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Louis Vuitton, Chanel, Balenciaga, Hermès – consider these names the fab four of handbag designers. From their sought-after silhouettes to the have-to-have-them labels, Roberto Szerer of LUXEDH talks details. Having trouble seeing your life without one? Snap them up in our From the Reserve: Handbags by Louis Vuitton & More Boutique.
Rue La La: You've seen your fair share of designer handbags. How can you tell the real from the knockoffs?
Roberto: Over the years, our authenticators have acquired these skills by looking at thousands and thousands of what is real and what is a knockoff. The authenticity of a handbag is determined by many factors, among them certain aspects of bags like serial numbers, date codes, materials, hardware, and other criteria like patterns of leather, etc.
RLL: These bags are carry-everywhere treasures. How can we make sure they'll last?
Roberto: There are many excellent products on the market like leather conditioners, hardware cleaners, strap replenishers, etc. But the most important is to treat your bag like a jewel. Don't put it on the floor and always keep it in its dust bag.
RLL: Let's talk gifting. What bag is everyone scooping up for the holidays?
Roberto: People go crazy for the Hermès Birkin, Kelly, and Evelyne. In Chanel, all the quilted flap bags. And as always, everything Louis Vuitton. Seasonal colors are always hot sellers for the holidays, like black, brown, and beige.
RLL: How often do you get new items in (for all us last-minute shoppers)?
Roberto: Our site is constantly updated with new arrivals. We can't get them up fast enough!
RLL: Where do you find all these gorgeous handbags?
Roberto: Everywhere! Celebrities, professionals, housewives, collectors, estates, consignment shops, you name it. Most of our bags come to us from handbag fanatics that have extra purses in their closets and want to get instant cash toward their future purchases.
RLL: Do you have a favorite designer or handbag design aesthetic?
Roberto: Louis Vuitton Mahinas and Hermès Birkins are my favorites. They are very special, show class and beauty, and really express love for fine luxury goods.
Our From the Reserve: Handbags by Louis Vuitton & More Boutique opens Sunday, October 28, at 11AM ET.
By Brianna Lapolla, Staff Writer
Not a Member and like The (Style) Guide? You'll love Rue La La. Join now.


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Back to article | Note about images
An astronomer at Lowell Observatory studies how stars form in "dwarf" galaxies, which may provide insight into the birth of the first stars after the Big Bang. Here, a color-enhanced optical image of the galaxy DDO 87 in the constellation Ursa Major shows the stars.Credit: Lowell Observatory
This VLA radio image is of DDO 87, one of the LITTLE THINGS galaxies. The image shows integrated atomic hydrogen, the ubiquitous gas between the stars. Areas in red show the most concentrated hydrogen, an indicator of where star formation could occur.Credit: Lowell Observatory
Lowell Observatory astronomer Deidre Hunter recently presented her work on LITTLE THINGS to an audience of visitors to Lowell Observatory's Mars Hill campus in Flagstaff, Ariz. The event was part of a monthly series of talks in 2010 by Lowell astronomers designed to bring the results of astronomical research to the public.Credit: Lowell Observatory

subset: commoncrawl


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UV Fluorescent Pigments and Inks
Beaver Luminescers UV Fluorescent Pigments are organic compounds that show little or no color in ordinary light but emit strong visible and machine-readable fluorescence when exposed to ultraviolet light (UV). Our exclusive UV Fluorescent Pigments are insoluble in water and common organic solvents, easily dispersed in water and solvent based systems, and offer a unique combination of fluorescence intensity, light-fastness, heat tolerance, laundry resistance, safety and economy.
Beaver Luminescers UV Fluorescent Pigments have been tested and proven by leading manufacturers of security inks used in the most demanding anti-counterfeiting applications and for product authentication and brand protection. Beaver Luminescers UV Fluorescent Pigments and Inks are also formulated into raw materials and printed on products, labels and packaging to enable luminescence sensor-based industrial process and control solutions.
Thank you for your interest our products. We invite you to test and prove Beaver Luminescers UV Fluorescent Pigments and UV Fluorescent Inks in your most demanding applications.
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© 2013 Beaver Luminescers, Inc. One Gateway Center, Suite 513, Newton, Massachusetts, USA 02458 T: 401-274-4700, email: firstname.lastname@example.com


text: ..until I pass my Stress Test next Friday. My Blood Pressure has been through the roof due to stress and possibly other health issues (pray my blood work comes back fine next week). Anyway, I'm on a new medication that could take a few weeks to kick in. This sucks!


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When you're eating on-the-go at outdoor tables or food courts, do you ever wonder where to sit or put your food? Sometimes those surfaces look a bit questionable at best. And, experiments with cold and flu germs (already everywhere this time of year) have shown they can remain active on hard surfaces for up to 48 hours. Yikes! Our set of mini laminated mats is the answer to helping keep things sanitary. Not only are they cute as can be, they roll up and secure with a wrap strap so they're easy to carry. Lay them out anywhere for a clean surface for your meal... and yourself or your kids. When done, simply wipe clean with a sanitizing spray.
Our mats finish at 15" x 20" and the wrap strap is sized to allow you to either roll the two mats together into a long, narrow tube; or, fold them once and roll into a shorter bundle to stash in your car's glove box. Today's cotton laminates are soft and supple so these mats are easy to manipulate.
We used two bright and happy laminates by Brandon Mably for Rowan Fabrics, but that's just the first page in the laminate library. There are dozens and dozens... and then dozens more patterns to choose from. It is the most popular substrate next to standard cotton with a myriad of designers adding laminate options to their new collections.
If you are new to working with laminates, take a look at our helpful tutorial: Successful Sewing with Laminated Cottons (and other sticky stuff).
Sewing Tools You Need
- Any sewing machine (we recommend the Janome Decor Computer 3050)
- Ultraglide or other Telfon®-type foot (optional, but very helpful when sewing across laminate)
Fabric and Other Supplies
Supplies shown are for TWO matching 15" x 20" mini mats, one to sit on and one to use as a placemat.
- TWO coordinating ½ yard cuts of 54-56" wide cotton laminate; we used 54" wide Zig Zag in Multi and Jolly in Colbalt both by Brandon Mably for Rowan Fabrics
- ⅛ yard or scrap of ⅝" - 1" sew-on Velcro®; we used 1" black
- All purpose thread to blend with fabrics, but a color that offers some contrast for the decorative stitching; we used turquoise
- See-through ruler
- Fabric pencil
- Iron and ironing board
- Scissors or rotary cutter and mat
- Seam gauge
- Seam ripper
- Clips to hold laminate
Getting Started
NOTE: For our instructions, the back of the mat is the laminate that wraps around to form the binding. So the "back" is the larger cut (the Zig Zag in our sample) and the "front" is the smaller cut (the Jolly in our sample).
- From the front fabric (Jolly in our sample), cut TWO 15" high x 20" wide rectangles.
NOTE: If you are uneasy about measuring and cutting laminate with a rotary cutter, you can measure and draw in guidelines on the wrong side. Then cut along the drawn lines with scissors.
- From the back fabric (Zig Zag in our sample), cut TWO 16½" high x 21½" wide rectangles.
NOTE: Another cutting option is to place the back fabric wrong side up on your cutting surface. Place a cut front rectangle on top and measure ¾" out from each of the front rectangle's raw sides. Use a clear ruler and rotary cutter for this method.
NOTE: The back rectangle measurement is sized for a ¾" wrap-around hem. Laminate is trickier to work with for narrow folds because you cannot press in place directly. If you are worried about your technique, cut these rectangles 17" x 22" to allow you to make a full 1" wrap-around hem. In the steps below, you would fold ½" and then ½" again instead of ¼" and ½".
- Also from the back fabric, cut ONE 5" high x 9" wide rectangle for the strap.
- Cut the Velcro® into ONE 2" length.
At Your Sewing Machine & Ironing Board
- Place the back laminate piece wrong side up and flat on your work surface.
- Place the front laminate piece right side up on the back piece so the two panels are wrong sides together. Center the front piece so there is ¾" of the back fabric showing all around.
- Fold over the raw edges of the back piece by ¼" all around. Clip in place. Leave the corners unfolded as shown in the photo below.
NOTE: You are folding and finger pressing because laminate cannot take the direct heat of an iron. You can cover with a pressing cloth and steam slightly to help hold the fold.
- When all four side edges are clipped in place, fold in each corner so the diagonal edge of the corner just covers the point of the front fabric. Clip in place.
- Fold in each side ½", bringing it around to the front and creating a clean hemmed edge. As you fold in each side, you are also creating a "faux miter" in the corner where the ends of the side folds come together at a diagonal. Clip in place. In the photo below, we hadn't quite brought the ends together into their final position. You do want the ends to come close together, especially at the inside edges of the corner.
- Repeat to fold and "faux miter" the remaining three corners. In the photo below, you can better see how the corners come together.
NOTE: For more on this corner technique, see our tutorial on Narrow Hems with Clean Corners.
- If possible, attach a Teflon® type foot. We used our Janome Ultraglide foot.
NOTE: If you don't have this type of foot, you can use wax paper or parchment paper between the laminate and the foot. Simply tear it away when the seam is finished. For more about working with laminates, take a look at our handy tutorial.
- Thread your machine with a contrasting thread.
- Following the instruction manual, set up your machine for decorative stitching.
NOTE: Choose a decorative stitch that will stand out nicely against your fabric and with a wide enough back and forth swing of the needle to bridge from the hem to the surface of the mat. If you do not have a wide selection of decorative stitches, even a wide zig zag would work. If you are new to decorative stitching, we have a helpful article on the topic.
- Run a line of decorative topstitching around all four sides of the mat, using the inside folded edge of the binding as a center guideline.
Create the wrap strap
- Find the 5" x 9" rectangle.
- Fold in each 9" edge ½" and clip in place.
- Fold in half so the folded-in edges are flush. Re-clip in place along both sides.
- Switch back to a standard straight stitch.
- Using a ¼" seam allowance, topstitch along each 9" side.
- Find the Velcro®, pull it apart into two pieces.
- Place the loop side face down. Place the hook side face up.
- Overlap the loop side with one end of the laminate by ¼" - so the Velcro® is under the laminate. Stitch across through all the layers.
- On the opposite end, the hook side of the Velcro® will be on top of the laminate, overlapping it by ¼". Stitch across this end through all the layers.
- Fold the loop end over onto the strap by 1¼". Fold the hook in under the strap by 1¼".
- Stitch across each end to secure the folds, staying close to the inner edge of the Velcro®. The finished length of the strap should now be approximately 8". The width is 2".
Project Design: Alicia Thommas
Sample Creation and Instructional Outline: Kathy Andrews, What Sew Ever


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Definition: 'Noxa'
noxaType: Term
Pronunciation: nok′să
1. Anything that exerts a harmful influence (trauma, poison).
The definition information for noxa is provided by Stedman's. You can search our medical dictionary here.
Stedman's, part of Lippincott Williams & Wilkins, provides a comprehensive line of health-science publications for healthcare professionals and medical students.
Medical Dictionary Copyright © 2006 Lippincott Williams & Wilkins. All rights reserved.


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Those sporting an Android device and a strange desire to run older Palm OS apps — you are in luck. Well, you are as long as you are willing to shell out for the $49.99 purchase. Pricing aside though, the news comes in the form of a Palm OS emulator for Android, which comes by way of StyleTap.
The StyleTap Palm OS emulator promises to run "most" Palm OS apps provided you have an Android device with 2.2 or later. The "most" part comes in with the version of Palm OS, the emulator supports apps that were written for Palm OS version 5.2 or earlier and those that were written to support the native ARM code. Some of the other perks and points worth mentioning include a promise that the apps are "very fast" and that they often run "faster than on the native Palm OS devices." The emulator supports TCP/IP connectivity, memory cards, audio recording, audio playback and even the GPS.
And lastly, there is a bit of happy news for those who may be a bit hesitant to shell out the money — you can download, install and run the emulator for free for 14-days.
Keep reading to check out the full press release…
StyleTap Announces Immediate Availability of StyleTap® Platform for Android™
StyleTap Announces Immediate Availability of StyleTap® Platform for Android™
TORONTO, Canada, July 16, 2012 – StyleTap Inc. today announced the release of StyleTap Platform for Android™, which allows over 30,000 applications originally written for Palm OS® to run on Android smartphone and tablet devices.
"We have found that many users and businesses have made very large investments in acquiring and developing mobile applications, and these applications have been enhanced and refined to fit their needs like a glove," said Gregory Sokoloff, CEO of StyleTap. "With all the new smartphone platforms, users are reluctant to lock themselves into one platform or to make the same investment over and over for each new platform. StyleTap's cross-platform family of products can help make these problems go away.
"Although there are many useful and entertaining applications available through the various app stores, we receive a constant stream of emails from users telling us that they need StyleTap in order to keep running the applications, not available on any app store, that are critical to their lives and businesses.
"We are particularly delighted to support Android because the open nature of the Android ecosystem allows customers to take full advantage of the benefits of StyleTap without being limited by arbitrary restrictions such as those imposed by Apple."
StyleTap Platform for Android supports standard features that include TCP/IP networking, audio recording and playback, the ability to use the multi-gigabyte storage as a virtual memory card, and cut/copy/paste of text between native and Palm OS applications. It also provides innovative capabilities such as giving Palm OS applications access to the Android GPS by providing location information in standard GPS NMEA format.
StyleTap Platform for Android is the newest member of the StyleTap Platform family, which includes StyleTap Platform for Windows Mobile™, StyleTap Platform for Symbian OS™, and StyleTap Platform for iPhone®. With StyleTap Platform, the same binary executable application can run on more smartphones and PDAs than for any other software runtime, while at the same time native code execution is supported on each device. For developers, this is "write once, profit everywhere."
Interested users and developers can visit www.styletap.com/iphone for instructions on obtaining a free 14-day trial of the Android version. StyleTap Platform for Android can be purchased for US$49.95.
For more information about StyleTap Platform for Android, please visit www.styletap.com and subscribe to the StyleTap news blog.


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Hi, our CRM app has a java emailer in it. you set up the mail server data and it is to mail to clients.
I receive mail as the user telling me the mail was sent from the CRM but the contact targeted is not getting the mail.
As the local user, getting the mail, this tells me it is a relay issue. I use desktops and laptops and various locations to send this mail.
Can you please tell me how to configure the relay or MTA trusted to get this CRM mail sent through my zimbra server?
maybe 127.0.0.0/? 192.168.1.1/? in the Relay in MTA, my zcs server IP is 220.127.116.11x
Many many thanx


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Categories > Anime/Manga > Cowboy Bebop
Truth Be Told14 reviews
This isn't love.
Truth Be Told
(#) Dustbunny3 2006-12-04I'm utterly blown away. You nailed Faye's characterization to the spot with this. Spike shines, too, and you've handled him just as well.
I've never been able to see the SpikeFaye coupling, but I can definitely see this. It feels very canon.
The only downside is the use of astericks in place of italicized lettering. It sort of threw the flow of the story, if while leaving the rhythm in tact.
All in all, gorgeous bit of work. Thank you for the read
Truth Be Told
(#) IcedCoffee 2006-12-09That was beautiful. Completely true to their personalities and interactions, and so wonderfully told. This is the only FayeSpike story I've ever been able to believe.
Insightful and moving enough that I didn't even notice the astericks, even though they tend to throw me out of a story.
Truth Be Told
(#) warjournalist 2010-02-05Short, steamy, and to the point. Sounds plausible to me. Great job.
Sign up to review this story.


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Trafficking in Persons Report 2008 - Malaysia
|United States Department of State
|Office to Monitor and Combat Trafficking in Persons
|Publication Date
|4 June 2008
|Cite as
|United States Department of State, Trafficking in Persons Report 2008 - Malaysia, 4 June 2008, available at: http://www.refworld.org/docid/484f9a292d.html [accessed 26 May 2016]
|This is not a UNHCR publication. UNHCR is not responsible for, nor does it necessarily endorse, its content. Any views expressed are solely those of the author or publisher and do not necessarily reflect those of UNHCR, the United Nations or its Member States.
MALAYSIA (Tier 2 Watch List)
Malaysia is a destination, and to a lesser extent, a source and transit country for women and children trafficked for the purpose of commercial sexual exploitation and men, women, and children for forced labor. Malaysia is mainly a destination country for men, women, and children who migrate willingly from Indonesia, Nepal, Thailand, the People's Republic of China (P.R.C.), the Philippines, Burma, Cambodia, Bangladesh, Pakistan, and Vietnam to work, some of whom are subjected to conditions of involuntary servitude by Malaysian employers in the domestic, agricultural, construction, plantation, and industrial sectors. Some migrant workers are victimized by their employers, employment agents, or traffickers that supply migrant laborers and victims of sex trafficking. Victims suffer conditions including physical and sexual abuse, debt bondage, non-payment of wages, threats, confinement, and withholding of travel documents to restrict their freedom of movement. In addition, some female domestics from Indonesia, Thailand, the Philippines, Cambodia, Vietnam, Burma, Mongolia, and the P.R.C. are forced into commercial sexual exploitation after being deceived with promises of jobs or after running away from abusive employers. Individual employment agents sold women and girls into brothels, karaoke bars, or passed them to sex traffickers. Some Burmese registered with the United Nations as refugees, a status not recognized by the Malaysian government, are vulnerable to being trafficked for forced labor. To a lesser extent, some Malaysian women, primarily of Chinese ethnicity, are trafficked abroad for commercial sexual exploitation. Also, a few Malaysians, specifically women and girls from indigenous groups and rural areas, are trafficked within the country for labor and commercial sexual exploitation.
The Government of Malaysia does not fully comply with the minimum standards for the elimination of trafficking; however, it is making significant efforts to do so. Malaysia is placed on Tier 2 Watch List for its failure to provide evidence of increasing efforts from the previous year to tackle its large and multidimensional trafficking problem, including its forced labor problem. The Government of Malaysia enacted comprehensive anti-trafficking legislation in July 2007. It completed development of implementing guidelines, training of key law enforcement and social service officers, and issued legislative supplements to bring the law fully into force in late February 2008. The government, however, did not yet take action against exploitative employers or labor traffickers during the reporting period. The government has not yet widely implemented mechanisms to screen victims of trafficking from vulnerable groups. The government established an interagency National Council for Anti-Trafficking in Persons that includes representatives from civil society that has drafted a national action plan. Also in March 2008, the Ministry for Women, Family, and Community Development opened two trafficking victims' shelters and began assisting foreign victims of sex trafficking.
Recommendations for Malaysia: Fully implement and enforce the comprehensive anti-trafficking in persons law. Adopt proactive procedures to identify victims of trafficking among vulnerable groups such as migrant workers and foreign women and children arrested for prostitution. Apply appropriate criminal penalties to those involved in fraudulent labor recruitment for the purposes of forced labor or debt bondage. Ensure that victims of trafficking are not threatened or otherwise punished for crimes committed as a result of being trafficked. Significantly improve its record of prosecutions, convictions, and sentences for sex and labor trafficking. Re-examine existing MOUs with source countries to incorporate victim protection provisions and prohibit passport or travel document confiscation in line with Malaysia's Passport Act, anti-trafficking law, and international standards. Disseminate information on the 2007 law throughout the country and train law enforcement, immigration, and prosecutors on use of the new legislation. Implement and support a visible anti-trafficking awareness campaign directed at employers and clients of the sex trade. Increase efforts to prosecute and convict public officials who profit from, are involved in trafficking, or who exploit potential victims.
The Government of Malaysia demonstrated improvements in efforts to investigate and prosecute trafficking cases during the reporting period. Malaysian law prohibits all forms of human trafficking through its July 2007 comprehensive anti-trafficking law, which prescribes penalties that are commensurate with those prescribed for other grave offenses, such as rape. The government did not provide comprehensive prosecution and conviction statistics, and, prior to bringing the new anti-trafficking law into force, continued to rely on its Emergency Ordinance and Restricted Residence Acts for law enforcement actions against suspected sex traffickers. These laws have been criticized for lack of transparency and due process. In November 2007, a Malaysian court convicted a 32-year-old HIV positive Malaysian citizen for procuring a 14-year-old girl for sex; he was sentenced to 43 years in jail, 20 strokes of the cane, and a fine of $15,625.00. In January 2008, police arrested a couple in Sabah for trafficking seven Filipina women for commercial sexual exploitation; the couple recruited the women with promises of jobs as waitresses. In March 2008, the police conducted a raid in Johor Bahru that resulted in the rescue of 17 Thai women trafficked into commercial sexual exploitation. A second raid by police rescued four Chinese and two Vietnamese women, also trafficked into commercial sexual exploitation. Also in March 2008, Malaysian immigration authorities carried out a raid in Seremban that resulted in the detention of three suspected traffickers and the rescue of seven Thai and three Lao women trafficked into commercial sexual exploitation. During the reporting period, the Royal Malaysian Police (RMP) detained 55 suspected traffickers for commercial sexual exploitation under the Emergency Ordinance and Restricted Residence Act. The government did not report prosecutions against suspected traffickers arrested and jailed under these preventive laws.
Despite indications of a sizable number of migrant laborers trafficked to Malaysia and widespread media reporting of the trafficking conditions many of these workers face, the government did not report any criminal investigations or prosecutions of Malaysian employers who subjected foreign workers to conditions of forced labor or Malaysian labor recruiters who used deceptive practices and debt bondage to compel migrant workers into involuntary servitude.
During the reporting period, there were several NGO and media reports regarding groups of foreign workers subjected to conditions of forced labor in Malaysia. In March 2008, Bangladeshi workers at a chain of U.K.-owned supermarkets in Malaysia reportedly faced deceptive recruitment, debt bondage, and exploitative wage deductions consistent with forced labor. In November 2007, reports surfaced regarding 1,300 Vietnamese laborers subjected to debt bondage, contract switching, confiscation of travel documents, confinement, and threats of deportation at a Hong Kong-owned apparel factory in Penang. Despite ample reporting on these incidents, Malaysian authorities did not respond with criminal investigations or prosecutions regarding the alleged offenses. In the Penang case, the complainants pursued the matter as a labor dispute, rather than ask the police to make a criminal investigation. A 2006 Memorandum of Understanding (MOU) between the Governments of Malaysia and Indonesia covering the employment of Indonesian women as domestic servants in Malaysia authorizes Malaysian employers to confiscate and hold the passport of the domestic employee throughout the term of employment. This practice is recognized by many in the international anti-trafficking community as facilitating the involuntary servitude of domestic workers.
Malaysia, particularly in accordance with the aforementioned MOU with Indonesia, did not prosecute employers who confiscated migrant workers' passports or who confined workers to the workplace. Passport confiscation, otherwise a violation of the Passports Act, is a common method of controlling contract laborers. It also remained common practice for the wages of employees to be held in "escrow" until completion of a contract.
There were no substantiated reports of direct government involvement in the trafficking of persons at either the local or institutional level; however, there were reports of low-level complicity of immigration authorities at the land borders with Thailand and Indonesia. No government officials were implicated, arrested, or tried for involvement in trafficking.
Malaysia's overall efforts to protect victims of trafficking remained inadequate during the reporting period. Basic protections for victims were widely unavailable to most foreign females trafficked for sexual exploitation to Malaysia during the year. The Malaysian government stated it encouraged victims to assist in the investigation and prosecution of traffickers; in practice few victims were willing to testify. A trafficking victim may file a civil suit against a trafficker under Malaysian law, but in practice this seldom happens. Potential victims continued to be charged for prostitution and immigration violations during the reporting period. The government provided no legal alternatives to the removal of foreign victims to countries where they face hardship or retribution. There was no widespread effort by the Government of Malaysia to identify trafficking victims among vulnerable migrant groups, such as girls and women detained for involvement in prostitution or the thousands of undocumented migrant workers rounded up by RELA, a government-sponsored public security auxiliary force. Victims detained by immigration authorities, including children, were routinely processed as illegal migrants and held in prisons or illegal migrant detention facilities prior to deportation.
In March 2008, the Ministry for Women, Family and Community Development opened two shelters and provided assistance to 33 victims of sex trafficking rescued during its first month in operation. The victims were processed through a magistrate's court within 24 hours or less to legally identify them as trafficking victims before their placement in the shelter. Prior to the opening of the government shelters, the RMP instituted an informal victim referral process that referred over 200 suspected trafficking victims to NGO and embassy operated shelters. Immigration authorities did not screen foreign women arrested for prostitution for identification as trafficking victims, but instead processed them for quick deportation. In some cases, especially those involving deportation over land borders such as along the Malaysian-Indonesian border on Borneo, trafficking victims were vulnerable to being re-trafficked by traffickers operating at formal border crossing points.
Senior Malaysian officials, including the Prime Minister, Foreign Affairs Minister, and Minister for Women, Families, and Social Development, increasingly spoke out against trafficking in persons, but the Government of Malaysia did not sponsor anti-trafficking information campaigns during the reporting period. In January 2008, the Director General for Enforcement in the Department of Immigration issued a public warning that employers could be charged under the new anti-trafficking law for cases involving abuse and exploitation of foreign workers. There were no visible measures taken by the government to reduce demand for commercial sex acts or raise awareness about child sex tourism. Protection officers from the Women's Ministry received specialized training on assisting victims. The RMP initiated training of trafficking victim identification during the year. All troops assigned to peacekeeping missions received training on trafficking in persons at Malaysia's Peacekeeping Training Center at Port Dickson. There were no allegations that Malaysian peacekeepers were involved in trafficking or in exploiting trafficking victims. The government has not ratified the 2000 UN TIP Protocol.


text:
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Surf and Turf
It's rare that a shoe that looks this casual (we wore it year-round) performs so well. But with tight mesh at the bottom to keep out sand, a rock plate in the sole, and quick-drying meshy uppers, the Kia'i Trainers were our favorite water shoes this year. olukai.com
Brand: OluKai $100


text:
The Everyday Challenges of Fibromyalgia
Facing the pain of fibromyalgia
Andrea Cooper, 54, of Phoenix, Md., has had fibromyalgia for more than 30 years. When her pain forced her to retire from her job as a graphic designer, she began volunteering for the American Pain Foundation.
She now shares her own pain struggles with others so they know they are not alone. Here, in her own words, Cooper describes the daily challenges of fibromyalgiaand how to cope with them.
Next: Speaking up
Get the latest health, fitness, anti-aging, and nutrition news, plus special offers, insights and updates from Health.com!


text:
back to Flash Reviews
Flash Review 2, 11-21: Don't Believe
the (Body) Hype
Hip Hop DanceFest: Where's the Hip Hop?
By Christine Chen
Copyright 2001 Christine Chen
SAN FRANCISCO -- In college, there
were two rival student-run dance companies on my campus: "Expressions" and "BodyHype."
"Expressions" was composed mostly of classically-trained women who were trying
out modern dance for the first time in the university's introductory level classes
and were using "Expressions" as a platform for their new ideas. Wearing unitards,
and dancing to musicians like Enya, Mickey Hart and Ani DiFranco, the company
performed to half-full houses composed mostly of friends, significant others,
and the occasional dance faculty. The jazz-baby women of "BodyHype" wore navel-bearing
halter tops and tight flare pants, while their technically unpolished but charismatic
male counterparts wore baggy jeans and no shirts at all. Re-enacting sexually
charged MTV videos to Madonna's "Erotica" album or Snoop Doggy Dogg's "Doggy Style,"
"BodyHype" brought in the crowds, always performing to sold-out houses of rowdy
and appreciative students. Friday at Theater Artaud, the performances at the SF
Hip Hop DanceFest reminded me (a little too much) of my college years, when I
use to banter with my boyfriend about which dance company was better. Did I mention
that I was in "Expressions" and he was in "BodyHype?"
Me: "We're trying new things choreographically,
we're challenging our audiences (that's why they don't enjoy it as much), you're
just showing sex on stage -- it's cheap." Him: "We're having fun and showing the
audience a good time -- the fact that we're always sold out speaks for itself,
and just because we're not as highly trained doesn't mean that we don't bring
unique movement and ideas to the stage." More than trying to convince each other,
I think we were trying to convince ourselves of the merits of our respective groups.
And, while the "Expressions" vs. "BodyHype" rivalry seems laughable now, there
is a lot there. Like high brow art trying to rationalize audience apathy, and
justifying oftentimes uninteresting, selfish explorations with claims of experimentation.
Or pop culture fighting for a legitimate space in the art world, then using their
pop status as an excuse to pass off sexual overtures as dance, and exploiting
scantily clad bodies as sexual objects rather than as instruments for the creation
of art. These were some of the issues that came up for me as I watched the various
dance troupes shed their clothing and shake their booties Friday night.
Theater Artaud has been in some much
publicized financial trouble of late. Suffering from low attendance and some internal
politics, Artaud recently had a blow-out fundraising event where hordes of high-caliber
artists (including Robert Moses, Project Bandaloop, Kim Epifano, Jo Kreiter, and
Bill Shannon, to name a few) came out to perform in the street outside the theater
to save Artaud from becoming another lost art space. The Hip Hop DanceFest, which
ostensibly featured "the best hip hop companies from the Bay Area and beyond,"
put butts in Artaud's seats. Outside the theater a half hour before show time,
there was a mob of teens, kids with their parents and hipsters in their early
20s rushing towards me to ask if I had any extra tickets (the show was sold out
early). Even superstar modern dance choreographer Margaret Jenkins did not draw
this kind of crowd when her company performed at Artaud a few weeks ago. Duly
impressed by the turnout, but feeling geriatric at the ripe old age of 25, I smiled,
shook my head, made my way through the crowd and took my seat.
Before the show, several dancers
took the stage in an informal -- albeit highly impressive -- display of understated
virtuosity, off-the-cuff movement innovation, and playful interactions. Individual
performers took successive turns in the center spotlight and warmed up the crowd
with tour de force acrobatic maneuvers, inhumanly articulated popping, and a slippery,
smooth style reminiscent of the newly resurgent "King of Pop" (Michael Jackson
-- more on him later). More than performing for the audience, I felt like they
were performing for each other -- to gain respect from their peers. These were
the most genuine performances of the evening because they were not about giving
the audience what they thought we wanted (sex) but rather they were about going
deep into each performer's own personal movement style and showing off unique
skills and virtuosity with flair.
Then the actual show started, and
with it came an onslaught of large groups in endless, repetitive unison, a barrage
of flesh-baring performance divas (Spare me the pursed, wanna-be-seductive lips.
And please, please, stop mouthing the words to the song while you dance!), unchanging
movement qualities, and, with a few exceptions, a general dearth of individuality
and inventive movement. Individual groups had their moments, but overall the night,
because of the lack of variety between the groups, and because of the length of
the show (2 plus hours -- 14 pieces!) blended into a cacophonous movement blur.
Performing the night I attended were:
Culture Shock, Audionauts, Khaotik, New Style Motherlode, and Mind over Matter
(all from the Bay Area) as well as In-Effect (from Seattle) and Motion Underground
Dance School (from Boulder, CO).
Culture Shock, with collaborative
choreography by Kim Sims-Battiste, Johnny Lee, Rauly Duenas, Karen Lara, Brian
Chew, Alesha Brewster, Teddy Almaraz, Elanor Burkey, Allan Frias and Vernon Newton
was enjoyable enough. This company relied heavily on celebrity spoofs, pop culture
references, tongue-in-cheek impersonations and an attention-stealing performance
by a young but sassy girl for its entertainment value. The antics got a rise from
the crowd, but failed to be anything more than short lived antics, never building
to a statement or taking on any greater meaning. They were doled out, rather,
as familiar references good for an easy laugh. In one such spoof, a Britney Spears
doppelganger came out with a stuffed green snake draped around her neck. She cooed
at the audience for a few moments then left. In another, a man wore a sparkly
purple low-hanging pants get-up with "Hammer Time" blazed in glitter across his
back. He shimmied his way across the stage then off a la MC Hammer from his "U
Can't Touch This" days. Still, Culture Shock admirably used all its dancers to
create a fun party-like atmosphere on stage, rather than the clutter which descended
with some of the other large companies.
The Audionauts were the most innovative
group of the evening. It helped that there were only three performers (Ralph Monteo,
Lonnie Green, and Juan Cruz, who were also the choreographers) in each of the
company's two pieces -- making their movement easier to see and allowing more
time for their individual movement styles to flourish. Their biggest choreographic
coup was the intricacy of the men's interactions -- the way they interlaced then
extricated their arms with each other with military, robotic precision.
Khaotik's gift to the evening was
musical variety. Using a diverse mix of artists from Bjork and Nine Inch Nails
to Ludacris and Busta Rhymes, this company was able to display a little diversity
in its movement vocabulary -- which was a welcome relief, especially as the movement
was ably executed by the dancers. Still, with hordes of dancers constantly on
stage, the choreography by David Collier seemed busy.
In-Effect's choreographer Kari-Lee
Florentine created some nice theatrical constructs within which to set her dances.
Donning large orange jump suits (the fashion de rigeur of the men in this concert),
three men started off the piece "X" as if prisoners in shackles -- throwing around
and stopping their bodies with a beautifully angry passion.
New style Motherlode's repertory
for the evening contained a diva solo, "Black China," where a well-oiled man in
an enormous headdress undulated his arms and body for an eternity, and "Wicked,"
a pseudo-political rant. In "Wicked," dancers wore American flag rags and lashed
out physically, while the pledge ofallegiance warped on the soundtrack in the
background. This piece seemed to embrace the idea of making a political statement
-- without actually making one.
Motion Underground Dance School,
hailing from Boulder, performed a Michael Jackson medley as well as an unmemorable
dance which involved a big wind machine.
Mind over Matter was probably the
biggest offender in terms of using sex to sell. In the middle of "Time to Settle
Down," three women seductively took off their shirts, leaving them wearing only
black bras and pants which hung strategically low enough to see the strappy g-string
numbers they wore underneath. Suitably naked, they proceeded to make lewd gestures
like shoving their hands in their pants then shaking the hands to air them out.
I could go on, but I won't.
In sum, the dancers in the show were
young and generally talented. The evening offered a good mixture of untrained
dancers with fresh raw skills and technically trained dancers who could also move
well in a looser style. They are still at the stage of mimicry, however -- copying
Michael Jackson's movement and Jennifer Lopez's sex-pot seductive tendencies rather
than trusting their own voices and showing us what they can do.
Many of the questions I hoped would
be raised by the event were, unfortunately, not addressed. Like, how do you take
a dance born in a specific place (the Street) by specific people (predominantly
African-American) from a specific political and cultural consciousness and place
it in the theater? Who has the right to do hip hop, and, if its form is changed
for the theater, is this appropriation done with sensitivity and awareness? These
are questions addressed, but also left open for further debate by artists like
Rennie Harris and others. The reason these questions were not addressed by the
Hip Hop DanceFest was because there was so little actual hip hop in the show.
The music used by the dance troupes was predominantly pop, with Michael Jackson
as an overwhelming favorite of the groups (Motion Underground Dance School and
In-Effect both used exclusively Michael Jackson mixes while Mind Over Matter and
Khaotik both included him in their mixes). Furthermore, the dance vocabulary was
primarily studio jazz dance based when it was not borrowed from Michael Jackson's
"Billie Jean" days.
Reading over the company bios, it
is obvious that many of these groups are doing very good things for the communities
through their kids outreach programs. They are getting young people excited about
dance, and just maybe some of the audience members who attended will venture back
to Artaud for another show.
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Mary Boone
Found 10 Records, 10 Photos and 2,008,364 Family Trees
Born in Marion, Virginia, USA. Mary married Washington Parker and had 2 children. She passed away on 1909 in Ritchie, West Virginia, USA.
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Fashion addicts will just die for the free Pose app for Android. Basically, this stylish app is a community for fashionistas to share their shopping and fashion addictions via fabulous pictures in real time. Users can also share the photos via social media websites like Facebook and Twitter. Lots of ... Full Article »
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Posted by Double M
Well, I didn't get any extra SNL's done last week and I'm behind on this week, so it is a great start to this come back (but, hey, readership is higher than ever, so maybe I need to stop doing these all together).
Anyway, Bradley Cooper was the host this week. Don't recognize the name do you? Yeah, me either. As it turns out, Bradley Cooper was the d-bag dating/engaged to Rachel McAdams (pictured, right, because she's hotter than Bradley Cooper) in Wedding Crashers. He's also cameod in such films as Failure to Launch (which is a great movie to see Matthew McConaughey's dreamy chest) and in last week's box office #1 He's Just Not That Into You. So, now that you know who he is, I can get on with the recap.
The show opened with a political skit from Nancy Pelosi and Harry Reid. Yay politics! I know SNL almost always opens with politics, but the problem with politics is that it is pretty much not funny. If you want to watch a skit about the buyout and complaining about republicans, go here.
Bradley Cooper came out next for the opening monologue. I can only assume he's hosting this week because the 49+ other more credible stars from the movie were unavailable. That said, the monologue was actually kinda funny. Cooper apparently went to the Actors Studio from the TV series, Inside the Actors Studio and has been featured several times in the audience. To be honest, I wish they would have scrapped the opening skit and gone with the monologue on Hulu.
Following the monologue, they rolled out a NBC News skit making fun of Kathy Lee Gifford. The only time I have ever seen any part of this show has been on The Soup. I have a feeling this skit captured the magic of the show. Unfortunately, the magic was really annoying to me. Maybe you'll like it - you can check it out here.
The next skit was a game show called "I'm Gonna Have Sex with Your Wife." It was kinda funny although there was a lot of dead time. If you want to burn 5 minutes on a skit where the punch line is told in the first 3 seconds, then here's the link.
Next was a digital short from the Lonely Island crew. I'm going to take a moment here to point you to a link where you can hear pretty much the entire cd: Hulu. Turns out the cd is funny, but it is comprised of about 75% digital shorts (or the music from them) which you can check out on Hulu. I've added the feed above so you can catch the rest of the songs which will invariably come out as digital shorts in the future. Anyway, here's this week's digital short (and also a song on the cd) called "I'm On a Boat" which made me laugh several times.
Next thing you know, they had that recurring skit where Hader, Forte, Sudeikis, and the generic male host admit embarrassing things from their life which are always horribly inappropriate. These skits are generic but usually really funny. Unfortunately, because of their terribly inappropriate nature (this one included a 12-year-old boy joke), they never make it to Hulu - which is really sad considering this may have been the funniest "skit" of the week.
The musical guest was TV on the Radio which features a guy that has a fro hair/beard combo that is thick enough on both ends of his head that I'm pretty sure you could switch the fro and the beard and no one would know. They also sounded like a drunk Dave Matthews cover band at times which made me laugh.
Next up was Weekend Update. I had heard that Seth Meyers finally settled into the doing Weekend Update by himself this week so I was exited to see it. He didn't disappoint. Meyers moved smoothly from joke to joke for the first time in a while which was nice to see.
Weekend Update would be nothing without "guests," and the first one this week was Mark Spitz (the former Olympic medal record holder) played by Andy Samberg. This made me laugh a few times, but it was probably, mostly the mustache.
Next, Keenan showed up as James Harrison (the guy from the Steelers that had the 100-yard TAINT in the Super Bowl). I'm fairly certain this was Keenan's best acting job ever.
I'm ashamed to admit that I laughed multiple times in this skit. Well played, Keenan. That's twice this year you've made me laugh. If only you could tell a joke without smiling.
Even though Amy is gone, Seth Meyers decided to bring out the Really?!? skit about sponsors "punishing" Michael Phelps. I've shared my thoughts on Really previously (I don't like it), but the line at the end of this is awesome so I've included the video.
The last cameo was Kristen Wiig as Bjork. She does a great impression of Bjork, but the skit just wasn't that funny. You can check it out here.
Next was a hockey locker room skit featuring a nervous kid. This isn't on Hulu, but be happy because it basically is a poor ripoff of a shitty Mad TV skit featuring a character named Stuart. The skit sucked.
After a commercial, there was a skit called Bad Guys, Good Conversation, a talk show featuring movie bad guys Hanz Gruber from Die Hard, the chick from Basic Instinct, Buffalo Bill from Silence of the Lambs and Johnny Lawrence from Karate Kid. The first 3:30 weren't really funny, but the last minute was, so I've embedded that below.
The second to last skit was a skit about an alcohol intervention where some of the attendees keep interrupting. It was kind of clever, but it was funny, and didn't make it to Hulu. If this skit had been on Mad TV, it would have been one of their highlights. Perhaps some of the writers from Mad TV came over to SNL?
After another performance by TV on the Radio, SNL dropped a Christian Bale selling a DVD featuring celebrity on-set rants. It seems like more and more this season, they've been using this last slot as a current event skit that they don't want to lead with. That said, I'm fairly certain this skit was just a way to publicly test some of their celebrity impressions.
All-in-all, this was not really a great episode. It had some decent moments, but for the most part was worth skipping. Next week, however, is Alec Baldwin, so you can expect a great show (I'll just ignore that the Jonas brothers are the musical guest).
Wednesday, February 11, 2009
Pretend You Saw It: That Douche from Wedding Crashers on SNL
Posted by Double M at 7:00 AM
Topics: Bradley Cooper, Keenan Thompson, Lonely Island, Pretend You Saw It, SNL
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The Last of Us Single Player DLC Releases on Valentine's Day
Behold! The day of love is also the day of awesome. Naughty Dog has announced the release date for The Last of Us: Left Behind Single Player DLC.
Releasing on Valentine's Day (February 14th), The Last of Us: Left Behind DLC will be available for $14.99. If you already have the season pass you're good to go. If you haven't purchased The Last of Us Season Pass, it's only $19.99 and includes the already released Abandoned Territories map pack as well as downloadable content for your multiplayer characters (hats, masks, etc.).
Not too much is known about the Left Behind DLC other than it is a precursor to the events of the game, when Ellie is younger. The introduction of a new character, Riley, is Ellie's best friend. While I can only speculate, I imagine this DLC will lead up to the events prior to Ellie meeting up with the Fireflies in the game. Click here for Naughty Dog's Release Video on the DLC.
In the wake of the Playstation 4 and Xbox One releases, and all the other games that have arrived since the release of The Last of Us, this will be a huge boost for Naughty Dog. This single player DLC will no doubt pack as much of a punch as the game did, and should keep us occupied while we wait for more news on Uncharted PS4.
For more information, check out Naughty Dog's website. To purchase the Season Pass, click here (via Amazon).
What do you think? Will you be picking up this DLC when it releases? Let us know in the comments what you think the DLC story will be about.
Tags: DLC, Left Behind, Naughty Dog, The Last of Us, TLoU DLC


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The X Factor Recap: And The Top Five Are…
December 01, 2011 07:06 PM by Lisa Princ
Last week on The X Factor we watched a double elimination, and this week there was another double elimination after the Michael Jackson performances last night. Who made it into the top five? Read on to find out!
The X Factor kicked off the live results this week with a performance of Michael Jackson's Man In The Mirror by the remaining seven. They were all amazing in this performance, it's going to be hard to say goodbye to anyone tonight, that's for sure. Next, we saw a rundown of last night's performance, along with some of the judges' critique. Simon Cowell said that after the performances last night, he was not sure how the votes were going to go tonight.
Next it was time for some results, after Steve called the mentors and the remaining seven acts to the stage. The four acts that were automatically going through to next week were: Chris Rene, Melanie Amaro, Rachel Crow, and then it was off to commercial break, as they had to leave us hanging. Steve then reminded us that the person with the lowest amount of votes would be automatically eliminated. Upon speaking with the contestants, they all seemed a bit worries, except for Astro, who seemed very confident.
Before any more results were revealed, we got a performance from Tinie Tempah, complete with a colorful light show. Then Steve announced that Josh Krajcik would be moving on to next week, while Astro had the lowest amount of votes and was eliminated. This time around, Astro was in good spirits and promised us that he would be back. That also meant that Marcus Canty and Drew would be battling it out in the "Sing for your life" portion of the show.
Drew was up first for her survival song, and Simon Cowell sounded like he was too good to announce his contestant – or he was just pissed that she was there! Drew performed her version of Listen To Your Heart by Roxette, while Marcus Canty took on Gladys Knight's Neither One Of Us. Marcus was by far the better survival song tonight, but did the judges think so?
L.A. Reid was up first and he said he was torn, but he chose to send Drew home. Simon Cowell admitted that it was his fault that Drew ended up in the bottom (for his song choice), and then he said he was voting to send Marcus home. Nicole Scherzinger was up next and she was reduced to tears as she gushed about both Drew and Marcus, and then decided that she wanted to send Drew home. That meant it was up to Paula Abdul, who thought Marcus outperformed Drew tonight and she decided to send Drew home. That meant that Drew was eliminated this week – despite Simon's pleas to give her another shot – along with Astro.
Your top five on The X Factor who will perform again next week are: Rachel Crow, Melanie Amaro, Chris Rene, Josh Krajcik, and Marcus Canty!
Want more? Follow our tweets on Twitter and "like" us on Facebook! For other great The X Factor news, please feel free to check out SirLinksALot: The X Factor.
Visit our sister site SheKnows for more breaking news about celebrities and entertainment!
Photos: FOX
Topics: FOX Reality TV Shows, The X Factor |
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6 Responses to "The X Factor Recap: And The Top Five Are…"
Lauren Says:
December 1st, 2011 at 7:39 pm
Marcus, by far the better song?! Are you high? Drew is, HANDS DOWN, the better candidate and I am SO upset they sent her home. It was obviously a stab at Simon! Marcus will simply go home next week..what a waste of a vote. His song bored me to tears — its been done before. Marcus sings and performs like every other R&B artist that came out of the same R&B "hit" factory. Aren't we already saturated with enough of these types of "let's make love in the club" or "let's get drunk and dance and go home tonight" songs? Barf. Drew was different.
Cb Says:
December 1st, 2011 at 8:16 pm
Now that drew was voted off, I am done with this show.
Dre Says:
December 1st, 2011 at 10:20 pm
Lisa, Marcus Canty sounded B A D as in not good at all. Please, in the on_line yahoo poll drew had the second best song last night. Her peeps must not have thought they needed to vote. This will be an Xfactor Daughtry year. Sad in its first year the judges turned on Simon, and with no care for one of the top one or two on the entire show. Simon-you need to take care of business based on re-review of the two songs tonight. Canty lost it big time…Drew was very much on tonight. Sad to see this type of poor choices-it was trashed. Sorry
dan Says:
December 2nd, 2011 at 9:17 am
I found it interesting that Simon can pout like a 14 year old whom he criticized for acting the exact same way! Drew can sing. However her "monotone" style coupled with her lack of charisma made her – by far – the least enjoyable singer this entire season. This does not diminish her ability to record. It will diminish her ability to sell records or tickets.
je Says:
December 2nd, 2011 at 10:52 am
I am tired of hearing Drew's fans complaining and saying the show is fixed, etc etc.
The public voted and SHE was voted in the bottom two. Obviously, she would have been safe if the majority of the public liked her. As for the sing-off, she did NOTHING different except to actually move and she was off key the entire song! If they are supposed to decide based on the save me song, then Paula did the right thing and GOOD FOR HER!!!
cowboy cliff Says:
December 2nd, 2011 at 11:51 am
What a waste to send home the next best thing since taylor swift, the other 3 people taht sent her home are only trying to get back at Simon, are you kidding me 2 weeks in a row in the bottom 2 and saved again what a joke, LA reid you have no stones at all to send Drew home you have to be kidding me, at least let it go to a deadlock vote by the public, like Simon did for your boy last week, and shame on little miss thin Paula a total no class move on her part, I hope chris and Marcus go home next week, and they should unless the pepole that are watching are as dumb as the judges have been, maybe it is a good thing that Simon did not say what was on his mind last, I think it spoke a very clear message it is 3 to one on the judges pannel, hope Simon get's some pepole up there next year that are not tone deaf.


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April Blake
Media Relations Specialist, Public Relations
Office: War Memorial
April Blake is from Cayce, SC and is a 2008 graduate from the School of Journalism and Mass Communications who decided to pursue a bachelor's degree in public relations after trying out most of the other programs within the school.
After graduating, she worked with the university's web communications over the summer and vowed to return as a full time staffer one day. Following an extremely varied early career path, she finally returned to the university to work in the Office of Fellowships and Scholar Programs in 2012 before making her way back to the War Memorial Building as a public information specialist in 2014. She is an office multitasker, working to garner media coverage for the university and tracking media placements, as well as writing stories and being part of the social media team.
Additionally, she is a freelance writer around Columbia, mostly focusing on the ever-growing flavorful food and dining scene. In her free time, April prefers to lift weights, paddleboard, bake cupcakes, and eat.


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RCCA at Byron Fuels World Challenge – Leisure Hours Raceway – Friday Practice
Jun 23, 2012 No Comments
People continue to arrive, setup, and put in practice laps here at Leisure Hours Raceway.
The a/c in the pit room is a welcome haven, as it's nice warm out. Here's some shots of the scene…


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WASHINGTON – Is your cooking dangerous?
We're not trying to insult your culinary skills, but you may be doing things in the kitchen that put your home and family at risk this Thanksgiving.
Unattended cooking is the number one cause of house fires, says Scott Graham, Montgomery County Fire and Rescue Service assistant chief. This week, distractions in the kitchen can add to that statistic.
Graham says prevention is key:
Should a fire break out, there are a few things to remember: First, don't try to fight the fire yourself.
"Call 911 and get out of the home," Graham says. "Fires double in size with every passing minute. Call us, we'll be right there."
If you do try to douse the flames, don't use water to put out a grease fire. The water simply spreads the grease, which spreads the flames. Instead, use an "ABC" style chemical extinguisher.
But keep this in mind: Once you've discharged the contents of the extinguisher, you've got nothing left to protect yourself.
What about the fried turkey fad? Graham says fried birds are still popular – and he adds – they're delicious.
"There's nothing better tasting than a great fried turkey, but don't fry yourself doing it!" Graham says.
So some precautions if plan on frying your bird:
Popular Science recently videotaped what can happen if you put a frozen bird into a pot of oil that is too hot for frying. The results are more "Apocalypse Now" and less "A Charlie Brown Thanksgiving."
Kate Ryan contributed to this report. Follow Kate and
(Copyright 2011 by WTOP. All rights reserved.)
U.S. News & World Report combed through its Best Hotels database to find the properties that offered the best amenities for youngsters and their parents.


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The Board of Selectmen has chosen attorney Arthur Kreiger as Duxbury's next town counsel. Selectmen voted unanimously Monday to give the position to Krieger, who has been serving as interim town counsel since May.Kreiger is a partner in the law firm of Anderson and Kreiger LLP of Cambridge. A town counsel search committee selected him as one of three finalists.
The other finalists were Barbara Saint Andre of Petrini & Associates PC of Framingham and Lisa Mead of Blatman, Bobrowski & Mead, LLC of Concord, Millis and Newburyport.
Selectmen said they chose Kreiger because they liked the job he has done for the town so far and noted the number of pending lawsuits he has settled in a short amount of time.
"I've been impressed with what they've done," said selectmen chairman Ted Flynn. "The other two firms are great, but my feeling is that I've seen Kreiger in action."
Selectmen said they were also satisfied with the latest financial arrangement Kreiger's firm offered. All three of the finalists for the town counsel position proposed a flat fee instead of an hourly rate for legal services, but selectmen were concerned last week that Anderson and Kreiger had a higher rate than other two finalists.
Selectman David Madigan said that Anderson and Kreiger offered a $2,500 discount per month from the rate the town is currently paying. Kreiger's flat fee for town counsel services not including litigation will cost the town $8,000 a month.
Last week, selectmen said they wanted more information about what each attorney would give the town for the flat rate. They received that information and used it to make their decision this week.
Selectman Shawn Dahlen said that Kreiger's contract specified that the new town counsel will be present at the annual town meeting and be available to attend board of selectmen and other committee meetings as needed. He said this should help decrease the number of lawsuits brought against the town because Kreiger would be available to advise boards and committees before the town is sued.
"I want them to be accessible so that boards can avoid litigation on these tough cases," said Dahlen.
Krieger will also hold morning office hours and will be accessible by phone and email when necessary, Dahlen said.
Kreiger has more than 30 years of experience as an attorney, according to the Anderson and Kreiger Web site. He specializes in insurance, environmental and land use law and has been recognized as a leader in his field by The Best Lawyers in America, Super Lawyers and Chambers USA - America's Leading Lawyers for Business.
Kreiger has represented developers, towns, businesses and citizens groups in zoning, land use, insurance and environmental issues for the past twenty years.
Kreiger graduated with honors from Columbia Law School in 1981 and cum laude from the University of Pennsylvania in 1977.
In addition to voting to hire Kreiger, the selectmen also formally dismissed the town counsel search committee.


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USS HARRY S. TRUMAN, At Sea (NNS) -- Sailors participated in a machine gun shoot on the fantail of USS Harry S. Truman (CVN 75) May 30.
G-2 division stood a careful watch to ensure the safest possible evolution was carried out.
Gun shoots are scheduled approximately every two months. They are held on board when underway and at surrounding bases when in port.
The main purpose of the shoot was to train the newest members of the security force. New Sailors assigned to security had the chance to learn how to operate the .50 caliber machine gun as well as the M-240 machine gun. It also allowed many of them to receive their gun qualifications.
"The two prevalent reasons that we are out there is safety and training," said Gunner's Mate 2nd Class Christopher Rommel, G-2 line coach for the gun shoot. "We know these guns inside and out, so if there are any questions or concerns, we can step in and help them out."
Shooting the weapons is important for getting the feel of them, said Aviation Boatswain's Mate [Fuel] 3rd Class Michael Dunbar, currently TAD to Security division as a security patrolman. It also helps Sailors to learn about the weapon and to be confident enough to actually fire it.
"Gun shoots are important for the force protection of the ship, it's important for us to be able to protect the ship when overseas and even in homeport," said Rommel. "It's important that we are always ready for anything."
For more news from USS Harry S. Truman, visit www.navy.mil/local/cvn75/.


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Welcome, glad to have ya here. We could certainly use lots of buildings so post em up so that we can drool over them.
Greetings, fellow cartographers! I have been looking forward to getting in touch with you for some time. I am primarily using CC2 Pro/CC3 for cartography, and I specialize in manorial buildings, as well as independent structures. I look forward to being in much closer contact in the future
Welcome, glad to have ya here. We could certainly use lots of buildings so post em up so that we can drool over them.
If the radiance of a thousand suns was to burst at once into the sky, that would be like the splendor of the Mighty One...I am become Death, the Shatterer of worlds.
-J. Robert Oppenheimer (father of the atom bomb) alluding to The Bhagavad Gita (Chapter 11, Verse 32)
My Maps ~ My Brushes ~ My Tutorials ~ My Challenge Maps
Welcome to the Guild!
Daniel the Neon Knight: Campaign Cartographer User
Never use a big word when a diminutive one will suffice!
Any questions on CC3? Post them with CC3 in the Subject Line!
MY 'FAMOUS' CC3 MAPS: Thunderspire; Pyramid of Shadows; King of the Trollhaunt Warrens; Demon Queen's Enclave
Welcome Aboard!
My Finished Maps | My Challenge Maps | Ghoraja Juun, my largely stagnated campaign setting.
Unless otherwise stated by me in the post, all work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial 3.0 United States License.
Manorial buildings and independent structures! I don't think we have a specialist for those, so you are very welcome here!
Looking forward to seeing your work!
Welcome to the guild


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I was curious on any recommendations for a front hub with ISO disc mounts. I am not sure there are just so many out there. I also not sure how important a front hub is compared to the rear hub because there is no free hub body.
How would a Hope Pro 2 Evo, SRAM X.9, and Shimano Deore XT front hub compare. I want something that is pretty bomb proof, low maintenance, and affordable, and smooth. I also will be doing lots of winter riding as well as very wet conditions, and in the summer super dry and dusty. So I want very well sealed hub. I am just not sure what to look for and a bit overwhelmed looking online. I am also using 700c size rim.


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Family Ministries
Registration is closed.
|Jeanne Hartwell, Family Ministries Director
The goal of the Family Ministries Department is to help grow and strengthen families in their relationships to God and each other.
Resources Available:
Information and personal coaching to help Family Ministries leaders get family-oriented programs started in their local churches
Conference-wide marriage retreats every year.Family Worship at Camp Meeting every year.
Family-strengthening seminars at Camp Meeting (on marriage, abuse, trauma, depression, etc.)
Video/DVD Seminars available for loan to churches--on marriage, parenting and other family issues.
Help in finding local Christian counselors.
Ideas for seminar speakers on family topics.
Specialized marriage and family information for pastoral families.
Periodic sermons and seminars by the Family Life Director at local churches on family topics (such as "Positive Parenting," "The Family Friendly Church," and "When Life Gives You Laundry," "That's Not On My List, Is It?").
Additional Links/Resources:
Contact "Adventist Parenting" e-newsletter to be put on the subscriber list.
General Conference Family Ministries
Adventist Adoption and Family Services
Marriage Builders Newsletter (Free)
Center for Family Wholeness
Family Friendly Church
Family Life
Family Connect (helps you block on-line pornography and illegal activity sites)
Focus On the Family
Divorce Busting
Money Matters for Kids
Life Ministries International (sexual integrity)


text:
2010 American Society of Nephrology (ASN) Scientific Meeting – Renal Week Highlights
November 17, 2010 | 2 Comments
Highlights from the
43rd annual American Society of Nephrology
Meetings in Denver,
give us your feedback regarding this blog. Complete
our short and anonymous survey
SHARP Trial: The Study of Heart and Renal
Protection Presenters: Not available
click here
the blog survey.
Lupus Nephritis Presenters: Dr. Brad
H. Rovin, Dr. Frederic A.Houssiau, Dr. Gabriel Contreras, Dr.
Gerald B Appel Blogger: Lakshmi Turlapati, MD (East Carolina
University – Brody School of Medicine) This was great review of
lupus Nephritis especially focusing on management strategies. They
discussed the Euro Lupus study of the low dose vs. high dose
Cyclophosphamide. The low dose Cytoxan may be a good
option for certain groups of patients. They also discussed the
ALMS trial and use of Cellcept especially
in certain populations. Rituximab is a third line drug for lupus
and its efficacy needs to be closely evaluated. It should be
reserved for refractory cases of lupus resistant to other lines of
the blog survey.
State of the Art
Topics Vascular
access Presenters: Dr. Arif Asif, Dr. Aris Q
Urbanes, Dr. Bharat Sachdeva, Dr. Alexander S Yevzlin. Blogger:
Lakshmi Turlapati, MD (East Carolina University – Brody School of
Medicine) This was a good review of the Fistula first initiative.
The presenters stressed that though it must be tried to evaluate
for fistula placement in dialysis patients, it may not be the best
option for all. Decision to place fistula vs. graft must be
the blog survey.
Forefronts in Hyponatremia Presenters:
Dr. Biff Palmer and Dr. Richard H Sterns Blogger: Lakshmi
Turlapati, MD (East Carolina University – Brody School of Medicine)
This was an excellent talk on diagnosis and management of
hyponatremia. It was a case based discussion. Dr. Sterns stressed
on the rate of correction of sodium in both acute and chronic
hyponatremia. Interesting was the use of ddAVP to slow the correction of hyponatremia
if needed in selective cases.
the blog survey.
Infections in Kidney transplant Recipients: Emerging
Challenges Presenters: Dr. Michael Green, Dr,
Michael Ison, Dr. Camille Kotton, Dr. Shirish Huprikar Blogger:
Lakshmi Turlapati, MD (East Carolina University – Brody School of
Medicine) This was a very good lecture on the infections in renal
transplant recipients. It was stressed that all CKD patients should be vaccinated
whenever possible so that their antibody titers are
protective by the time of transplant. Dr. Huprikar talked about
Candida arteritis in transplant recipients and importance of
checking preservation fluid cultures.
the blog survey.
new frontier: implementation of bundled payments for ESRD
care Presenter: Information not available Blogger:
Raeesa Mirza, MD (East Carolina University – Brody School of
Medicine) This was a panel discussion regarding what bundling means
for us going forward These were the key messages:
- Protocols are going to play an even greater
role in management of ESRD patients than ever before
- This is a great opportunity for us to be even more
efficient in our patient care by promoting more home therapies:
recent research shows that most patients would prefer home therapy
if offered
- There is concern about oral-only
medication in 2014 and what that will mean for patient co-pays
(will likely increase)
- For dialysis centers
who have low numbers of incident patiients, there may be more to
lose from the per patient payment, as there is significant
reimbursement given for the newly initiating hemodialysis
Address Glomerular Damage
leading to IFTA? How? Presenter: Wilhelm Kriz, MD
Blogger: Kenar Jhaveri, MD (North Shore – LIJ/Hofstra University
Medical Center) A nice plenary session at ASN 2010 by Dr. Wilhelm
Kriz discussed the ways glomerular damage leads to Tubular
interstitial damage? Two theories exist:
- Leak
theory and loss of albumin and other proteins can be damaging to
the tubules
- Data
on this theory not that
- As
glomruli get damaged, eventually the damage gets closer to glomuler
tubular juunction and that leads to spreading of misdirected
filtrate and cell proliferation and that leads to intra tubular
obstruction and degeneration of tubules
- Leads to IFTA in glomerular
Interesting concepts and worth exploring more on this…
the blog survey.
Address Is fibrosis
harmful? In the intact nephron? Presenter: Wilhelm
Kriz, MD Blogger: Kenar Jhaveri, MD (North Shore – LIJ/Hofstra
University Medical Center) At the plenary session at ASN 2010, Dr.
Kriz discussed about fibrosis and is that really harmful to the
intact nephron. Studies showed that it is not — at least in the
early stages. The key points are:
- Progressive
renal failure is based on the progressive loss of nephrons and they
all loose nephrons independently
- Fibrosis is
an advanced stage that has an autonomous drestruction of so far
unaffected nephron remains an open question
Drugs in Osteoporosis and CKD
Presenter: Orson Moe, MD Blogger: Kenar Jhaveri, MD (North Shore –
LIJ/Hofstra University Medical Center) Take home points:
Anti reabsorptive agents
- Kill
- Bisphosphanates: work fast, blasts
slow down and increase bone quantity but turnover is reduced (so
not a good option for someone with Adynamic bone disease). Usually
contraindicated in GFR more fractures
- HRT/SERM: inhibit osteoclast proliferation and function,
again leading to low turnover
- Calcitonin:
doesn't completely kill osteoclast, the balance of blasts is
maintained. Not widely used though
- Anti-RANKL
M AB: data on CKD lacking and transplant no
Take home points:
Osteo-anabolic agents
- Pth: pulse pth,
data on CKD not very strong
- Strontium, IGF-1
and others in pipeline
- Best agents in CKD:
Calcicum, Vitamin D, Exercise and dietary acid
it Osteoporosis or CKD-BMD? Presenter: Miller
Brent, MD Blogger: Kenar Jhaveri, MD (North Shore – LIJ/Hofstra
University Medical Center) Take home points:
- Fractures in CKD can be caused by CKD-BMD and
- Clinical risk factors in CKD:
chronic heparin use, hypoganadism, steroid exposure, increase
prolactin, poor nutrition, Vitamin D def, secondary pth
- KDIQO guidelines for osteoporosis in CKD-BMD
- Stage 1-3 low bone mass or
fracture noticed, more likely osteoporosis related than
- Stage 4-5 bone biopsy might be
necessary to differentiate
- If bone specific Alk Phos is elevated, you can rule out
osteoporosis, and adynamic bone disease as long Paget and
malignancy has been ruled out
- An elevated Pth
( 6 normal) excludes adynamic bone disease
normal alkaline phosphatase, and normal to low pth cannot rule out
adynamic bone disease
- Gold standard would be
Bone biopsy
- Is osteoporosis and CKD-BMD
overalap, or is osteoporosis a part of CKD-BMD or is CKD-BMD a type
of osteoporosis is not clear?
Steroid related Osteoporosis
Presenter: Mary Leonard , MD Blogger: Kenar Jhaveri, MD (North
Shore – LIJ/Hofstra University Medical Center) Take Home
- Steroid induced osteoporosis
is 2nd most common cause of osteoporosis
- Steroids uncouple bone formation and
- They increase osteoclast
- Besides other known risk factors,
kidney associated risk factors are microalbuminuria and
proteinuria, medications like CNI
- Vitamin D is
albumin bound and in nephritic syndrome, there is Vitamin D loss.
Usually in NS, the 250H levels are low, this is temporary as pth
levels don't really rise as much based on studies compared to true
Vitamin D deficiency
- FRAX program
online is a good tool to assess risk for fractures. Age,
gender, BMI, prior fracture, smoking and other factors are all
- Recent ACR 2010 guidelines say
that Steroid induced osteoporosis can be divided into three
categories based on FRAX scores, <10% low risk, 10-20% is
mod risk and rest high risk
- Bisphosphanates
work best for steroid induced osteoporosis. Data on Forteo is new
and can be better than bisphosphanates
and Crush Injuries Presenter: Dr. VanHolder Blogger:
Maria E. de Ferris, MD MPH PhD (University of North Carolina –
Chapel Hill)
- Crush Victims following major
natural disasters die of Rhabdomyolysis, the
2nd cause of death after direct
- Shift of K+ out
of the muscle
- No nephrologists have training
or guidelines
Consensus by MD's of various disciplines who have helped in
disasters for the last 10 years and a text will published in 2011
…these were written for other providers
the blog survey.
Katrina aftermath Presenter: Andrew
Cohen, MD Blogger: Maria E. de Ferris, MD MPH PhD (University of
North Carolina – Chapel Hill)
- Dialysis
Facilities: all free-standing facilities closed and almost all ESRD
patients were displaced
- 148 deaths within 3
- Attrition of Nephrology workforce (even
2 year later) was a consequence
- Patients who
missed dialysis treatments were more likely to have
hospitalizations, complications (infections of
- Excess mortality was noted
in the early 180 days but then a reduction was noted, so the 12
months afterwards were no different than in previous years. Risk
factors for mortality were age at Rx initiation, Medicaid coverage,
White race, non-ambulatory and HD patients
Take home message: Emergency preparedness
education needs to be implemented in dialysis units.
the blog survey.
Conditions and Anti-Lamp 2-Ab-induced GN Presenters:
Information not available Blogger: Maria E. de Ferris, MD MPH PhD
(University of North Carolina – Chapel Hill)
Background: In healthy humans with gram (-)
organisms, LAMP 2 is intimately involved in infections. Molecular
mimicry has been demonstrated. These AB co-exist with PR-3 and MPO
Antibodies, but unknown why. Results: The
results of the human experiments in the USA cohort of the GDCN
(Glomerular Disease Collaborative Network)
do not confirm the animal studies from the Viena Group.
Take home point: Should we routinely screen
for LAM-2 AB? Not yet
the blog survey.
Address New Insights,
Surprises and Lessons about the Pathogenesis of Cystic Fibrosis
Pigs Presenters: Michael Welsh, MD Blogger: Maria E.
de Ferris, MD MPH PhD (University of North Carolina – Chapel Hill)
Cystic Fibrosis (CF) is an autosomal recessive condition affecting
many organs. Using a pig model the discussant drew many parallels
to the human presentation of this condition including micro-colon,
pancreatic and airway changes. Many hypotheses for the pathogenesis
of CF have been generated based on the inflammatory changes
occurring in this condition. The pathogenesis of inflammatory
changes overtime are still unknown in many way and novel therapies
are needed.
the blog survey.
Podocyte and VEGF Presenters: Susan Quaggin, MD
Blogger: Kenar Jhaveri,
MD (North Shore – LIJ/Hofstra University Medical Center)
- Local VEGF is important for glomerular
- VEGF and VEGF R-2 signal against
the flow of urine
- Modulation of VEGF is
- When you remove VEGF in mice, you
get TMA , but when you remove the VEGF-R , no TMA
- If all VEGF-R2 receptors are removed from entire body
endothelial cells, showed TMA in all of the kidney. The liver
showed endothelial damage and nodular liver as
Kidney in Liver Disease Presenters: Garcia-Tsao, MD
and Enver Aklin, MD Blogger: Kenar Jhaveri, MD
(North Shore – LIJ/Hofstra University Medical Center) Take
home points:
- Pre liver transplant
creatinine affects even post transplant survival of patient (based
on data)
- Patients with Crt >1.0
pre-transplant do worse post transplant
- Why is
the serum crt low in cirrhosis (falsely): Decreased synthesis,
malnutrition, less muscle mass, hyperbilirubenemia, and
- AKI can be divided in pre renal,
renal and post renal causes in cirrhosis
- Pre
renal causes are GI bleed, diarrhea usually due to lactulose, and
hepatorenal syndrome (HRS)
- HRS is not volume
- Intre renal causes are ATN and
- Post renal are rare
- 20% of patients with cirrhosis in hospital have kidney
injury (19% is AKI and 1% is CKD). 68% of all are pre-renal. Of all
pre-renal most are volume responsive.
- In a
study comparing pre-renal (diarrhea and GI bleed) causes and HRS,
HRS has the lowest Na, lowest Mean arterial pressure and highest
- Two things that make HRS worseà
worse splanchnic vasodilation and worse decrease in effective blood
- HRS-1 is AKI, HRS-2 is usually a
chronic renal injury. HRS -1 is a diagnosis of exclusion. 20% of
AKI in cirrhosis, usually followed by infection and kidney is
really not injured.
- Diagnosis includes
stopping all volume depleting agents first , looking for infection,
giving IV Albumin 1g/kg qd or bid and if still no response in 48
hours, then check a CVP to see if volume replete and renal us, if
all normal, then HRS Is diagnosed
- There is no
data or studies on using bladder pressure in cirrhotics to date to
discuss intra abdominal HTN
Points about dual Liver and Kidney Transplantation:
- After the introduction of MELD scoring system,
the crt was in that and that led to increase number of combined
liver and kidney transplants from 2% to 6%
- Who
gets combined: ESRD with Cirrhosis, ESLD with 8 weeks on HD, ESLD +
biopsy proven >30% IFTA and >30%
- After Introduction of MELD,
the outcomes of Liver and kidney combined were worse, not
donor-related, perhaps recipient-related as they were sicker. Now
if MELD > 23, they do worse and surgeons think twice before
a combined liver kidney
- A biopsy proven way of
deciding if you want to do a kidney and liver was suggested.
Interestingly they found that the most common biopsy finding was GN
and DM being top, followed by MPGN, FSGS and IgA
- >30% had biopsy
complications, especially INR > 1.5
- Interesting GN found after liver transplant alone; some
sort of nodular GN, as it looks like DM nephropathy but they don't
have DM and never develop it
***Note: Click here for
additional teaching resources regarding dual-organ
the blog survey.
VEGF and Diabetic Nephropathy Presenter: Fuad
Ziyadeh, MD Blogger: Kenar Jhaveri,
MD(North Shore – LIJ/Hofstra University Medical Center)
Take home points:
- Glucose,
glycosalation, ROS, TGF B and Ang II all increase VEGF –A ( in
podocyte) and lead to proteinuria.
- Two new
players that might be interesting are Notch 1 and Mir 93 in this
- Two mechanisms of albuminuria are
paracrine and autocrine effects
- Paracrine meaning effecting
the receptor of the VEGF
- Autocrine meaning
affect the VEGF directly
- Paracrine meaning effecting
- Paracrine: increase glucose, ROS and ang II lead to
endothelial NOS and VEGF expression and then vascular
- Autocrine effects: a decrease in
nephrin and nephrin is in the podocytes hence leading to an
autocrine effect
- A recent paper showed that VEGF was
activated in many human GNs
- Early in DM – you
get increase VEGF, later on there is loss of podocytes and hence a
decrease in VEGF. So using VEGF inhibitors can lead to bad outcomes
as well and sclerosis.
Clinical Nephrology
Conference Therapeutic
Apheresis: The Kidneys and Beyond Moderators: Emaad
Abdel-Rahman, MD, PhD and Michele Mokrzycki, MD Blogger: Melanie
Hames, DO (East Carolina University – Brody School of Medicine)
Presentations in this conference include:
- Overview of Conventional Therapeutic Apheresis
by David Ward,
- The Kinetics of removing large
molecules: Implications for the rationale prescription of plasma
exchange by Andre Kaplan, MD
- Pheresis for TTP
by Timothy Bunchman, MD
- Pheresis for
vasculitis by Rasheed
Balogun, MD
gave a comprehensive overview of Apheresis including the history,
methodology, anticoagulation, replacement fluid types, clinical
indications, ASFA indication categories, and then some
specific examples of therapy for various disorders. Dr. Kaplan
spoke and the kinetics of molecule removal . Though Dr. Bunchman
provided a disclaimer of being jet-lagged and also a pediatric
rather than adult nephrologist, he gave a nice review on
Plasmapheresis for TTP. Dr. Balogun gave an enthusiastic review of
Plasmapheresis for Vasculitis. Some points
I) Why Should I Care?
Specialties performing CPT 36514:
- Pathology 40%
- Nephrology
- HemOnc 6.6%
- Neuro 3.4%
- Rheum
- Other 2.29%
So you might think HemOnc is mostly
running apheresis programs, but they really are not. II) Only 40% of fellowship programs
have nephrologists managing apheresis and training fellows in
apheresis in this fashion; need to do better III) Most common substance being removed with
plasmapheresis is IgG (146,000 daltons)
- Only 25-30% of IgG is intravascular
- Half-life of IgG is 22 days (except for IgG3 which is 7
IV) IgM is
much larger ~970,000 daltons
- 90%
of IgM stays intravascular
- Half-life of IgM is
5 days
clinical practice guidelines used to come out in the
Journal of Clinical Apheresis every 7 years, but after 2007
publication, it will now be published every 3 years. Click here
to purchase the 2010 publication (special
issue of the journal) VI)
- familial patients who have an
ADAMTS-13 deficiency should respond to plasma infusions rather than
- For idiopathic TTP,
plasmapheresis has taken mortality from 90% to
- For TTP, no difference in
replacement with FFP vs cryoprecipitate (not sure if Dr. Bunchman
really meant cryo-poor FFP)
- More recently:
Balduini et al Ann Hematol 2010: maybe higher dose steroids are
better in conjunction with TTP to achieve a remission
VII) Disease
states in Neurology
- Acute
Guillain-Barre syndrome and CIDP, but also more rare conditions
including meuromyelitis optica and Stiff-person syndrome
- Remember the key study reported by the Guillain Barre Trial group proving that
TPE and IVIG have equivalent efficacy and if combined do not add
benefit. At that time, IVIG was "cost-effective" – $26.00/gram; now
it's much more expensive. IVIG may be more convenient than
VIII) Myeloma
cast nephropathy is controversial
- data from MERIT will be coming out next year
looking at the benefit of plasmapheresis in
IX) Dr.
Ward had a chart for overview of when to use pheresis in
- ANCA – yes
- Anti-GBM – yes (but maybe not if the Creatinine >
6mg/dL because the kidneys aren't coming back)
- Membranous nephropathy – slowly develops and
immunosuppressive therapy suffices without need for
Role of TPE in anti-GBM (or Goodpasture's) disease
- Rapid decline in anti-GBM Ab titers
- Lower Creatinine levels
- Fewer
patients progressing to renal failure
- Decreases mortality from 85 to 40%
XI) 2 key trials for anti-GBM (or
Goodpasture's) disease and TPE
- Johnson JP, Moore J, Austin HA, et al. Therapy
of antiglomerular basement membrane antibody disease: analysis of
prognostic significance of clinical, pathologic and treatment
factors Medicine (Baltimore) 1985;64:219-227
- Levy et al
- Cr < 6, 100% patient
survival and 95% renal survival at 1 year
- Cr
> 6, 83% patient survival and 82% renal survival at 1
- Dialysis dependent –65% patient survival
and only 8% renal survival at 1
XII) ANCA+ and pauci immune on pathology – can
- No systemic vasculitis (ANCA
- Systemic vasculitis but no asthma and no
granulomas – microscopic polyangiitis
- Systemic
vasculitis and granulomas but no asthma –Wegener's
- Systemic vasculitis with asthma
and granulomas – Churg strauss
XIII) Good evidence now that ANCA is
- Charles Jennette, MD:
JCI 2002 (with MPO knockout
- Increase in ANCA titer precedes relapse,
decline in titer with remission
XIV) Treatment outcomes:
- Natural history: mean survival 5 mos, 1 yr
survival 20%
- Steroid only era: mean survival
increased to 12 mos
- Early 70's: 1971 Fauci and
others added cyclophosphamide to prednisone and got 5 yr survival
to 87%
- Treatment choices: Block production of
ANCA (immunosuppression including agents such as rituximab) or
remove it (TPE)
XV) Nice diagrams here in Paul Bacon's NEJM perspective in 2005:
XVI) EUVAS formed early 1990s to investigate
diagnostic role of ANCA, to standardize ANCA assay, to launch
trials (1995) which aimed to compare established therapies of
vasculitis and assess the role of lymphocyte depleting
- 1st wave of trials = 4
trials: NORAM, CYCAZAREM, MEPEX and SOLUTION
- 2nd wave of trials = 3 trials: CYCLOPS, IMPROVE, and
in 1st wave: published by Jayne et al randomized ANCA+ RPGN with cr
>6 to get IV Solumedrol alone or IV Solumedrol + TPE of dose
60mg/kg x 7 treatments (max PE volume 4L)
- At 12 months, no difference in
- if you took only the patients who
survived, and then looked at those free of dialysis, the group with
TPE much more likely to be off dialysis
did not address alveolar hemorrhage, mild-mod renal disease,
mononeuritis, or other clinical problems
XVIII) Study that looked at Plasmapheresis therapy for Diffuse Alveolar
Hemorrhage (DAH) in patients with small vessel
- Goal: to
study the role of PLEX (plasma exchange) in treating DAH associated
with AASV (ANCA-associated small vessel vasculitis)
- None had anti-GBM disease or Goodpasture's; all but one
was ANCA +
- All 20 patients had resolution of
DAH. Number of PLEX treatments was between 4 and 9, with a mean of
6 PLEX treatments
- 1 died from PE 16 days after
resolution of DAH
- Conclusion: patients who
presented with hemoptysis and pulmonary infiltrate caused by DAH
would benefit from PLEX and immunosuppressive
XIX) New
from EUVAS: new trial, PEXIVAS started randomizing patients this
past summer
- The purpose of PEXIVAS is to determine
whether plasma exchange as well as immunosuppressive therapy are
effective in reducing death and end-stage renal disease (ESRD).
- Hypothesis: Addition of PLEX
in severe AAV increases the time to develop ESRD or
- Multicenter, multinational trial, goal
to enroll 500
- 50% will get oral or IV
cyclophosphamide followed by azathioprine or rituximab
- The test pts (50% of the patients) will get adjunctive
plasma exchange
- Follow to ESRD or
The trial will also study whether a reduced
cumulative dosing regimen of glucocorticoids is as effective as a
standard disease regimen.
XX) Q and A from Dr. Ward's 1st
session: Timing of rituximab and TPE – Dr. Ward: used
to say 3-4 days, others say they have done studies and rituximab is
bound to its CD20 ligand so quickly that TPE the next day is ok.
the blog survey.
Careers in Nephrology Presenter: Not
available Blogger: Iti Yadav, MD (North Shore – LIJ University
Medical Center) 1. Academic Nephrology provides the following:
a. Job Security, b. Diversity, c. lifestyle
advantages (division of labor), d. opportunities for
multidisciplinary interventional studies (e.g. CKD-CVD), e.
opportunity to be part of translational research team, f. reward of
teaching endeavors in Clinical Nephrology, g. integration of care
of CKD patients with PCP's through the PCMH (Patient centered
medical health) concept.
2. Elaborating on the
patient centered medical health concept: There is a need for
outcomes research related to new reimbursement strategies,. In
addition, chronic kidney disease will be one of the major chronic
diseases to serve as a model for the PCMH concept and the
Nephrologist as a PCMH-N (Neighbor). These efforts attempt to lay
the ground work for coordinated care of CKD patients by attempting
to do the following:
a. better collaboration for
consultation, b. information exchange and evidence based decision
making, c. PCP's to continue to manage CKD due to HTN and DM while
nephrologists manage specific glomerular diseases, d. Nephrologists
developing systems for PCP's to ensure early detection of
3. Guidelines for a job in academic
a. have a plan for the next five
years b. negotiate your contract c. ask about promotion guidelines
d. apply for grants; this is the best way at securing dedicated
research time e. have more than one mentor f. don't move too
quickly into leadership roles g. don't take up assignments that
others will not!
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text:
This course covers the fundamentals of the KAREL programming language. Instruction includes TPP & KAREL programming techniques and how they work together. The course is not an in-depth KAREL programming course, and is focused on the interpretation of existing code rather than development of application programs. This course covers both TPP and KAREL languages.
Course Code: KAREL101
Course Objectives: Upon successful completion of this course, the student will be able to:
The course consists of lectures, demonstrations, and a series of exercises designed to reinforce what the student has learned. There is no KAREL motion programming in this course.
This course is intended for programmers who have a good understanding of TPP programming.


text:
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text:
well I hope I have not painted my self into a corner.
99 burley softride tandem frame I picked up a few weeks ago.
It has the capt bottom bracket and the acentric bearings and two sealed bearings w/a axle stuck thru it.
now the rear is just a open hole burley says that it takes a 6203 bearing and a axle. My question is as long as I get the right length can I simply order a tapered axle and with the bearings put it together
burley says that they no longer have this axle. I have requested the specks to see if something else will work. or maybe take it down to the machine shop and have it turned to speck.
Has any one ever run into this ?
after I get this squared away I can continue on with planing the build. since this will deal with the cranks and spacing ect.


text:
Rice Dairy maintains an unparalleled position in the Dairy Complex on the trading floor of the CME Group,
with four exchange members executing on behalf of the firm's clients. These four
members are in the Dairy Complex during the entire session. As a result of this dedication, Rice Dairy
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Rice Dairy not only maintains a position on the floor of the CME Group, but also has
offices located on LaSalle Street in the center of Chicago's Financial District.