PPI::Document::File - A Perl Document located in a specific file
WARNING: This class is experimental, and may change without notice
PPI::Document::File provides a PPI::Document subclass that represents a Perl document stored in a specific named file.
my $file = PPI::Document::File->new( 'Module.pm' );
new constructor works the same as for the regular one, except that the only params allowed is a file name. You cannot create an "anonymous" PPI::Document::File object, not can you create an empty one.
Returns a new PPI::Document::File object, or
undef on error.
filename accessor returns the name of the file in which the document is stored.
# Save to the file we were loaded from $file->save; # Save a copy to somewhere else $file->save( 'Module2.pm' );
save method works similarly to the one in the parent PPI::Document class, saving a copy of the document to a file.
The difference with this subclass is that if
save is not passed any filename, it will save it back to the file it was loaded from.
Note: When saving to a different file, it is considered to be saving a copy and so the value returned by the
filename accessor will stay the same, and not change to the new filename.
- May need to overload some methods to forcefully prevent Document objects becoming children of another Node.
See the support section in the main module.
Adam Kennedy <email@example.com>
Copyright 2001 - 2011 Adam Kennedy.
This program is free software; you can redistribute it and/or modify it under the same terms as Perl itself.
The full text of the license can be found in the LICENSE file included with this module.


Dr Andrew Dean, Director of the Cancer Editorial Advisory Board, talks about the importance and the intricacies of keeping a balanced diet during cancer treatments.
Patients undergoing treatment for early cancers, such as early breast cancer, often find that they put on weight, which they really don’t like. We also know there are medical reasons why you should try maintaining a normal, healthy weight during treatment for early cancer as those who experience significant weight gain may actually have worsened outcomes.
There are multiple reasons why people who gain weight may have worsened outcomes and these include simple things such as the relative dose of chemotherapy in relation to body mass may go down. Hopefully, that’s picked up by your treatment team.
People who gain weight during treatment for early cancer and move into unhealthy weight ranges may have a much worse outcome on their chemotherapy or other anti-cancer treatment than patients that keep a healthy, normal weight.
There are many factors as to why this may be so, including alterations of the relative dose intensity of the treatment, but also people whose weight goes up often produce more insulin and insulin-like growth factors which are thought to act like stimulants to cancer cells.
So people who are undergoing treatment for early cancer should try to maintain a healthy, normal weight.
How do you do that? Eat sensibly; eat the right foods. If you feel like a snack go for something like celery or carrots, rather than things that contain a lot of sugar.
There are also a lot of fallacies that are bandied around such as “Whatever you do, don’t eat sugar. Sugar brings cancer.” Well, that may be true in part but sugar feeds every cell in the body and unfortunately cancer cells are way better than normal cells at breaking down healthy tissues in order to generate sugar. So what’s important is that you get the right calories and you get the right types of food. Diets that are very high in sugar may also provoke or stimulate secretion of insulin and, again, the insulin secretion can act as a stimulant to cancer cells. So it’s not the sugar per se that’s disadvantageous but it’s more perhaps the body’s response. And that’s why diabetics and people who are overweight who have excess insulin secretion may actually do worse on their cancer treatments.
So why does the weight gain actually occur?
Well, often it’s because people have steroids as anti-allergy drugs or drugs that prevent nausea during their chemotherapy. One of the side effects, unfortunately, of the steroids is it stimulates appetite and weight gain.
So, if you find that your appetite is in fact stimulated, you may try simple things such as replacing snack foods and meals that are rich in carbohydrates with small, protein-rich snacks or relatively low-carbohydrate foods such as celery or carrots.
Some people advocate the use of meal replacement therapy, such as available in many chemists, where the meal comes in a powder sachet form that makes you feel full and less likely to eat. I’ve certainly had many people who have managed to control their weight during chemotherapy by using techniques such as these.
So, when is weight loss not a good thing?
Weight loss is not a good thing when you’re fighting advanced cancer and you’re struggling to maintain your weight. Now, often people who are undergoing chemotherapy for more advanced cancers can find that they just can’t keep their weight on, they have no appetite and they struggle to find food that tastes half decent.
Probably one of the commonest things is that people say they develop taste for sweet foods and I think you can improve your overall healthy diet by eating healthy food that can contain sweet fibers. One of the recipes that people find particularly tasty when they are having chemotherapy at their institution is a recipe of mine from old, which is healthy grilled chicken which is then cooked with apricots or apricot juice. In fact, the sweetness of the apricots often brings out that much more pleasant flavour in people who are struggling to maintain their weight not being able to eat more food which is higher in calories. Another favourite is spaghetti bolognese, where patients will feel that their food is quite bitter and the tomato tastes quite bitter but if the bolognese is actually sprinkled with either sweetener or very small amounts of sugar, the sweetness of that flavour brings out all the taste of the bolognese.
Another healthy recipe that people report is a lot more palatable than normal food are things like healthy cuts of chicken kebabs, grilled and perhaps drizzled with small amounts of honey to bring out the sweetness of the flavour.
So I’d encourage you to experiment with healthy foods where you can add slight sweetness of flavour in order to make the food more tasty. Ultimately if you’re struggling to keep your weight up and you find that you’re losing weight and don’t want to, it’s a simple matter of trying to get more calories in, so that your calorie intake beats your calorie expenditure and also beats the calories which are consumed by the cancer.
So what about juicing?
Well, juicing is ok if you like the juice but not if you are consumed by the juice. There is absolutely no evidence that consuming large quantities of freshly pulverised vegetables and fruit actually makes any difference to the outcome of cancer. Some of the “healthy juicing diets” as they are called are actually very high in sugar, which may be counterproductive. Juicing is ok if you like the flavour of the juice, but don’t get consumed by it and don’t live by juicing, or think that if you don’t juice you’re not going to get a good outcome.
So what about obesity in cancer?
Well, we know that obesity results in increased secretion of insulin, and increased secretion of insulin may be associated with increased stimulation of cancer cells. There are actually trials on the way of drugs that block the effects of excess insulin to see if they actually improve the outcomes of cancer treating with conventional treatments.
What about the idea that if you starve yourself to death you will also starve the cancer?
Mmmm. Apart from that being difficult, often unpleasant and uncomfortable because of the constant hunger that can go along with that, there is obviously the truth that too much weight loss is actually harmful. Some of the thoughts and theories that are often used to promote the ultra low calorie diets are observations such as populations that actually have fairly low calorie intake and have fairly low incidences of cancer, and that people who restrict calorie intake may actually do better with cancer than those who don’t. But the exact mechanism as to why this is so is not fully understood and may in part be mediated through the whole excess insulin, insulin resistance and insulin receptive mechanisms.
So, I personally think that starvation diets do you more harm than the cancer, because ultimately the cancer is able to break down your body tissues to get calories that it needs. I certainly would advocate a healthy diet that’s blended, that’s balanced and that has the right amounts of nutrients and calories for you and your weight.
If your weight is going down: little meals, more often, high in calories to try to keep your weight up are beneficial. If you’re overweight, then trying to calorie restrict and getting the weight down to more normal, healthy levels, is actually beneficial.
I hope you find these comments helpful and thinking about this: why are you at your computer when you could be cooking something healthy in the kitchen?
|For information on this treatment and all its different classes visit Chemotherapy.|
|For everything there is to know about Cancer, read What is Cancer?|
|Learn more about Nutrition.|


30 January 2014 - Pick a country, any country. What proportion of births is registered, and how many children are granted an official identity and the rights that flow from it – rights to services, protection, and the exercise of citizenship?
How many children die within a year of being born, and how many never live to see their fifth birthday? How long can those who do survive expect to live?
The words “data” or “monitoring”, let alone “statistics” cause excitement in some, and blank stares in others. Thirty years have passed since The State of the World’s Children began to publish tables of standardized global and national statistics aimed at providing a detailed picture of children’s circumstances, the goal being rendering the numbers comprehensible to everyone.
Much has changed in the decades since the first indicators of child well-being were presented. But the basic idea has not: Credible data about children’s situations are critical to the improvement of their lives – and indispensable to realizing the rights of every child.
According to the new UNICEF report, State of the World’s Children 2014 – In Numbers, tremendous progress has been made during the past few decades.
Around 90 million children who would have died if mortality rates had stuck at their 1990 level have, instead, lived past the age of 5. Deaths from measles among children under 5 years of age fell from 482,000 in 2000 to 86,000 in 2012, thanks in large part to immunization coverage, which increased from 16 per cent in 1980 to 84 per cent in 2012. And improvements in nutrition have led to a 37 per cent drop in stunting since 1990.
And there's more good news: primary school enrolment has increased, even in the least developed countries: whereas in 1990 only 53 per cent of children in those countries gained school admission, by 2011 the rate had improved to 81 per cent.
But unfortunately the numbers aren’t all happy. Some 6.6 million children under 5 years of age died in 2012, mostly from preventable causes, their fundamental right to survive and develop unrealized. Fifteen per cent of the world’s children engage in child labour that compromises their right to protection from economic exploitation and infringes on their right to learn and play. Eleven per cent of girls are married before they turn 15, jeopardizing their rights to health, education and protection.
Data, and numbers, often remain just that – rows of numbers, hard to grasp for most. But whether it’s about millions, billions or trillions, behind them you find persons, individuals - and children who go about their lives as best they can.
The importance of monitoring cannot be overstated: It measures the extent to which commitments made on the political stage are honoured in the homes, clinics, schools and streets where children live.
With reliable data, disseminated effectively and used judiciously, monitoring makes it impossible for the denial of rights to go unnoticed.
The Brussels based United Nations Regional Information Centre for Western Europe - UNRIC provides information on UN activities to the countries of the region. It also provides liaison with institutions of the European Union in the field of information. Its outreach activities extend to all segments of society and joint campaigns, projects and events are organized with partners including the EU, governments, the media, NGOs, schools and local authorities.
United Nations Regional Information Centre for Western Europe (UNRIC Brussels)
Residence Palace, Rue de la Loi/Wetstraat 155, Block C2,7th and 8th floor, Brussels 1040, Belgium
Tel.: +32 2 788 8484 / Fax: 32 2 788 8485


Explore the framework
We have revised the framework for self-evaluation for the early learning and childcare sector. The revisions have been made in consultation with groups of early learning and childcare practitioners, managers and wider stakeholders.
How good is our early learning and childcare? (HGIOELC) is made up of 15 quality indicators (QIs), which are organised into three key areas: Leadership and Management; Learning Provision; and Successes and Achievements. Each QI is described further in a number of themes, each of which has illustrations of what 'very good' looks like. In this new framework, we added for each QI 'features of highly effective practice' and 'challenge questions'. Feedback about these improvements from the sector have been very positive.
Using the new framework for self-improvement
The new framework is now ready to be shared with the sector. We are encouraging staff at all levels to become familiar with the framework and to begin to use the illustrations, key features and challenge questions to inform their improvement journey.
Over the coming months, we will be holding stakeholder engagement events to consult with staff across all sectors about how best to develop our frameworks into fully digitised resources that will offer exemplification and other useful improvement tools.
In August 2016, How good is our early learning and childcare? fully replaced the Child at the Centre as the self-evaluation framework for early learning and childcare.
This document illustrates how the quality indicators and themes in the framework relate to How good is our school? (4th edition)


Farmed Fish: Yay or Nay?
Is farmed fish good for your health — or the environment?
Let's face it, the fish counter is a bewildering place. Knowing if the fish is fresh is hard enough. And then there’s choosing between farmed and wild-caught varieties.
Is farmed fish OK for you and the environment? Should you always buy wild? It depends.
Half the seafood sold in the U.S. is farmed, and responsible aquaculture, as fish farming is known, is necessary to satisfy the world's growing appetite for seafood. But aquaculture waste can harm the environment, and escaped farmed fish can compete with, and weaken the genetics of, wild fish.
Human health is also a concern. Both farmed and wild fish can be tainted with mercury (a neurotoxin that can cause developmental problems in young children), pesticides and persistent organic pollutants (POPs), such as dioxins and polychlorinated biphenyls (PCBs). These toxins come from industrial waste that pollutes our waterways, and fish farmed in coastal waters are more likely than their wild brethren to be contaminated with POPs.
Salmon, which is one of the top three fish eaten in America, is particularly worrisome. Though it tends to be low in mercury (whether it’s farmed or wild), it may pose other risks. One study suggests farmed salmon is higher in POPs than wild salmon. Another study tied eating farmed salmon with higher rates of insulin resistance (a precursor to diabetes) and obesity in mice. In a third study, mice given farmed Atlantic salmon that had been fed soybean oil (sometimes used as a replacement for fish oil) had a higher risk of obesity. Note that all salmon labeled "Atlantic" is farmed.
As with livestock farming, farming fish also comes with concerns about antibiotic resistance (antibiotics are used to control disease and parasites).
So does all this mean you should never land farmed fish on your plate? Not if you choose wisely. Here are some tips for buying farmed seafood that's safe for the environment and your family's health.
Do your homework to choose smart farmed fish. SeafoodWatch has a downloadable app that makes it easier to identify environmentally sound wild and farmed fish that are also lower in mercury. The Environmental Defense Fund also has a Seafood Selector. Guides like these are a good place to start, but while they rate seafood for mercury content, they don't measure POPs and other pollutants.
Some smart choices for farmed fish include:
- Striped bass (farmed is actually lower in mercury than wild)
- Clams and cockles
- Rainbow trout
- Arctic char
Know your fishmonger. Many independent and some national retailers, such as Whole Foods and Wegmans, have their own sustainable seafood programs that mandate responsible aquaculture and fishing practices.
Ask how the fish was farmed. Not all aquaculture is created equal. Some practices are better for the environment and human health than others. For example, salmon farmed in enclosed recirculating tanks is a better option than salmon farmed in ocean pens, according to SeafoodWatch.
Eat low on the food chain. All fish can be exposed to mercury and POPs, but larger fish that feed on smaller ones are more likely to accumulate these toxins. And little fish can offer big nutrition. For example, anchovies and sardines, which are always wild-caught, are rich in heart-healthy omega-3 fatty acids.
Farmed or wild, enjoy a variety of fish. In general, Americans aren't very adventuresome when it comes to seafood. Shrimp, canned tuna and salmon account for more than half the fish we eat each year. And when we think of healthful seafood, many of us think of salmon. But other varieties offer just as much or more in the way of omega-3 fats. Try black cod, herring, mackerel and of course those little anchovies and sardines. Arctic char and rainbow trout, both of which are related to salmon and farmed responsibly, are also good options.


In this feelings worksheet, we have listed 8 different pictures of various children displaying all different kinds of emotions from sad to silly, and surprised to angry -- this worksheet shows a great visual of each emotion.
Match the emotion word to the correct face
It’s as simple as that! Have your children or students take 5 minutes to look at each picture on this emotions page.
Some questions to ask your children to help prep them for the feelings worksheet are:
- How do the children’s eyes look?
- Do they seem to be showing a good feeling emotion or a bad feeling emotion?
- How are their mouths portrayed?
- Are their eyebrows displaying any type of feeling to you?
After taking in all of the pictures, try to match the words on the bottom of the page to the pictures displaying the emotions.
The children can either cut the emotion words out and paste them under the correct emotion picture, or they can simply write the word under each picture.
Get the whole Feelings and Emotional Skills Bundle.
SIZE & FORMAT: 8.5'x11" 300 resolution, PDF (1 total page).
- This item is non-refundable and cannot be cancelled once the order is placed.
- This is licensed for personal use (non-commerical projects) only and cannot be sold. See the License Rights page for further licensing info.
- Colors may vary slightly based on computer screen and printer.
- This is a digital file (a physical product will not be sent). You will receive a zip or PDF file to download.


Learning a new language is a very difficult task. But in the case of the Japanese it can be even more difficult because of the many different symbols its writing system has. That makes it more complicated to read Japanese sentences and get used to the way they are written.
To solve this problem, we have improved the way the examples are shown in the dictionary. First of all, we are showing more sentences than before, taken from the great tatoeba project. But also we are now separating the sentence in words and you can now click in every word to get more information about it.
We believe this change will make it easier to understand how a word can be used in a sentence and will make the sentence easier to read for that people who is still not ready to understand kanji.
I hope you enjoy those changes!


The 667-pound (303-kg) craft of the U.S. space agency's Gravity Recovery and Interior Laboratory, or GRAIL, mission have been flying to the moon since their joint launch in September.
GRAIL A is due to begin a 40-minute braking maneuver to put itself into orbit around the moon at 4:21 p.m. ET on Saturday, with GRAIL B following suit 25 hours later. Both are needed for the intricate gravity-mapping mission scheduled to begin in March.
"We won't be celebrating a lot until after we get GRAIL B into orbit late afternoon on New Year's Day," said project manager David Lehman with NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, California.


The following bibliography has been generated by bringing together all references provided by our content partners. There may be duplication.
- Eschmeyer, William N. 1990. Genera of Recent Fishes. iii + 697
- Moore, Jon A. / Carpenter, Kent E. (ed.). 2003. Berycidae: Alfonsinos. FAO Species Identification Guide for Fishery Purposes and American Society of Ichthyologists and Herpetologists Special Publication, no. 5: The living marine resources of the Western Central Atlantic, vol. 2: Bony fishes, part 1 (Acipenseridae to ..). 1189-1191
- Nelson, Joseph S. 1994. Fishes of the World, Third Edition. xvii + 600
- Règne Anim., ed. 2, 2, 151.
- Shiino, Sueo M. 1976. List of Common Names of Fishes of the World, Those Prevailing among English-speaking Nations. Science Report of Shima Marineland, no. 4. 262
To request an improvement, please leave a comment on the page. Thank you!


History & Culture
Amritsar, literally a Pool of Nectar, derives its name from Amrit Sarovar, the holy tank that surrounds the fabulous Golden Temple. First time visitors to Amritsar could be forgiven for the impression that Amritsar is like any other small town in northern India. But Amritsar stands head and shoulders above any other city, its status elevated and sanctified by the presence of the venerable Golden Temple. Located in the heart of Amritsar, the temple complex is surrounded by a maze of narrow lanes, or katras, that has one of the busiest markets in India. But the Golden Temple is a serene presence, radiating a calm that makes people bow their heads in reverence.The four gates of the Golden Temple open outside to the markets flourishing under the blessings of the Harmandir Sahib. Being the biggest trading centre in the northern India, Amritsar has many famous Katras or Bazaars (markets) all the around the Golden Temple. The narrow winding lances of Katras are like maize, with very little sunshine penetrating them. At some places the lanes are extremely narrow. But one is struck by the surfeit of color in these lanes- of colorful Parandas (Threads worn by women in their plait) or bangles. There are so many of them, it seems one is walking through a rainbow. The magic of colors- red, purple, green, yellow, blue, golden- overpowers ones senses.
The Origin of the city of Amritsar lies hidden in the mists of time due to the scanty evidence available in its early history. On the development of the city, the generally accepted view is based on the Amritsar District Gazetteers, the authoritative works of reference on local history.The various Opinions that the land was granted by emperor Akbar to Guru Amar Das (later on transferred to Guru Ram Das), or was acquired by Guru Ram Das before the grant was actually obtained, or the land was purchased by the Guru from the zamindaar of the village at tung at the instance of Emperor Akbar, or presented by the people of village Sultanwind out of regard and reverence for the Guru are all versions based on popular tradition. There are no documentary evidences to support or contradict these views. But the version regarding the purchase of the land by Guru Ram Das is in keeping with the tradition of Sikh Gurus who never took any land grants from the rulers.The project was thus executed by Guru Ram Das. First of all a boundary line of the settlement was drawn. The foundation was laid by Guru Ram Das and the village was named Ram Das Pura. Opinions vary on the date of the founding of the city. Probably the foundation was laid in 1573 AD but the popular view is that it was done in 1577.
It has been established now that the whole of Amritsar district was a part of the vast area covered under Indus valley Civilization during the early period of history. This civilization developed prior to the Aryans civilization in this region. These evidences for the prevalence of this ancient civilization in this district of Punjab have been furnished by the discovery of certain sites. The important sites pertaining to Indus valley civilization in Amritsar district are as under:- Vadalol Chhina Gharinda Har In addition to above, several sites also lie in a row in the Ravi-Beas Doab(bari doab). Even in ancient times, trade was a primary factor in the urban development of societies. The Indus valley civilization also flourished with the growth of trade by overland and sea routes. It has been proved by the discovery of various seals of the ancient sites.Ever since the discovery of the Indus Civilization, attempts have made to decipher the Indus script. In this respect, many theories have been propounded about the use of the seals, and the language used therein has been taught to be Sanskrit or Dravidian or an ancestors form thereof, depending largely on the initial approach of the scholars concerned. However, it has been now been established that the direction of the writing of Indus script is from right to left. Many effects about Indus civilization will come to light as soon as Indus script is deciphered.
Cultural Hub Of Punjab
The city of Amritsar a dazzling showcase of composite culture and secular heritage.It has a proud past ,a glorious present and a promising future.This most important city of Majha has rightly been called the mukut-mani (Jewel of the Crown) of the Punjab. A rich repository of spiritual and national heritage, it has been hailed as the home of all virtues (Sifti Da Ghar) .while praying, every devout Sikh longs to be blessed with a pilgrimage to Amritsar and a holy bath at the Golden Temple (Amritsar Ke Darsan isnan). A visit to Golden Temple is believed to wash off all the sins.The most dominating asset, however, is its people who are friendly, God-fearing, hospitable, hard working, informal, robust and with a tremendous zest for living. They are fond of good food, good dress and all the external symbols of life.


Climate change is the greatest threat to global health in the 21st century, according to the World Health Organization. At the UN Climate Change Conference of the Parties (COP26) taking place in Glasgow on 31 October through 12 November, there will be an unparalleled focus on health in relation to climate change. The RIVM Magazine special edition on Climate Change and Health showcases the knowledge and advice that RIVM is contributing to solutions for some of these challenges – at local, regional, national and international levels.
Hans Brug, RIVM Director-General: “RIVM works towards a healthy living environment in a changing climate. This priority cannot be postponed to tomorrow, but must be addressed today: climate change is already affecting our health. It is urgently necessary to generate knowledge and share it now.”
Featured topics in this edition include: international approach to health effects of climate change; five questions about climate change and infectious disease; greener streets in Dutch cities; public focus on wind turbines and health.


One of the most common tools for testing hand-muscle strength is the hand-held (or hand-grip) dynamometer.Digital Hand Dynamometers can be both digital and mechanical. The growing trend is toward digital and away from mechanical. To use a hand-held dynamometer, the patient is required to squeeze down on a grip (often resembling the grip on a hand gun). The dynamometer grip is equipped with gauges (digital) or cables (mechanical) that measure the force of the squeeze and convert that force into a number. The number is then used to determine the patient’s muscle strength.
Several recent studies show the value of using more than one type of hand-held dynamometer to assess a patient’s muscle strength. One such study can be found on the website for the U.S. National Library of Medicine. This study tested the Jamar Hand-Held Dynamometer against the Takei Dynamometer and the EMG System Manual Transducer. The study was primarily concerned with the significantly different shapes of the dynamometers and found stark differences between the results obtained from the Jamar Dynamometer when compared with the two other dynamometers. The Jamar Dynamometer uses a hydraulic technology and, when squeezed, has a smooth hydraulic motion to it. The other two instruments are more springy as they rely on cables instead of hydraulics. The study concluded that the differences in results could be attributed to: (1) differences in the shape of the hand grips on the instruments, and (2) differences in the calibration (hydraulics v. cables) of the instruments.
This study shows that determining a true hand-muscle strength may require more than one type of hand-held dynamometer. A patient may be more comfortable using one type of instrument over another. There may also be a mental component to how hard a patient thinks he or she can squeeze one instrument over another.


Scientists examining the weird comet Hartley claim the comet is a living breathing organism with some rather disheartening digestive habits.
“We have been unable to explain until now what this comet is so odd”, said Tim Larson of NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory. “The only logical conclusion we can come up with is that this comet is a living creature!”
Larson pointed out that the comet does not follow a straight trajectory as other comets do but tens to fly around “like a knuckleball”. Also the comet belched out prodigious amounts of carbon dioxide and water and tends to hurl chunks.
“It would appear the comet ate something that didn’t agree with it”, Jenson continued. “This comet has a belching end, which spews out a small amount of CO2 and a farting end, which expels a tremendous amount of CO2,, water, chunks of debris and other gases. I wouldn’t want to be downwind of that thing when it farts and blows chunks!”
Jenson stated that this comet may not have traveled throughout the cosmos for billions of years as other comets have but came to the stage rather recently. He said scientists have not yet been able to peer inside the creature to find its dietary habits.
“We know it eats something!” he continued. “That supply of CO2 has to be constantly replenished. And what it eats is most probably carbon based — like people!”
Though many scientists agreed with Jenson’s remarkable claim others were skeptical. “It’s just a funny comet”, said UCLA researcher Jeffrey Pfluger. “We’ll figure it out pretty soon and make Jenson eat his words!”
“If the comet doesn’t eat him first!” Jenson said with a wink.
Scientists claim there is no chance of the comet hitting Earth unless it changes its mind and comes back for us.


from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 4th Edition
- intransitive v. To touch or handle nervously or idly: fumble with a necktie.
- intransitive v. To grope awkwardly to find or to accomplish something: fumble for a key.
- intransitive v. To proceed awkwardly and uncertainly; blunder: fumble through a speech.
- intransitive v. Football To drop a ball that is in play.
- intransitive v. Baseball To mishandle a ground ball.
- transitive v. To touch or handle clumsily or idly: "fumbled the receiver into its cradle” ( Howard Kaplan).
- transitive v. To make a mess of; bungle. See Synonyms at botch.
- transitive v. To feel or make (one's way) awkwardly.
- transitive v. Football To drop (a ball) while in play.
- transitive v. Baseball To mishandle (a ground ball).
- n. The act or an instance of fumbling.
- n. Sports A ball that has been fumbled.
from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License
- v. To idly touch or nervously handle
- v. To grope awkwardly in trying to find something
- v. To blunder uncertainly
- v. To drop a ball or a baton etc.
- n. A ball etc. that has been dropped
from the GNU version of the Collaborative International Dictionary of English
- intransitive v. To feel or grope about; to make awkward attempts to do or find something.
- intransitive v. To grope about in perplexity; to seek awkwardly.
- intransitive v. To handle much; to play childishly; to turn over and over.
- transitive v. To handle or manage awkwardly; to crowd or tumble together.
from The Century Dictionary and Cyclopedia
- To feel or grope about blindly or clumsily; hence, to make awkward attempts; seek or search for something awkwardly.
- To stutter; stammer; hesitate in speech; mumble.
- To find by groping; secure or ascertain by feeling about blindly or clumsily.
- Specifically In base-ball, to stop or catch, as the ball, in such a clumsy manner that an opportunity is lost to put out an opponent.
- To manage awkwardly; crowd or tumble together; jumble.
- n. The act of groping; awkward attempt; aimless search.
- n. In base-ball, foot-ball, and other games, an act of fumbling.
from WordNet 3.0 Copyright 2006 by Princeton University. All rights reserved.
- v. make a mess of, destroy or ruin
- v. handle clumsily
- n. (sports) dropping the ball
- v. make one's way clumsily or blindly
- v. drop or juggle or fail to play cleanly a grounder
- v. feel about uncertainly or blindly
Still, that same defense provided a touchdown and came up with the nail-in-the-coffin fumble at the end.
Pirates QB Patrick Pinkney hopes for a fast start to erase the memories of his overtime fumble from a week ago.
Later, I managed to catch a fumble from a cluster of all-too-eager fellow nerds.
ECU's Marcus Hands recovered a Martin fumble at the SMU 34-yard line on the second play of SMU's next possession, leading to Pinkney's second touchdown.
Woodson recovery of Toomer fumble is negated by an offside penalty on Cowboys 'Stewart to New York 37
Key plays: Russell recovery of Beuerlein fumble at Carolina 36;
I’d helped her ever since her rheumatism began to make her what she called fumble-fisted.
Short recovery of Martin fumble at New York Jets 35
As a prelude to my proposal, which concerns possession of said ball, isn't it time we stopped calling a fumble a fumble?
Then last Sunday, after Mr. Hagan needed Mr. Coughlin ' s challenge to overturn what was originally called a fumble on the Jacksonville three-yard line, he spied the reporter he ' d had the fumble conversation with and cried, You jinxed me!


Department of Civil Engineering
King Saud University
GE 201 Statics
(Required for a BSCE degree)
Force systems; vector analysis, moments and couples in 2D and 3D. Equilibrium of force systems. Analysis of structures; plan trusses and frames. Distributed force system; centroids and composite bodies. Area moments of inertia. Analysis of beams. Friction. 3 (3,1, 0)
Prerequisite MATH 106 and MATH 107,
Prerequisite by Topics:
1. Knowledge of mathematics and physics.
2. Understanding calculus including, integration and matrices.
3. Determining the area properties of various cross sections.
Course Learning Objectives Students completing this course successfully will be able to
1. Find moment at any point in a 2D and/or 3D structure,
2. Use equilibrium equations to analyze 2D engineering problems,
3. Draw free body diagrams of truss, beam, and frame structures,
4. Determine forces in truss structures using various methods.
5. Find the centroids and the area moment of inertias of cross sections with various geometries and composite bodies,
6. Determine shear force and moment for beams under various loading,
7. Analyze and solve frictional problems,
1. Introduction (1 hr)
2. Force Systems: 2D and 3D (12 hr)
3. Equilibrium, system isolation (5 hr)
4. Analysis of trusses and frames (8 hr)
5. Distribution of forces, centroids and composite bodies (5 hr)
6. Area moment of inertias (5 hr)
7. Shear force and moment for beams (4 hr)
8. Friction (2 hr)
Class/ tutorial Schedule Class is held three times per week in 50-minute lecture sessions.
There is also a 50-minute weekly tutorial associated with this course.
Contribution of Course to Meeting the Professional Component
Students learn the analysis process to be involved in designing various engineering components used in professional engineering.
Relationship of Course to Program Outcomes
1. Students apply algebra, elementary calculus, and engineering science
2. Students are able to identify and formulate an engineering problem and to develop a solution.
3. Students recognize the importance of analysis in designing various engineering components.
4. Students are encouraged to submit accurate analysis in an efficient and professional way.
5. Students recognize the importance of reading and understanding technical contents in English in order to achieve life–long learning and be able to carryout their responsibilities.
6. Students recognize the importance of working in multidisciplinary teams.
Textbook(s) and/or Other Required Material
§ Engineering Mechanics, Volume 1, Statics (5th edition) by J. L. Meriam and L. G. Kraige
Date First Semester 1428-29
§ Instructors Dr. Abdulrahim Arafah (Office: 2A42)
§ Dr. Ala Malaikah (Office: 2A55)
§ Dr. M. Iqbal Khan (Office: 2A73/3)
Mid-term Exam 35%
Lecture Quiz and Attendance 5%
Tutorial & Homeworks 10%
Final Exam 50%
Quizzes will be conducted from time to time in both lecture and tutorial classes. Tutorial marks will be based on quiz, homework and attendance.
Mid Term Exams:
First Mid-Term Tuesday 3 Dhu Al-Qadah 1428H 6:00 – 7:30 pm(13 /11/ 2007)
Second Mid-Term Tuesday 22 Dhu Al-Hajjah 1428H 6:00 – 7:30 pm(1 /1 / 2008)


Who is known as the father of modern rocketry?Asked by: Danial Reichert
Score: 4.9/5 (1 votes)
Dr. Robert Hutchings Goddard (1882-1945) is considered the father of modern rocket propulsion. A physicist of great insight, Goddard also had a unique genius for invention. It is in memory of this brilliant scientist that NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Maryland, was established on May 1, 1959.View full answer
Accordingly, Who were Robert Goddard's parents?
Born in Worcester, Massachusetts on 5 October in 1882, Robert Goddard was the only surviving child of Fannie Louise Hoyt and farmer, Nahum Danford Goddard.
Simply so, What is modern rocketry?. Rockets are now used for fireworks, weaponry, ejection seats, launch vehicles for artificial satellites, human spaceflight, and space exploration. Chemical rockets are the most common type of high power rocket, typically creating a high speed exhaust by the combustion of fuel with an oxidizer.
In respect to this, When was Goddard born?
Robert Hutchings Goddard (1882-1945) is considered the father of modern rocketry. One of Goddard's many firsts was the successful test of the world's first liquid-propelled rocket. Goddard was born in Worcester, Massachusetts, on October 5, 1882.
What is Goddard nickname?
He has been called the man who ushered in the Space Age. Two of Goddard's 214 patented inventions, a multi-stage rocket (1914), and a liquid-fuel rocket (1914), were important milestones toward spaceflight.
American rocketry pioneer Robert H. Goddard and his first liquid-fueled rocket, March 16, 1926. Dr. Robert Hutchings Goddard (1882-1945) is considered the father of modern rocket propulsion.
English (of Norman origin) and French: from Godhard, a personal name composed of the Germanic elements god 'good' or god, got 'god' + hard 'hardy', 'brave', 'strong'. The name was popular in Europe during the Middle Ages as a result of the fame of St.
Robert Goddard, in full Robert Hutchings Goddard, (born October 5, 1882, Worcester, Massachusetts, U.S.—died August 10, 1945, Baltimore, Maryland), American professor and inventor generally acknowledged to be the father of modern rocketry.
Now known as the father of modern rocketry, Goddard's significant achievements in rocket propulsion have contributed immensely to the scientific exploration of space. Goddard didn't live to see the age of space flight, but his foundation of rocket research became the fundamental principles of rocket propulsion.
: the study of, experimentation with, or use of rockets.
In 1792, the first iron-cased rockets were successfully developed and used by Tipu Sultan - the ruler of the Kingdom of Mysore (in India) against the larger British East India Company forces during the Anglo-Mysore Wars.
Scientists use telescopes in space because the Earth's atmosphere distorts some of our light and view. It takes a giant rocket over a 100 feet high to put a satellite or telescope in space. Rockets carry astronauts into space. ... Rockets have changed the world completely and have given us new eyes for the universe.
The first rocket to use liquid fuel was created by Robert H. Goddard and first launched on March 16th, 1926.
Ninety years ago today, on March 16, 1926, Robert H. Goddard (1882-1945) launched the world's first liquid-propellant rocket. His rickety contraption, with its combustion chamber and nozzle on top, burned for 20 seconds before consuming enough liquid oxygen and gasoline to lift itself off the launch rack.
The antagonist of the novel, Scythe Goddard is a charismatic scythe who wears lavish blue robes encrusted with diamonds. Goddard believes that gleaning should be public and iconic, as this is the only way for non-scythes to remember what it's like to be mortal.
Goddard is a surname of Norman origin, found in England and France. It is derived from the personal name "Golhard". Recorded variants include Godard and Godart in England; Goudard and Godar in France; Gotthard, Godehard and Goddert in Germany; and Goedhard and Goedhart in Holland.
Goddard is an ancient Norman name that arrived in England after the Norman Conquest of 1066. ... The name is derived from the Germanic personal name Godhard, which is composed of the elements "god," which means "good," and "hard," which means "brave" or "strong."
Jimmy's dog, Goddard, was named after Robert H. Goddard, an American physicist who made the first liquid-fuelled rocket. Goddard is also known as the Usherer of the Space Age.
The date reporting the first use of true rockets was in 1232. At this time, the Chinese and the Mongols were at war with each other. During the battle of Kai-Keng, the Chinese repelled the Mongol invaders by a barrage of "arrows of flying fire." These fire-arrows were a simple form of a solid-propellant rocket.
In May of 1959, NASA formally announced that the new facility would be called Goddard Space Flight Center, after Dr. Robert Hutchings Goddard. Goddard, widely considered the father of modern rocketry, theorized that rockets would work in a vacuum, and thus could potentially be used to send payloads into space.


Architectural Record, September 1988
By Darl Rastorfer
through gymnastic stadium
These roof structures, also known as tensegrity domes, are the first of their kind ever realized. The designer, engineer David H. Geiger, based his structural system on the theoretical work of R. Buckminster Fuller whose well-known fascination with tensile forces in nature led him to devote much of his later life to investigating man-made forms in which the presence of compression could be dramatically reduced and replaced by intricately connected networks of tension. He called such structural configurations "tensegrity," meaning tensional integrity, a phenomenon he described as compression elements becoming "small islands in a sea of tension."
Geiger was led to his re-evaluation of Fuller's pioneering work in the course of searching for a stadium roof enclosure that would be as economical as an air-supported structure while accommodating an insulated fabric membrane. The breakthrough that took theory into practice occurred when Geiger overcame the structural redundancies inherent in Fuller's triangulated configuration.
of Fuller's and Geiger's tension domes
In Geiger's approach to tensegrity, continuous tension cables and discontinuous compression posts are laid out radially so that the three-dimensional flow of force is simplified, thereby making the cable dome statically determinant. With this configuration, low-profile curves are feasible, bringing with them the advantages of lower wind uplift; less drifting of snow, and therefore lower snow loads; and minimal surface area, thus reducing fabric costs. Since completing the domes in Seoul, Geiger has designed and is now overseeing construction of two other cable domes: a 256 by 304-ft elliptical dome at the University of Illinois, and a 680-ft-dia circular dome for the municipal stadium in St. Petersburg, Florida.
With this configuration, the dome behaves like a series of paired cantilever trusses not quite touching at the center. One of the system's advantages is that, as the length of span increases, the weight, 2 psf, remains constant and the cost per sq ft increases very little. All that is needed to accommodate increased spans is the addition of another module defined by its tension hoop. The Seoul gymnastic stadium's 390-ft-dia dome required three tension hoops set 47.5 ft apart. The 295-ft-dia dome over the fencing stadium required a two-hoop configuration.
The membrane that covers the dome comprises four independent layers. The outermost is a high-strength fiberglass fabric with a silicone coating on both sides. Beneath this is an 8-in. insulating layer of fine, silky fiberglass enclosed in polyester bags. Six inches beneath the insulation is a Mylar vapor barrier. Two feet below the Mylar is a silicone coated acoustic liner made with an open-weave, fiberglass fabric. The thermal performance of the membrane system is R10; its overall light transmission is 6 percent, which enables the sun to meet most daytime lighting needs.
of an 8-segment cable dome structure
at compression post
Partial reflected ceiling plan
at ridge cables
Although this assembly could have been lifted into place by tightening the
ridge cables at the compression ring, the erection subcontractors for the
stadium chose to lift the tension ring by crane to the top of a temporary
With ridge cables spanning from the reinforced-concrete compression ring to
the supported tension ring, the strands of the outermost tension hoop were
laid in position on the ground with the bottom castings for the compression
posts in position. The bottoms of the posts themselves were then bolted to the
castings, and the hoop and posts were lifted and attached to the castings of
the already erected ridge cables.
The two-strand diagonals, which run from the top of the compression ring to the bottom of
the posts, were then tensioned, pulling the hoop into final position (second
step in diagram sequence at left.) The process of laying out the hoop and
posts, lifting them into position, and lacing them into the network with
diagonals was then repeated for each hoop until the entire network was in place (third, fourth, and fifth steps in diagram).
Thirty-two workers were stationed in baskets at the bottom of the compression posts to operate the jacks for tensioning the diagonals - two men at each of the 16 ridge cables. The workers
had to apply tension in perfect unison to raise the hoop to a level position.
This was the first layer to be installed in the four-layer system.
Starting from the tension ring, the layer was unfurled from a roller held
in position by a crane. Once unfurled, the fabric was bolted to the
castings with a stainless-steel nut. The casting to which the outer
layer was attached also has three attachment panels that match the three
layers of inner fabric - the top and bottom of the 8-in. insulation bag
and the vapor barrier below (these layers were installed from the
inside.) Finally, the acoustical liner was attached to the vapor barrier
with a zipper. With the four fabric layers in place, valley cables were
installed and tightened to stress the fabric.
As a roofing system, the waterproofed fiberglass fabric must be carefully sealed at its construction seams. These seams occur at the 16 ridges that define the 16 fabric segments. Seams are formed with a silicone adhesive that requires no heat to effect a tight bond. At the points where the fabric is attached to the structure, silicone rubber gaskets were incorporated as water barrier. Expanded foam insulation and flaps of silicone-coated fiberglass fabric cover the gaskets and nuts. The outer lip compression ring, was sealed and flashed for water tightness. The lantern in the center of the dome, as illustrated in the photo of the fencing stadium, below, is part of the facility's ventilation system. Fans installed in, and vent it through the lantern.
Outer lip of dome
which rests on compression ring
View of dome
Gymnastic and fencing stadiums Seoul, South Korea
Space Group of Korea (gymnastics stadium); Dong Myeong Architects and Planners in join venture with Hong Ik University (fencing stadium)
Geiger, Gossen, Hamilton Engineers, PC (stadium domes) David H. Geiger, principal-in-charge, Paul Gossen, project manager; David Chen, project engineer/ computer operations
Ssang Yong Construction Co. Ltd.- (general contractor for gymnastics stadium); Korea Shipbuilding & Engineering Co. (general contractor for fencing stadium); Woo Chang Construction Co. (erection subcontractor for gymnastics and fencing stadium domes)


Gwen Hinman shears sheep throughout New England, New York and the mid-Atlantic states, just as our father did.
Why shear sheep?
A full-grown sheep will produce about seven pounds of wool each year, which can make two adult-size sweaters. After the wool is “scoured” — or cleaned of all dirt, manure and other debris — it is ready to be carded and spun into yarn.
Sheep are sheared once or twice a year, depending on the breed and the reason for shearing. Some shepherds shear in the fall so they can fit more sheep in their barns during the winter — sheared sheep take up about a third less space than unsheared sheep. Others shear sheep before they lamb so it’s easier for the lambs to nurse and easier for the shepherd to care for the sheep.
A sheared sheep’s wool quickly grows and provides a dense fleece to protect it from cold. In the summer, sheep are kept out of the hot sun for several days after shearing to protect them from sunburn while their wool grows in a bit. Quick and careful shearing causes little stress on the sheep.
Call: (603) 277-0616
E-mail: email@example.com (or fill in the form below)
Do you have questions about shearing? Please call (603) 277-0616 or fill out the form below.


China, the much-acknowledged birthplace of tea drinking in the world, is a large country divided into provinces. Fujian is one such province and is also a source of some fine teas. They are so varied, though, that we will start with the county of Anxi. Time to go exploring!
About Anxi County
The area has the perfect balance of red, sandy soil plus climate and elevation, and most teas grown here are processed as oolongs (semi-oxidized). The first Chinese Tea Industry International Cooperation Summit was held here in late 2002 or early 2003 (funded by money funneled from UN member countries to the UN Development Program Office in Beijing).
Oolongs produced in this region are mainly processed as tightly rolled pellet shapes, instead of the longer, twisted shape of many Wuyi oolongs.
- Ti Kuan Yin — Probably the best known tea from Anxi County. Legend has it that the tea was named after the goddess Ti Kuan Yin (“Iron Bodhisattva of Compassion”), a granter of wishes. A farmer prayed to the goddess for money to restore a Buddhist monastery in his village. One version says he went to the temple to pray, while another says he prayed before going to bed and then dreamt of her. Either way, she is supposed to have shown him a special tea bush and told him to cultivate it. The tea grew so popular, that the village was able to get the money to restore the monastery. The tea is extremely fragrant and intoxicatingly complex and fruity.
- Spring Imperial Anxi Huang Jin Gui Oolong — “Huang Jin Gui” means literally “Golden Osmanthus.” From Dapingtown in Anxi County, and produced in accordance with the traditional Anxi Oolong tea making techniques and so has green leaves with red edges. A different tea plant varietal is used from Ti Kuan Yin, so the liquid is rather more yellow than other teas from Anxi. The flavor is very full, mellow, and thick, and the aroma is unique. The leaves are harvested in late April and are comprised of two or three half-matured tea leaves that are processed into a tight bold ball shape (or some call dragonfly head shape). Steeps best in a gaiwan or Yixing teapot using water heated to 209° F (98° C).
- Ben Shan Green Dragon — Made from a young tea plant varietal (a clonal) with strong, heavy branches and brightly colored, distinct, ellipse shaped leaves. It grows in the mountains primarily near Raoyang village in Anxi and shares some similarities in fragrance with the Tie Kuan Yin varietal. This oolong has a low oxidization and has been lightly roasted after rolling, with some re-rolling and re-roasting. The liquid is smooth, full-bodied, and golden with a toasty, grassy-sweet flavor and light floral notes.
- Qi Lan Oolong — Means “profound orchid,” “strange orchid,” or even “wonderful orchid,” depending on how you translate. More heavily oxidized and darker-roasted. The color is darker and often described as being mild and sweet, with a nutty aroma. Some are less oxidized, resembling other greener oolongs, and have a more evident orchid aroma.
- Rou Gui — Means “cinnamon,” also called “Cassia bark oolong.” It tends to be darker and the name refers to its aroma, suggestive of cinnamon. However, it contains no cinnamon flavoring. Cultivated both in the Wuyi mountains and in Anxi county, the Anxi version tends to have a greener character while the Wuyi version tends to be darker.
- Mao Xie Oolong — Means “hairy crab.” A se chung oolong that has fine hairs on the tea leaves. Those leaves are from a particular tea plant varietal that has deeply serrated edges. The edges tend to cause the leaves to form into irregular shapes when rolled, with curled pieces of stem and leaf projecting out in a way that makes them look like a miniature crab.
- Crooked Horse Oolong — This is a medium oxidized Ti Kuan Yin style tea made from a tea plant varietal called wai ma tau (“crooked horse peach”) due to the tip of the tea leaf being hooked like a local peach called Crooked Horse. The leaves are fired in an oven after oxidation, giving a richness and depth to the aroma and flavor. The leaves should be dark green and steep up a golden liquid with a lingering sweet taste of autumn fruit.
Don’t miss our next stop on this virtual world tea tour!
See more of A.C. Cargill’s articles here.
© Online Stores, Inc., and The English Tea Store Blog, 2009-2014. Unauthorized use and/or duplication of this material without express and written permission from this article’s author and/or the blog’s owner is strictly prohibited. Excerpts and links may be used, provided that full and clear credit is given to Online Stores, Inc., and The English Tea Store Blog with appropriate and specific direction to the original content.


One particular issue that has divided political and cultural interests is land conservation. This is especially relevant for those who are potentially affected by hydro-fracking proposals in New York State and Pennsylvania, or those living along the proposed route of the Keystone XL pipeline. Essentially, there are three basic questions that frame this discussion: how important is it, who is responsible for it, and how do we pay for it.
At its most basic level, land conservation is a collective responsibility. This suggests, then, a role for government in providing the mechanisms through which conservation is possible. Once we accept this point, we must also recognize that the issue becomes one of politics. If government is charged with providing the mechanisms and policies for land conservation, then the path must inevitably wind through the democratic process.
Land preservation plays a critical role in the future of our local and regional environment. Today’s conservation movement is very broad and dynamic, including everything from activism to save ocean and river environments, to land acquisition for sensitive desert lands, to the use of federal programs for easements to keep farms in production, and local organizing to create urban parks and community gardens.
Local and regional major activists are working to advocate for policies and funding to advance conservation, also they are often working in creative partnerships with state and local organizations and agencies. Many of them have regional offices and can provide technical assistance for local protection efforts.
While land conservation is funded by a complex combination of public and private investment, the overall contribution falls short of meeting habitat conservation and wildlife protection needs. In the gap between personal liberty and collective responsibility lies the solution to proper land management and this is where a more comprehensive message is needed regarding the economic and moral benefits of collective conservation efforts.
In a private property, ownership-based society, we all too often misconstrue the benefits of collective responsibility for the preservation of the landscape. Personal liberty can trump environmental concerns in regards to determining zoning restrictions or allowing commercial development on public lands. Too often, wildlife fall victim to personal liberty as private owners choose to develop their land to supply goods for public consumption or sell it outright for similar purposes. Moreover, these are not simply localized challenges.
In considering the overall benefits of land conservation, researchers and policy- makers tend to agree that the continued degradation of remaining natural habitats for private gain is eroding human welfare. Thus, retaining as much wilderness as possible through sustainable use, conservation, and compensation for resulting opportunity costs makes overwhelming economic and moral sense.
Nobody understands your impulse to save the places you value like others right in your community, who enjoy them every day. To work with conservationists to save important resources, there are a range of local relationships worth building. Agricultural extension programs and farm bureaus are important resources for saving working lands. Get to know your local conservation commission, an agency of municipal government that usually deals with wetlands regulation and other protection issues, and that may have access to state or local funding for resource conservation.
Nature centers and preserves provide education and experience with the wonders of the outdoors, and their staffs are often very glad to deepen their programming and interpretation with good information on how history shaped an area.
Be aware that in addition to traditional land trusts, your community or region might be served by other related types of organizations, including community land trusts (often created to work on the need for affordable housing, but sometimes with conservation in their scope), agricultural land trusts, watershed organizations, and parks, gardens, greenways, and trails organizations.


Before undergoing a medical procedure in New South Wales, your doctor must obtain your consent. This is because of the principle that everyone has an inviolable right to decide what happens to their body.
The Guardianship Act 1987 and Children and Young Persons (Care and Protection) Act 1998 are the relevant pieces of legislation governing consent for medical procedures in NSW.
Doctors are legally required to obtain your informed consent as part of their duty of care by explaining the following:
- The nature of your medical problem;
- How they plan to treat it;
- Any possible risks, especially in the light of your age and health; and
- The likely cost of the procedure.
How consent is obtained
Before treating you, a doctor must first establish that you have given informed consent to the procedure. Consent can be implied, verbal or written. For example, if you expose your upper arm to receive an injection, this can be taken as implied consent.
There are four legal requirements that must be satisfied for consent to be validly given:
- The patient has the capacity to provide consent for the procedure;
- Consent is given voluntarily;
- Consent is given in relation to the procedure in question; and
- The patient is properly informed about the procedure before providing consent.
Having the capacity to provide consent
Doctors must determine whether you are of sound mind and have the capacity to understand the nature and effect of your decision in order for you to consent to a medical procedure. This understanding must be communicated by you to your doctor orally, in writing, or by your actions.
A child under the age of fourteen, persons affected by some mental illnesses, advanced dementia, brain injuries, intellectual disabilities or persons who are affected by drugs or alcohol are not considered to have the capacity to give valid consent. Language barriers can also be considered an obstacle to consent.
Providing consent voluntarily
Your consent to medical procedures must be given voluntarily to be valid. A voluntary decision means that you have made a decision which is free from coercion, deception, manipulation or undue pressure.
In certain circumstances, a family member may help you make a decision about whether or not you wish to proceed with a medical treatment. However, for consent to be valid, this assistance must not constitute undue pressure. This means that a medical practitioner, parent, family member or friend may not pressure or influence you to go ahead with a medical procedure if it is against your wishes.
It is up to your doctor to determine whether you are consenting with your own free will.
Consenting to the procedure in question
The medical treatment you receive is limited by the consent you provide. This means that you can consent to a single procedure without having to consent to an entire program of treatment, if that is your wish.
Any treatment that extends beyond this scope can constitute an infringement of your personal rights in the form of assault, battery or trespass to the body.
In the case of an emergency, however, a doctor may act in your best interests (if you are an adult) and perform lifesaving surgery without your explicit consent if you are incapacitated or it is impractical to obtain your consent.
Ensuring your consent is properly informed
You must be properly informed about your particular medical treatment plan and any potential risks. To obtain your informed consent, your doctor or medical professional is under an obligation to assist your understanding by discussing a combination of the following:
- The diagnosis;
- A recommended course of treatment or a range of treatments;
- The possible risks (in percentage terms) that are associated with the recommended medical treatment or surgery. This includes the nature of your condition, the proposed approach to the treatment, the risks associated with other possible medical options, the likelihood of success, the risks involved with taking no course of action at all, and timeframes and costs; and
- Any significant risks to you as an individual, factoring in your relative health, fitness, age and other underlying medical conditions.
It is important to remember that you have a legal right to refuse medical treatment.
Options if you have not provided consent to a medical procedure
In NSW, if you find that your doctor or medical practitioner has performed a medical procedure on you without your consent, they may be liable to a claim made against them of battery or trespass of the person by you. If you successfully sue your medical practitioner you may be entitled to damages in the form of monetary compensation.
The law does, however, protect medical practitioners from liability for assault or trespass in instances where the procedure was necessary due to an emergency or the need to offer lifesaving treatment. Special legislative provisions also deal with circumstances where a patient is not competent, or is intellectually incapable of providing his or her consent.
What you can do next
To find the right answers, you need to ask the right questions.
Being aware of your rights and what you can expect from your doctor or medical professional places you in a position of power to protect yourself and your personal rights.
If you are concerned that valid consent was not obtained prior to your medical procedure you can contact the NSW Government Health Care Complaints Commission.
If you believe that a medical procedure has been performed on you without your consent, you should discuss this with a legal professional.


Pregnancy is possible with only one fallopian tube as long as one or both ovaries are present and the patient still ovulates
Typically, a single egg is released each month by one the ovaries. The egg travels down a fallopian tube, where a sperm may fertilize it. The fertilized egg then continues on to the uterus. You need only one fallopian tube for this to happen.The egg released from the ovary usually enters the fallopian tube adjacent to that ovary. Although evidence suggests that an egg released from one ovary can be transported by the fallopian tube on the opposite side, this is rare. Ovulation tends to alternate ovaries, so it's likely that with only one tube, eggs from the opposite ovary never have a chance to be fertilized.
Also, fertility may be reduced if a fallopian tube was removed due to cysts or infection. In such cases, the remaining tube may not be normal. If you have only one ovary and it's on the opposite side of your only fallopian tube, you're at increased risk of tubal pregnancy
Yes, this is very rare as in most cases the pregnancy is ectopic.
The more likely scenario is that this pregnancy was indeed achieved via IVF.
I am gakd you found my answer helpful and am appreciative of your intent to contact me in the future to assist you with questions you may have.
When you begin to post your question, there is an option that will allow you to request me.
If you can not find it, may clients simply state in their question a remark such as "This Question is For Deborah"


A torn ACL is a knee injury that is common in athletes. In fact, any avid sports fan groans when someone from his or her favorite team suffers this injury. It usually means that the athlete is out for the rest of the season.
But ACL tears aren’t limited to professional athletes. Just about any active person can land or turn the wrong way and feel that telltale “pop” associated with a torn ACL. The severity of this injury varies, just as the best treatment options for each person will vary. So, it is best to consult with a doctor if you believe you tore your ACL.
As you probably know, the knee is responsible for several lower body movements. It functions to bend and straighten the leg, making walking, jumping, running, sitting, and standing possible. The knee joint serves as a hinge to the main bones of the leg. It also allows for some rotation during movement.
The knee connects the femur (thighbone) and tibia (shinbone) at the patella (kneecap). The rounded ends of the femur line up with the tibia. The four ligaments connecting these bones include the anterior cruciate ligament (ACL), posterior cruciate ligament (PCL), medial collateral ligament (MCL), and lateral collateral ligament (LCL). Each ligament stabilizes the knee during different movements. In addition, the quadriceps and hamstrings provide added knee stability.
The ACL attaches to the shin and thighbone, preventing the shin from moving too far forward. It also prevents the knee from bending backward and excessive inward rotation of the shin.
Just about anyone can suffer from an ACL injury. Some common risk factors include:
Find your condition with our 2-minute Condition Checker.
If you experienced an ACL tear, you can expect to exhibit at least some of these symptoms:
These symptoms typically occur right after a torn ACL and can be traced back to a specific movement or trauma. This helps rule out other conditions such as knee osteoarthritis.
In addition, other ligaments of the knee could be damaged during an ACL injury. This may cause additional symptoms like knee locking.
Even without treatment, the pain and swelling can gradually go away after several weeks. Unfortunately, knee instability usually persists. This may make it difficult to walk, stand, climb stairs, and participate in physical activities.
Doctors or orthopedic surgeons can usually diagnose an ACL injury by interviewing the patient and performing a physical exam. The doctor will ask you to describe your pain, when it started, and how it’s affecting your lifestyle.
From there, the doctor conducts a physical exam to check for any tenderness, swelling, lost range of motion, or points of pain. The doctor often compares the differences in your injured knee to the healthy one.
In many cases, the doctor performs the Lachman test to diagnose ACL tears. During this test, the patient lies on his or her back, relaxing the affected leg. The doctor will bend the injured leg and gently pull forward on the calf. This helps to determine the location of the injury by assessing the “endpoint” of leg movement.
Doctors may also prescribe diagnostic imaging such as x-rays or MRIs. These tests also help to confirm an ACL tear and rule out other causes.
A doctor can assess the severity of your injury during a physical examination and diagnostic imaging. There are three classifications of anterior cruciate ligament injuries based on the damage observed. These include:
Unfortunately, in many cases, ACL injuries are a complete tear requiring an orthopedic surgeon’s care.
While it is impossible to completely prevent a torn ACL, there are some things you can do to protect your knee during sports.
Discover which treatment options are right for you with our Treatment Finder.
After a doctor or orthopedic surgeon determines the severity of the ACL injury, there are two main treatments used to help repair the damage and restore stability to the knee.
Doctors prescribe nonsurgical treatments in less severe cases. You may be a good candidate for nonsurgical treatment if you have:
Nonsurgical treatments involve progressive physical therapy and rehabilitation. This helps the knee to regain stability and return to an almost normal state. Some may benefit from a hinged knee brace to maintain stability and prevent further injury.
Many people who choose not to get surgery may be at risk for additional knee injuries depending on their lifestyles.
In many cases, knee surgery is recommended for a torn ACL. Instead of suturing the damaged ligament, which isn’t very effective for complete recovery, the surgeon replaces it with a segment of another tendon.
The surgery begins with a small incision at the knee. The surgeon uses a tiny camera to view the joint on a nearby screen—known as a knee arthroscopy.
During ACL reconstruction, the surgeon removes the damaged ligament. Then he completes a tendon autograft. This procedure uses a muscle tendon from another area of the body, such as the patellar tendon, as a replacement for the ACL. The surgeon will drill small sockets into you shin and thighbone to help position the graft. It is then held in place with screws or other equipment.
In most cases, you can go home the same day after recovering from the anesthesia. The orthopedic surgeon provides detailed instructions on how to protect and care for your knee.
Although the surgery is minimally invasive, it often requires a long recovery period for the best outcomes. After the surgery, you will feel some pain. This is completely normal and part of the healing process. Your doctor will prescribe medications to help manage the pain.
Expect four to seven months of physical therapy to increase range of motion, strength, and stability. In addition, completing prescribed exercises at home is also helpful.
Make sure you follow through with all the prescribed therapy for a quicker recovery time and less chance of re-injuring the area. Many athletes can expect to return to their favorite sports in eight to twelve months.
If you’re motivated to get back to your favorite sports and activities even quicker, NJ Spine & Orthopedic can help. We use state-of-the-art equipment to make smaller incisions and operate with better precision. This means you can enjoy shorter recovery times and longer lasting results.
Schedule a consultation today. Our experienced orthopedic surgeons will listen to you and address any questions and concerns. If you have any previous MRIs, we will review them for free. We know you want to get back to doing what you love, so let NJ Spine & Orthopedic help you!
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Effective pain relief; less scarring— a postage stamp-sized incision (less than an inch in length) is often all that it takes to eliminate your pain.
Our minimally invasive and outpatient procedures will have you back in the comfort of your home on the very same day.
Our surgeons use advanced video-assisted technology to optimize the effectiveness of your procedure while minimizing post-operative pain.
Our board certified surgeons are skilled in the latest minimally invasive techniques to deliver lasting solutions to your neck & back pain.
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One of the most hard working and yet tiniest joints in your body is the temporomandibular joint that links the upper and lower jaws together. These two little things put in a lot of work each day in Sunbury with your eating, chewing and chattering, but this is part of the deal and it can handle things such as these. What the joint can’t handle though is extra curricular work that can come from teeth grinding or damage that can arise from sports. Teeth grinding can obliterate these joints over time: it wears them down, makes them click and also leads to damage throughout the head and neck. Sport can also put these joints in danger if the right precautions aren’t taken. It is why you have your teeth aligned and crowns fitted when any damage occurs in your teeth- to help your bite. If you look at a skull, it really brings home just how fragile these joints are and how they are only held together by muscles. It isn’t easy to say that you should be more aware of these joints as opposed to any others in the body, but if you are aware of what it is that they do and the way they do it, it may just sink in on some level enough to make you cautious about your jaws in the future. You can learn a lot more about your TMJ, how it works and what to do if things start to go wrong from Mulberry Dental Care in Walton.
Posts tagged “jaw pain”
TMJ is the common name for a collection of complaints called Temporomandibular Joint and Muscle Disorders. These are a collection of complaints that affect the jaw and the surrounding muscles, limiting jaw movement and causing pain. TMJ is often poorly understood which can often lead to misdiagnosis and continued pain and discomfort. TMJ is often attributed as symptom of a wider condition and ignored as a condition in its own right.
It is thought that as many as one in ten people suffer from some form of the condition but few ever receive the necessary treatment. The main symptoms of TMJ are characterised by pain but there can be a number of other tell tale signs. Limited movement of the jaw, ringing in the ears, dizziness and muscle stiffness can all also be signs of TMJ. Often TMJ is only mild and will heal on its own without treatment over a few weeks. However, if the pain does not go away it may be necessary to go to your Kingston-upon-Thames dentist to have the problem treated.
At present there is no standard test for the diagnosis of TMJ. Your dentist will need to conduct a series of tests and examine your medical history to see if you are likely to be a sufferer. There are several major causes of TMJ but the most likely include injuries to the jaw, genetic predisposition and clenching or grinding of the teeth. Treatment of the condition often involves avoiding food difficult to chew and anything that could involve a large jaw movement. Keeping the levels of discomfort to a minimum will help to reduce the impact of the condition and allow for a more speedy recovery.


The tranced ship indolently rolls; the drowsy trade winds blow; everything resolves you into languor.
Making so long a passage through such unfrequented waters, descrying no ships, and ere long, sideways impelled by unvarying trade winds, over waves monotonously mild; all these seemed the strange calm things preluding some riotous and desperate scene.
These warm Trade Winds, at least, that in the clear heavens blow straight on, in strong and steadfast, vigorous mildness; and veer not from their mark, however the baser currents of the sea may turn and tack, and mightiest Mississippies of the land swift and swerve about, uncertain where to go at last.
There are no more uses of "trade winds" in the book.
Show samples from other sources
The trade winds blow predominantly from the northeast in the Northern Hemisphere and from the southeast in the Southern Hemisphere.
But the moment she saw it, my mother decided she didn’t like Curacao and she often complained about the smell of gas and oil whenever the trade winds died down.


How many times have you heard President Obama express concern for the middle class? More than you can count. Even his website begins “Learn more about Barack Obama and why he’s fighting for the middle class.”
But if we look at Obama’s actual record rather than his rhetoric, it is plain that the middle class has been one of the leading victims of his presidency.
The decline in median family and median net worth that began during George W. Bush’s presidency has continued under Obama. Citing recent Census Bureau data, the Pew Research Center published data showing that the only one of nine income levels whose net worth increased in the 2009-2011 period was the highest-earning cohort—those earning over $500,000 per year.
Income, too, showed a similar pattern: During Obama’s first term, the wealthiest 20% of households eked out a 2% gain while incomes for the rest fell. Obama may talk tough about “the rich,” but they have been the only group that have gotten richer on his watch.
Further evidence of Obama’s silent war on the middle class is the explosion in the number of Americans receiving food stamps. When Obama took office in January 2009, there were approximately 32 million Americans on food stamps; as of April 5, 2013, that numbered had swollen by nearly 50% to 47.3 million. Poor Americans already had been receiving food stamps before Obama became president; the increase came from members of the middle-class Americans that his policies had initiated into hard times.
Another dramatic indicator of economic hardship has been the unprecedented increase in the number of Americans receiving federal disability payments—8.8 million, a 19% increase in only four years. Working conditions haven’t become more dangerous; the disturbing rise in these numbers means that many have found it easier to get on disability than to get a job. The 1.4 million net increase in disability enrollments is five times greater than the growth in net jobs during the same period—a meager 291,000 jobs.
Read more here


PARIS – Researchers said they are developing a sonar vision system that enables the congenitally blind to perceive the shape of a face, a house, even words and letters.
A team of researchers at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem, in collaboration with French cognitive neuroimaging specialists at the ICM Brain and Bone Marrow Institute Research Center (Inserm/UPMC/AP-HP) and NeuroSpin (CEA-Inserm), said they observed that, in people who are blind from birth, the areas of the cerebral cortex normally devoted to reading responds to stimulation.
Researchers said their device consists of a small video camera embedded in a pair of eyeglasses, a laptop or a smartphone which transforms images into sounds, and stereo headphones to hear the sounds produced. For instance, an oblique line is transformed into an increasingly high-pitched sound or an increasingly lower-pitched sound, researchers said.
After 70 hours of training, researchers claimed that the blind can correctly classify images into specific categories such as faces, houses. They are also able to perceive where people are located in a room or some facial expressions. They can even read words and letters.
Seeking to better understand what happens in the brain when a blind person learns to “see” through sounds, researchers developed a functional MRI study. They observed that the regions of the cortex normally devoted to visual perception become highly activated in response to the “sonar vision” of letters, faces or houses.
“These results suggest that it may be possible, with the right technology and rehabilitation, to ‘wake up’ certain areas of the brain and access certain aspects of the visual world, even after years, or even a lifetime of blindness,” commented Laurent Cohen at ICM Research Center.
See related links:
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Medical device spending stuck in the 1990's
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Helping the microchip industry go (very low) with the flow
A new study by scientists at the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) has uncovered a source of error in an industry-standard calibration method that could lead microchip manufacturers to lose a million dollars or more in a single fabrication run. The problem is expected to become progressively more acute as chipmakers pack ever more features into ever smaller space.
The error occurs when measuring very small flows of exotic gas mixtures. Small gas flows occur during chemical vapor deposition (CVD), a process that occurs inside a vacuum chamber when ultra-rarefied gases flow across a silicon wafer to deposit a solid film. CVD is widely used to fabricate many kinds of high-performance microchips containing as many as several billion transistors. CVD builds up complex 3-D structures by depositing successive layers of atoms or molecules; some layers are only a few atoms thick. A complementary process called plasma etching also uses small flows of exotic gases to produce tiny features on the surface of semiconducting materials by removing small amounts of silicon.
The exact amount of gas injected into the chamber is critically important to these processes and is regulated by a device called a mass flow controller (MFC). MFCs must be highly accurate to ensure that the deposited layers have the required dimensions. The potential impact is large because chips with incorrect layer depths must be discarded.
"Flow inaccuracies cause nonuniformities in critical features in wafers, directly causing yield reduction," said Mohamed Saleem, Chief Technology Officer at Brooks Instrument, a U.S. company that manufactures MFCs among other precision measurement devices. "Factoring in the cost of running cleanrooms, the loss on a batch of wafers scrapped due to flow irregularities can run around $500,000 to $1,000,000. Add to that cost the process tool downtime required for troubleshooting, and it becomes prohibitively expensive."
Modern nanofabrication facilities cost several billion dollars each, and it is generally not cost-effective for a company to constantly fine tune CVD and plasma etching. Instead, the facilities rely on accurate gas flows controlled by MFCs. Typically, MFCs are calibrated using the "rate of rise" (RoR) method, which makes a series of pressure and temperature measurements over time as gas fills a collection tank through the MFC.
"Concerns about the accuracy of that technique came to our attention recently when a major manufacturer of chip-fabrication equipment found that they were getting inconsistent results for flow rate from their instruments when they were calibrated on different RoR systems," said John Wright of NIST's Fluid Metrology Group, whose members conducted the error analysis.
Wright was particularly interested because for many years he had seen that RoR readings didn't agree with results obtained with NIST's "gold standard" pressure/volume/temperature/time system. He and colleagues developed a mathematical model of the RoR process and conducted detailed experiments. The conclusion: conventional RoR flow measurements can have significant errors because of erroneous temperature values. "The gas is heated by flow work as it is compressed in the collection tank, but that is not easily accounted for: it is difficult to measure the temperature of nearly stationary gas."
Wright and colleagues found that without corrections for these temperature errors, RoR readings can be off by as much as 1 percent, and perhaps considerably more. That might not seem like a lot, but low uncertainty is critical to attaining uniformity and quality in the chip manufacturing process. And the challenge is growing. Current low-end flow rates in the semiconductor industry are in the range of one standard cubic centimeter (1 sccm)—about the volume of a sugar cube—per minute, but they will soon shrink by a factor of 10 to 0.1 sccm.
Precise flow measurement is a particularly serious concern for manufacturing processes that use etching of deposited layers to form trench-like features. In that case, the MFC is often open for no more than a few seconds.
"A tiny amount of variation in the flow rate has a profound effect on the etch rate and critical dimensions of the structures" in very large-scale integrated circuits, said Iqbal Shareef of Lam Research, a company headquartered in California that provides precision fabrication equipment to microchip manufacturers.
"So, we are extremely concerned about flow rates being accurate and consistent from chamber to chamber and wafer to wafer," Shareef said. "Our industry is already headed toward very small flow rates."
"We are talking about wafer uniformity today on the nanometer and even subnanometer scale," Shareef said.
That's very small. But it's what the complexity of three-dimensional chip manufacturing increasingly demands. Not so long ago, "a 3-D integrated circuit used to have four layers of metals," said William White, Director of Advanced Technology at HORIBA Instruments Incorporated, a global firm that provides analytical and measurement systems. "Now companies are regularly going to 32 layers and sometimes to 64. Just this year I heard about 128." And some of those chips have as many as 3,000 process steps.
"Each 300 mm wafer can cost up to $400, and contains 281 dies for a die size of 250 to 300 mm2," Brooks' Saleem said. "Each die in today's high-end integrated circuits consists of about three to four billion transistors. Each wafer goes through 1 or 2 months of processing that includes multiple runs of separate individual processes," including chemical vapor deposition, etch, lithography and ion implantation. All those processes use expensive chemicals and gases.
Many companies are already re-examining their practices in light of the NIST publication, which provides needed theoretical explanations for the source of RoR flow measurement errors. The theory guides designers of RoR collection tanks and demonstrates easy-to-apply correction methods. RoR theory shows that different temperature errors will occur for the different gases used in CVD processes. The NIST publication also provides a model uncertainty analysis that others can use to know what level of agreement to expect between MFCs calibrated on different RoR systems.
"NIST serves as a reliable reference for knowledge and measurement where industry can assess agreement between their systems," Wright said. "As manufacturers' measurement needs push to ever lower flows, so will NIST calibration standards."
This story is republished courtesy of NIST. Read the original story here.


U.N. Says Thousands of Contaminated Industrial and Military Sites in Iraq Need Clean Up
GENEVA Thousands of contaminated industrial and military sites left over from wars in Iraq must urgently be cleaned up to stop them from further harming people's health and the environment, a U.N. agency said Thursday.
The U.N. Environment Program, or UNEP, has assessed five contaminated sites during the past 18 months to train Iraqi specialists to detect the risks, analyze harmful chemicals and eventually clean up such sites.
"We are still at the beginning," said Narmin Othman, Iraq's environment minister. "We have thousands of polluted areas, and we need millions and millions (of dollars) to clean them up. The challenge now is to identify and assess all such areas of contamination in Iraq and systematically restore them."
The sites include chemical and petrochemical factories, mines, military scrap-yards and sites polluted by depleted uranium. Almost all the sites have been repeatedly looted after they were destroyed or bombed during conflicts, including the 2003 U.S.-led invasion of Iraq, the 1991 Gulf War and the Iran-Iraq war of the 1980s.
Leaking heavy metal wastes contaminate the soil, ground and drinking water, UNEP said. Children from nearby dwellings often play on such sites and touch or even ingest toxic materials, the agency noted.
UNEP estimates it will cost about $40 million to tackle the operation's next stage, which includes cleaning up an additional 20 areas and assessing other sites, implementing environmental legislation, and buying back military scrap material. Most importantly, Iraq must build a hazardous waste treatment facility, UNEP said.
One of the five sites recently assessed by UNEP -- a metal plating facility near Baghdad damaged by ground and air strikes in 2003 -- is believed to contain several tons of acutely toxic sodium cyanide, which is lethal at a dose of less than one ounce.
"These are ... sites that have a history of contamination, all of which are linked to massive neglect," said Klaus Toepfer, UNEP executive director. He said Iraq's lack of investment into environmental matters had further aggravated the situation.
Source: Associated Press


It was announced yesterday that the EPA completed the first-ever national standards in an effort to reduce the amount of toxins being produced by power plants, the largest pollution source in the U.S., which emit toxins like mercury, arsenic, acid gas, cyanide, and others.
When mercury is in the air, it can then be transferred to lakes, streams and other bodies of water through rain or snow. Just as it is harmful for humans to breathe in air contaminated with mercury, it’s also harmful for fish, plants and other aquatic life to consume it. When mercury is consumed by fish, it winds up in our food chain as it is consumed by other carnivorous fish and by humans.
For years Americans have been cautioned against eating too much of some fish, and avoiding other varieties altogether. Care2.com shares a fish mercury calculator to show which fish is most safe. AmericanPregnancy.org lists shark, orange roughy, and ahi tuna on the “avoid” list. They advise that high-mercury fish like sea bass, canned tuna, and grouper can be eaten in no more than three six-ounce servings in a month. Low-mercury fish, like cod, lobster, and mahi mahi, can be consumed in six six-ounce servings in a month. The fish with the lowest mercury contamination can be eaten in six-ounce servings twice a week, which is a popular nutritionist recommendation. These fish include catfish, clams, oysters, salmon, and tilapia.
When eaten, the toxic chemicals that are leached into the bodies of fish and shellfish are then transferred to our bodies, where mercury poisoning can be responsible for illnesses, like bronchitis and asthma attacks, and even death. The White Houses cited $90 billion in “health and economic benefits to society.”
- Up to 11,000 premature deaths
- 2,800 cases of chronic bronchitis
- 4,700 heart attacks
- 130,000 asthma attacks
- 5,700 hospital and emergency room visits
- 540,000 days when people miss work or school.
“These sensible new standards were developed with extensive input from the public as well as industry and can be implemented with widely available and cost-effective pollution control technology,” said the White House in its statement. The new standards are the culmination and completion of 20 years worth of work.
No doubt, in the days ahead, this will present another opportunity for bipartisanship to rear its head. At DietsInReview.com, Jason Knapfel explained one reason for the anticipated divisiveness – “Republicans and industry opponents claim that the measures are so extreme that they will cause rolling blackouts throughout the country.” The White House defends that an independent study from the Department of Energy “shows clearly that is not the case.”


Substance abuse is a debilitating condition that profoundly impacts individuals, families, and communities.
According to the World Health Organization, alcohol causes nearly 4 percent of deaths worldwide, more than AIDS, tuberculosis or violence. While genocide, warfare, and pathogens make for more dramatic headlines, alcohol kills approximately 2.5 million people every year. Yet despite the striking fact that one in twenty-five deaths can be attributed to alcohol, drinking continues to be a prevalent social activity in most cultures. In the US, alcohol use is often advertised as a fun, carefree pastime; images of young, attractive coeds having fun at a beach or in a bar are commonplace.
The combined cost to the United States of substance abuse related health care, lost earnings and crime is $484 billion per year. While this figure is indeed staggering, representing a significant percentage of GDP, the human costs, in terms of emotional toil, cannot be measured.
9% of (22.3 million) Americans over the age of 12 met the diagnostic criteria for substance abuse or dependence in 2007 report. When one out of every eleven adults has a substance abuse problem, it is clear that drug and alcohol abuse have reached epidemic proportions.
• There is a high correlation between joblessness and addiction with 18.3% of those unemployed in 2007 abusing substances.
• According to a U.S. Conference of Mayors 25-city survey from October 2007 to September 2008, substance abuse is be the leading cause of homelessness in America beating out unemployment, poverty and lack of affordable housing.
• 41.3 million or 16.7% of the US population drove while under the influence of drugs and/or alcohol in 2007.
• In 2000, 102,000 deaths in the US in 2000 could be directly attributed to substance abuse.
For individuals recovering from substance abuse, countless obstacles stand in the way of achieving and maintaining a sober lifestyle. Options for individuals seeking help to stay sober are limited and generally include formal inpatient and/or outpatient treatment and 12 step participation.
Even with the help of such programs, the recovering individual may return home to their previous environment and be surrounded by cues that can trigger relapse, including friends, social events, and more. Unfortunately, relapse rates remain high and substance abuse treatment lacks the structures and methodologies necessary to address the chronic and episodic nature of the disease.
What is needed is a transformation of social norms and elimination of the stigma that pins recovering addicts in a corner where isolation is the only real option to avoid risky situations. If societal norms create the expectation that living sober is normal, fulfilling and fun, choosing to live sober would be a more natural and compelling option. Phoenix Multisport is determined to chip away at the stigma of addiction and begin to create new social norms where individuals in recovery don’t have to hide behind anonymity and instead create a positive social environment where individuals can hold their heads high and walk proud.
Sober Active Community - A New Social Network Model
A person’s social network can have a profound impact on his/her recovery, health and well-being. The larger one’s social network and the more sober social supports one has, the more likely he/she will remain in recovery. When individuals get sober, there is a significant need for new playmates and playgrounds.