text:
WASHINGTON — While a team of techies tries to reboot the broken federal insurance website, President Obama is trying to retool efforts to promote the flailing healthcare law.
The flawed launch of the new online marketplaces has forced Obama to spend time defending the insurance exchanges rather than selling them to a skeptical public, as he had planned. More than a month into the rollout, he has few bright spots to highlight and one big gaping hole to avoid: The website he planned to sell with the zeal of a late-night infomercial pitchman does not work properly.
That puts the White House in change-up mode. The president has shifted how he talks about the law, arguing that it's "more than a website" and focusing on benefits that are not yet easily accessible. During a visit to Dallas on Wednesday, the president will go on offense, aides said, calling on Texas Gov. Rick Perry, a Republican, to accept federal funding to expand Medicaid so it will cover more low-income people in the state.
The president also has added caveats to his once-unqualified promise that no one will be forced to change their insurance plans. It's now clear that more than a million Americans who buy insurance on the individual market may be forced to find new policies because their old ones do not offer benefits required under the Affordable Care Act.
PHOTOS: The battle over Obamacare
"What we said was, you could keep it if it hasn't changed since the law was passed," Obama told supporters Monday night.
Some people have complained that insurance companies tricked them into giving up grandfathered plans only to cancel the replacement policies.
Facing another day of questions on the promises, the website and the outlook for the president's signature legislation, a somewhat exasperated White House spokesman Jay Carney conceded: "Look, I … accept that communications are challenging here."
Partly for that reason, after a visit to Dallas to praise "navigators" — the workers who are enrolling consumers on paper — Obama will return to other topics on his agenda. Upcoming White House events will emphasize his immigration and economic plans. On Friday, the president will travel to the Port of New Orleans to talk about increasing exports.
White House officials say the president knows he can't avoid the subject — and doesn't want to. But they say he doesn't want technological troubles he can't control to consume the rest of his agenda.
On Tuesday, an administration official told lawmakers that the site's functionality was improving and on track to be running smoothly for most users by the end of the month.
Initially, the site, a portal to private insurance plans, was easily overwhelmed by the volume of people trying to register. Now, it can handle 17,000 registrants per hour — or five per second — "with almost no errors," Marilyn Tavenner, the head of the federal Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services, told the Senate Health, Education and Labor Committee.
PHOTOS: 2013's memorable political moments
The federal website is intended to service the 36 states whose lawmakers refused to set up their own exchanges. Tavenner, whose agency oversaw its construction, said the number of servers had been doubled to meet demand. She rejected calls to redo the site from scratch.
"This is weeks, not months, and we are not rewriting the architecture," she said.
Such assertions have done little to quiet Republican critics. On Tuesday, Rep. Darrell Issa (R-Vista), chairman of the House Oversight Committee, released notes from meetings of the administration's Obamacare "war room" that showed health department officials and contractors scrambling to fix problems in the early days after the website's launch.
At one point, staff realized that callers trying to sign up by phone were hearing advertisements for credit checks because one of the healthcare.gov contractors also sells credit reports, according to the notes. The administration brought in consulting giant Booz Allen Hamilton to expand the website's help desk, another note said, "because we did not plan on having a large one."
Furloughs in the federal workforce caused by the 16-day October government shutdown — triggered when congressional Republicans demanded that Obamacare be defunded or delayed as a condition of funding the government — added to the problems. "Casework team was furloughed yesterday, but called back in today, so they should be up soon," one note reads.
PHOTOS: Team Obama, where are they now?
The White House could deflect such stories with tales of successful enrollments — but, as with other communication troubles, the balky website is complicating that strategy.
The president and aides have tried to answer the outcry about cancellation notices by noting that many of those consumers will be eligible for subsidies for comparable plans. But as long as consumers can't easily verify that information on the healthcare.gov website, the argument is "only kind of persuasive," one White House official conceded.
Obama has been pushing alternate methods of enrollment, telling people to sign up by phone or mail. But administration officials cannot say how long those methods take, and paper enrollments are still stalled by the slow computer system. Aides acknowledge those methods will never capture the flood of young, healthy consumers needed to balance older, sicker ones and make insurance affordable for everyone.
White House Chief of Staff Denis McDonough met with representatives from top insurance companies Tuesday to discuss the website fixes and enrollment.
The White House maintains that it always expected that the bulk of enrollments, particularly of young people, would happen close to the deadline, citing patterns set by a comparable system in Massachusetts. But Carney acknowledged that insurers were seeing fewer young people signing up than expected.
"There's no question that the problems with the website have exacerbated the trend, which is why we have to work all the harder to make sure that it gets up and running and that we do everything we can to make sure that folks are applying and enrolling," he said.
Twitter: @khennessey
Twitter: @lisamascaro


text:
Decline in birds linked to common insecticide
Known to harm bees, neonicotinoids' effects may ripple through ecosystems
Jouke Altenburg, Radboud Univ.
Insects may not be the only collateral damage from a controversial group of insecticides.
The class of chemicals, called neonicotinoids, is used in agricultural fields worldwide to reduce crop-eating pests. Since neonicotinoids were introduced in the 1990s, researchers have reported unintended harm to bees and other pollinators (SN Online: 4/5/12). But a new study suggests that the deadly chemicals may also cause declines in bug-eating bird populations, a possible sign of cascading effects in the environment.
"The effects could be more widespread in the ecosystem than we thought," says ornithologist Ruud Foppen of Sovon, the Dutch Center for Field Ornithology in Nijmegen.
Foppen and colleagues analyzed Dutch data on water pollution, which can act as a proxy for pesticide usage because neonicotinoids travel to waterways in farm

subset: commoncrawl


text: Since a child I have loved stitching and trained as a teacher of textiles and design, teaching in High School for 23 years. Following early retirement in 1997, I was able to develop my interest in the beautiful Baltimore Album Quilts made in America in the mid 19th century. This led to developing my own 'take' on the genre - Baltimore with an English Twist -inspired by my cottage garden in Suffolk. I have designed a range of applique patterns, teach workshops in the UK and internationally as well as writing two books. The first 'The Applique Garden' published in 2006 is now out of print but my second book 'Beyond the Applique Garden' was published in 2013 and includes techniques for hand and machine applique and designs which go beyond the tradional Baltimore blocks. I particularly enjoy developing dimensional flowers such as foxgloves, roses and waterlilies to add to my applique designs. Please see my website for more details. http://www.shirleybloomfield.co.uk


text:
You wake up in a hospital with no memories... You are in Buenos Aires in year 2035 and the city is under the control of a military organization. Suddenly, you realize that your life is in danger and that you need to escape as fast as possible. What would you do faced with such a situation? Find out in Reversion - The Escape, the first chapter of a graphic science-fiction adventure in point'n'click.
Only registered members can share their thoughts. So come on! Join the community today (totally free - or sign in with your social account on the right) and join in the conversation.


text:
Are you looking for a custom designed engagement ring at a wholesale price?
At King of Jewelry you can find your unique and one of a kind piece of jewelry like:
With over 18 years of experience in the jewelry business , we offer custom design, manufacturing, and marketing of diamond engagement rings , diamond earrings , and diamond wedding rings to all entities from wholesalers , retailers and individuals. The King of Jewelry became well known as the top importer of fine jewelry and the largest gold and diamond wholesaler in the LA's jewelry mart.
We have been expanding to be able to provide customers with our expertise and affordable prices directly through online sales. This has given us the opportunity to provide our customers with their specific requirements directly and in a much faster time frame without the hassles of being physically present at our location. Of course we are always happy to see you in person.
While providing you with the custom shape and size you desire in any of your diamond jewelry choices, we are able to keep our prices low because we are the direct source from design to manufacturing of your jewelry . Our designers utilize advanced computer technology to beautifully set the mold for stunning jewelry . Our award winning designers and wax carvers have years of experience working with gold and platinum. Their skill and craftsmanship in producing exquisite custom jewelry is unmatched in the industry. Whether you choose a cushion cut diamond or a princess cut diamond solitaire, you will be more than pleased to know that the copyrighted design our skilled craftsmen create is only for your piece of diamond jewelry at an affordable price.
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This article on YogaDork is pretty interesting. It's about a yoga teacher who gains 40 pounds on purpose as an experiment. Actually, she calls it an art project, blergh. You can read all about it on her blog...but it goes like this. She goes on a diet of "See it… eat it," she gains weight and feels bad about herself, fearing that she will "die alone, probably from choking on a potato chip." She learns some life lessons and gets thin again, etc.
YogaDork describes why this is problematic:
Gaining weight to feel what 'fat' feels by eating tons of "bad" food, then stopping it all by going back to eating "healthy" is not a luxury we can all afford. Hall is, of course, free to do what she wants with her own body and feel whatever she feels, but I wonder if her public story of personal disempowerment due to weight and body image issues is a great triumph in unmasking what many others feel inside their skin, or demoralizing and insulting to those with larger bodies who are trying to lose weight or who otherwise feel completely comfortable and confident exactly where they are.
Anyway, I think it is a pretty interesting discussion and was wondering what you Jezzies think? While I think her experience was valid, she seems pretty blind to her privilege. And it seems like she's getting all of this attention because she was and is thin and pretty, while other yoga teachers who advocate body acceptance in yoga don't because they're not.


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Professor Beyranevand to Speak on GMOs, the Farm Bill, and Monsanto
On Tuesday January 28th, Professor Laurie Beyranevand will begin Part III of the Frontiers in Food and Agriculture webinar series with her talk, "The [In]significance of the Monsanto Rider to the Farm Bill." Speakers in our third webinar topicwill focus on GMOs, or genetically modified organisms and intellectual property, and will explore how these topics relate to our broader conversation on transforming food systems in the US.
Professor Beyranevand is the Associate Director of the Center for Agriculture and Food Systems and an Associate Professor of Law at Vermont Law School, where she teaches Food Regulation and Policy, Public Law, Communications, Advocacy and Leadership, Interviews, Counseling and Negotiation, and Advanced Writing for Dispute Resolution.
Professor Beyranevand's talk on Monsanto, a leading producer of genetically modified seeds, is driven by her research and scholarship, which focuses on the connections between food and health, and specifically considers issues arising from food safety and regulation. On Tuesday, January 28th, Beyranevand will address the "Monsanto Rider" to the 2013 Farm Bill, which would have extended legal protection to the companyin producing and distributing genetically modified seeds to farmers. Although the rider expired last year, it fanned the flames of an already heated nation-wide conversation about genetically engineered foods. Beyranevand will focus on the text of this controversial provision, its potential consequences, and its significance within the larger regulatory scheme that governs genetically modified foods in the US.
Her talk is particularly relevant given the controversy surrounding the 2013 Farm Bill as well as increasing public concern about the use of bio-engineered seedsand consumer's potentially unwitting consumption of genetically modified food. Furthermore, the regulatory terrain is less than straightforwardsince there is no one regulatory agency governing biotechnology and since relevent laws were written well before biotechnology emerged. Therefore, Beyranevand's webinar will be instrumental in clarifying the role of federal regulation in modern, "high-tech" agriculture.
To register for Professor Beyranevand's talk please see the following link: https://www4.gotomeeting.com/register/458356783.
For more detailed information on each webinar see YCELP's calendar of upcoming events: http://envirocenter.yale.edu/events.
To register for the rest of the webinar's in Part III please see the following links:
Creating a New Food Future
Andrew Kimbrell, Executive Director of the Center for Food Safety
Wednesday, February 12, 2014 | 12:00 PM EST
Registration: https://www4.gotomeeting.com/register/650444167.
GMO Labeling Laws: Constitutional Considerations
Lauren Handel, counsel in the firm of Jason Foscolo LLP
Thursday, February 27, 2014 | 12:00 PM EST
Registration: https://www4.gotomeeting.com/register/804265159.


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By Shane McGlaun
I really like home theater gear and have wanted a projector set up in my living room for a long time. The thought of a massive image in HD resolution for watching the UFC and playing games makes me giddy. The problem is that getting all the gear together to set up a projection system can be a pain and it's expensive.
Epson has announced new Ensemble HD home theater kits using the latest 1080p HD projectors from Epson. The new Ensemble kits include the firm's 3LCD 1080p front projectors, motorized 100-inch screen, integrated surround sound, AV controller with built-in DVD player, universal remote, and the components needed for installation.


text:
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> Clearance Beer Steins
Some of our best beer steins and mugs on sale, including the great Batch 19 beer pitcher
6789 - Oktoberfest Wagon Beer Stein
The image that appears on this stein was painted in 1910 to commemorate the 100-year anniversary of the Munich Oktoberfest. Decorated bierwagons were used originally to transport 100-litre barrels to the Oktoberfest.
26380MUG - Courtship Beer Mug
Features a courtship between a man and woman with additional scenes of cherubs drinking to the happy occasion. Made in Germany
65511NOLID - Birthday Beer Stein No Lid
Features a pewter medallion with the German phrase "Herzlichen Gluckwunsch" which translates to "Happy Birthday". Made in Germany
65622NOLID - Stammtisch Beer Mug
Depicts 3 German men sitting, drinking, smoking pipes and shootin' the breeze. Has text "Hopfen und Malz Gott erhalt's" which translates to Hops and Malt, God's gifts. Made in Germany
KRUGCOVER - Wood Oktoberfest Krug Cover/Coaster
These round wood discs are made to fit the Oktoberfest 1 Liter and .5 Liter krugs. These are used in Germany to keep insects out of your beer, put a sandwich or another beer on or whatever you want
BATCH19PITCHER - Batch 19 Beer Pitcher
Batch 19 Beer Pitcher
6800 Burnet Road Suite 2 Austin, Texas 78757 United States
© 2019 Steins.com. All rights reserved worldwide.


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Currently being developed by Starside R&D, this is a Total Conversion mod for the game Star Wars: EaW Forces of Corruption from Petroglyph Studios. You decide who has the right to survive, the Terran Federation or the Arachnids and their allies, the Skinnies. It will include space & land skirmish and Galactic Conquest and is based on various aspects taken from the movie, animated TV series, and the original book. Command your Forces in the silence of space or the roar of the battlefield, be it the Terran Federation or the Arachnid/Skinny Alliance. Use old favorites as well as brand new units developed for this conflict.
Needs ground units. Most of the shows stories books movies was were combat was mainly ground base.. 5/10 for half the work


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Darrell Hunter, once the first of Oregon�s baseball players, is back to give it one last shot with the Ducks.
This time, it�s as a fulltime pitcher rather than being an infielder or splitting time between the two positions as he has done in the past.
�I�ll be doggone if Darrell hasn�t just shocked us,� UO coach George Horton said. �He�s been one of more consistent pitchers� in fall and winter workouts.
Much remains to be decided about Hunter�s role with the 15th-ranked Ducks, who open their season Feb. 15 at Hawaii. But even reaching this point has to be considered a success for Hunter, who has negotiated some detours along the path.
�It�s good to see you guys again,� he joked with a couple of reporters who talked to him during a media availability with the baseball team as it began official workouts last week.
Way back when, Hunter was the first recruit to commit to the resurrected UO program, as a senior at Thurston High School. He was among the candidates to play third base for the Ducks his freshman season, but ultimately lost out in that bid.
As a sophomore, he suffered a concussion when he was struck in the head by a baseball. There were subsequent issues with seizures, and concern about whether Hunter could even continue playing baseball. He was at Lane Community College two years ago and found success playing the sport again, then returned to Oregon last year but after an initial attempt to make the team decided to take a year off from baseball.
That time off from the sport allowed him to concentrate on academics, and he�s completed his requirements for a degree in sociology. He also worked on his overall physical fitness.
Hunter went to Horton last fall asking for one last opportunity at playing baseball, and look at him now. He�s down 55 pounds from the 235 he weighed a year ago and, he said, it�s been more than 12 months since he last suffered a seizure.
�Knock on wood, but that�s been going well,� Hunter said, adding �I think I just got better at managing it.�
He credits feeling less stress, and �dropping the weight and being healthier.�
As a pitcher, he said he threw 90 miles per hour for the first time in the game against the alumni last fall, and he feels stronger than he�s ever been, perhaps because he�s finally only working as a pitcher.
�I�ve been here before, but it seems so new because it�s the other side of baseball,� he said of pitching. �I thought I knew pitching pretty well � (but) you learn so much new stuff with our coaches. I like it a lot.�
�It looks like he might bring some quality innings to us and that makes my heart warm because he deserves it,� Horton said. �Nobody has worked harder. We hope it keeps going in that positive direction for Darrell.�
Hunter is one of only two local players on the UO roster, along with catcher/pitcher Derek Smith, a redshirt freshman from Pleasant Hill.
In fall workouts, freshman Ryan Land from Sheldon participated but then decided to transfer to Concordia University Irvine, where he will redshirt this season. The school won the NAIA national championship in 2011.
Horton said Land was informed after fall practices that he was �on the bubble� for one of the 35 roster spots, the NCAA limit.
While that roster won�t be finalized until the first game, Horton said he wanted to warn players who were in that group of their tenuous status so that if they felt they wanted to transfer where playing time was more likely, they could do it in time to enroll elsewhere for school this winter.
�We wanted to give them every chance (to make the Ducks) but to wait until we have to make that (final) cut, their fallback position is not very good,� Horton said. �He elected not to go down to the very end.�
Horton described Land as �a good player, he just happened to come into a year where we had a bunch of experienced guys back at his position. He might have been the ninth outfielder and the ninth outfielder doesn�t get to travel (to away games) or play very much.�
In addition to Hunter and Smith, the UO roster has four other players from Oregon high schools: sophomore Jordan Spencer (Beaverton), redshirt freshman Sam Johnson (Westview) and two true freshmen from Roseburg, Josh Graham and Jared Priestley.


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War over air fares intensifies, AI jumps into fray
New Delhi: The war over air fares intensified today with all Indian airlines competing with each other to offer low ticket prices, as Air India also jumped into the fray.
A day after Jet Airways offered 20 lakh seats at Rs 2,250 for travel till the year-end and all no-frill carriers — IndiGo, SpiceJet and GoAir followed suit, Air India today evening launched special fares offering a discount of up to 40 per cent on one-way regular fare charged by it on its domestic flights.
While official sources said the lowest fares had so far not breached the lowest rates given by the airlines to aviation regulator DGCA, Civil Aviation Minister Ajit Singh said, "We are not going to prescribe anything (fares). If we fix a lower bracket and the airlines charge lower than that, the issue will go to the competition council."
Maintaining that the government would not regulate fares, Singh said a cell to monitor the fares was being set up in the Ministry and not to regulate them. "Whatever needs to be done will be done in consultation with the airlines."
Travel portals showed that Air India was offering the lowest fares on most of the major sectors.
Also Read
On the Delhi-Mumbai route, an economy class one-way ticket for mid-April was priced at Rs 3,201 by Air India, Rs 3,340 by IndiGo, Rs 3,350 by Jet Airways and Rs 4,426 by SpiceJet.
The Delhi-Chennai sector saw an Air India ticket costing Rs 3,701, IndiGo's being Rs 3,840, Jet Airways' Rs 3,850, Jet Konnect's Rs 4,008 and SpiceJet's at Rs 4,714.
A ticket on Delhi-Kolkata route cost Rs 3,201 for Air India, Rs 3,241 for IndiGo, Rs 4,662 for SpiceJet and Rs 4,663 for Jet Konnect. Similarly on the Delhi-Hyderabad, Air India's ticket was priced at Rs 3,201, IndiGo's Rs 3,290, Jet's Rs 3,350 and SpiceJet's Rs 4,641.


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Merry Christmas and Good Tidings to One & All!
I hope everyone will eat lots and get lots of presents (I spy a few beauty goodies for me – peeking, moi?).
My lot have quite a food extravaganza coming up!
This was my turkey from last year, just a tiny thing made for two:
As soon as Christmas Day is over, we will all wonder what all the stressing and fuss was about!
Then comes New Year…who else is really looking forward to 2008? I am!


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Green Mountain shares have been in free fall since last October when hedge fund magnate David Einhorn raised serious questions of the company's accounting practices.
Specifically, in three slides (pages 94, 95, and 96), he details field research Greenlight Capital conducted that showed how Green Mountain had ramped up production of Keurig brewers and K-Cups leading to inventory problems.
Einhorn's call from six months ago was spot on.
Yesterday on the company's earnings call, Fran Rathke, Green Mountain's CFO, highlighted the hit the company took because of spoilage.
"Approximately 150 basis points due to a higher write down of finished product and anticipated obsolescence of raw material inventory due to lower than anticipated sales of seasonal and certain coffee products," she said.
Shares tumbled more than 40 percent on the news and the company's decision to slash its full-year guidance.


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CIPHY(4) NetBSD Kernel Interfaces Manual CIPHY(4) NAME ciphy -- Driver for Cicada 10/100/1000 copper Ethernet PHYs SYNOPSIS ciphy* at mii? phy ? DESCRIPTION The ciphy driver supports PHYs commonly integrated on VIA Networkinng Technologies VT6122 Gigabit Ethernet adapters. SEE ALSO ifmedia(4), intro(4), mii(4), ifconfig(8) HISTORY Driver is ported from FreeBSD and first appeared in NetBSD 3.0. AUTHORS The driver was originally written by Bill Paul <email@example.com>. NetBSD 7.1.2 February 20, 2005 NetBSD 7.1.2
You can also request any man page by name and (optionally) by section:


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international trading company | 136 West Main Street | Welland ON Canada L3C 5A2 | Tel. 905-788-3577
I have severe hearing problems - please contact me by e-mail
Searchable Data Base for visitors or business interested in
Ontario and Newfoundland-Labrador
Things to see and to do
Shopping, Investment
Our first snowmobile adventure
Contact Information:N/A
Tel. N/A
Internet: http://itcwebdesigns.com/snowmobile01.htm
Description:Since years, I wanted to try snowmobiling. In Newfoundland we finally had a chance and we became addicted. Check for places in Ontario which provide guided tours and the required equipment - it is fun!
Our "Sugar Bush" Adventure
Contact Information:N/A
Internet: http://www.itcwebdesigns.com/sugarbush_ca.htm
Description:This is a tour in which you learn about the history of making the delicious maple syrup as well as about today's processes. On our tour we could try and purchase different maple syrup products.
"Whirlpool Aero Car", "Jet Boat", "Niagara Glen Nature Reserve"
Contact Information:N/A
Internet: http://www.itcwebdesigns.com/whirlpool_ca01.html
Description:Whenever you visit Niagara Falls, Canada, you should not miss to spend some time to explore all the other natural wonders which our region offers.
Cottage Life - Important to Know
Contact Information:N/A
Internet: http://www.itcwebdesigns.com/rockview_camp_ca.htm
Description:If you come to our province in Canada and you want to enjoy the nature without traveling every day large distances, think about vacations in a nice cottage or a cottage resort. You still can do little relaxing day trips and staying on one place will help you to learn much more about our country and its people. Our web site gives you information what to expect. It is a peaceful adventure - we loved it! You can rent a boat, go ice fishing in winter, just check our web site.
Impressions from our car trips between Ontario and Newfoundland-Labrador
Contact Information: N/A
Internet: http://www.itcwebdesigns.com/Trip_Ontario_Newfoundland01.htm
Description:Make this trip by car enjoyable and explore our country. You may find a destination for your next holidays. We had a great time in Quebec, New Brunswick and Nova Scotia.
Watch Elizabeth touring the Western Brook Pond in Newfoundland
Contact Information: N/A
Internet: http://itcwebdesigns.com/Western_Brook_Pond01.html
Description:The pond is really a pond with no connection to the sea. I was told that the boats which are used there were carried in bits and pieces by helicopters to this pond and assembled there. Because of my bad knees and the extensive walking which is required, Elizabeth did this tour without me.
Our boat tour to the icebergs in Twillingate, Newfoundland
Contact Information: N/A
Internet: http://itcwebdesigns.com/Iceberg_tour01.html
Description:Whenever we visited Newfoundland-Labrador with our car we did this in June. The main season had not started and even the black flies stayed still away. The chances to see icebergs were much better and the prices for accommodation were more reasonable, but luckily all attractions were already open for visitors.


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Major Section: GUARD
The guard has no effect on the logical axiom added by the definition of a function. It does, however, have consequences for how calls of that function are evaluated in ACL2. We begin by explaining those consequences, when ACL2 is in its default ``mode,'' i.e., as originally brought up. In subsequent discussion we'll consider other ways that guards can interact with evaluation. For more about guards in general, see guard. Also see generalized-booleans for discussion about a subtle issue in the evaluation of certain Common Lisp functions.
Guards and evaluation I: the default
Consider the following very simple definition.
(defun foo (x) (cons 1 (cdr x)))First consider how raw Common Lisp behaves when evaluating calls of this function. To evaluate
(foo x) for some expression
x, first
x is evaluated to some value
v, and then
(cons 1 (cdr x)) is
evaluated with
x bound to
v. For example, if
v is
(cons 'a 3), then
Common Lisp computes
(cons 1 3). But if (for example)
v is a
number, e.g.,
7, then there is no way to predict what Common
Lisp might do. Some implementations would cause ``sensible''
errors, others might return nonsense, still others might crash the
host machine. The results tend toward the catastrophic if the call
foo in question is in compiled code.
Now by default, ACL2 evaluates calls of
foo exactly as Common
Lisp does, except that it uses guards to check the ``legality'' of
each function call. So for example, since
(cdr x) has a guard
(or (consp x) (equal x nil)), the call
(foo 7) would cause a
``guard violation,'' as illustrated below.
ACL2 !>(foo 7)Thus, the relation between evaluation in ACL2 and evaluation in Common Lisp is that the two produce the very same results, provided there is no guard violation.
ACL2 Error in TOP-LEVEL: The guard for the function symbol CDR, which is (OR (CONSP X) (EQUAL X NIL)), is violated by the arguments in the call (CDR 7).
Guards and evaluation II:
The ACL2 logic is a logic of total functions. That is, every application of a function defined has a completely specified result. See the documentation for each individual primitive for the specification of what it returns when its guard is violated; for example, see cdr.
The presence of guards thus introduces a choice in the sense of
evaluation. When you type a form for evaluation do you mean for
guards to be checked or not? Put another way, do you mean for the
form to be evaluated in Common Lisp (if possible) or in the ACL2
logic? Note: If Common Lisp delivers an answer, it will be the
same as in the logic, but it might be erroneous to execute the form
in Common Lisp. For example, the ACL2 logic definition of
implies that the
cdr of an atom is
nil; see cdr. So:
(cdr 7) cause a guard violation error or return
The top-level ACL2 loop has a variable which controls which sense of
execution is provided. By default, ``guard checking'' is on, by which we
mean that guards are checked at runtime, in the sense already described. To
turn it off, do
nil. To turn ``guard
checking'' back on, execute the top-level form
t. The status of this variable is
reflected in the prompt; guard-checking is ``on'' when the prompt
contains an exclamation mark (also see default-print-prompt). For example,
ACL2 !>means guard checking is on and
ACL2 >means guard checking is off. The exclamation mark can be thought of as ``barring'' certain computations. The absence of the mark suggests the absence of error messages or unbarred access to the logical axioms. Thus, for example
ACL2 !>(car 'abc)will signal an error, while
ACL2 >(car 'abc)will return
nil. To return to our previous example: with guard
checking off,
(foo 7) evaluates to
(cons 1 nil). Also
see set-guard-checking.
Guards and evaluation III: guard verification
Consider the defininition of
foo given above, but modified so
that a reasonable guard of
(consp x) is specified, as shown below.
(defun foo (x) (declare (xargs :guard (consp x))) (cons 1 (cdr x)))We say ``reasonable guard'' above because if
x is such that
(consp x) holds, then the call of
cdr in the evaluation of
(foo x) will not cause a guard violation. Thus, it ``should'' be
legal to evaluate
(foo x), for any such
x, simply by
evaluating this form in raw Common Lisp.
verify-guards event has been provided for this purpose.
Details may be found elsewhere; see verify-guards. Briefly,
for any defined function
fn, the event
(verify-guards fn)
attempts to check the condition discussed above, that whenever
is called on arguments that satisfy its guard, the evaluation of
this call will proceed without any guard violation. (Moreover, the
guard itself should be evaluable without any guard violation.) If
this check is successful, then future calls of this sort will be
evaluated in raw Common Lisp.
Returning to our example above, the
(verify-guards foo) will
succeed because the guard
(consp x) of
foo implies the guard
generated from the call
(cdr x) in the body of the definition,
(or (consp x) (equal x nil)) (see cdr). Then the
evaluation of
(foo (cons 'a 3)) will take place in raw Common
Lisp, because
(cons 'a 3) satisfies the guard of
This ability to dive into raw Common Lisp hinges on the proof that the guards you attach to your own functions are sufficient to ensure that the guards encountered in the body are satisfied. This is called ``guard verification.'' Once a function has had its guards verified, then ACL2 can evaluate the function somewhat faster (but see ``Guards and evaluation V: efficiency issues'' below). Perhaps more importantly, ACL2 can also guarantee that the function will be evaluated correctly by any implementation of Common Lisp (provided the guard of the function is satisfied on the input). That is, if you have verified the guards of a system of functions and you have determined that they work as you wish in your host ACL2 (perhaps by proving it, perhaps by testing), then they will work identically in any Common Lisp.
There is a subtlety to our treatment of evaluation of calls of functions whose guards have been verified. If the function's guard is not satisfied by such a call, then no further attempt is made to evaluate any call of that function in raw lisp during the course of evaluation of that call. This is obvious if guard checking is on, because an error is signalled the first time its guard is violated; but in fact it is also true when guard checking is off. See guard-example for an example.
Guards and evaluation IV: functions having :program mode
Strictly speaking, functions in
program mode (see defun-mode) do
not have definitions in the ACL2 logic. So what does it mean to evaluate
calls of such functions in ACL2? In general we treat
functions much as we treat
logic functions whose guards have been
verified, except that when no error occurs then the corresponding raw Lisp
function is always called. (We say ``in general'' because there are
exceptions, discussed in the ``Aside'' just below.) Note that when the guard
of a function in
logic mode is violated, there is still a value
that the ACL2 logic proves is equal to the given call. But the same cannot
be said for a function in
program mode. Nevertheless, for the
sake of convenience we go ahead and evaluate the corresponding raw Lisp
function except in the situation where the guard is violated and
guard-checking is on, aside from the following:
Aside. There are exceptions to the use of raw Lisp, discussed just
above, to evaluate calls of
program mode functions. During
macroexpansion and evaluation of
defconst forms, ACL2 enters a ``safe
mode'' in which this escape to raw Lisp is prevented. The following example
illustrates how the user can experiment directly with safe mode.
ACL2 !>(defun foo (x) (declare (xargs :mode :program :guard t)) (car x))The other exception occurs after
Summary Form: ( DEFUN FOO ...) Rules: NIL Warnings: None Time: 0.00 seconds (prove: 0.00, print: 0.00, other: 0.00) FOO ACL2 !>(foo 3) Error: Attempt to take the car of 3 which is not listp. [condition type: SIMPLE-ERROR]
Restart actions (select using :continue): 0: Return to Top Level (an "abort" restart). 1: Abort entirely from this process. [1] ACL2(2): :pop ACL2 !>(assign safe-mode t) T ACL2 !>(foo 3)
ACL2 Error in TOP-LEVEL: The guard for the function symbol CAR, which is (OR (CONSP X) (EQUAL X NIL)), is violated by the arguments in the call (CAR 3). See :DOC wet for how you might be able to get an error backtrace.
ACL2 !>(assign safe-mode nil) NIL ACL2 !>(foo 3) Error: Attempt to take the car of 3 which is not listp. [condition type: SIMPLE-ERROR]
Restart actions (select using :continue): 0: Return to Top Level (an "abort" restart). 1: Abort entirely from this process. [1] ACL2(2):
set-guard-checking can be called with
a value of
:all; see set-guard-checking.
End of aside.
Thus, as with
logic functions: when a guard has been
satisfied on a call of a function with
program mode, no subsidiary
guard checking will be done.
Notice that by treating functions in
program mode like functions
whose guards have been verified, we are using raw lisp to compute
their values when their guards are met. We do not check guards any
further once raw lisp is invoked. This can lead to hard lisp errors
if the guards are not appropriate, as illustrated below.
ACL2 >:program ACL2 p>(defun foo (x) (declare (xargs :guard t)) (cons 1 (cdr x)))See defun-mode-caveat.
Summary Form: ( DEFUN FOO ...) Rules: NIL Warnings: None Time: 0.02 seconds (prove: 0.00, print: 0.00, proof tree: 0.00, other: 0.02) FOO ACL2 p>(foo 3)
Error: 3 is not of type LIST. Fast links are on: do (use-fast-links nil) for debugging Error signalled by CDR. Broken at COND. Type :H for Help. ACL2>>
However, here is a way to get ACL2 to do run-time guard checking for
program mode functions. With this method, ACL2 will
evaluate calls of user-defined
:program mode functions in a manner
that follows their ACL2 definitions. Simply execute the following in the
ACL2 loop to put ACL2 into a ``safe mode.''
(f-put-global 'safe-mode t state)Let us revisit the example above, using safe mode. Notice that the guard of
cdr is now being checked, because the executable counterpart of
is being called even though the guard is
ACL2 !>(f-put-global 'safe-mode t state) <state> ACL2 !>:program ACL2 p!>(defun foo (x) (declare (xargs :guard t)) (cons 1 (cdr x)))If we go back into ``unsafe'' mode, then we once again see a raw Lisp error, as we now illustrate.
Summary Form: ( DEFUN FOO ...) Rules: NIL Warnings: None Time: 0.00 seconds (prove: 0.00, print: 0.00, other: 0.00) FOO ACL2 p!>(foo 3)
ACL2 Error in TOP-LEVEL: The guard for the function symbol CDR, which is (OR (CONSP X) (EQUAL X NIL)), is violated by the arguments in the call (CDR 3). You may be able to see a trace of calls leading up to this violation by executing (wet <form>), where <form> is the form you submitted to the ACL2 loop. See :DOC wet for how to get an error backtrace.
ACL2 p!>(wet (foo 3))
ACL2 Error in WITH-ERROR-TRACE: The guard for the function symbol CDR, which is (OR (CONSP X) (EQUAL X NIL)), is violated by the arguments in the call (CDR 3). (Backtrace is below.)
ACL2 p!>
ACL2 p!>(f-put-global 'safe-mode nil state) <state> ACL2 p!>(foo 3)
Error: 3 is not of type LIST. Fast links are on: do (si::use-fast-links nil) for debugging Error signalled by CDR. Broken at COND. Type :H for Help. ACL2>>
Guards and evaluation V: efficiency issues
We have seen that by verifying the guards for a
logic function, we
arrange that raw lisp is used for evaluation of calls of such
functions when the arguments satisfy its guard.
This has several apparent advantages over the checking of guards as
we go. First, the savings is magnified as your system of functions
gets deeper: the guard is checked upon the top-level entry to your
system and then raw Common Lisp does all the computing. Second, if
the raw Common Lisp is compiled, enormous speed-ups are possible.
Third, if your Common Lisp or its compiler does such optimizations
tail-recursion removal, raw Common Lisp may be able to
compute your functions on input much ``bigger'' than ACL2 can.
The first of these advantages is quite important if you have complicated guards. However, the other two advantages are probably not very important, as we now explain.
When a function is defined in
logic mode, its
defun is
executed in raw Common Lisp. (We might call this the ``primary''
raw lisp definition of the function.) However, a corresponding
``logic definition'' is also executed. The ``logic definition'' is
defun in raw lisp that checks guards at runtime and escapes to
the primary raw lisp definition if the guard holds of the arguments
and the function has already had its guards verified. Otherwise the
logic definition executes the body of the function by calling the
logic definitions of each subroutine. Now it is true that
compilation generally speeds up execution enormously. However, the
comp command (see comp) compiles both of the raw lisp
definitions associated with a
logic function. Also, we have
attempted to arrange that for every tail recursion removal done on
the actual
defun, a corresponding tail recursion removal is done
on the ``logic definition.''
We believe that in most cases, the logic definition executes almost as fast as the primary raw lisp definition, at least if the evaluation of the guards is fast. So, the main advantage of guard verification is probably that it lets you know that the function may be executed safely in raw lisp, returning the value predicted by the ACL2 logic, whenever its arguments satisfy its guard. We envision the development of systems of applicative lisp functions that have been developed and reasoned about using ACL2 but which are intended for evaluation in raw Common Lisp (perhaps with only a small ``core'' of ACL2 loaded), so this advantage of guard verification is important.
Nevertheless, guard verification might be important for optimal
efficiency when the functions make use of type declarations. For
example, at this writing, the GCL implementation of Common Lisp can
often take great advantage of
declare forms that assign small
integer types to formal parameters.
To continue the discussion of guards,
see guards-for-specification to read about the use of guards as
a specification device.


text:
North Carolinians outside the Research Triangle region ("Triangle") envy its economic suc-cess and cultural assets.
But don't get too jealous.
The very success of the Triangle brings chal-lenges that, if unmet, will topple the Triangle's place as North Carolina's capstone example of successful economic development.
The Triangle's dilemmas are the focus of The Research Triangle: From Tobacco Road to Global Prominence, a new book by William Rohe, director of the Center for Urban & Regional Studies at UNC-Chapel Hill.
The story of the Research Triangle Park is a part of the state's defining his-tory or myth, just as much as the Lost Colony or the Wright Brothers' first flight.
You know the short version. In the 1950s North Carolina's visionary gov-ernment and business leaders saw the pending demise of the state's traditional low-wage industries and the potential for using the resources and reputations of Duke, N.C. State, and UNC-Chapel Hill to attract research-related businesses to an open area of worn-out farmland near all three universities. Thousands of acres of land were acquired and, over time, the research-related business filled them. In less than a generation, the Triangle moved from economic laggard to national leader.
This "myth" is mostly true. There were a few bumps in the road. Lots of tenacious people fought through roadblocks and disappointments before the Triangle achieved the success that makes it widely admired and envied.
Rohe tells in rich detail how the Research Triangle Park ("Park") came about, including the 200 years of history of the region that put it in position to take advantage of the opportunities the Park made possible.
Rohe enthusiastically catalogues the benefits the Park brought to the region, including the high-value businesses, the high paying jobs, and the leveraged eco-nomic activity that results from them.
However, Rohe's most important message to North Carolinians is like that of Professor Hill in The Music Man, who asserted to complacent townspeople, "We got trouble right here in River City."
Much of the trouble in the Triangle is a result of the region's success. The low-density sprawling housing patterns and crowded traffic routes cannot sustain the projected population growth of the re-gion. "It's so crowded, nobody goes there anymore," the saying attributed to Yogi Berra, could be pro-phetic for the Triangle region.
These kinds of problems face every growing metropolitan region. Rohe details a long list of strategies and tactics that could be used to absorb the projected growth without destroying the region's quality of life. For example, Rohe suggests for consideration:
• More high-density housing, even within the Park itself.
• Light rail connections to get a substantial number of cars off the highways, but Rohe concedes that much more high-density housing has to be in place be-fore rail can be successful.
• Limiting new residential development by requiring, before approval of a new project, a showing of the readiness of the community or region (schools, roads, and other infrastructure) to accommodate the proposed additional popula-tion.
Even if these kinds of approaches would work if they were applied region-wide, getting a coordinated approach in the region is almost impossible. Rohe says that there are 43 jurisdictions in the region that have some responsibility for land-use and transportation planning. Getting even one government to adopt such restrictions would be ambitious. Getting 43 of them to act in a unified man-ner would be a miracle.
Various regional organizations that coordinate activities of governmental or planning units have been successful in many areas. But it is unlikely that any of them could gain enough power to bring about the kind of trans-portation and housing development plans that Rohe says are needed.
Without a unified approach in the Triangle, Rohe says, like Professor Hill, "We got trouble."


text:
GAZA, Nov. 30 (UPI) -- Mahmoud Abbas will visit Gaza for the first time in more than five years to try to heal the dispute between his Fatah Party and Hamas, officials said.
The Palestinian Authority president has not visited Gaza since Hamas seized control of the area in the summer of 2007.
Palestine Liberation Organization official Zakariya al-Agha said Abbas' visit would focus on the possibility of establishing a unity government between Fatah and Hamas, The Jerusalem Post reported Friday.
The announcement came before Abbas spoke at the U.N. General Assembly in New York on upgrading Palestinian status to a non-member observer state, officials said. The General Assembly approved the status upgrade Thursday.
Mahmoud Zahar, a Hamas leader, recently was quoted as saying Abbas wouldn't be permitted to enter Gaza for fear that his party rivals may harm him. Zahar also reportedly said he has asked the prosecutor-general's office in Gaza to arrest Abbas for "libel and slander" if he enters the strip.
Thousands of Palestinians celebrated the U.N. vote in the West Bank and Gaza Thursday.
Jibril Rajoub, a former P.A. security commander and Fatah representative, told revelers in Ramallah, West Bank, that Palestinians are seeking an end to injustices and there was no room for Jewish settlers on Palestinian lands after the U.N. vote, the Post said.
He stressed the need to end the Fatah-Hamas rift.
Hamas representative Nasser Eddin Shaer, also at the Ramallah rally, praised the statehood bid and called for Palestinian unity.
"We are a people who are entitled to live," Shaer said. "The U.N. bid is an important step. It is not a declaration of war against anyone."
A recent poll indicated Israelis were pessimistic about negotiations between Israel and the Palestinians, Ynetnews reported. The survey was taken before the U.N. vote.
Fifty-one percent of Israelis said they don't think a peace agreement will be reached and 40 percent said peace could be achieved but it would take at least five years, results indicated.
The findings were presented at the opening of the Saban Forum for U.S.-Israeli strategic dialogue Washington.
The survey was conducted by the Dahaf Institute and Shibley Telhami, a Saban Institute researcher and lecturer at the University of Maryland. Results are based on telephone interviews with 600 Israelis Nov. 21-26. The margin of error is 4 percentage points.


text: Experience reports from IAESTE trainees Field of study Country Year No filter Aeronautical Eng. Biochemistry Biology Biotechnology Chemistry Civil Eng. Computer Studies Electrical Eng. Food Technology Geology Industrial Eng. Material Science Mathematics Mechanical Eng. Other Pharmacy Physics No filter Belgium Brazil China Egypt Ghana Hong Kong India Iran Ireland Israel Japan Kenya Malta Mexico Mongolia Nepal Nicaragua Norway Oman Portugal Russian Federation Serbia Slovenia Spain Switzerland Thailand Turkey United Arab Emirates United Kingdom No filter 2013 2014 2015 2016 2017 2018 Other Nepal 2016 Load Report Other Switzerland 2017 Load Report


text:
Rbi Reverse Repo Rate
RBI hikes repo rate by 25 basis points
Reverse repo was adjusted to 6.25 per cent. RBI's monetary policy committee (MPC), headed by governor Urjit Patel, maintained a neutral stance towards the monetary policy
Reverse repo was adjusted to 6.25 per cent. RBI's monetary policy committee (MPC), headed by governor Urjit Patel, maintained a neutral stance towards the monetary policy
PE investments into real estate up a tad in first 9 months / MahaRERA dismisses investor's plea against builder / Ultratech Cement profit dips by 53% in Q2 2017 / DB Realty to raise stake in DB (BKC) Realtors / Now, register your property online in Noida and Greater Noida / Milestone Capital looks to raise up to Rs 1,000 crore to invest in warehousing / Amazon leases 4.5 lakh sq ft of office space in Chennai / LIC Housing withdraws NCLT plea against DB Realty / Moody's confirms Lodha's B2 rating; outlook stable / Citibank sells Chennai land to TIL Healthcare for Rs 80 crore
UP-RERA recommends SIT inquiry into Unnati Fortunes over fund diversion / UP-RERA imposes Rs 1 crore fine on Ansal API / Sub-standard lighting products a key challenge to lighting industry / Dedicated cluster can help boost lighting industry / Bengaluru among top ten destinations for cross-border investment across Asia Pacific / Demand for logistics and warehousing space outstrips supply: Report / Shriram Housing Finance assigned CRISIL AA/Stable rating for bank loan and NCDs / India commercial realty attracts $2.6 billion in 12 months to Q1 2019: Report / Ascendas India Trust to buy 1.8-million sq-ft BlueRidge IT SEZ phase III in Pune / Wadhwa Group to invest Rs 2,200 crore in Panvel township's first two phases
Trends / IndustrySpeak / City / Careers / Data & Analytics / RealtyTV / New Businesses / Technology / RealtyCheck / Delhi-NCR / Mumbai / Pune / Chennai / Hyderabad / Kolkata / Ahmedabad / Social Analytics
Retail News / Auto News / Health News / Telecom News / Energy News / IT News / Marketing & Advertising News / Technology News / CFO News / IT Security News / BFSI News / Government News


text:
Every morning, the fine folks at Sports Radio Interviews sift through the a.m. drive-time chatter to bring you the best interviews with coaches, players, and personalities across the sports landscape. Today: The same question, asked many different ways.
Kyrie Irving joined The Dan Patrick Show to discuss what he thinks will happen in tonight's draft, what he's heard from Mike Krzyzewski, why he's not concerned about a foot injury that kept him from playing most of his freshman year at Duke, his strengths and if there will be any pressure to be the next LeBron.
Are you going to Cleveland?:
"I'm not sure yet."
They haven't told you?:
Have you shopped for housing in Cleveland yet?:
"No, I have not shopped for housing in Cleveland yet."
How much pressure will there be to be the next LeBron James?:
"I'm not really looking to be the next LeBron James unless I grow about six inches in the next two hours or the next week or so. Right now, I'm just really looking forward to contributing to any team that wants to take me."
Do you have a Cleveland Cavaliers colored tie for the draft?:
"No, no Dan, I'm not having a Cleveland Cavalier-colored tie on."
Do you own one that you'll be able to wear at your first press conference?:
"No, I don't have a Cleveland Cavalier tie prepared."
What's your number in Cleveland?:
"In the NBA, Dan, I think hopefully my number will either be number 1 or number 11."
This post, written by Eric Schmoldt, appears courtesy of Sports Radio Interviews. For the complete highlights of the interview, as well as audio, click here.
More from Sports Radio Interviews
• Dirk Nowitzki has finally slept since his championship.
• Rory McIlroy hasn't.
• Mike Ditka never sleeps.


text:
For a 36-year-old individual financing the acquisition of a LBP 120,000,000 primary residence, the Loan* is settled in capital over a 15-year period through equal monthly installments of LBP 666,667 at an Annual Percentage Rate (APR) of 0.70% (including life and fire insurance premiums, file fees, expert fees, as well as registration, mortgage and mortgage release), the latter being variable and reviewable.
To benefit from a 0% interest, the 10% provision required by the PCH and the 11% provision required by BLF will be deducted from the loan amount.
Conditions apply as at 30/09/2013 and are subject to variation.
* Subject to pre-study and approval of the application
Every credit facility is an engagement and must be reimbursed. Check your repayment capacities before you apply.
To submit your loan application, learn more about our loan eligibility requirements and requested documents, visit the nearest BLF branch where our customer advisors will be pleased to share with you a customized simulation, including your Annual Percentage Rate - APR based on your profile and selected financing terms.


text:
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Sunday, June 3, 2012
II Kings 2:11
And it came to pass, as they still went on, and talked, that, behold, there appeared a chariot of fire, and horses of fire, and parted them both asunder; and Elijah went up by a whirlwind into heaven.
For further study - II Kings 2:1-11
This Biblical account of a living creature being taken into the heavens, alive, is the second such incident of this kind to be recorded in 6,000 years of history. The first man to be taken to heaven alive was Enoch - an event recorded in Genesis 5:24. Enoch and Elijah are the only two men that have never died - and are now in the presence of God in the Third Heaven.
I'll discuss these two men more in a moment but first please notice the trip that Elijah and Elisha made to the spot where God would take Elijah into the heavenlies. They started their trip at "Gilgal", verse 1, which is a place of "safety". They passed through "Bethel", verse 2, a place of "commitment". Then the two men went into "Jericho", verse 4, a place of "battle".
Before Elijah was taken up to heaven in a "chariot of fire", verse 11, the two Prophets would cross the Jordan River, verse 8, into the country of "Jordan", verse 6, a place of "departure". In Jordan, Elijah would give his "mantle" and "ministry" to Elisha.
Then the Lord sent a "chariot of fire" that had "horses of fire", verse 11, and took Elijah "up by a whirlwind into heaven", as Elisha stood there watching. Jordan is indeed a "place of departure". Thus, Elijah became the second man, after Enoch, to go to heaven without dying.
The New Testament writer of Hebrews says that "it's appointed unto man once to die",Hebrews 9:27, and yet these two men have not died, which leads us to other passages of Scripture for an explanation.
Revelation 11:3-12 foretells of two witnesses - two men who will have a preaching ministry from the Temple Mount in Jerusalem during the coming 7 year Tribulation Period. Malachi 4:5-6 tells how God will send Elijah back to earth before the Second Coming of Jesus Christ.
It is reasonable to say that Elijah, one of the two men who have never died, will be one of the two witnesses of Revelation 11. The current popular Christian song, "we're living in the days of Elijah" speaks to this issue. This is evidence that the Rapture, which must happen before the appearance of Elijah, must be close - let's keep looking up!
PRAYER THOT: Lord, help me to recognize the evidence that the Rapture is close at hand and live my life as if it could happen in the next moment, which it could.


text:
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text:
News: Mar 09, 2011
Ecosystems containing several species are more productive than individual species on their own. Using data from more than 400 published experiments, an international research team has found overwhelming evidence that biodiversity in the plant kingdom is very efficient in assimilating nutrients and solar energy, resulting in greater production of biomass.
"Plant communities are like a soccer team. To win championships, you need a star striker who can score goals, but you also need a cast of supporting players who can pass, defend and keep goal. Together, the star players and supporting cast make a highly efficient team," says Lars Gamfeldt of the Department of Marine Ecology at the University of Gothenburg.
Gamfeldt is part of an international research team led by Brad Cardinale (University of Michigan, USA) which, in a special issue of the scientific journal American Journal of Botany on biodiversity, presents a study on the significance of biodiversity of plants and algae, which form the base of the food chain. The research team based its study on the question whether ecosystems can maintain important functions such as production of biomass and conversion of nutrients when biodiversity is depleted and we lose species. In their quest for answers they have examined hundreds of published studies on everything from single-celled algae to trees. Using data from more than 400 published experiments, the researchers found overwhelming evidence that the net effect of having fewer species in an ecosystem is a reduced quantity of plant biomass.
There are two principal explanations for why species-rich plant communities may be more effective and productive. One is that they have a higher probability of including "super-species", that is to say species that are highly productive and effective in regulating ecological processes. The other is that different species often have characteristics that complement one another. The fact that there is a "division of labour" among different plant species in nature makes it possible for species-rich communities to be more productive. The researchers also note that as a result of climate change and other human impact we are now losing species at a rapid rate.
This means that we need to prioritise what we want to protect and preserve, in order to maintain the goods and services humans depend on. "Nearly every organism on this planet depends on plants for their survival. If species extinction compromises the processes by which plants grow, then it degrades one of the key features required to sustain life on Earth," the principal author of the article Brad Cardinale comments.
Gamfeldt is affiliated with both the Department of Marine Ecology at the University of Gothenburg and the Department of Ecology at the Swedish University of Agricultural Sciences. The article The functional role of producer diversity in ecosystems can be downloaded free of charge until 2 April from www.amjbot.org/cgi/reprint/ajb.1000364v1
Lars Gamfeldt, Department of Marine Ecology, University of Gothenburg
+46 (0)31 786 2920
+46 (0)70 339 3921
Photograph caption: Diatoms are some of the organisms included in the study. Photograph: Danuta Bennett
In case of doubt or confusion, the Swedish version of this press release takes precedence.
Visiting Address:
Guldhedsgatan 5 A
+ 46 31 786 98 73


text:
In the few years since I've graduated from medical school, there has been enough time to go back to medical practice in some form, but I haven't and don't intend to, so quit yer askin' already. But of course, people keep on asking. Their comments range from the curious — "Why don't you practice?" — to the idealistic — "But medicine is such a wonderful profession!" — to the almost hostile — "Don't you like helping people, you heartless ogre you?"
Since it's certain that folks will continue to pose me this question for the rest of my natural existence, I figured that instead of launching into my 15-minute polemic on the State of Medicine each time and interrupting the flow of my Hefeweizen on a fine Friday eve, I could just write it up and give them the URL. So that's what I did.
Now, unfettered by my prior obligations as an unbiased pre-med advisor, here are the myriad reasons why you should not enter the medical profession and the one (count 'em — one) reason you should. I have assiduously gone through these arguments and expunged any hint of evenhandedness, saving time for all of you who are hunting for balance. And here are the reasons:
1) You will lose all the friends you had before medicine.
You think I'm kidding here. No, I'm not: I mean it in the most literal sense possible. I had a friend in UCLA Med School who lived 12min away, and I saw her once — in three years (UPDATE: twice in 4 years). I saw her more often when she lived in Boston and I was in LA, no foolin'.
Here's the deal: you'll be so caught up with taking classes, studying for exams, doing ward rotations, taking care of too many patients as a resident, trying to squeeze in a meal or an extra hour of sleep, that your entire life pre-medicine will be relegated to some nether, dust-gathering corner of your mind. Docs and med students don't make it to their college reunions because who can take a whole weekend off? Unthinkable.
And so those old friends will simply drift away because of said temporal and physical restrictions, to be replaced by your medical compadres, whom you have no choice but to see every day. Which brings us to…
2) You will have difficulty sustaining a relationship and will probably break up with or divorce your current significant other during training.
For the same reasons enumerated above, you just won't have time for quality time, kid. Any time you do have will be spent catching up on that microbiology lecture, cramming for the Boards, getting some sleep after overnight call and just doing the basic housekeeping of keeping a Homo medicus upright and functioning. When it's a choice between having a meal or getting some sleep after being up for 36 hrs vs. spending quality time with your sig-o, which one wins, buddy? I know he/she's great and all, but a relationship is a luxury that your pared-down, elemental, bottom-of-the-Maslow-pyramid existence won't be able to afford. Unless you've found some total saint who's willing to care for your burned-out carapace every day for 6-8 years without complaint or expectation of immediate reward (and yes, these people do exist, and yes, they will feel massively entitled after the 8 years because of the enormous sacrifice they've put in, etc etc).
3) You will spend the best years of your life as a sleep-deprived, underpaid slave.
I will state here without proof that the years between 22 and 35, being a time of good health, taut skin, generally idealistic worldview, firm buttocks, trim physique, ability to legally acquire intoxicating substances, having the income to acquire such substances, high liver capacity for processing said substances, and optimal sexual function, are the Best Years of Your Life. And if you enter the medical profession during this golden interval, you will run around like a headless chicken trying to appease various superiors in the guise of professor, intern, resident, chief resident, attending, and department head, depending on your phase of devolution — all the while skipping sleep every fourth day or so and getting paid about minimum wage ($35k-$45k/yr for 80-100 hrs/wk of work) or paying through the nose (med school costing about $40-80k/yr). Granted, any job these days involves hierarchy and superiors, but none of them keep you in such penury for so long. Speaking of penury…
4) You will get yourself a job of dubious remuneration.
For the amount of training you put in and the amount of blood, sweat and tears medicine extracts from you (I'm not being metaphorical here), you should be getting paid an absurd amount of money as soon as you finish residency. And by "absurd", I mean "at least a third of what a soulless investment banker makes, who saves no lives, produces nothing of social worth, and is basically a federally-subsidized gambler" (but that's a whole different rant, ahem).
I mean, you're in your mid-thirties. You put in 4 years of med school, and at least 4 years of residency (up to 8 if you're a surgeon). You even did a fellowship and got paid a pittance while doing that. And for all the good you're doing humanity — you are healing people, for godssakes — you should get paid more than some spreadsheet jockey shifting around numbers, some lawyer defending tobacco companies or some consultant maximizing a client's shareholder value, whatever the hell that means.
Right? Wrong. For the same time spent out of college, your I-banking, lawyering and consulting buddies are making 2-5 times as much as you are. At my tenth college reunion, friends who had gone into finance were near retirement and talking about their 10-acre parcel in Aspen, while 80% of my doctor classmates were still in residency, with an average debt of $100,000 and a salary of $40,000.
5) You will have a job of exceptionally high liability exposure.
But wait, it gets better. Who amongst these professionals has to insure himself against the potential wrath of his own clients? The investment banker's not playing with his own money. And even if he screws up to the tune of, oh, hundreds of billions of dollars, Uncle Sam's there to bail him out (see: World History, 2008-2009).
The lawyers? They're doing the suing, not being sued. But the doctors? Ah. Average annual liability premiums these days are around $30,000. That goes up to $80,000 for an obstetrician-gynecologist (who remains liable for any baby s/he delivers until said infant turns 18) and into the six-digit realm for neurosurgeons. Atul Gawande wrote a dynamite article about docs' compensation in the 4 May 2005 issue of The New Yorker entitled Piecework — check it out.
6) You will endanger your health and long-term well-being.
The medical profession is bad for you. Just ask any current doctor or med student. You will eat irregularly, eat poorly when you do get the irregular meal (and sayonara to the now-outlawed drug-company sponsored meals — god bless their generous hearts and bottomless pockets), have way too much cortisol circulating in your system from all the stress you experience, have a compromised immune system because of all the cortisol in your blood, get sick more often because of the compromised immune system (and the perpetual exposure to disease — it's a hospital where everybody's sick, duh), and be perennially sleep-deprived. If your residency is four years long, on average you will spend one of those years without any sleep. A whole year of no sleep. Do you get that? This is as bad for you as it is for patients — you've heard of Libby's Law, right? Groggy doctors can kill patients when they don't mean to.
Groggy docs can also hurt themselves. One friend stuck herself with a needle as she was drawing blood from an HIV patient. She's fine now, but that was a good 9 months of panic (PS: she has since quit clinical medicine). My good friend and college classmate James — a serious contender for the title of Nicest Guy on Earth — had a severe car accident one morning on the way to the hospital because he fell asleep behind the wheel. Luckily, his airbag deployed and he didn't suffer long-term injuries. Everyone seems to know already that medical care can kill patients (haven't read The House of God by Samuel Shem yet? Go get it now — brilliant and the second funniest book I've ever read, after Catch-22), but it's usually news that it can kill the docs, too.
7) You will not have time to care for patients as well as you want to.
This is how the math works: Many patients, few of you — usually one, unless your name is United States of Tara (and no, multiple-personality disorder ain't the same as schizophrenia — I learned something from med school). So you have to take care of many patients. And if they're in the hospital, that means they're really sick, otherwise they'd still be at home.
So you are scurrying around trying to take care of all of them at once, which means that each individual patient can only get a little bit of your time. Which means that you won't have a chance to sit at the bedside of that sweet old vet and hear his stories of Iwo Jima. Or get to the bottom of why that LOL (little old lady — medical slang's been around way longer than internet slang, buddy) can't get her daughter to come visit. Or to do any of that idealistic stuff that you cooked up in your adolescent brain about really connecting with patients.
Get a grip! This is about action, about taking care of business, about getting shit done, about making that note look sharp because the attending is coming to round in an hour and he's a hardass, and that's the difference between getting recommended for honors and just passing, which is the difference between scoring the residency at MGH and the one at East Bumblefuck City Hospital, so get on it already and quit yakking with the gomer (which is an older patient with so many problems you should have never let him/her get admitted in the first place — stands for get out of my ER, and I didn't make it up the acronym, so kindly direct your righteously indignant wrath elsewhere). It's about CYA — cover your ass. For better or for worse, you just start to treat patients as problems and illness-bearing entities for the sake of mental efficiency ("55yo WM s/p rad prostatectomy c hx CHF & COPD"), which does not do much for your empathetic abilities. Which brings us to…
8) You will start to dislike patients — and by extension, people in general.
Okay, so now you're overworked, underpaid, underfed, under-laid and underslept. Whose fault is that? Well, it's not really the hospital's fault — it's just drawn that way. And it's not your boss's fault, because somebody has to take care of patients, and he can't do it because he's the boss, duh.
So whom to blame? Ah yes — patients. It's the patients' fault! They're the ones creating all the work! The ones who get in the way of your nap, your catching your favorite TV show, having an uninterrupted meal, getting together with your sig-o for some therapeutic nookie. How dare the gomer in 345E have an MI while you're watching CSI? Does she have any consideration, letting her blood pressure tank to 40 over palp at 3.30am, while you're making out with Elle MacPherson on the shores of Bora Bora (assuming you're lucky enough to actually sleep)? The logic may be twisted — patients, on the whole, don't get sick voluntarily just to spite you — but it is deeply ingrained in medical culture. Heck, there's even a slang term for it: a hit. As in, "We got four hits on our admitting shift at the ER today." Hit — the same way you would be struck by a mortar, bullet, shell, or bomb. Getting hit is a Bad Thing.
Patients aren't people, you see — they are potentially lethal disasters that can explode all over the place and ruin your whole day. "We got hit again" — one more patient to take care of, says the resident.
But really, is that resident blameless? Or how about Dr Hardass the attending and his intransigent ways? Hell, they're at fault, too!
Soon the circle of blame expands to the outer reaches of the cosmos, and every potentially accountable organism from amoeba to blue whale will be personally responsible for your misery. But lest you think we've forgotten you, patients, remember — it's all still your fault.
9) People who do not even know you will start to dislike you.
Once upon a day, in a time somewhere between the Cretaceous and Triassic eras, physicians were held in awe and respect by the general public. Their seeming omniscience was revered, and TV shows like Marcus Welby MD glorified their competent sangfroid and high-minded grace. Heck, they were even considered sexy or something.
I only noticed in recent years that this ain't the case no more, and doctors rank on the contempt scale somewhere above meter maids and at or below divorce lawyers (but still much higher than I-bankers and other invertebrates). The average Joe and Janet are tired of the ever-rising cost of medical care, tired of all the stories of malpractice, tired of the perceived greed of the pharmaceutical firms, tired of the heartless profit-focussed practices of insurance companies.
But where do they pin their frustration? To whom can they direct their ire? Insurance and drug companies are nameless, faceless entities, as are hospitals. We need a person to blame, like a nurse or a doc. Nurses are overworked and massively underpaid, so it doesn't really make sense to get mad at them. But doctors — those darn Mercedes-driving, Armani-wearing, private-school using, golf-playing arriviste docs! By being the most visible symbol of the medical profession, the doctor will have the dubious distinction of being the scapegoat for all its maladies. Fair? Hell no — we already told you docs are overworked, underpaid, and often railing at the same injustices Joe and Janet are. Most of them don't even play golf! (They don't have time. Except for dermatologists and radiologists). But such it is. Hey, I'm just letting you know which direction the rotten tomatoes are flying so you can consciously choose to stand at the 'toss' or 'splat' end of the trajectory.
10) You're not helping people nearly as much as you think.
So by now I may have managed to inspire your righteous indignation with some of the things I've said about the medical profession. But maybe in the back of your head, you were still thinking, "Well, even though it sounds like a bunch of bitter black bile, he does kinda sorta have a point." In which case, I've almost certainly lost you on this one: "Whaddya mean you're not helping people? Isn't that what medicine is all about?"
Well, actually, yes and no. Sure, there is the immediate gratification of delivering a baby, fixing someone's eyesight with LASIK, catching a melanoma before it causes trouble, or prescribing some thermonuclear antibiotics to kick a pesky bronchitis before it becomes lethal pneumonia.
But, depending on the field you choose, most of the time you're not doing that. You're treating chronic conditions that are self-inflicted: emphysema, obesity, cardiovascular disease, diabetes. Moreover, patients tend to be non-compliant — they basically don't do what you tell 'em to do. In fact, you too are probably one of those non-compliant patients who doesn't exercise more, eat healthier, and take pills as they're prescribed. Anecdotally, 50%+ of prescribed medications are taken incorrectly or never.
So there you are, like Cuchulain the legendary Celtic warrior, wading into the ocean and, in your rage, trying to fight the invulnerable tide and improve the health of your patients. You pour all your earnestness, good intentions and expertise into it, and — not a whole lot happens. Your efforts bear no fruit. So you suck it down and move on, sustained by the occasional kid who does get better, that eyesight that does improve, that bronchitis that doesn't turn into pneumonia. Win some, lose many more.
You have only ever envisioned yourself as a doctor and can only derive professional fulfillment in life by taking care of sick people.*
There's really no other reason, and lord knows the world needs docs. Prestige, money, job security, making mom happy, proving something, can't think of anything else to do, better than being a lawyer, etc are all incredibly bad reasons for becoming a doc.
You should become a doc because you always wanted to work for Médecins Sans Frontières and your life will be half-lived without that. You should become a doc because you want to be the psychiatrist who makes a breakthrough in schizophrenia treatment. You should become a doc because you love making sick kids feel better and being the one to reassure the parents that it'll all be OK, and nothing else in the world measures up to that. Or as my general surgery resident put it, you should become a doc because "my dad was an ass surgeon, my big brother's an ass surgeon, and by god I'm going to become an ass surgeon."
But woe betide you if there's anything else, anything at all, that would also give you that fulfillment. Because pursuit of medicine would preclude chasing down that other dream and a whole lot more — a dream that could be much bigger, much more spectacular, much more enriching for yourself and humanity than being a physician. Just ask John Keats, Walker Percy, Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, Giorgio Armani, or Michael Crichton (some of these guys being more alive than others these days). Or you can just ask me a few years down the road, by which time I should have a blog entry for that question, too.
*Also acceptable: You want to get into academic medicine. Pretty much need an MD or MD/PhD as prerequisite.
Update 1: To those who are wondering what I've been up to since the writing of this article — that's a long story. Most recently, I've been writing books, including the #1 rated dating book on Amazon, The Tao of Dating: The Smart Woman's Guide to Being Absolutely Irresistible. Check out also the very popular dating ebook for men and my other blog for more articles, as well as my HuffPost archive.
Update 2: As of 9/24/2011, there's a Hacker News thread on this piece, with hundreds of intelligent comments from people with firsthand experience about the medical lifestyle. Check it out.
Update 3: In September 2012, a survey by The Physicians Foundation found that 6 out of 10 physicians would quit today if they could. Click on link to find what's driving the trend.
Update 4: In Oct 2012, Jake Seliger of the excellent blog The Story's Story wrote a magisterial article on why becoming a doctor is a bad idea, with many angles that I hadn't even considered. The whole antitrust suit against the Match and how it's basically an illegal trust and how the AMA bought off Congress to head off lawsuits was particularly sobering.
Update 5: I recently had the opportunity to speak to the daughter of the lady who was the dean of of my med school. She told me that her mom specifically forbid her from going into medicine. Did you get that? THE DEAN OF MY MED SCHOOL FORBID HER DAUGHTER FROM GOING TO MED SCHOOL. I don't think there's anything else that could validate my decision more. This means I win.
Update 6: Great article from the Wall Street Journal on 8/29/2014: "Why Doctors Are Sick of Their Profession" by Dr Sandeep Jauhar. May also want to check out his books Intern: A Doctor's Initiation and his latest, Doctored: The Disillusionment of an American Physician, released Aug 2014.
Comment rules: There have been a lot of comments on this article over the years, so if you wish to comment, here are the rules: if you have an intelligent contribution to make, I'll approve it. I'm not anonymous, so you shouldn't be either. There's no room for hate, spite or derision on this blog, so comments containing them won't see the light of day.


text:
UConn, Olllie ink $15 million, 5-year deal
STORRS, Conn. (AP) -- Connecticut basketball coach Kevin Ollie has agreed to a $15 million, five-year contract with the national champion Huskies.
Ollie, who started at UConn in 2012, said Thursday he's humbled to be UConn coach for the "foreseeable future."
The 41-year-old coach, who spent 13 years as an NBA journeyman before returning to his alma mater, has been linked to several NBA job openings, including with the Los Angeles Lakers and Cleveland Cavaliers.
Ollie has compiled a 52-18 record in his two seasons with the Huskies. He took over a team that was banned from the postseason in his first year due to past academic problems.
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The Huskies went 8-1 this past postseason including its 6-0 run in the NCAA tournament.
The agreement runs through May 31, 2019.


text:
Two things you should know about me, and have probably picked up on by now. We love pork...and apples! I started to make a pork loin the other day and cook it in some apples. To the pantry to I go! I grabbed a jar of what I thought was just canned apples and popped it open. That's when I realized my mistake. I had grabbed a jar of apple pie filling!!! Well, it IS apple, and I already had it open, so why not?
I also added some Mrs. Dash in the red cap. I'm not really sure which variety that is. We go by color. As I normally do with a pork loin, I baked it at 250 for about 7 hours.
I didn't tell the husband about the mistake. I just let him eat it. And much to my surprise, the cinnamon, nutmeg and other spices married quite well with the pork and Mrs. Dash! Even the husband commented on how much better it was this time than the last time I baked a pork loin in apples. I don't know that I will make it like this every time, but it certainly was good for a mistake!
Check out the great blogs below who also enjoy being creative with food they can!


text:
The Department of Homeland Security, US Customs and Border Patrol] regulates personal and commercial importation into the US
US Customs and Border Patrol
555 Battery Street
San Francisco, CA 94111
(415) 782-9210
Directory of Ports Of Entry provides general information about importing:
Contact the Federal Inforamation Center (FIC), Customs Service, for Resident Agent in Charge.
(800) 333-4636
US Customs Service's Fraud Hotline
To report drug smuggling and suspicious activity:
US Immigration and Customs Enforcement 24 Hour Hotline
(866) 347-2423
"Importing Into the United States" (handbook):
This handbook will assist anyone interested in importing goods into the U.S. It addresses questions people frequently ask about importing and describes the procedures required to be an importer. The handbook may be ordered, for a fee, by contacting the following office:
United States Government Book Store
(866) 512-1800
Consumer Resource & Referral Guide
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Directory of Federal Agencies
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