applied linguist and practitioner of literacy and development in multilingual contexts, I value this volume for demonstrating the strengths and weaknesses of an ethnographic approach to the study of literacy and development in diverse ethno- linguistic communities. It is highly unlikely that any of the findings revealed in these studies could have resulted from traditional survey or other quantitative forms of research. But again as an applied linguist, I was disappointed that while several authors made clear reference to multilingual research contexts, they failed to discuss adequately the issue of language in those situations. For example, Zubair writes about Seraiki-speaking women's literacies in three languages--Arabic, Urdu, and English but she does not probe the fact that none of these three is the women's mother tongue (p. 192). Stites, in his introduction, emphasizes the predominance of "non-Han minority groups" in remote and underdeveloped regions of China but does not then address language issues in his discussion of adult literacy programs at his research site (p. 171). Chopra refers to the use of a local language, Hindi and English (pp. 82-83) by different research participants. However, she ignores language as a factor in her discussion of the unequal power relationships among the participants (including the researcher herself). The failure to address the issue of language in those articles is somewhat balanced by the Herbert and Robinson and the Robinson-Pant articles. Herbert and Robinson discuss the affect of language choice on four literacy practices in northern Ghana. Robinson-Pant describes incidents of language clash between Maithili (participants) and Nepali (facilitators) in some communities (p. 159). She uses those incidents to evaluate the impact of language use on literacy instruction and the development of literacy materials. A final word: the authors' frequent dichotomous characterization of languages and literacies as either dominant or dominated ("subaltern") implies an active antipathy between the promoters of dominant literacies and the users of local literacies. In my own experience, ignorance and indifference is as much a factor as active opposition in the failure of the dominant society to support local languages and literacies. Frequently, the problem is less the muteness of the marginalized people in promoting their needs and aspirations as it is the deafness of the powers that be. Perhaps the most significant contribution of ethnographic research in literacy and development contexts is to give a public voice to the people who have traditionally been excluded from active participation in the development process. In that respect, this volume is certainly a step in the right direction. BIBLIOGRAPHY Goody, Jack and Watt, Ian. (1988/1968). The Consequences of Literacy. In Eugene Kintgen, Barry Kroll, and Mike Rose, eds. Perspectives on Literacy, Southern Illinois University Press. Olson, David. (1988/1977). From Utterance to Text: The Bias of Language in Speech and Writing. In Eugene Kintgen, Barry Kroll, and Mike Rose, eds. Perspectives on Literacy, Southern Illinois University Press. Heath, Shirley Brice. (1983). Way with Words: Language, Life, and Work in Communities and Classrooms, Cambridge University Press. Hornberger, Nancy. (1987). Bilingual Education Success, but policy failure. Language and Society 16, 205-226. Ong, Walter. (1982). Orality and Literacy: The Technologizing of the Word, Routledge. Street, Brian. (1984). Literacy in Theory and Practice, Cambridge University Press. Street, Brian V, ed. (1993). Cross-Cultural Approaches to Literacy, Cambridge University Press BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCH Dennis Malone earned a Ph.D. in Education at Indiana University and is currently working as an International Literacy Consultant with SIL International in the Asia Area. His research interests are mother tongue education, sociolinguistics (especially language maintenance and endangerment issues) and literacy studies in general. He has extensive experience in ethnic minority education in Asia and the Pacific. He is currently serving as visiting lecturer at Mahidol University-Salaya (Bangkok), advising on several mother tongue education projects in the Asia Area, and consulting with the Ministry of Education and Training and World bank on a pilot project on ethnic minority primary education in Vietnam. --------------------------------------------------------------------------- If you buy this book please tell the publisher or author that you saw it reviewed on the LINGUIST list. --------------------------------------------------------------------------- LINGUIST List: Vol-12-2114


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Coaching Cricket
Free Community Coaching (L1) courses in 2017/2018!
Working closely with the Northern Territory Institute of Sport, NT Cricket provides professional development opportunities and upskilling workshops to ensure coaches are up to date with current philosophies and coaching skills.
Coach education is vital to ensure coaches engage relevant and current tools to deliver a positive cricket experience to players and their parents. Cricket Australia has developed a comprehensive coach education program designed to assist coaches working with cricketers at all levels and NT Cricket conducts coach accreditation courses throughout the year. There are four levels of coaching courses available outlined here.
Free Coaching Courses for grass roots cricket!
NT Cricket and Cricket Australia has embarked on an industry first by offering Free Community (Level 1) Coaching courses in 2017-2018 to the grassroots cricket community! This will be a first for cricket as the Community Coaching course normally costs $120 per person for the online component and face to face session. This initiative will develop coaching skills around Australia, with an emphasis on junior cricket, by making the courses more accessible to parents, volunteers and all budding cricket coaches who devote their time and effort to ensure people of all backgrounds and abilities can enjoy the game we love. NT Cricket encourages all interested people to get involved this year.
What do I need to do to sign up?
(For a step-by-step guide to signing up, download the Help Guide HERE)
1. Register as a potential Coach HERE
2. Complete the Introduction to Cricket (online course) HERE
3. Register for the face to face Community Coaching Course in your local area by selecting a course near you. Find courses HERE
For further information about Cricket Coaching in the NT, please contact Cameron Carroll or phone (08) 8944 8900
CRICKET AUSTRALIA's COACHING ACCREDITATION PATHWAY
Introduction to Cricket course (Level 0) online 1 hour
The Introduction to Cricket course is the entry level program for all coaches. It is a FREE online course that is ideal for volunteers, parents and people who have just started coaching. This course is also a prerequisite for Cricket Australia's Community Coach Accreditation course.
Community Coach (Level 1) 4-6 contact hours
The Community Coach Accreditation course is aimed at coaches and volunteers who work with under-age level cricketers or community cricket club players. It is also an ideal course for teachers who want to grow cricket within their school environment.
The course gives coaches the confidence to provide a positive and engaging environment where players have fun, develop skills, compete and have success and covers:
- Coach Approach – develop an understanding of the Australian Way philosophy and where players fit on the National Player Pathway
- Scoring Runs – learn how to teach players to score runs, off the front and back foot and how to stay in
- Taking Wickets – learn how to teach players how to take wickets and save runs by bowling pace and spin, the latest catching and throwing approaches and wicket keeping specialties
- Preparing to Perform – how to include basic physical elements to training sessions, appropriate hydration for players and methods to motivate players
- Leading the Game – learn how to coach the captain to make decisions in response to the game situation and how to create leaders within the playing group
Representative Coach (Level 2)
The Representative Coach Accreditation course is designed for coaches who are involved in:
- Activities that lead into NT Cricket Pathway programs
- Coaches involved in coaching club cricket
- Coaches involved in NT School Sport programs
High Performance Coach (Level 3)
Candidates for the High Performance Coaching course are nominated by their State or Territory cricket association. The candidate must be actively coaching in Grade and/or Pathways programs to be considered.
For further information contact NT Cricket on 08 8944 8900 or email@example.com


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Girl Meets World (season 1, 2, 3, 4) Download full Episodes 720p
Here you can download TV show Girl Meets World (season 1, 2, 3, 4) full episodes in mp4 mkv and avi. Episodes are available in HD quality 720p 1080p free.
Events of Girl Meets World in series come a decade after the events which have been described in once popular series "Boy Meets World". Cory and Topanga moved to New York and created a family. They are bringing up with two children – the youngest son Auggie and eldest daughter named Riley. She is going to be the main character of this sitcom. She is now in the age when a person is coming to the adulthood and starts actively getting acquainted with the world. Riley is helped by her friends. Firstly, it is Maya, a true friend, ready to share all of her adventures. Most than with other boys girls communicate with Lucas Freer and Farklom Minkus. Lucas is a sort of "a young cowboy in the city" and Riley is in love with him a little bit. Farkl is a typical nerd, which has bad relationship with Maya, but Riley always makes piece in this pair. Girl Meets World season 3 is an exciting TV project that is worth watching.


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Abandoned rabbits - it's worse than we thought
The last meaningful survey conducted by the charity estimated the number of rabbits given up to rescue shelters at around 35,000. The organisation has recently conducted another survey, and was shocked to find the figure now standing at well over 67,000.
"What is really worrying," said Richard Saunders, RWAF Veterinary Expert Advisor, "is that this number only reflects the cases where the rabbits have made it into rescue. We can't possibly quantify how many more are dumped in the wild and left to fend for themselves, which leads to almost certain death, by the way. Then there are those who, when the novelty has worn off, are simply neglected and left often in a hutch with no access to exercise space and almost no attention except for a handful of food now and again."
The charity also points out that countless unwanted pet rabbits are sold for next to nothing through classified ads both in newspapers and online as well as at livestock auctions. It is understood that many of these are bought as meat.
In the survey, almost all the rescues said that the problem is getting worse, with more and more people wanting to rehome their pet rabbits. Many said they are only able to take in around 10% of the requests they receive, with most having waiting lists of 2-6 months. Many owners will not wait that long, and take their own steps to dispose of the animal.
The answer? Well the charity's message is simple on this one. Rabbits are not the cheap and easy children's pet that they are often mistaken as being. They are as big a commitment as a cat or dog, and people should think long and hard, and do their research before taking them on. And even longer and harder before they decide to breed 'just one litter' from their pets, all of which will then need to find homes. If you can't commit to providing rabbits with the space, companionship, vet care and proper diet for ten years or more, then rabbits are not for you.
For more information on caring for rabbits please go to http://www.rabbitwelfare.co.uk.
- ends -
Notes for editors
For further information, please contact:
Media contacts
Rae Todd
Tel: 07585 701012
Site: www.rabbitwelfare.co.uk
Images for download
Click on any image to view or download in higher resolution.
Rabbit rescues are facing a crisis
67,000 rabbits were handed in to rescue centers in the UK in 2010, and this is only the tip of the iceberg. Make sure you can commit for 10 years and provide the right environment for them. A hutch is not enough.
Click to view or download higher resolution image
Rabbits abandonement increases to 67,000
Baby rabbits are cute but at least 67,000 rabbits a year are handed in to rescue centres in the UK. Make sure you can commit for 10 years or more and provide the right environment. A hutch is not enough.
Click to view or download higher resolution image


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Pierre-Emerick Aubameyang has spoken out following a terrible start to the new season for predicted title challengers Borussia Dortmund, insisting improvement is needed at the back.
After seven games, Jurgen Klopp's side are 13th with just two wins.
Dortmund are 10 points behind their rivals Bayern Munich who are unbeaten this season under Pep Guardiola.
The Gabon International, who has been speaking to the Bundesliga official website revealed: "We need to be more compact and find a better balance between defence and attack.
"We know that we're always good for a goal and if we can be more solid at the back, then we're going to be hard to beat."
A key reason why Dortmund have made such a sluggish start to the new season has been down to their extent of injury problems. Marco Reus, Nuri Sahin, Ilkay Gundogan, Henrikh Mhkitaryan and Jakub Blaszczykowski are all missing.
"There's no hiding that this is a problem because we've had to do without numerous players for weeks. But a club like Borussia Dortmund doesn't have the right to hide behind excuses.
"We know how things are and, even if we have lots of problems, we've got to deal with it and look for the best solutions."
Squad problems:
Over the summer, Klopp had to make numerous acquisitions to make up for the loss of their prized striker, Robert Lewandowski who is now enjoying a fruitful spell with the Bundesliga champions.
Losing Mario Gotze the year before has also been a scaring factor for the club who are looking to challenge for the title once more after finishing as the runners up for the past two seasons.
In return, Klopp increased his attacking options by bringing in the Serie A top scorer, Ciro Immobile and former Hertha Berlin striker, Adrian Ramos.
Just before the transfer window closed, Klopp was able to lure Shinji Kagawa back to the Westfalenstadion after an unhappy two year stay at Manchester United.
Despite the additions, the players, in particularly the two new strikers, have failed to gel and after a long pre-season mixed with post World Cup tiredness, Dortmund have been one of the worst affected sides.
Related articles
- Manchester City lead four-way Marco Reus race
- Borussia Dortmund are in turmoil
- Roberto Di Matteo takes charge of Schalke 04
Poor results
On the opening day of the season, Klopp and co were blown away by an explosive Bayer Leverkusen side who scored the quickest goal in Bundesliga history.
This was later followed by a 2-0 defeat away at FSV Mainz 05, a 2-2 draw with fellow strugglers VfB Stuttgart and a 2-1 defeat in the derby of the Ruhr against FC Schalke 04.
Last weekend, Dortmund fans experienced a new low as Pierre-Michel Lasogga fired past Roman Weidenfeller to give SV Hamburger their first win of the season.
Despite their poor results in the Bundesliga, in the Champions League, Dortmund have been a different outfit and more noticeable to the side people have grown to admire over the years.
They dismantled Arsenal in their opening group game firing 23 shots at the Gunners goal in their 2-0 win and they then followed this up with an impressive 3-0 victory away in Belgium against Anderlecht.


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Create an Account - Increase your productivity, customize your experience, and engage in information you care about.
Blues and Groove Festival
Elizabeth Evan's Park
March 31, 2018
4 p.m. to 11 p.m.
Event Cost and/or ticket information: TBA
Brief Description: The Mount Dora Blues & Groove will continue the tradition of bringing fabulous Blues Music to the Mount Dora Waterfront in gorgeous, lakefront Elizabeth Evans Park. The concerts will take place on Saturday at Evans Park between the hours of 4 p.m. and 11 p.m.. For details, visit www.bluesandgroove.com.
Entertainment: TBA
Road Closures: Edgerton Court
Parking Instructions: Parking Garage, Free All Day parking lots downtown
Items Prohibited: No pets, no glass
Bathroom Locations: Portalets at Elizabeth Evan's Park
Contact Information: Visit Mount Dora www.bluesandgroove.com


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Transform your photos into one-of-a-kind, hand painted masterpieces!
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Decorate your bathroom and dry yourself off with our luxuriously soft bath towels and hand towels. Our towels are made from brushed microfiber with a 100% cotton back for extra absorption. The top of the towel has the image printed on it, and the back is white cotton. Available in three different sizes: hand towel, bath towel, and bath sheet.
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Machine wash cold and tumble dry with low heat.
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Stephani Baldwin
May 18th, 2019
I was unhappy with the bath sheet I purchased. It was rather flimsy, especially considering the price I paid for it. Also, the art on the bath sheet was not nice and crisp and pretty like it looked in the image of it on the website. I would say it was rather muted and blurred looking. I bought it for a gift and was rather embarrassed when I saw what I actually received.
Dave Helwig
May 2nd, 2019
Welcome! I am an artist, a painter inspired by nature. My true passion is painting! Bringing nature into a painting, is what I've been inspired to do for the past 20 years. But lately, I've realized how therapeutic and powerful it can be to be surrounded by both. There is beauty and peace found in the world around us, so why not bring some of it indoors. So my passion is to create spaces, that will help us to grow, heal and inspire us to live a more fully authentic life. You can never go wrong with bringing nature into the space you live in.🌿 My work is mainly inspired by nature but I also love creating pieces that are whimsical and fun as well. Many of my paintings are created from trips to the mountains, hikes through the...
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If you're not happy with a purchase that you made on Pixels.com, for any reason, you can return it to us within 30 days of the order date. As soon as it arrives, we'll issue a full refund for the entire purchase price. Please note - Pixels does not reimburse the outgoing or return shipping charges unless the return is due to a defect in quality.
Pixels sells thousands of pieces of artwork each month - all with a 100% money-back guarantee. We take great pride in the fact that hundreds of thousands of artists have chosen Pixels to fulfill their orders, and we look forward to helping you select your next piece!
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Thailand Websites
Holiday rentals
The seaside resort of Pattaya is already well known on the
international map. People come to Pattaya to relax and enjoy beautiful scenery,
crystal clear water, mouth watering seafood at very low cost, especially in a
safe environment surrounded by friendly and smiling Thai people.
The Kingdom of Thailand is ruled by King Bhumipol, better known
as King Rama IX. He is one of the longest serving monarchs in the world and is
revered by his subjects. In 2006, the King celebrated his 60th year on the
throne and the whole country joined in, with everyone wearing a yellow
You can secure your accommodation with us at "Somphong
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Here is the location map:
Khun Lela - Tel: (+66-38 709412) - Mob: (+66-869849700)Email: firstname.lastname@example.com
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Copyright (c) 2006 Ls. All rights reserved.


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My latest customer's website is all about helping the inner sniper in you. A reseller of the Bionic Band product, www.shooters-aids.com, aims to assist in your focus.
Their slogan says it all…Whatever or wherever you are shooting, focus with the best.
Their website is still being put together but check them out yourself – http://www.shooters-aids.com


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Unifying a Company Through an Intranet!
We love when companies improve their team unity! Â Creating an internal site, meant specifically for your company is a great way to keep everyone informed of the latest and greatest news, notify of imperative information, and make sure everyone has access to appropriate contacts and documents. We are true advocates for company Intranets!Teraflex wanted an internal way to provide all the aforementioned items to their large staff, without having to constantly attach items in mass emails and avoid pesky email threads. Our SquareHook tool allowed for all their awesome feature requests, and we couldn't be happier with the results!One of their main requests was an Employee Directory.


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Hot Drugstore Find of the Week: Maybelline ColorSensation Barely There Nude Lipstick!
Hello Divas!
It is a gorgeous day in Atlanta! I love it! I hope you guys are having the best day ever!
You guys know how much I have raved about Maybelline's ColorSenational line of lip glosses and lipsticks! I love them! Recently, I have been rocking the perfect nude lipstick, Nearly There, and it is just wonderful. My skin tone is medium dark and sometimes it is hard for me to find the right nude to match my skin tone. Some are too beige and some are just too dark. Well Maybelline got it right with this nude. It is a beige pink nude and it works! The pink is slightly darker and mixes well with the beige. It provides the right coverage for women with dark skin tones. I have been wearing it with my trusty MAC Chesnut lip pencil and I get tons of compliments! And of course, the $5.99 price tag does not hurt either.
Here is a pic! Trying to work with my I-Phone until I get a new camera. LOL! Maybelline ColorSensational lipsticks are under $6 and you can purchase them online here at CVS.
5 Responses to "Hot Drugstore Find of the Week: Maybelline ColorSensation Barely There Nude Lipstick!"
You look fab in that color! Thanks for the tip.
PS. Those earrings are sensational.
@Lollie Shopping Hello Fab One! I am so glad you like the lip stick it is awesome! Thanks for the compliment on the earrings. They are my favorite!
love it, i picked the lipstick up as soon as i saw your picture. i find that i put on clear gloss first then the lipstick….thank you!
Looks so good on you! And I love that you're wearing it w/ the Chestnut lip liner (a MAC classic!). I need to check out the collection ASAP! 🙂
@thepegster It is the bomb! I love this Nude! Better than luxe brands!
@Mischobeauty The ColorSensational Line has luxe quality without the price! Seriously! You will love it, plus they have a range of colors to compliment any skin tone! XOXO
Leave a Reply


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To be friends with this emerging superpower, we need to build relationships based on trust, cooperation and respect. The key to developing trust and building bridges is communication, and the key to communicating effectively is to understand each other's languages.
By learning key words and phrases, my 3-year-old daughter will be able to show respect to other Chinese in the United States -- 50,000-plus adopted and 3.4 million of Chinese descent living here -- and to 1.3 billion Chinese overseas that might be visitors here on business or politics, or hosts when she visits China.
When Mandy goes to Shanghai (my generation went to Europe, but the future is in China) on vacation with my wife and me or on exchange with her school's program as a teenager, I would expect her to be conversant (not fluent) in the language based on her education. Schools in our area are offering Chinese-language courses, and I would expect most exemplary schools to have some kind of Chinese program. And therefore I would expect Mandy to be conversant as a teenager.
When I graduated from the University of Michigan, with a B.A. in economics and an MBA in marketing and international business, I decided to hold off on my career to invest the summer traveling to China. It was one of the best summers of my life. I was conversant in Chinese, which allowed me to build relationships and trust with many Chinese people. Most of our meaningful conversations were in English, but my Chinese proficiency allowed the Chinese to see that I cared about their culture. This was particularly important to me as an ABC (American-born Chinese), as I was expected to know and embrace our culture. The Chinese students, and professional and business leaders, shared a lot about their people, history, likes and dreams. To this day, I do not see the Chinese people as the next Cold War enemy; I see them as friends -- real people with real dreams.
Exploding a few myths:
» You do not need to be a visionary or business leader to see the logic of this thesis.
» Chinese does not have to be a difficult language to learn (at least to be conversant in).
» You do not have to be rich or special to learn this language.
There are many reasons to learn Chinese. Some programs emphasize that learning Chinese and other foreign languages helps a child's brain develop -- especially at an early age. Some career counselors and professors argue that you can earn a lot of money by associating yourself with the economic juggernaut known as China. Last, don't forget the perk of being able to order dim sum with authority.
I believe the new world order will depend on how much we cooperate vs. compete. Cooperation is based on understanding, trust and communication, which are based on learning the other one's language. In the next 20 years, the United States will no longer be the only superpower. As this hegemony shifts, we need to consider other countries in addition to our own. We need to embrace foreign peoples, cultures, languages, values and economies. The largest and most important player is China. Learn Chinese!


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Some of the most memorable lines of music ever written are TV theme songs. Reverb, an online marketplace for music gear, has made that fact crystal clear with an impressive medley put together by one of their employees.
Joe, the guitarist in the video, tears through 100 TV show theme songs reimagined for solo guitar in just over 10 minutes. He hits some of the most iconic theme songs in TV history, running from Looney Tunes (1930) up through Game of Thrones (2011) and makes you want to watch your favorite shows all over again in the process. He does the medley almost entirely on guitar, though grabs a mandolin for a little help with Curb Your Enthusiasm and a ukelele for Arrested Development.
They even have a little fun with it, rolling from black and white into color with Bewitched, which started airing in black and white but transitioned into color in 1966. There's also a hat toss at the end of the theme for The Mary Tyler Moore Show and a few other gags to run alongside the theme songs.
The way the songs are seamlessly woven together is so good it should become an online challenge where you minimize the window and see how many of the 100 tunes you can name without looking. How many can you get?
h/t Laughing Squid
Sign up here for our daily Thrillist email, and get your fix of the best in food/drink/fun.


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Chris and I had a conversation tonight about his bachelor days (and arguably my own bachelorette days), how we miss the freedom and the habits and activities we used to get so much joy from.
At 7 weeks exactly I had a little meltdown because I was feeling incredibly burned out. Breastfeeding moms work around the clock. Instead of getting in bed and feeling happy that the day is over, I have to rally to continue to work all night. It seems like I've been nonstop working for seven weeks and, man, I was so tired of it on Friday. Noah is also having a hard time, missing our time together and acting out at times.
I guess the truth is that we are all a bit burned out of this phase.
But we pull each other up as-needed. Just when we're about to go nuts, Noah will make a hilarious or brilliant remark. Aaron will smile and even giggle a bit. I will secretly buy ice cream for just me and Chris; Chris will queue up a Parks and Rec and we'll relax into it together.
Maternity leave is winding down for me and we now have a new phase coming - working mom of 2. I am daunted but also excited. I am ready for things to feel even the slightest bit normal again!


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OK Go rocks! I found this band through a post on NRO's the Corner and they are awesome. The first video is from their first album, Oh No, which is a pretty straightforward power-pop record (for an interesting story about the group's videos and the music biz in general check out this Op-Ed NY Times piece by the lead singer). The second is from their latest effort released this year, Of the Blue Colour of the Sky, which is very eclectic, very cool and completely different from the previous album. Anyway, I've been listening to both albums non-stop for the last two weeks. Enjoy.
Happy Halloween!
Since it's Halloween I thought I would post some of the things that scare me the most…
These people are running our country…oooohhhh…it gives me chills just thinking about it.
Be safe and have a happy Halloween!
Top 10 Pop/Rock Songs of the 80's – 1986
1986 had some big songs. There were a lot of songs that I really wanted to make the list that I just couldn't include because I liked these better. If you are interested why I started doing these Top 10 lists (and for the top 10 of 1980) check out my 1980 post. For the others click, 1981, 1982, 1983, 1984 and 1985.
10. Election Day, Arcadia – After the massive success of Seven and the Ragged Tiger, the members of Duran Duran took a break from being Duran Duran and started a couple of side projects. John and Andy Taylor hooked up with Robert Palmer to form Power Station and Simon LeBon, Nick Rhodes and Roger Taylor formed Arcadia. While Power Station had a different, harder sound, Arcadia pretty much sounded like Duran Duran. "Election Day" reached #6 on the Billboard charts and has the typical atmospheric, keyboard/electronic driven sound. There's lots of sampling of what sounds like garbled radio chatter throughout and the chorus has a creepy spoken word part voiced by none other than Grace Jones. I had to check the title of the song twice to make sure I got it right because the chorus actually mentions re-election day rather than election day.
9. Kiss, Prince – This song was about as funky as anything I had ever heard by 1986. Having not grown up listening to pop music I had never had much exposure to Parliament or much of the Disco stuff so this was completely new to me. Prince somehow manages to sing almost the entire song in falsetto and not come off as gay (the only other completely falsetto songs I had heard were by the Bee Gees and they did sound gay), which surprised me. "Kiss" has a very minimalist feel to it with pretty much just guitar (and maybe a keyboard?) and electronic drums accompanying the vocals. The song is a little dated now with lines like "You don't have to watch Dynasty to have an attitude", but I think it holds up as a cool song. I remember a few years later Tom Jones covering this song but it was nowhere near as cool.
8. Don't Forget Me (When I'm Gone), Glass Tiger – A straight forward pop/rock song with a great melody, this song was everywhere when it came out. Bryan Adams was huge when this was released and I'm sure that Glass Tiger thought it was a real score that would catapult them to stardom when they got him to contribute backing vocals to the track. Alas, this was was their biggest of two hits (the other was "Someday"). Doing a quick check on Wikipedia, I found that they actually released 4 or 5 other albums and played at the official opening of the Skydome in Toronto. A good song from a spare band.
7. Your Love, The Outfield – Another good song from an essentially one-hit-wonder band (although, like Glass Tiger, The Outfield had two hits although I couldn't tell you what the other one was). The instrumentation is pretty straight forward pop/rock – gated, flanged guitars, bass drums with some keyboard thrown in for good measure. I didn't realize until later that the lyrics to this song are really creepy. Basically the song seems to be about a one night stand with an underage girl while the singer's steady is out of town. It kind of makes you want to take a shower after listening to it.
6. Spies Like Us, Paul McCartney – From the movie of the same name, this is Paul McCartney at one of his coolest post Beatles moments. The vocals are washed in echo and the guitars are really distorted and dirty sounding. I remember I had to go to a specialty record store to get this single (I still have it) because the soundtrack album did not include it.
5. Glory of Love, Peter Cetera – Right after the huge success of Chicago 17, Peter Cetera decided he could probably do just as well on his own as with Chicago (It's got to be a little annoying splitting royalties 35 ways or however many band members they had at the time). He was pretty much right, as he had a string of hits over the next several years. This song was off of the Karate Kid IIsoundtrack and pretty much sounded like any other Chicago love ballad from the 80's; which means it had a great melody, great vocals and lots of DX7 keyboard parts in it. The thing that always frustrated me with Peter Cetera and Chicago was that it was impossible to sing along with the songs without shredding your vocal chords. How does he sing that high?
4. Life In A Northern Town, Dream Academy – I love this song. It has such an atmospheric quality to it. It makes me think of winter (I guess because of the Salvation Army reference) although I think the song is set in summer ("The children drunk lemonade"). Everything is airy and laid back during the verses and then gets really big when the choir and drums come in on the chorus. It's really a well crafted, beautiful song.
3. Amanda, Boston – I actually "dedicated" this song to a girl I liked on the local Top 40 radio station's Top 10 countdown show. Boston is a band with a distinct sound that they never changed. Even though this song came out in the mid 80's, it would fit just as well on one of their 70's albums. "Amanda" has a great melody and classic rock style.
2. Kyrie, Mr. Mister – File this one under "Craziest Misheard Lyrics Ever". Having no working knowledge of either Roman Catholicism or the Greek language when this song came out, I thought that the first line of the chorus was "Carry a laser". Inserting that phrase for the actual phrase, "Kyrie eleison" which means "Lord, have mercy", gives the song an entirely different and surreal meaning. The song itself is drenched in keyboard parts and distorted, effects-driven guitars. It's got a driving beat, and would have been a straight rock and roll song if not for the aforementioned keyboards. I picked it over the more laid back hit by Mr. Mister, "Broken Wings".
1. No One Is To Blame, Howard Jones – My band did a cover of this song, using a guitar for the signature opening riff, and it was a crowd pleaser. This is my favorite Howard Jones song and, like most songs I like, has a great, memorable melody. This is probably Jones' best studio vocal. My favorite version of this song is from the live album Live Acoustic America, which is just Jones on piano with a percussionist. With all of the production stripped away, the song's beautiful melody is highlighted and you realize what a great song this really is.
What is Mainstream?
There is a ridiculous story on CNN's political blog (find it here). Basically, a bunch of liberal and gay rights groups are whining because Obama has tapped Rick Warren to give the invocation at his inaugural ceremonies. This is not surprising. What was surprising to me was the craziness contained in the following snippet from the article.
People for the American Way President Kathryn Kolbert told CNN she is "deeply disappointed" with the choice of Warren, and said the powerful platform at the inauguration should instead have been given to someone who is "consistent mainstream American values.
"There is no substantive difference between Rick Warren and James Dobson," Kolbert said. "The only difference is tone. His tone is moderate, but his ideas are radical."
It's like I'm Alice and I've gone through the looking glass. It's like the prank we used to play in middle school where we would say it was "opposite day" and yes meant no and so on. The fact of the matter is that Rick Warren (and James Dobson for that matter) does represent mainstream American values. It is both absurd and misleading to call his ideas radical. And if you need proof of the mainstream-ness of his views on marriage, look at the fact bans on gay marriage have now passed in each of the 30 states in which they've been put before voters.
The fact of the matter is that most of the liberal groups that the media gives voice to – and by doing so helps legitimize them and make them seem more representative than they really are – are the ones with the "radical" ideas. They are the ones out of touch with mainstream America. We really need to start calling out the media for allowing these ridiculous groups to have more of a voice than they deserve.


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Worms are not the first thing that come to mind when one thinks of space travelers. However, that is exactly what the researchers from Tufts University decided to send to the International Space Station (ISS) on January 10, 2015. The group of planarian flatworms (Dugesia japonica) selected for their ability to regenerate any body part, were in varying states. Some were left whole, others had their head or tail sliced off, while a select few were shipped with neither head nor tail!
Though that may sound cruel, the dismembered worms, sealed in tubes filled half with water and half with air, were on an important mission. They were being sent to space to observe the impact of microgravity and geomagnetic fields on tissue regeneration and repair of damaged organs and nerves, critical for understanding how wounds heal in space. A control group of worms on Earth was sealed in spring water in the same manner as their space counterparts and kept in darkness at 20 degrees Celsius for the same amount of time.
When the space worms returned to Earth on February 11, they had undergone numerous changes, none of which were observed in their counterparts on Earth. The most interesting was a decapitated worm that had returned from space with two heads – one at each end of its body. This is the first time in the 18 years the scientists have been studying the flatworms that they have observed a natural occurrence of double headedness. When they amputated the mutated worm's heads, the middle fragment regenerated another two heads, proving without doubt that the five-week sojourn to space had permanently altered the worm's physiology. The scientists also noted that specimens which had left Earth intact had multiplied into two or more identical entities through a process called spontaneous fission.
The researchers who have spent nearly two years studying the space worms say they behaved differently from the ones in the control group. When placed in fresh spring water, they became partially paralyzed and immobile for up to two hours. Their Earthly counterparts, on the other hand, encountered no such issues. This has led the scientists who published the results of their study in the journal Regeneration on June 13, to conclude that the worms had altered their biological state to adjust to the environment in space and were, therefore, having a hard time adjusting to normal water conditions on Earth.
The two groups also reacted differently to light. Specimens from each group were placed in an area, half of which was illuminated by red light, which is not visible to worms, and the other half with blue light. According to the researchers, 95.5 percent of the control worms spent their time in the dark, while only 70.5 percent of the space worms did the same.
The study, led by the Allen Discovery Center at Tufts University, does have some limitations. For one, the sample size was small. It was also hard to mimic the temperatures experienced by the worms in space over the course of the entire mission. Future experiments will utilize real-time data from space and adjust the temperatures as necessary for the control group on Earth. Additionally, the stress of liftoff and re-entering the atmosphere was not replicated, on Earth, something the researchers plan to rectify during the next study. Furthermore, the amputation of worms was done on Earth. In the future, the scientists hope the worm dismembering will occur aboard the ISS.
According to NASA, understanding how the flatworm re-grows its tissue could enable scientists to create new technologies that will allow space travelers on long missions to self-heal, and perhaps even re-grow lost limbs! The research can also help people suffering from a wide range of injuries and physical impairments, including spinal cord injuries, and degenerative brain diseases such as Parkinson's. And in case you are wondering, the researchers are still trying to find out what caused the space worm to generate two heads — so stay tuned!
Resources: now.tufts.edu, gizmodo.com,
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